SILVER HORSE ON A WHITE MOUNTAIN

July 30, 2011.   This horse climbs upward, over the white mountain, riderless, but not directionless.  It has purpose and it has substance.  Does it call to its companions, or merely protest against its conditions?   How wonderful to be aboard such a steed, to accompany him on this adventure, no matter the destination.

SILVER HORSE WITH RED DRIP

July 29, 2011.  A little round silver horse, mouth agape, charging across a red landscape.  What has driven the horse on this path, where is it going to?  I love the reflection of life in red - the blood, the sun sometimes, the sky at others.  I am calmed by it.

HARLEM SIDE YARD

July 24, 2011.  Walking down 112th Street I cam upon this side yard, with this wonderful sculpture tucked at the end of a brick path.  Grasses moved in the breeze and added life to the reed work behind the fence.  It rose upward between the buildings, perhaps trying to see what is up or maybe just trying to stretch itself and live within more of its space.

GRASS HUT

July 22, 2011.  Twigs, grass, twine, leaves green and dried.  These pieces combined to build a nest, a hut, a home.  It was surrounded about with wooden flats laid on the ground, a forest fence.  For what?  The roof opens to the sun and elements and to allow me a glimpse in.  What is life like in this hut?  Who are the inhabitants of this little world, this bower?  The morning light gives a purple hue to the wood and softness to the setting.

THISTLES AND SKY

July 9, 2011. A weed, or an early flower, the origin of what progeny? Thistles were something to be hacked away, the scourge of neat farmers, the killers of precious crops. But what beauty in those soft purple heads, guarded by thorny leaves. My sister's land runs rampant with these stunning beauties, taller than I remember them from childhood.

FERTILE

July 4, 2011. I rounded the curve on a highway in western Minnesota a day or so earlier and this is what I saw, two rises, hillocks, in a vast green scape. Nothing really, just small rises in a flat landscape, but it stuck in my mind. Everything was farmed, except for the tops of each mound, leaving a tiny untouched oasis on the prairie.

GRATE REPEAT

June 26, 2011. I am often amazed by something that I didn't see before. Why didn't I see this? What sorry shortening of vision caused me to miss it? What extraordinary vision caused this to come into being when there were so many options to do far less? The repitition of patter and the directing of the eye, subtly, but still insistent.

DUNE LIFE

June 19, 2011. A short walk on hot dunes and then this, these little points of life, lifting up from the sand like some alien life form. They reach through the sand and increase their range, only to fall back in the heat and the dryness. How long does it take to expand and create this pattern, driven by the ability to still live and sustain.

RUSTSCAPE

June 19, 2011. P-Town. Rust and dirt and sand. Basic elements have come together and without a design plan produce an arresting visual. The larger rust colored areas, so flat and smooth, are coverd by layered texture in opposition to the underlying movement, and then there is the rough piling of sand in little mounds and spits of shape. I could have stayed much longer.