RUSTED

Saturday, December 15, 2012.  A familiar sign, known across the country, is transformed by weather and oxidation.  The sign has become something else, a softened version of its former self.  The solid bar in the middle looks like it might be soft to the touch, as if the admonition regarding your proposed action might not be so absolute.  Do you now dare to do what has been forbidden?

I STAND ALONE

Sunday, December 2, 2012.  A spot of color in a somber background, this leaf hangs on, refusing to drop from its perch, braving wind, rain and passersby.  The edges have burned to a crisp brown, but the red is still rich and ripe with the potential to reflect the sun, if it peeks out.  I like the tenacity of any living thing that goes its own way.

Beaded Beauties

December 8, 2012.  A morning walk in Central Park and the fog is thick in the air, the moisture collecting and dripping on branches and fruit.  It glistens in the wan sunlight, which is struggling to break through the mist.  The birds have left these little grapes to collect the drops of water and shine in the morning light. 

THE SPIRITUAL GAVE BIRTH

Saturday, November 17, 2012.  A lost letter, a discourse gone astray, a page turned and torn, gone away from the writer, or the receiver.  I was between engagements, done with one, going to another and there was this correspondence, someone's ponderings on the spritual and the natural.  The natural seems to have the upper hand, eventually returning the idea to the spiritual.

THE MISTS OF NOVEMBER

Monday, November 12, 2012.  There is so much mystery in the mist.  What is coming?  Is it hopeful, dangerous, prowling or wonderful?  I can imagine I am in many places, least of all where I really am.  I can see the distant shapes of something, I can see the far expanse of nothing.  And yet I will walk on into it, expectant and eager as to what lies ahead.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

Monday, October 29, 2012.  Even the fallen leaves have sought shelter, glistening in the corner of ramp.  Every color of them has come together, tossed about and blown asunder.  In the darkness, only the flash of my camera illuminates the red and the orange and shines on the yellow. They rest a bit, before they will be called again into the swirling pull of the next gust.

RED

Sunday, October 28, 2012.  Red leaves gently harbor a stray brown, welcoming it into a soft embrace.  This is a red that Vreeland probably appreciated at one time or another.  Singular, occurring just this once, in this shade and sheen.  It might repeat itself year after year, but not in its entirety.  It is a standout, this little tree, hardly more than a bush, but radiant in its brashness.

SILVER POLE #1

Saturday, October 20, 2012.  This image looks so unreal to me, like I pasted the bar code on a silver pole on top of a background.  It looks almost flat and like it doesn't belong in the scene, but this is New York, and there it is and nothing can be done about it.

PHANTOM FENCE

Saturday, October 13, 2012.  The sun was so bright that the filigree pattern seemed as solid as the actual fence.  The delicate hues of the sandstone - blue, pink, gray - were enhanced by the solidness of this ephemeral image.

SUMAC COLORS

Saturday, October 27, 2012.  My own fall color tour through Central Park, along the Reservoir.  I could see them in the distance, the brilliant red, the golden yellow, orange, the soft salmon and the green not willing to go quite yet.  It was just a patch, just a spot, that wanted to focus the attention of anyone passing by, only for a second - just long enough to marvel at the perfect melding of hues.  It will now be gone in the rush of the hurricane, but I beheld it just that once.

SAFE HARBOR

Friday, September 28, 2012.  A quiet little harbor at moonrise.  Lights in the distance beckon you to visit, but who could leave a berth so still and calm?  Maybe tomorrow, when the light of day makes travel seem possible, adventurous and necessary.  But tonight, maybe just dinner and a conversation, and remembering among family and friends.

MOON OVER CORN RIVER

Sunday, September 30, 2012.  Abundant, ripe, golden beneath the rising moon, the river of corn stretches to the horizon and beyond.  It has feed mankind for millennia, and others before then.  It flows down, halting at the bank of green, pausing its rush over the field.  The moon seems so far away, beyond the trees, beyond the rise, beyond my ken, but within the boundaries of my thoughts.

GOAT ASCENDING

Monday, October 1, 2012.  The goat rises from the herd, pulled upward by the force of nature, its fleece beginning to turn golden as it rotates in the setting sun.  The others are unaware that it is transcending time and space, consumed as they are by their own endeavors.  But, its time has come and it has decided to start on a new journey.

GOLDEN CITY

Sunday, September 16, 2012.  I was doing nothing.  Sitting in bed, reading, watching, waiting.  And then the sun blazed in my windows.  The City of Gold appeared, across the vast space of green, beconing me, and all who saw it, to come and find it.  To try to find it, like some leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Fruitless.

97TH STREET WRAPPED

Saturday, September 15, 2012.  What a magnificent sky, set against this bright white fabric and the deep green of our street trees, feeling only the slightest touch of the sun.  Sometimes the mere act of walking up a street at a time that is not my normal hour, gives me occasion to see things differently.  And the sky was such a blue this morning, I couldn't help but stop and take in this cityscape.  This could be a mountain scene, snow covered and rolling down to the forest line, with the most crystal blue sky roaming behind.

CHRISTO VISITS 97TH STREET

Friday, September 14, 2012.  As I prepared to leave for work I saw this from my window.  I had somehow failed to notice it, so it was as if overnight, Christo had visited 97th Street.  The facade is shielded from sight, some unknown renovation taking place, from which some unforeseeable beauty will burst forth.  I wait in anticipation.

SIDEWALK COSMOS

Wednesday, September 12, 2012.  There is so much to see in this tight little space.  I was initially drawn back to this small patch of green moss in a sidewalk depression, with its tiny stones nestled in a crease.  Then I saw the rusted patch of cement, the remnants of a street sign that once stood here and bled its metallic life out and away after repeated rains.  I am still - and again - drawn to the green moss, pushing life into the unlikeliest of places.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

Tuesday, September 11, 2012.  Walking down 9th Avenue to the barber I came upon the open steel sidewalk doors to the basement of an old tenement.  They've never been open before, and I have trod over this work countless times.  I wonder who left these there?  Was it someone from the current gallery or someone from the previous, Giant Robot?  I'm happy enough with either.  The neon colors dripping over with white paint - I like how it looks - snow falling on a mountain burnished orange by the setting sun.  And the other - love rising out of the depths.  I like that idea too.

TORN

Saturday, September 8, 2012.  Layers of images and innuendo.  I see the fear of alien in this.  Underneath our skin, is there an alien presence, the implant of a species that left us here?  Will we react to it as we see so often in how we react to the unknown, with force and violence?  This image portends the worst.  Yet there is a word of hope - LET.  Let it be.  Let it live.  Let us imagine.  Let us grow.  Let us become.

I LOVE STREET VENDORS

Sunday, September 2, 2012.  Just making bubbles, giant rainbow bubbles floating across the plaza at the Met.  The maker only wanted to make them, enjoy them, make people laugh and children jump up and down.  And they rose above our heads and maybe carried our dreams away to be released into the void where they could take root.  I could ride inside this one, for a while, until I would remember that I probably couldn't float away in a bubble.

Saturday, September 1, 2012.   In this place of overlooking, I am looking up.  Olana, the home of Frederic Church, of vistas and landscape.  I look up to the blue, to the bundled and shadowed shapes of the cloud.  I look at the sharpness of the man-made lines against that endless blue, the wispy, changing shape of the clouds that could sweep down and engulf all of this, if it was so inclined.

NIGHT DIVE

Monday, August 20, 2012.  This reminds me of night diving in Bonaire.  The little fish are illuminated with our lanterns, swimming among the dark shapes of the coral and rocks, and the inkiness of the depths where our lights do not shine.  It is what I saw when I momentarily lost my dive partners in the wilderness of that space.

I AM A CRAB NOW

Sunday, August 19, 2012.  Solitary crab in a blue bay, clinging to a weed encrusted wooden post.  I reach with my claws to feed on whatever passes by, and I am wary of the giants walking past me lest they net me and eat me.  I wait for the high tide that will conceal me, or at least give me additional cover.  I am here until I am not, until I move to another location, a better spot in my world.

ORANGE STAR

Saturday, August 18, 2012.  I didn't know what to make of this bright little bag hanging on the fence in front of this weed tangled lot.  Is it optimism in the face of the steady onslaught of the decay behind it?  Is it lost?  Was it dropped on the sidewalk and rescued, put up so it's owner might find it more easily?  Is it the dream scape of the pensive white faced girl?  Maybe it was someones spontaneous act of kindness, bringing color to a dull tableau.

A LA CLARK

Sunday, August 12, 2012.  This is what lies behind the mask.  Behind the eyes is structure, light, darkness, cracks.  The stripping away of this rectangle has given us insight, but has denied us entry through those soul tunnels - the eyes.  Adding to or taking away helps me to see in very different ways.

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

Monday, July 23, 2012.  Accidental, incidental and transitory.  A whitewash of glue obscures what was once visible and reveals that which it can't cover or doesn't blend.  I like to think that someone thought about how much to strip away and what to leave.  Did this person see where to tear a bit to reveal the blood red paint and the cross hatches?  It is lost now, not to be found again.

PEAS IN A POD

Sunday, July 22, 2012.  Shiny green pods hanging on a tree along the path I walk have caught my attention.  It could be the abundance of them.  It could be the construction - each side of the triangular shape segmented and rippled to reflect sunlight.  Little puffs, which then burst to reveal the seeds inside - one mystery after another.

TWIG WITH PHOTO

Sunday, July 15, 2012.  A random arrangement on the sidewalk across from my apartment.  It's early on a Sunday morning and already hot.  The image is pocked with pebble marks from the myriad feet that have trod over it since it fell from someones pocket.  Maybe it is a photo meant for a passport, but it was given to a careless lover.  Maybe it is a memento of a loved one, now lost, but weighted down by this slight twig until the image could be rescued by a passerby.  It is now saved - circle, line and square.

GREEN FISH

June 23, 2012.  Swimming along a whitewashed wall, an ancient creature, menacing, mouth agape with a toothsome display.  Impossibly lit by the sun's glare, this prehistoric beauty swims along a barren reef.  I watch, unable to approach.

MOSES IN THE CLOUDS

June 3, 2012.  Sunday, the Barnes in Philadelphia.  A broken muffler, a wire clothes hanger and a repair, just before the storm.  We were rewarded with Moses in the Clouds.  What a structure - pillar of white bathed in the sunlight.  A flat wreath on which to steady his feet to deliver his message.  A billow of white behind him, a halo for his head.  Pink is laced throughout, softening the image and maybe the message.

MOONLIGHT IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST

Sunday, April 29.  Ah, what mysteries unfold in this corner of the forest, lit by the golden light of a full moon?  The figures meet and perform the ritual, the trees and vines as witness to the dance.  It makes me sad to know that this work will soon be gone, an ephemeral piece of our City.

ITO HOMAGE

Saturday, April 28.  I think of Ito Jakuchu when I look at this.  The brilliant white cascade on the dark green leaves, and the little cream centers pushing out.  His brilliant work in The Colorful Realm has stayed with me in many ways, which I didn't even realize until I looked at this. 

NOW I LAY ME DOWN

April 23, 2012.  Cherry petals covered the ground, illuminated by the soft morning sun.  I couldn't pass them by, and wanted to put my head to the ground.  New green grass poked up, wood chips from the path were erased, and the colors were radiant - all of them.  The trees were shedding their petals, and every breadth of wind sent more of them floating to the ground.  It is one of my favorite things in springtime New York.

PANSY PATCH

April 15, 2012.  Cool yellow pansies, stretched out in a welcoming field.  To lay on them would crush them and ruin their joyous upturn.  But .... to lay on their green softness, yellow popping up by your ears and beneath your head, what would that feel like?  I shall not know.

MAW

April 14, 2012.  Of the many trees that were felled in the last storm to blow through Central Park, these without centers are most interesting to me.  The serrated edges surrounding the gaping maw are visually compelling, leaving the impression that they are the jagged teeth of some monster worm.  It waits and tempts you to place your hand into its middle - just empty space - but you cannot bring yourself to do it.

SPRING DREAMS

April 8, 2012.  What can be better on a sunny spring day than a kite in the sky?  It soars, it swoops, it flutters and then it stays up, working its way in the wind.  There are no trees to gobble at it, no telephone poles and wires, just sky against which your kite paints a spot of bright color.

MIST OF MEMORY

April 1, 2012.   I baled hay on these fields, in the hot summer sun of July.  This land never looked so enticing to me, so inviting for further investigation.  It only ever looked like work.  The alfalfa and clover, as they grew, became ripe with the promise of long days sweating and burning, coolness only being found under the wagon, with a glass of Aunt Gert's cool aid and a square of cake.

WOODWORK

March 18, 2012.  Uncovered only by a wrenching storm that blew through the Park, this tree has held its secret art for a long time.  A universe lives here, eating its way through the living material, creating pattern and void.

PYRAMID

Sunday, March 11.  What an exquisite little contraption.  Teeth, teeth, teeth, suspended by crossed wires, floating in space and traveling through time.  All along, it was, left on the sidewalk, chained, as if to let it free it could wreck some havoc in the universe.  Maybe it is the answer to some cosmic question, yet to be asked. 

JEWEL

Saturday, March 3.  This little square looked like a jewel set into a giant white background.  Each small tile added to the overall unity, each successive square, somewhere down the line, just a bit different, but enough so.  In a subway dark and dreary they shone out like a beacon.

LITTLE DEBBIE

Thursday, March 1, 2012.  Random but not.  When I looked at it I saw Mondrian, at least that is what popped in my mind.  A large table was laid out this way, and then pockets were picked away and the design was gone.

SPIKES

Monday, February 20.  Each spike is so deliberate, so forceful and so assured.  What do they bring to this tree, what protection or what attraction?  Does some bird store its catch here and then zealously guard it from other birds?  It doesn't look safe from other predators.  It screams 'do not climb me.' 

ICON

Monday, February 20.  A few simple lines and an immediately recognizable image.  The style makes me think of cave drawings, of Venus stones and of coral rods on the White Slave beach of Bonaire.  This phallic sketch was on the bridle path of Central Park, and not bound to be around for long.  It is now gone.

SUN SALUTE

February 4, 2012.  The noses have all be shorn from these majestic, rounded beasts, standing at attention.  To what center do they point, what imaginary stand-off do they represent, or what mythical coming together do they foretell?  Looking at them, it is so easy to see why they have always captivated our imaginations.  The sheer force behind their frames, the thick neck and powerful hindquarters.  Imagine the thrill of the first person to ever ride on the back of one of these steeds - and to stay there.

NUTS AND CAPS

January 29, 2012.  I like how the lines of the pavers and the round nuts of the acorn play off each other, bisected by twigs creating corrals of nuts and caps and errant leaf scraps.  By some chance the tarnished rock in the left corner invites the acorns to inhabit the space around it, warmed by the color, contrasting itself to the other rocks.  It seems to signal that there is a way out of the confinement.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

January 28, 2012.  Three discs on a gray expanse.  I am refelcted in the silvery surface, glowing with the rainbow colors.  The roadway is now more than what it is, it has become the matter between stars, the connection from one system to another, my pathway.

CAUGHT

January 26, 2012.  Dirt and frost.  A chilly morning walk and in exactly 3 places I found these isolated patches of frost.  I wondered about it, what could explain that particular spot and the events that brought this out.  And then I looked at the lines, tracks dragging through the icy surface, not substantial enough to deflect the breaking of the surface to reveal the moist cold mud beneath.  The criss-cross of the tire tracks was testament to coming and going, even at this early hour.  If I were a tracker, I would love mud, and frost.

LATTICEWORK

January 21, 2012.  It took the first snow of the season to make me see this - how easily an early designer could develop a lattice pattern.  The white powder overlaying the deep green on a background of white snow, has probably caught observers eyes for as long as we could see and think about what we saw.  There are so many times when I don't see because I think I am just too busy.

And how could an image like this not have inspired weavers and painters alike?  Fine, tiny branches carrying little circles of surprises up to the sky.  The sky itself was so gray, holding the sun at bay, and the branches were so dark against it.  My mind wove the fabric and colored it as I set out on my walk.