New Year…

Garden Study, 2008

The wind is whipping up to a fury, there are snow flurries & it's getting icy; I'm in for the evening.

Happy New Year…

Untitled Study, 2008

Water Study #6, 2008

Water Study #5, 2008

Water Study #4, 2008

I have absolutely no idea what is so appealing to me about these photographs yet I keep coming back & looking at them. Perhaps they are simply a monochromatic relief from the strong colors of all those nocturnal pictures (There is also something inexplicably voluptuous about them…) but I suspect it is simply the fact that I can watch water in motion for hours & not get bored.

Water Study #3, 2008

Water Study #2, 2008

Water Study #1, 2008

Holiday, 2008

Suburban Study, 2008

Suburban Study, 2008

Mugo Pine, 2008

Three Landscape Studies in the Japanese Style, 2008

Persian Poetics, 2008

Ghazal (after Rumi), 2008

Study for a Two Panel Screen, 2008

An Angel of the Lord Came Unto Them, 2008

Lord no, I'm not a Christian. I'm probably an atheist although my friend Peter once referred to me as a spiritual anarchist (It's so easy to misread that word as antichrist ~ please don't…) & my Mom's Episcopal pastor Rose keeps telling me that by using the word probably, thereby implying doubt, I'm automatically making myself an agnostic… The key point here is: if one can ignore the fundamentalists (we're talking across the board here) every culture's religious foundations, mythologies & aesthetics are interesting ~ even the scary ones. The scary ones are perhaps the most interesting; look, for example, at Tibetan tantric practice. All those skull cups, femur oboes & fierce protectors galloping about using flayed human skins as saddle blankets… 

By the way, if you're curious, the biblical reference in the title is Luke: 2-10, when the shepherds get the good news…

I'm currently taking a break from decorating a very traditional tree & yes, there is an angel on top. All tarted-up in gold & pearls, playing a tiny, gilded violin. I happen to be rather fond of the concept of angels…

After all, the Christians don't have a monopoly on them.

Suburban Study, 2008

At least the demoralizing rain has stopped…

Arboreal Study, 2008

A foul, miserable day. There's no way put a cheerful spin on this one…

Garden Study, 2008

Granted, not one of my neighbor's best installations but note ~ it's December 10 & there are still a few lettuce plants at the end. I went out to get the paper this morning in my bare feet & didn't wince.
Too drizzling, grey, depressing & almost sixty degrees out there.

Blue Sky with Gibbous Moon, 2008

Pretty bubbles in the air…

Soap Bubbles, ca. 1734
Jean Siméon Chardin
The Metropolitan Museum

I came to almost exactly the same conclusion as these guys, over a year ago…

(Of course, being economists, they give you hard facts; I was simply going on intuition & gut reaction.)

Garden Study (First Snow), 2008

There is a narrow strip of earth, no more than 18 inches wide, between the driveway & my Portuguese neighbor's garage that he uses as a sort of nursery & propagation area. Most things move on to either his salad bowl or a useful death & potential rebirth in his compost heap but occasionally a cutting sprouts roots & survives. He is nothing if not determined & has promised me a fig tree if any of the twigs strike root. (As decorative & art historically significant as I find fig leaves; I'm not tremendously optimistic…) However, the really intriguing thing about his little horticultural experiments is the manner in which, quite inadvertently, he manages to create these bizarre structuralist, often surreal, tableaux utilizing an astoundingly eclectic assortment of twigs, sticks, string, decaying vegetation & yes, chunks of concrete… You've surely noticed; I've been photographing sections of them all summer. Of course that is not what this photo is about. This is documentation of the winter's first ever-so-light dusting of snow.

It's that faint, white bit on the ground.   

Half Moon (Shonagon's Bowl), 2008

The moon was in an odd position last night. See, there it is; tipped over on its side like Sei Shonagon's famously elegant, ice filled, new silver bowl.

Landscape Study#2, 2008

Suburban Study, 2008