Sleepwalking

In front of the refrigerator
Lighting the darkness,
Leftovers, cheese rind
Milk past the expiration date
Wrinkled plums
Trying to fill myself
With what’s missing
Love, companionship, encouragement
In my sleep, standing, swaying, eating
Dreaming of banishment, betrayal, shame
Praying, wishing, hoping
In my sleep…

I confess...

Magnolia Tree Before and After

May I just first say, I'm a hobby picture taker.  Just out snapping for my own pleasure.  But, I love Photoshop.  I spend a lot of time tweaking my photos before posting them on Flickr.  I don't think it's anything new.  Photographers have been altering photos to suit their vision for quite some time.  Ansel Adams said: "Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."  I think he would have really loved Photoshop.
When we're out shooting, the beauty carries us away.  The light! The color! The textures!  We merrily snap the shutter and miss the telephone wires, the fire hydrants. the parking meters, the hot mess of old dead ivy.
So I clone stuff out.  I jack up the colors.  I play with shadows and mid-tones and stuff until I have the photo I saw when I snapped the shutter.  Don't judge me.  I can't help myself.  Of course, I have my limits.  I still prefer the photo looks like something a person would recognize as something their eyes might actually see.  I've seen some amazing things done with High Dynamic Range.  Per Wikipedia: "...HDR is a range of techniques geared toward representing more contrast in pictures. Non-HDR cameras take pictures at a single exposure level with a limited contrast range. This results in the loss of detail in bright or dark areas of a picture, depending on whether the camera had a low or high exposure setting. HDR compensates for this loss of detail by taking multiple pictures at different exposure levels and intelligently stitching them together so that we eventually arrive at a picture that is representative in both dark and bright areas."  In the wrong hands this can go wrong in way too many ways:

High Dynamic Range Mashup

Fortunately, there's lots of fun stuff one can do in Photoshop:

Spring branches tarted up with texture, etc.

I love to work in textures and layers.

Rapture of the Deep

I made an entire sketchbook of these for the Sketchbool Project.
It was very much fun.
Sometimes I just make collages for myself:

"When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain" ~ Mark Twain

 Sometimes it's for a purpose:

"Through the Fire"

This image was for a benefit for breast cancer.  Portraits thought to show women with breast cancer, Diagnostic images of cancer. Molecules of Fluorouracil, Cyclophosphamide and Methotrexate used in chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Here's one for a show called "Dark":

Falling

Spring Greetings!

Peeps in Paradise

Happy Spring, everyone!

Writer's Workshop

Lynda Barry

 Today, I had the good fortune to attend a Lynda Barry workshop: Writing the Unthinkable.  I think she has been doing this workshop for a while.  I see others who have taken it talking about it.  She is interested in what an image is in a deeper way and the process of writing with a pen or pencil on paper and how the brain is engaged when we do this.

She shares a process she uses to access memories and hone them into a perfect short story just about the right length for a comic strip.  It seems to work very well.  Many people read their seven and a half minutes stories and they were fresh and tasty!

My Wonky Spiral

 Part of the exercise is to sit and make a spiral on a blank page while she recites Rumi and reminds us we are in our bodies.  The poem is beautiful and I was grateful to be introduced to it.  She recited it about four times for us and I will carry it with me now and it feels like a gift.

Thanks you Lynda Barry!

Waves on the beach

THE DIVER'S CLOTHES LYING EMPTY

You're sitting here with us, but you're also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You're in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you're wind. You're the diver's clothes
lying empty on the beach. You're the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Rumi)

Rumi

Wild Geese

Crescent Moon and Wild Geese 

by

Utagawa Hiroshige

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver 

Wild Geese 

by

Maxfirle Parrish

Christkindlmarket

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Christkindlmarket Chicago.  It's a little bit of Gemany right downtown at Daly Plaza.

"Inspired by the Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg, Germany, which began in 1545, the Christkindlmarket Chicago brings a cherished German and European tradition with international flair and local charm to Chicago. Chicago's largest open-air Christmas festival was first held on Pioneer Court in 1996. By special invitation of Mayor Richard M. Daley, Christkindlmarket Chicago moved to Daley Plaza in 1997 and has become a stable event on the plaza ever since. Together with the support of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events (MOSE), Christkindlmarket Chicago has grown to become one of the most popular winter attractions in the heart of the city."

I had long thought that Christmas would be a wonderful time to visit Germany.  When I had the opportunity to visit at Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, we had to go the the Christmas markets.  The Christkindlmarket Chicago conjures up memories of this visit.

 

Christkindlmarket Chicago Chicago offers many of the same things you would find in Germany like  ornaments that are hand-blown and painted, classic German products like nutcrackers, cuckoo clocks, and beer steins.  We really liked the ornaments.  There was a whole store full of glass ornaments:

Lucky Piggies

Bathtime Duckies

Shiny Pink Booties

Berlin Medallions 

Sweet Mushroom Fairies

Snacks at the market

You can warm up with some nice soup or potato pancakes, or a bratwurst.  Traditional Gluehwein, a  German holiday market hot spiced wine comes in a commemorative mug shaped like a boot!

So, if you want to pretend you are in Germany at Christmastime for a couple of hours, head to Christkindlmarket Chicago!

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause

Virginia O'Hanlon

This story starts in 1897 when Virginia O'Hanlon wrote to the editor of The Sun asking to clear up the controversy of the existence of Santa Clause.

They wrote back to assure that "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist."

This year Macy's windows in Chicago have taken this story as a basis for their Christmas display windows with a "Wish Factory" theme.

They are full of gears and sprockets in what's being called a "Steam Punk" style.  I was reminded of the great Clocks on the corners of the store.  The displays rotate like the inside of a timepiece.

The gears and sprockets are chock full of Christmas goodies:

The production of these windows is a huge job. A team of 60 painters, welders, engineers, costume makers, carpenters, and visual artists produced, created. and installed the windows.  It took eight months of work.
The detail and fanciful quality is delightful!

If you're in Chicago, check it out!

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

~ Langston Hughes