Wednesday, November 30, 2005

hidden by obvious


Angry sky face cracks the clouds with jagged lines of lightening striking the pulsing peak of a red mountain.


A tree sprite sits and guards the forest and from behind large round sunglasses jeers with an extended tongue.


Where does the colour go when the season takes the life from the days before vibrant flower does it drip like rain to the grass below and leave a stain of the essence of the flow it once was.


Lines indicating direction fail to take into account depth perspective and turn the spinning wagon wheel to a domed ceiling peaking.


As grains of faded focus film the distant fall of invisible snow distorts the vision and quietly blankets the world.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

happy colours


There are so very few left anywhere that when I find a flower no matter how tattered I am impelled to photograph it.


Forced to swim upstream against the strength of the current when they reach the end they are so tired they lay down and die.


Siblings that get along, amazing! And they both love to have their picture taken though it was a challenge to keep them focused. Note the jersey hockey fans!

Monday, November 28, 2005

day of the pigeons


They stand like sentinels guarding the empty space their leader occupied moments before.


With a luxurious purple feather scarf the sharp eyed bird huddles from the cold.


If these ducks could read perhaps they'd realize they are merely pigeons and not of noble birth.


Captured in motion by water frozen overnight when the sun went away the bright light of day will melt time again.


Trying to appear to be as it is not the calculated crack adds focus for the blue light cast.


Somewhere in the randomness of a concentric crack lies a template pattern all things were busted after.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

fallen angels


Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?... O gnashing teeth of earth, where would it all lead to but some sweet golden eternity, to prove that we've all been wrong, to prove that the proving itself was nil.


Jack Kerouac
from The Dharma Bums

scenically speaking


As if one long series of rolling hills leading to the peak of the mountain the angled vision changes the perspective and fore-shortens the empty between.


At last a moment of blue sky exposure in what seems a long series of gray. It barely lasted half an hour.


This one I take for Dez, our dear Kansas-bound adventurer. The snow line is at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. I love it when it becomes a clear line like this!


Strangely coloured anomalies in the visual field provide dabs of brightness on a dull day.


Fantasy beast with a funny nose forms in a faded flower seen up close.


Fallen like fake red rain across a landscape scene that harbors moonlight deep within abstraction.


I love the way the fingers of moss mimic snow flakes and keep them safe from the warm sun.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

sleigh bells ringing


Subtle colours abound as the cycle fades into a season of dormancy and revitalization.


It's creeping closer all the time, the snow line after a wet night makes its way down the mountain.


Santa arrives at the mall. Stop. What's wrong with this picture?


When Santa and all the commercially inherent aspects of his existence are finally launched into space the real meaning of the red suit will shine through.


Simplicity of abstraction, randomness of selection, intensification of isolation, turns nothing into a representation of flow.

Friday, November 25, 2005

gray and thick walls


Reflecting for a moment upon the beauty buried beyond recognition deep within the mockery of reality presented by a puddle.


This is Tyla's truck. She continually writes her name in the dirt on the back of this truck until it disappears then she writes it again. This has been going on ever since she started walking to school this way, four years ago.


Sweeping over and across the shoulder of the mountain the thick and relentless snow leaves a white wake in its passing.


Solid gray wet denies the expression of colour to all but the freshest of objects softly landed and about to be overcome.


The digger outside the window here, very strange to have only a thin piece of glass separating that huge monster claw and me.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

can't shine shit


Candied these tiny berries still bear evidence of the overnight frost and the spray from the rushing creek beside.


Turned back upon itself in a vain attempt to document the temple sweat from too much activity by the monks churning the wheels that drive the gears that make the smoke that indicates there is a brain fire somewhere.


Very stuffed bottle top of cotton comprises the sky oppressive and dreary. The stuffing lifted ever so slightly, enough to see the snow bound land below, pretty soon it'll all be snow.


From a universal template of design engineered to elicit imaginary places a swirl of smoke as bark hides the fantastic in the common.


Moist and succulent cuts of beef as visual evidence: if it smells like shit . . . it probably is.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

in thing to do


Faded like old skin withdrawn veins suck supple fluids away to leave a fragile frail face.


Inside the collection of angles the proper perspective becomes whichever way the brain tries to rearrange elements to imply depth yet never quite gets it right.


Future drawn in the cars decorating the blanket for the baby boy's dreams of one day driving a Studebaker because it's the 'in' thing to do.


This is the work going on beside my apartment. Those are my windows covered by the boards and the seventh floor windows above. Yes the building is stuck into the side of the hill and the ground meets at the seventh floor. The effects of gravity require that a retaining wall be put in. I want a patio with sliding glass doors installed but I guess that's out of the question.


Across the road at the back. This guy's house is at the end of a dead end street and he always does huge elaborate displays. I'm bound to end up with some more shots from here once he gets the lights going. The faded Santa looks to be about forty years old and still pumping out spirit like nobody's business.


Simplicity in symbolism conveys messages of emotion crossed like anger like defiance, opposing forces enacted as two lines colliding at the point where the x marks the spot.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

grayer shades of day


Implying texture with clarity and contrast the feel of softness seems to emanate that communication even in a reproduction.


Basic symbolism dictates there is only one way to go up and out not boxed and confined within the parameters of closed minded thinking.


Driven by lines pushing the eyes to focus on the busy when the foreground shift aligns valleys and mountains in an abstract rearrangement of the ground at the feet.


Sheltered by constructs as hazy cuddle monsters here to keep the intrusion of the sharp at bay she skips again into the dramatic world of her own personal play.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

decided by lines


Within a swirled world of colour, abstraction conjugates an idea when the squiggly black line penetrates the shell of a thought and a new dream is born.


The strange flattened perspective disguises the depth of the scene as the supports beneath a bridge bear its large orange frame.


Divided down the middle by a line separating the two halves of the whole, the missing puzzle piece was all that was necessary to complete the picture.

morning mutter

There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one's mind and one's subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.

Maitri Upanishad



up the ant shed

concerto of silence
symphonic slam
echoes ripples
of wavelengths
of vibration
without thought
of realization

continual emanation
beyond conjugation
of thought
hides mysterious
within but not

stop to abide awhile
nowhere but there

Saturday, November 19, 2005

following directions


Almost hidden in the gray of the surround of city streets a small colourful face glowed as a reminder. I had to touch it to verify it was a living object not a scuffed old plastic flower because it was growing from a tiny crack where some grass had made a reservoir of dirt. Its tenacity to endure this far into the season is a wonder.


Like mottled and broken concrete, blue and green clouds roll into the white light of dawn breaking from behind the coloured hills fading into the distance.


Taking the backwards approach to an intentional symbol of universal meaning the unreal green plant grows in spite of the placement of its roots.


Similarly clad for the season, they follow the leader south to where these feathers will spread to warmer weather.