Thursday, June 29, 2006

yeah, it's all about me


Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them back; and then you destroy yourself.

The garden runs right along the sidewalk. It even has an arched entranceway in the middle. The garden is always in bloom with something. I love it, as it constantly changes.

Today I noticed some of the roses were wet. Obviously recently watered, as we haven't seen rain for a few days. I stopped and admired them, in the very strange head-bobbing and weaving around and peering at odd angles way I have of sizing up a flower I might photograph. I didn't see anything too intriguing. As I turned to go, I took a drag off my cigarette (I know!) and the ash flew off as a single half-inch long unit. Anyone who smokes must know what I mean. It sailed through the air and landed in the dirt of the garden. I thought no more of it, took two steps and noticed the person on the deck watching me. I smiled.

She made a remark which I didn't catch but it ended with, "... whatever you did to my flowers!"

I could tell by the tone of voice she was angry. Using the same tone and quite defensive and loud, I said, "I didn't do ANYTHING to your flowers!"

"Oh, well whatever," as she brushed me off with her hand, "Have a good day."

Whoa1. I held up my smoke and said, "A little bit of ash fell off my smoke, it's not going to hurt anything.", somewhat less hostile but still defensive in tone.

"Oh, well whatever." She brushed me off with her hand, twice.

Whoa2&3. Now I'm getting irritated but pleasantly said, in all sincerity, "I would never do anything to your flowers," adding, "I love your flowers!"

"Oh, well whatever." She brushed me off with her hand, again.

"Fuck You, Bitch," I only thought. I kept walking and said nothing though.

However, the seeds of anger had taken hold and fed off themselves as they analyzed the situation over and over and over until it built into a tangible mood that dominated my mind, in spite of every effort to dispense with it. By the time I was about fifteen minutes into it, I had resolved to go by sometime and actually trash her flowers. Yeah, that's it, I'll go back there, at night sometime, and rip up every flower she has and leave them on her porch. That will teach her to be rude to ME.

It was about this time I realized things had escalated too far. I had to get past this anger. Let it go, Let it go, I heard my brain say, as the voice on the angry side said fuck you, never mind, pissed off is how I am, like it or not.

When I put myself in her shoes and tried to see it as she did, I saw a strange man doing some funny voodoo dance around my flowers and then he tossed something into the garden. I got mad and said something accusatory, then realized I was wrong. He was only admiring my flowers but I had no recourse except to hide my embarrassment behind a brush off with my hand.

Okay that's all well and good and has dissipated most of the anger. Now though, what is it in the brush off of the hand that so irritated me. It's the implication and attitude that I am worthless, ME worthless!

That's when I remembered, Ha, of course, but I am worthless, so don't let it bother you. And it was gone.

I am nothing - I am empty - I am silent


I would have pulled aside the stem piece that is out of focus in this shot if I dared touch anyone's flower after the last incident.


These look like dandelions right from the start but they have more class somehow. Their fluff balls too appear as intricately woven strands of gold alive in sunshine.


These little flowers with their corn cob centers are very cool. Hard to get in focus though.


This moth stayed in the same place for hours. I walked past it about four times before finally deciding to shoot it. It never blinked the whole time. Mesmerized by the light.


Allowing the lines to build the balance and trying to find sense in the distribution of the seeds of imagination the full effect takes place after one decides what it means.


All of a sudden it was like New York City had rolled into Canada! Given the opportunity to visually record a cliché, I did, only I don't know which cliché it is. Oh well, how about, I love all my American friends! Happy Fourth of July.


Defined by nothing more than a series of coloured circles surrounding another the star still stands out from the crowd.


Self explanatory. Except I had to explain to my daughter what the joke was. She had never heard of an 'anus'. I think she understood.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

ain't doin' nuthin'


One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
- Will Durant (1885 - 1981)


I ran into lx forde today outside oso. He was putting some of his art up along the concrete wall. Apparently, to show your art in a public place in Victoria it costs 1,000$ for a permit. Wow! He made some arrangements with the coffee shop and then put up his stuff. I think it's pure genius his idea to nail them to boards. But when I saw him driving the nails right through the wood that the painting was done on, I knew there was something odd going on. It's like 200 years from now that painting will sell for several million more, because it has actual holes pounded by the artist. To this I can attest.


I took some close ups of a few and posted them separately earlier. I like the haphazard arrangement of the pieces. It adds to their theme somehow. I personally think his work is awesome.


Curled within the vortex of triple reflection the object between layers repeats itself while everything else curls the same way in to the center of a focal point reflective of the art upon the wall.


Sometimes the sky and the signs seem to point in the direction of action being taken with only shapes to relate to in the smoke-stained blue.


Sectioned into pieces behind a screen the face tries to peer inside.


Leave it to a kid to leave a bunch of spit behind as if to remind one of the underlying pattern in everything.


Within the intricate layers of opinion around artificial intelligence and learned behavior there is no denying the moment used the camera to express itself without using a mind.


Facets like faces try to disturb the formal mind enough to let the subtle impressions work their way in, bonus points if you can find the nose without the grin.

lx anderforde - Nelson artist








Tuesday, June 27, 2006

eighty-four thousand poems


The sounds of streams are Buddha's speech.
The colored mountains are Buddha's pure body.
Night brings eighty-four thousand poems of Buddha.
Listen, and someday you may awaken.

- Su Shih (1031-1101)


Sometimes the light and the focus fall in place and the end result is something stunning in its detail and the 3D effect. I can't explain it, there is clarity that comes through on its own.


Spotted like a disease the colour comes close to the original even though it is purple again. This is the top of the plant that produced the abstract below.


Like bread crumbs along a pathway leading to the creature harbored within the spotted tube of a flower is a strange place to be.


Shattered into a million little pieces the grasp on reality, tenuous at best has slipped away in the reflective design guaranteed to take the mind into uncharted territory.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

burn baby burn


When the character of a person is not clear to you, look at their friends.
- Japanese Proverb


More from the Rose garden at the end of the street. This is one of Tyla's favourites. I like the way the colours blend too!


This is not my favourite colour but it sure is intense.


"Like candy", Tyla says. I am pretty amazed at some of the colour gradations these roses manage to produce.


I'm getting quite frustrated trying to reproduce the rich purple of flowers. In the shade they always come out very blue. It just isn't the same.


We were at the park/beach all day today. Just when we were getting ready to go home and have lunch we ran into the kids Auntie Joey. She was attending a church picnic and the kids were encouraged to eat. We all ate and afterwards the pastor and a few of the others tried to persuade me to come out to the church. I let them know I was spiritual but not religious. That never makes sense to the pious. Also I have heard that Baptists take the bible quite literally and I happen to believe it wasn't meant to be interpreted like that. No conversion today, sorry.


It was when Tyla ran into her friend Jordan that I knew we'd be staying for awhile. She had been complaining of no one to play with so the timing was perfect. What an awesome hot summer day. However when I was a kid there was no fear of the sun. I was in the sun constantly as a child. Now it would appear that the sunlight spells danger as far as skin cancer goes and of course Ryder can't keep his hat or shirt on for two seconds. Adapt into the future I always say!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

without words


Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.
- Alan Watts


Waves of colour blended like flames of the sun.


Perfectly imperfect.


The Memorial Rose Garden at the bottom of the street is awesome. Thousands of roses in one small space. While I'm not a huge fan there certainly are a lot of colours to choose from.


Favoured colour of the day is yellow.


Set into a balance of regulated motion moving into disrupted across a dividing line only created by the way the frame tries to find perfection.


Set behind the momentary impulse to discover cohesion in the chaotic mix of subjects in motion the true image begins to show when time has caused the symbols to take on the shape of the mind trying to find an interpretation.


Inside my head were a thousand thoughts cascading and clinging to cause confusion and fear until I sought some kind of relief in the voice that this part of the creek uses to speak with and the overflow of the cottonwood market is an odd collection of misfits with drums beating out the message only they as initiates have heard echoing in the corridors of mental confusion found in the tattered heads and clothes like rags hang and close enough to see the water the silence they create as a background noise leads the tremendous roar to take on more significance and trying to discern a word or two within the tumultuous roar it was possible to see when the eyes from the shore coincided with the angle of the sun that upon the face of a rock stuck in an ever changing stream was a growth unlike anything this rock has ever seen and it was in the perfection required to even see the apparition alive the thoughts were able to derive the answer they clamored for and the silence that ensued was deeper than anything words can explore.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

tears stream


Every galaxy has a black hole at its centre.


Deep red intensity glows all the more with yellow textured fingers to clash against.


Purple is set in the sun where yellow becomes the one to bring it to life again!


Hats off to Kansas! Keeps me thinking outside my box! And that's always a good thing!


Marching to the beat of commercialism run rampant, Sponge-Bob shirt, Batman shorts, and a Superman hat. He had an extra hat today, an Ottawa Senators one, he tried to hand it to me, I let it fall to the ground, No way would I touch that. No look Dave, he said showing me the NHL logo inside, it's hockey, smart kid!


Drawn to the place the light makes as an empty place where the feet are not so close they spread like ripples in concentric circle away from danger.


Without even looking behind the shapes of the mind come crawling up and manifest as shadows unseen except for the furtive paranoid glance behind to see if those shadows harbored can find a way to escape


I know, hockey ended on Monday night and it took until Thursday to shave off the playoff beard. It's not as easy as it might seem. The actual hockey players, the ones truly entitled to wear playoff beards, shaved theirs and put them in pillowcases, one for each team, then auctioned them off on ebay, yikes! The last time I grew a playoff beard there was then a hockey strike and I ended up growing it for over a year, in protest perhaps. I shaved it when they signed a new deal - July 22, 2005. So I had this one since April 12th. Tyla didn't want it to go, but that's just normal resistance to change. Anyway, she took the photos and did a fine job.
"Which one is younger?", I said.
"That one", she said smugly, pointing to the photo with the beard,
"I took it first!"


A Koan story:

Kyogen said: Zen is like
a man hanging in a tree
by his teeth over a precipice.
His hands grasp no branch,
his feet rest on no limb,
and under the tree
another person asks him:

Why does Bodhidharma come to China from India?

If the man in tree does not answer,
he fails;
and if he does answer,
he falls and loses his life.
Now what shall he do?

In such a predicament the most talented eloquence is no use.
If you have memorized all the sutras, you cannot use them.
When you can give the right answer,
even though your past road was one of death,
you open up a new road of life.
But if you cannot answer,
you should ages hence
and the future Buddha, Maitreya.

Kyogen is truly a fool
Spreading that ego-killing poison
That closes his pupils' mouths
And lets their tears stream from their dead eyes.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

solar extremes


In summer, the song sings itself.
- William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963)


In celebration of the presence of the sun for the longest interval before each day diminishes in time to become the shortest at the other end of the cycle, the colours that come from said sun. Not to mention the spider.


Often imitated, never duplicated.


It gets hotter the closer you get to the center.


Design with an internal flow in mind the pattern exudes the spirit of the maker.


More explanation for why the sun crosses the sky in the eye of the mind observing.


Clustered as red members of an exclusive band of flowered petals strong in colour.


Reaching for the place that so resembles their face.


Elusive beneath the leaf through which the sun beat out a pattern of translucence alive in two forms.


This is the farthest right the sun will get as it moves back across the sky in its return to winter.


Even though clouds become rivers to the sea, words cannot open another's mind but commonality in the spiral patterns revolve around the same principle.