ImageGuy

May 8, 2007

Coming Into The Light – Installment 2

Here’s a continuation of photos and quotes from my book, Coming Into The Light / An Invitation. Others have been posted earlier under other subjects without the quotes, but you get the idea. Enjoy.

“Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making of room for another. The oak dies down to the ground, leaving within its rind a virgin mould, which will impart a vigorous life to an infant forest.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Into every empty corner, into all forgotten things and nooks, Nature struggles to pour life, pouring life into the death, life into life itself.” – Henry Beston

“They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! How they are mixed up, all species, -oak and maple and chestnut and birch! They are about to add a leaf’s breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay. Nature is not cluttered with them. She is a perfect husbandman; she stores them all.” – Henry David Thoreau

“I walk over the hills, to compare great things with small, as through a gallery of pictures, ever and anon looking through a gap in the wood, as through the frame of a picture, to a more distant wood or hillside, painted with several more coats of air…” – Henry David Thoreau

“A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It has new life and motion. It is intermediate between land and sky. On land, only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see the breeze dash across it in streaks and flakes of light. It is somewhat singular that we should look down on the surface of water. We shall look down on the surface of air next, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it…” – Henry David Thoreau

“Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.” – Wordsworth

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May 6, 2007

Coming Into The Light – Installment 1

I co-published a book of landscape and nature photography in 1979 entitled Coming Into The Light / An Invitation. The book was chosen as one of the top 100 pieces of printed material in the country and won a Distinctive Merit Award from the Art Directors Club of Boston, so I admit that I am very proud of it. It has been out of print for sometime so is not available anywhere any longer, so I thought I would post some entries from the book here. It began with this introduction.

The Invitation

“Like the wind, a brook exists only through motion. Down the narrow groove it has worn in the earth, hurrying toward the greater valleys of the rivers that will carry it to the sea, all the dark water foaming and gurgling below me rushes away into the night. The stream flows on and on. So the long life of the ever-renewing brook extends through the years. But it continues without awareness, without sensation, without emotion. Its existence is one of action, of music, of beauty; but it is life without life. The great gift of our lives is the gift of awareness.”

-Edwin Way Teale

The purpose of the book was to invite the reader to experience the beauty of nature that was easily accessible and all around. The photographs were taken in parks, and refuges, at roadsides, and in my back yard. They were accompanied by quotes that helped to deliver the message. So enjoy these. There will be more next week.

“Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature – daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it – rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?” – Henry David Thoreau

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf and take an insect view of its plain.” -Henry David Thoreau

“Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours, and yet how long it stands in vain.” -Henry David Thoreau

“God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single lane.” – Rabandranath Tagore

“…Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.” -Henry David Thoreau

“You must converse much with the field and woods, if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body” -Henry David Thoreau

“You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake. You must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand-heap. You must have so good an appetite as this, else you will live in vain.” -Henry David Thoreau

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April 27, 2007

Nature is coming…and she’s bringing flowers!

Twelve days ago we had a foot of heavy wet snow on the ground. It seemed as though winter would never loose its grip on us. But over the last several days there were a few days that were glorious with warm breezes and sunshine, and suddenly, as spring is apt to do in this part of the world, the earth began to bloom.

White Trillium

Cyclamen

blue irises

The green of spring is so strong in contrast to the grays and browns of the still barren trees and shrubs. But Nature, in its unrelenting regularity, will bless us with flowers, beautiful flowers. The magic of nature lies in its beauty and sophistication and diversity.

Columbine

Indian Paintbrush

Star Flower
I wonder if the other animals see the beauty of flowers. If they realize how remarkable they are in structure and design and purpose. Certainly the bees and moths and hummingbirds and other pollinating creatures must feel something is unique about them, that they are drawn so compellingly and purposefully to visit them. But do they sit and think and muse over their beauty, and fragrance, and thank nature for their blessing?

Amaryllis macro

Lantana

Orchids
All those elements of flowers that are so pleasant to us that actually serve great purpose in nature’s design are seldom considered by us as functional. We appreciate the fragrance of a rose, yet the smell is there as an attraction for bees, just as the specific colors, many of which we do not see in the same way as insects, are there shining like a target in the landscape.
Sunflower field

Sea Island flowers

Black-eyed Susans
We cut flowers, we wear flowers, we eat flowers, we decorate our homes and yards with flowers, we paint them and sculpt them and give them as gifts of love. We treasure them among the most desirable objects that nature provides. Perhaps there is a correlation between flowers and women. Both are nature’s sources of reproduction of the species, the birthing mechanism, the providers of new life, nature’s most sensual creations. And both, through our attraction to their beauty, are celebrated in our art. Probably more than just about anything else. Even the most undesirable weeds of a field can be objects of beauty because nature dresses them up with color and lace and all manner of attraction.

Queen Anne's Lace and Chicory

Flowers on Bostwick Rd.
We are blessed with flowers. They bring value and satisfaction and happiness to our lives. How did we get so lucky?

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
– Buddha

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April 21, 2007

Thanks, Grandad.

Webb Moses Alred was a barber and he was my grandfather.

WM Alred in uniform

I don’t remember “WM” as he was called and seldom heard my mother speak of him. He died on March 12th, 1954 of a heart attack. I was 4 years old then. He and my grandmother, who we called “Big Mama”, had divorced by that time. He had three children, my mother being the eldest, followed by WM Jr., and Betty. I always had the impression that he was a stern man with a temper, but that was just my impression. I never had the chance to really ask my mother what he was like.

My mother kept scrapbooks. Large scrapbooks as I recall. I believe my oldest sister ended up with them since she has sent me a few old photos from time to time. Oddly, the only family scrapbook I came to possess was my grandfather’s. It was somewhat sparse in what he had collected, with a number of empty pages at the end, but I recently took it out and removed all the photographs in order to restore them digitally and preserve them, since the old acidic paper they were pasted to was taking its toll on them. In taking them out I began to realize what a treasure I held.

WM Alred portrait #1

There were the photos of WM himself. Portraits he had posed for at various times in his younger years. I was struck by the incredible beauty of these images. He was a handsome man with a stern face. In two of the pictures his hair was noticeably neat. To be expected of a barber. The earliest image was in his military uniform. World War I vintage. The other two in suits. I couldn’t help but stare at these images, their richness, their classic poses, the character in his face. They were mesmerizing.

WM Alred portrait #2

Woman and girl

There was also a picture of very old vintage of a woman and child. I can only imagine who this might be since there is no note on the back, but I assume it was his mother. Maybe a sister and niece. I just don’t know. Then there was the photo of the old man standing by a grave, piled with large rough stones and adorned with a simple basket of flowers. Again my guess is that it was his father at his mother’s grave.

man and grave

There was only a handful of pictures representative of his family, my grandmother at various ages, my mother, my aunt and uncle, some of babies, mostly me and my brother and two sisters. A picture of my mom when she was probably 19 or so, and one of her with him where she appears to be pregnant.

Young Hazel

Mom and her dad

But the majority were of his son, Webb Moses Jr. who we called Uncle Jim. There are several pictures of him as a boy and in his Navy uniform. There are letters home from the Korean War and a map of the war zones cut from a Life Magazine. There are his selective service registrations and draft cards. It’s obvious that he had a special relationship with his son. There are also several pictures of my Aunt Betty, his youngest, who he seems to show great affection as well.

Jim on tricycle

Jim in uniform

Betty school photo

The big surprise for me as I looked at these images more closely was what I discovered among the pictures of my mother and father. One of the first images in the book was a picture of my mom and dad, neatly dressed, standing in an office with another couple. The ladies are wearing corsages. After removing the photo from the page in the scrapbook, I read the back. There’s a note there from my mother. The man on the left was my father’s best friend and best man, and the woman on the right, my mother’s maid of honor. The photo was taken in the judge’s chambers on the day they were married.

Mom and Daddy's wedding day

postcard from Yosemite

There was also a postcard next to the wedding photo showing a car driving through the opening under a giant redwood tree. I removed the postcard to find it was from my mother. She always had the most beautiful handwriting. It was dated July 16th, 1944. My father was in the Army Air Corps as a quartermaster at the time. They were living in California. Her reference to feeling fine was because she was pregnant with her first child, my oldest sister, who would be born prematurely in September of that year.

Mom and Daddy on the street

There were other pictures of my mother and father. A great one of my Dad leaning against a post in what appears to be Santa Fe or some other similar location. There are Native American paintings behind him on the wall. I love this photo for its casual feel and his long legs. He was well over six feet tall.

Daddy leaning against a post

There was a wonderful picture of my brother and sisters in a tiny wading pool in a back yard. Most likely our house in Cedartown, Georgia. And a couple of images of an infant that I believe is me. Probably the oldest pictures of me that are still around. The one I found most touching is of a black woman, most likely our maid, holding me. I know from the stories my brother and sisters have related that we had a few black maids when I was little. I remember one or two.

In the pool

Me with our maid

I treasure these pictures. They have been sitting in my closet in this old album for years, and I have not, until recently, realized how important and rare and beautiful they are. I have few pictures of my father. He died on April 30th, 1952, when I was only two and a half years old. So the images of him, and my mother, and our family together are my only record of his place in my life, however brief. I have no actual memory of him.

So I take this opportunity to thank Webb Moses Alred for saving these moments, for placing these ragged photos in that old worn album, and for whatever course of events happened to place these things in my care. Thanks, Grandad.

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April 15, 2007

Small town…big culture!

One of the wonderful things about living in a university town is the cultural exchange that takes place. I posted early this week so have had some extra time to work on a few other photos and also spend some extra time with my daughter. My daughter is a dancer. Seven classes a week. So through her interest in dance and my interest in her, I have been exposed this past week to Pao Bhangra, the annual Indian dance festival at Cornell.

Bhangra #1

Bhangra #2

This is three hours of high energy traditional Indian dance performed by teams of dancers from Cornell, NYU, VCU, Northwestern, GWU, Columbia, and SUNY Geneseo.

Bhangra #3

Bhangra #4

Bhangra #6

The dance is beautiful, inspiring, sometimes acrobatic, great fun to watch. Each number lasts ten to fifteen minutes and is a testament to the physical stamina of these performers, yet you can see from their faces that they totally enjoy this expression of music, movement, and traditional culture.

Bhangra #7

Bhangra #8

This program draws over two thousand attendees every year and for a small town, is a fantastic view of art from the other side of the planet.

Bhangra #9

Then within the same week I had the privilege of attending Cornell’s annual Native American Pow Wow and Smoke Dance Competition. People from regional tribes come every year to meet, celebrate, and dance.

Pow Wow 1

Pow Wow 2

There is traditional food served, vendors selling crafts and jewelery and musical instruments. Flute playing and drumming, singing, and of course, lots of dancing by performers in fantastic costumes of feathers and ribbons and bead work. Traditional dances are performed honoring veterans and women and the Creator.

Pow Wow #5

Pow Wow #3

Pow Wow #4

Audience members are encouraged to join in and dance as well. It’s meant to be a social gathering after all. It’s an inspiring weekend of Native American culture and beauty.

Pow Wow #6

Pow Wow #8

Pow Wow #7

We are so lucky and honored to be presented with these wonderful opportunities on such a regular basis. Ithaca is a big city atmosphere with small town charm. A center of spiritual energy and natural beauty. It’s home.

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April 10, 2007

They were not for sale…they were for remembering.

Florida vacation was postponed. It’s cold there. At least for Florida. But even with the cool weather, I’m still disappointed that we had to wait. I’ll save my vacation time for later in the summer, but could have used the time to relax.

closed beach umbrellas

We didn’t decide to wait because of the weather, we’ve been there in February, but had to wait because my wife is in Connecticut taking care of her mother. She needed the vacation as much as I did, maybe even more, but as much as we’ve anticipated the day when we would have to deal with aging parents, we had hoped it would be later rather than sooner.

Marcia and Tessa

We could tell my mother-in-law’s condition was deteriorating when we were there over Christmas, but calls from a couple of her close family friends brought the news that they were worried for her and the decision had to be made to start helping her more directly to simply deal with everyday life issues.

So my daughter and I stayed here while my wife is confronting the unpleasant circumstances of doctors, and lawyers, and accountants, and a mother who is confused and ill and irritable, but at the same time thankful for the assistance. My wife is not the nearest offspring. There are two brothers that live within minutes of my mother-in-law. But my wife is the eldest child of five, and feels and accepts the responsibility the way it has always been thrust upon her in her family.

yellow tulips #1

pillow and blanket

So I have been here thinking about memory. And losing one’s memory. And losing those memories of our lifetime. And I am glad I am a photographer and have spent so much of my time documenting various phases of my life. So many of the images I have recorded are meant to be a record of who I was at the time, what my life was about, where I have been and with who.

Lulu kitten

guitar

That’s what we do as image makers. We create memories to hold on to. Points in time, reminders of people, and places, and events. But also of feelings, and loves, and hurts, and joys, and life. Lest we forget. A way to hold on to our memories and know how we got to this point in our lives and what has shaped us as friends and family members and human beings.

tools in the barn

rocks with graffiti

I began working this week on scanning some older photos shot in the late 70’s and early 80’s with my Polaroid SX-70. I shot hundreds of these, and have looked back through them a few times. I wanted to preserve some of these before they deteriorate and are lost. Many are pictures of dear friends from the past, and some are of people I can’t even remember. The great majority were of Mark, the closest male friend I ever had. We were very close back then and spent a great deal of time together. Sadly enough, Mark and I drifted apart, and have not spoken in over five years.

Mark

room at Holiday Inn

It seems almost all of the others in these photos have also passed out of my life as well. Our lives change, people come and go. For some, old friends last a lifetime, and for me, they seem to have moved on, or I suppose, I have. They are replaced by others who will share another part of our lives as we grow and change and create new memories.

Halloween costume

playing checkers

yard in Cayuga Heights

These photos were taken when I was becoming a professional photographer, but they were not my professional images. These were more personal, more intimate, more about my art and my personality. They were about my spirit and my passions and the beauty of my experience. They were not for sale. They were for remembering.

eggs and onion

Adirondack chair

horseshoe crab

My mother-in-law’s house is filled with memories, memories of her family, photos, Native American objects her father collected, antiques acquired over years of hunting and dealing, stonework around the mantle done by a family friend, shrubs she has tended and pruned for years. But in the last few years it has also become cluttered with other stuff, useless nick-knacks and extra dishes, baskets and spare chairs, books that will never be read. It’s so symbolic of her. So symbolic of the breakdown of old age. I wish for her the uncluttered house and mind, the comfort of the memories and the safety of her home, the simplicity of only what is needed to survive with joy day to day, the warmth and beauty that was there when I first walked into her house, before my wife and I were married. For the past slips away as the memories go and we are left with our pictures and our treasures and our clutter and those who love us to remind us of who we are and how we got here, and that our lives and our experiences have meant something.

beach

yellow roses

sky and clouds

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April 6, 2007

A source of satisfaction…

Now that the ice is gone from the inlet and winter seems to have delivered its final blows, the rowing crews are out practicing every morning and afternoon and those who spend their summer days on the lake are thinking about boating season.

boat storage sign

For months the sailboats have sat on trailers and cradles with masts stored atop and bright blue wraps protecting them from the winter snows. The slips at the marina have sat empty and the docks have been idle and home only to the few gulls that stick out the cold months by the lake or in the shopping center parking lots.

boats and masts

gulls on the dock

One of my favorite photographic haunts at this time of year is the Ithaca Boating Center. Still quiet and yet to see the business of warmer weekends, the boats that have been stored there sit waiting for attention, under their tarps of blue and green and silver, like hibernating whales. Many of them older wooden crafts in need of scraping and sanding and fresh paint, showing the age marks of seasons in the water. There are also the fiberglass beauties longing for a good scrubbing and waxing to make them smooth and sleek as dolphins.

boat with ladder

boat and stand

boat with green tarp

There are boats on their last legs, and boats wishing for restoration. There are bits and pieces of boating detritus left behind from the disintegration of old boats no longer worthy of repair or salvage. They create a maze through which to walk exhibiting countless opportunities for abstract compositions of colors and lines and shapes and textures.

rustyboat

boat junk

pole motor

boats and tarps number one

boats and tarps number 2

boats and tarps number 3

The boating center itself is a great subject as well. The building has stood here for many years and been added on to with little attention given to architecture and more to function. The area is prime for development, having seen, in the last few years, the construction of a very popular restaurant on the point next door and a beautiful new health center complex across the street. The city has also been putting money into waterfront development.

stands and graffiti

door and window

boatyard chairs

yellow dozer

window and guy wires
So this structure is one whose days are numbered. I feel a bit of nostalgic angst at the thought of this place falling to the wrecking ball. But one of the things photography makes you keenly aware of is the impermanence of our world, the passing of the old. Things you photograph today are gone tomorrow. You notice your surroundings more, so when something disappears it’s like losing a piece of the landscape that you had come to depend on. Like that feeling of loosing a tooth, that sudden strange newness of the hole that slowly is replaced by something else that eventually becomes normal and familiar.

vines and pipes

canopy wall

crusty rudder

I visit the boatyard frequently. I pass it everyday, sometimes several times. So it’s like an old friend even though I’ve never owned a boat myself. It has great variety and character. It feeds my creativity with its seasonal changes and its strange character and its slight neglect. So I document it, and linger about, feeling its spirit and history and extracting images that feel fleeting and hidden and satisfying. Come on Summer. It’s time to be on the water.

March 31, 2007

Water, water everywhere!

The snow has melted. At least most of it has. There’s still some ice hanging in the shadows of the gorges and thick dirty piles along the creek bed at the park. But the streams are big, the lake level is really up. We’ve had some good rain and are expecting more today.

Frontenac Creek

Generally this is a love/hate time of year for me. I’m so happy to feel the warmth of the coming Spring, the sunshine after so many gray days. The days are getting longer and it feels so good to come home after work and still have daylight to enjoy. To not have to build a fire or carry out the ashes from the wood stove or to just be able to drive home without my jacket on and walk the dog without being bundled up. I walked out of the high school the other night after an event there and could hear the spring peepers. I love that sound as much as any sign of Spring.

duck in Stewart Park

On the down side, everything is wet. The ground is saturated and soft. There’s a layer of dirt on everything from the melted snow and the landscape is pressed flat. I’ve been pumping our cellar for two weeks but the water table is up as it always is this time of year and the water just keeps seeping in. We live in a Greek Revival house that was built in the 1820’s and the cellar is just old stone with large slabs of slate laid on top of dirt for a floor, so there’s not much to keep the water out save our submersible pump in the low corner. The water never gets more than a couple of inches deep in the low areas, but still takes weeks to dry out.

Upper Treman gorge

There’s a motto in Ithaca on bumper stickers and t-shirts everywhere, “Ithaca is GORGES”(a play on the word). And that’s the truth. The Finger Lakes area of upstate New York is blessed with a landscape so diverse and beautiful that is unlike anywhere else. The lakes lie in a north/south configuration splayed across the middle of the state. There are eleven lakes in the Finger Lakes group.

Cayuga Lake

Cayuga Lake is the longest and widest at 40 miles long and 3.5 miles wide at it’s widest point and is 435 feet deep at it’s deepest. Ithaca sits at the southern end of Cayuga Lake. The lake is fed by countless small and large streams which have cut beautiful gorges through the stratified rock over millions of years. Ithaca claims to have 150 waterfalls within a ten mile radius of the city many of which are quite spectacular, particularly at this time of year when the waters are surging. Taughannock Falls, just down the road from our house, is the tallest free fall of water east of the Mississippi at 215 feet, taller than Niagara Falls.

Taughannock Falls

Our house sits on the edge of a spectacular gorge that drops over 200 feet to the bottom from the edge of our yard, and at the south end of the property is a spectacular view of Frontenac Falls. This waterfall is one of the most beautiful, yet least known in the area because it is surrounded by private property and a large camp owned by the boy scouts.

Frontenac Falls

cabin at boy scout camp

Most of the other large waterfalls in this area are within state parks. So we are blessed with our own spectacular waterfall that roars in the spring and after any heavy rain. In the summer when the air is warm, with our skylights open at night, we can hear the beautiful sounds of the falls, spilling down the cascades to the creek below. From our back yard we can also see the lake and the distant east shore which catches the western sunlight at the end of the day and glows warmly as the sun disappears.

When I stand in our yard and look across the gorge, and down to the lake, or down onto the falls from our overlook, I can’t help but wonder how this area must have looked and felt when it was populated only by native American tribes. When the paths along the gorges were walked by bare feet and moccasins, when the points at the mouths of the streams were surrounded by native villages and the lakes were home to handmade canoes.

Cayuga Lake

There are 128 species of fish in these lakes and the area, even with modern development, still supports white tailed deer, black bears, coyotes, fox, beaver, and other wildlife, hawks, eagles, falcons, herons, geese, vultures, owls and all manner of other species. At the top of Cayuga Lake is a giant wetland, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, that fills with migratory birds as the seasons change and is a nesting area for bald eagles and countless other birds.

ducks at Montezuma

observation platform at

heron at Montezuma

The lake is a beautiful summer playground. Sailboats, fishing boats, powerboats, jet skis (not my favorites), and wind surfers scatter across the lake from one end to the other. The inlet on the south is the home for the rowing crews of Cornell and Ithaca College and often hosts competitions on weekends, but is almost always graced by some crew practicing or perhaps just a lone rower in the early morning light at sunrise. The boats are out breaking up the ice as soon as the temperature begins to rise in the spring to make way for the long thin skulls. Ithaca also has a Dragon Boat club and these boats are often seen rowing down the inlet and out into the lake in the afternoon sunlight.

mast reflections

rowing on the inlet

dragon boats on the inlet

We are blessed with abundant water. Our area depends on the tourist and vacation dollars in the summer. Our lake changes with every season and every morning sunrise. Sometimes covered in fog or still as glass, other days tossed with waves and sprinkled with sailboats. The gorges are richly carved sculptures, lush and green with ferns and moss, surrounded by deep woods and spider webbed with wonderful walking trails.

Upper Treman Gorge

It was this landscape that brought me to Ithaca in the first place. The streams, the waterfalls, the lakes, the damp earth, the woods and the wildlife. It is a place of great beauty and spiritual energy and many who come to visit or go to school never leave. It’s no wonder.

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March 22, 2007

Let There Be Light

I’m not sure what the draw is for me, but as I look back at so many of the pictures I take, particularly the urban landscape type of pictures, an amazing number of them are of windows. When I looked back at my post of images from Willimantic, CT, most of the pictures contain or are about windows. So I began to think about windows and what they represent. Why we photograph them. What is their symbolism?

Window with pigeon

Barn with window

window with poinsetta

Windows began as holes in the walls of dwellings to simply let light and air in. It was the Romans who first began to actually glaze windows. But it was the era of the cathedrals that made the window something special. Large openings in cathedral walls needed glazing, but large pieces of glass were not available. So the windows were filled with a mosaic of glass pieces assembled with lead strips in between. This not only allowed for the glazing of extremely large areas, but also for the church to inspire and teach and pictorially put forth imagery and symbols of the faith for those who could not read. The windows were seen as the sources of “light from heaven”, or divine light. They also illuminated these huge cavernous structures with great beauty and color which helped to add great interest to the attendance of church services. They were a place for the additional expression of early Christian art by the craftsmen and artists of the times. As time has progressed, the stained glass window has changed in style with the architecture of the current age but has remained a mainstay in the church. It has also been a point of beauty and decoration among homes and larger buildings over the years.

Whatever my attraction is to windows, perhaps that is part of the reason I not only have photographed them so often, but also chose the field of stained glass art as a business for about twelve years of my life. Stained glass window with grape vines

Boatyard window with back light

Window at the Pink Palace

Windows are places of inspiration for many. They represent many things in our lives. “The eyes are the windows to the soul”. Windows are the divider between our private lives and our public. They are the source of light and the point from which we see the world, while protected within our dwellings. They offer a way to bring nature inside. “The picture window”. The framed landscape that is ever changing.

cat in the window

the groom at the window

curtains in the breeze

Many great poets have written about the view from a window. Carl Sandburg, for instance, has poems about what he sees and how he’s affected by the view from his window. In paintings by Vermeer, soft window light provides the illumination, but the open windows themselves represent the entering of outside temptation. Windows in art are often used to create a sense of depth, to frame a picture within a picture.

laundromat in Trumansburg

window on Corn St.

window with flowerbox

But they also symbolize many things. Curiosity, mystery, vulnerability, awakening, freedom, the vision of that which is unattainable, voyeuristic pleasure, our separation from the outside world, the place of invasion, the place of welcoming, the entrance to the bed chamber for the secret lover, the point of fear for the lonely child at bedtime, the place to leave the candle burning for the wayward soul.

umbrella at the cape

wall with window

abandoned house

Windows are not only for looking out, but for looking in. The shadows dancing on the shade at night, the warm and happy lovers dining while the estranged stare yearningly in from the cold outside, the child wishing for the ultimate Christmas toy or the passing office worker staring in at a pair of red pumps still three weeks pay away, or the young couple gazing in at the engagement rings at the jewelers. Windows are art. They are for the display of our desires. They are there to tempt us and tantalize us, while keeping us safely segregated.

window at Joes

Store front in Interlaken

gas station on I-81

window in downtown Ithaca

A partially open window is an invitation. Windows hide what’s inside, they are places of discovery. “The window to the mind”. Windows are places of vulnerability. An opening in a wall, a place where we can be seen and discovered. Windows stimulate our curiosity. Windows offer a view of what is outside. Outside our personal existence, outside our own experience. They are a place of fantasy, like Wendy leaping out the window with Peter Pan. A broken window is a symbol of a violation, or abandonment. A barrier that has been breached. Why are windows such targets for children’s rocks and wayward baseballs?

budwiser sign

window in Rosemary Beach

trailer window in Watkins Glen

stairs and broken window

These are all reasons, I suppose that windows are such an attraction for me. I am constantly seeking images that offer a story, images that allow me to imagine. What lies behind, what story exists on the other side of a window? Windows are a natural picture frame. What better place to look than through a window?

Florida yellow house

rusty window

At A Window

GIVE me hunger,

O you gods that sit and give

The world its orders.

Give me hunger, pain and want,

Shut me out with shame and failure

From your doors of gold and fame,

Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,

A voice to speak to me in the day end,

A hand to touch me in the dark room

Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes

Blurring the sunset,

One little wandering, western star

Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.

Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love.

Carl Sandburg

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March 17, 2007

I have a love affair….

…with trees.

Since I was a boy balancing on the roots of the large oak tree in the front yard of my childhood home or climbing the massive branches of the giant magnolias in front of the Decatur recreation center, I have loved trees. I have been a tree hugger since way before the term was ever popular.

Large Oak Tree
It was my love of trees, I believe, that lead me to set the goal years ago of reaching the California old growth woods when I drove across the country to the Southwest. It was the draw of sitting at the base of a giant sequoia, standing and looking up the vast trunks of these ancient trees, feeling so minuscule and temporary next to some of the biggest and oldest organisms on the planet, that was a necessity to me. Something I not only desired but felt truly compelled to experience. Some of these trees have survived since the time of Christ. They have outlived storms and droughts and fires and earthquakes. They have survived, though barely, the onslaught of the human push west in this country and the logging industry and our desire for their coveted tight grained, bug resistant lumber. These trees are magnificent. They are a treasure. They deserve respect. They deserve to be cherished. They held me in awe and filled me with sorrow at the thought of cutting such incredible living things. They were worth the trip.

Me at Sequoia
As a boy, family vacations often took us north to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia and North Carolina, the lower end of the Appalachian chain. The woods of the north Georgia parks were thick with oaks and large evergreen trees towering above the rhododendron and mountain laurel sheltered in their shade. I loved walking on the soft padded surface of tiny hemlock needles, smelling the rich damp forest. Trees large enough for a child to hide behind in a game of hide-and-seek.

Tree in Smoky Mountains
The Appalachian trail begins here and stretches all the way up through the Smokies and the Shenandoah and the Allegheny of Pennsylvania, the Green and White Mountains and Berkshire Hills of New England, all the way to Maine and Quebec. From the pines and hemlocks and hickories and oaks of the South to the spruce and maple and aspen and birch of the North. In the Spring they are dotted with redbud and dogwood and wild cherry. It’s a beautiful experience.

maple in autumn

maple tree (altered)

Since moving north to New York, I have developed a great affection for many of the species that are native here. I had never experienced the real New England autumn with maples ablaze with red and orange and gold until moving to New York in the 70’s. The woods here are rich with these trees and their colors are spectacular.

sycamore tree with cows

large sycamore

I have also developed a deep love of sycamore trees. Their mottled bark is like a gorgeous exotic lizard’s skin. They can be tall and statuesque, or short and massive and spreading. They congregate around water, by lakes and stream beds, giving shade to the frogs and pockets of trout and the fishing blue herons along the creeks. They are stately and beautiful often standing as the lone tree in the fields of rural farms. They have great variety and personality.

close up sycamores
sycamores at Treman Park

beech tree at Piedmont Park
I have a great passion for beech trees as well. These trees have a beautiful sculptural bark like the skin of an elephant. Large homes around this area are often graced with copper beech with their deep red leaves and sprawling branches creating wonderful shade. In winter, the beech trees tend to hold their leaves all winter long, hanging like pale brown paper lanterns among the bare branches of the New York woods.

art rendition of copper beech

moon through willows
Along the shore and inlet to Cayuga Lake here in Ithaca, the walkways and parks are lined with willow trees. These are the first trees here to get their leaves in the spring and the last to loose them in the winter. Their drooping branches are fitting for their location by the water echoing the ripples on the waters surface with every breeze of the summer. A perfect picnic spot.

willows in the fog

birch at night

pecan groves at sunset
In my numerous trips south to Florida I have always loved the highways that travel through the southern Georgia pecan groves. Beautiful, graceful trees spaced in wide grids. And as you go further south, the expansive paper company properties stretch out covered with row after row of tall, slender, fast growing pines. The ground beneath them carpeted with pale red pine needles and palmetto palms, a haven for armadillos and rattlesnakes.

pines on 30A
Once on the coast, the sprawling live oaks with their Spanish moss, the stands of tall slender pines, and the palms of all varieties provide a wonderful contrast to the dense forests of the northern states. I have made a project of palm trees when I am in Florida. I love their variety, their graceful curving fronds, and the swishing sound made when the ocean breezes stir them.

palm tree number 2
Trees are wonders of our world, examples of living life in balance, standing firm and strong, yet yielding and flexible. I’ve had fantasies that trees are talking with one another as we speed about like flashes of light, they live in their own slow motion world, meditative and wise. Or that when we see the trees wave in the wind, that it is not the wind stirring the trees, but the trees waving about in celebration, creating the breeze. When I pass, perhaps my cremated ashes will be spread at the bottom of some great stately tree, that I might be absorbed through the roots and become part of this beautiful living thing, standing quietly, enduring and graceful. That would make me happy.

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