tom scott ordover gallery

tom scott's images of patterns at the beach, in sepia/natural tones and black and white. really strong and arresting images of sand patterns: capturing the earth/water interactions, the ebbs and flows of the tides and the consequence for the sands, shifting, but stilled in the 1/125th of a second. stilled sands. pebbles. rocks. seaweeds. all add texture, interest, color. i like the focus on one thing, one idea. depth.

book blog basket boulder breath brazil

weaving a life weaving a sentence weaving a word weaving a breath. right places. wrong times. wrong places. right-wing times. split. dried. coiled. twined. no need for the exotic landscape. the exotic is everywhere. the california peppers from peru. the oleanders from brazil. the palms from mexico. the jacarandas from brazil. the aloes from africa. who forgot to turn on the water. 1/125th of a second. who forgot to turn it off. how to capture something so important in 1/125th of a second. earth. wind. water. fire. wild fire. the boulders are in the middle of the sentence. obstacles. or parts of the path.

indian rock

cold. it's really cold. i email everyone, tell them coat, scarf, hat, gloves. it's southern california, so it's necessary to suggest to students what to wear on a fieldtrip when it's unusually cold. but clear too. beautifully clear following the beautiful and necessary rains . . .
we meet at indian rock. stare at the latest blue graffiti desecrating the rock. the entire front surface of the rock is defaced, the bright blue lines crossing over the diamond designs painted by a young girl hundreds of years ago during her coming of age ceremony. the bright blue lines belie the heartbreaking fact that they cover something the taggers don't understand. if they did, they might understand the necessity not to destroy the pictographs. serious graffiti artists know how little their own work is respected . . .

mugwort

mugwort is used as an antidote to poison oak. i use aloe vera, because it grows on my porch and really stops the itching.

ceanothus white

white ceanothus blooming in rainbow behind my house. bees love the flowers. tomorrow, i'll try to take a photograph with the bees . . .

cleveland sage

cleveland sage is the most intoxicating of all the native sages. these flowers seem early this year.

wild currant

today we are going to indian rock to photograph and hear grey rubin speak about the native plants. it will be cold but clear.
at about 7 this morning, i went out to photograph the wild currant, which is in beautiful bloom. the ceonothus is in bud, about to bloom, and the cleveland sage, the ones i didn't trim back in the fall, are flowering a bit. the oregon grape is also beginning to flower as well. beautiful light this morning.

datura wrightii

david carson examples

legibility and communication

david carson. iconoclast. speaks of legibility and communication. not to confuse the two. difficulty of simple and clean and powerful vs simple and clean and boring.

i think he's talking about energy, energizing the image, energizing the text, energizing the layout, concrete poetry, the medium is the message.

he speaks of emotion, of interpretation. these are very different than illustration. emotion. he wants to make a connection with the viewer/reader. connect through emotion, emotional memory. trigger some sense beyond the rational, the intellect.

teodora gathering plants

teodora cuero gathering live oak and scrub oak acorns in rainbow. teodora is a plant specialist, kumeyaay, 87 years old. she and leonore farlow visited for 5 days.

artist's books class

tonight back to class. blog first thing. david carson video clip. iconoclast. grunge. not helvetica. dwell magazine opposite of grunge.

carmen lucas

gathering juncus

new year. yesterday gathered juncus with marian and abe. ground is wet from the recent rains, so it pulled out easily. what a pleasure. the rainbow juncus has a wonderful brown. in some places the juncus is 12 feet long. we gather quickly, just before dark. i don't have my camera with me. it's wonderful to gather rather than photograph for a change. i love standing in the dry creek bed, love the feel of juncus, love the brown live oak leaves strewn over the rocks. i scan briefly around me to note where the poison oak is. poison oak is deciduous, and the leafless sticks/stems are pretty easy to overlook. in some areas, though, i've seen poison oak vines as thick as my wrist, winding their way up a sycamore or oak tree. i want to put juncus on the scanner, capture those modulations of brown . . . red tailed hawk flying outside the window, circling, greeting the new year, joining the blog. turns out cochinealrush is a music group. more emily dickinson groupies . . . the rains are coming. must put out the wildflower seeds on the hillside . . . poppy, penstemon, can't remember what else i gathered . . .