A New Years Blessing for 2013

As 2012 moves into its final hours under dreary skies and cold winds, this lovely Japanese Maple from Gibbs Gardens warms the heart. I cannot help but think of carrot cake, pumpkin custard, or apple pie with this image.

If these are flavors that you love, take them not for granted. You may be among the last of a generation to  hold dear flavors and textures that require love to bring them together. Today there are too many 'communications' battling for attention. So many (I nearly said 'most' but have no stats to back that up--just observation) people own several 'smart' devices and are addicted to each. Mass production and distribution has made all food (or items purporting to be food) fast so that we need not trouble ourselves with the preparation of fresh food.

So today I am thankful beyond measure for an amazing bounty of flavors from which to entertain my tongue, and for fresh foods to nourish the body and to challenge my creativity. I am thankful as well for Friends who have thoughtful, interesting minds made rich by reading, thinking, and by the great fortune of growing up in an era when the mind was still too beautiful to waste.

In the spirit of “Auld Lang Syne” (for the sake of the old days) 

may you accomplish portions of your bucket list, 

release yourself from fearful personal fictions, 

share with those who can appreciate, 

and enjoy all that really matters in 2013 and beyond. 

Of Honey and Truffles

Far below the flaming canopies of Autumn,
The humble plants of  shaded glen ferment
into the honey and truffles
of ripened wine.

Ferns stand gilded with spore. 

Slender stems blush from exposure
To the frosty eye of night.

Mop-head hydrangeas,
Their blooms toasted like campfire marshmallows, 

Sag under the weight of summer blue.

Violet stains their leaf and bloom, 

Overly spiced were it not for the sweet caramel of age.

Lace-caps have cast off 

all but the last essential rose-stained petals--

Heads held high and elegantly balanced--

Ballerinas in their last arabesque.

Canon EOSRebel 3Ti, 100 MM Macro Lens, 2012

Clematis on a Frosty Morning

Clematis virginiana is a native plant for North Carolina. In October I found it clambering along the fences in the rural area of Wayah Creek in the western area of the state. By October it has gone to seed in frothy, tangled orbs of thread.

Out in the crisp, bright air of morning I was rambling up and down the road near the cabin. A particularly pretty lichen-encrusted fence post was home to this clematis in it's wine and green foliage. The sun, already high in the sky, was barely peeping over the neighboring mountain, casting the woods along the sliver of pasture into a frosty glare. Everything glittered. Staring into the pasture I could pick out the oranges of dried grasses and fall trees.

Much later I realized there was a soda can in the grass, but despite being litter, I kind of like it there. It helps to harmonize the fractured oranges of the distant haze...and it serves as a small comment on life in America: soda cans tossed in the ditch, people focused on getting somewhere fast, revving on sugar and indifferent to the rich tapestry flying past the window. I guess that's why I love being out and about with the camera. It makes me slow down. I encounter and appreciate so much more of the landscape and of this marvelous Earth when I am out hunting for beauty.

The original of this image is very soft on the focus due to low-light lens limitations and my own lack of awareness at the time. Since I am always shooting for painting references, the use of post processing filters doesn't bother me. It actually helps me see the image in a more painterly way. It is remarkable how differently an image 'feels' inside my head when it breaks away from relentless realism of journalistic photography.

Nikon CoolPix 5700

Ferns: Reflections on Maurice Ravel's 'Gaspard de la Nuit'

Frosted Ferns

We gather at the edge of night

 And don our best -- 

Gossamer skins in wine and spice. 

They reveal a bit too much of our elfin curves, 

 But we cannot care. 

 Frost has stolen our summer will. 

The Keeper comes 

 Commanding us to follow. 

Languidly, 

 Deliciously, 

 We spill into sleep, 

 Beautiful 

 Sleep. 

Gaspard de la Nuit is also the title of a composition for piano by Maurice Ravel. The title translates as 'Treasurer of the Night'. While the piano work was inspired by three poems by French poet Aloysius Bertrand, my thoughts above were inspired by this photo of pond-side ferns and the memory of Ravel's hauntingly beautiful music. It conjures moonlight, glassy water rippling at the slightest breeze, stolen moments, mystery, delicacy, the intoxicating aroma of night Jasmine.

I first heard this piece performed by solo pianist Steven Hall way back in 1978. Many were the evenings I spent curled into a late night ball in the center of the unlit concert hall. On stage, a spotlight, a black piano, a madman pouring his focus through the instrument, chasing poetry through the strings, wringing every sweetness, every breathless note from the stream of eloquence.

If you would like to listen to the composition, here is a You Tube performance of the piece by Argentine pianist, Martha Argerich. Born in 1941, she continues to book performances with today's maestros.
20 minutes in three movements.



Canon EOS Rebel 3Ti, 100 MM macro lens, 2012

Be Still

Gibbs Gardens is a park-like property hidden in the North Georgia mountains, near the community of Big Canoe. This was their first year open to the public. Lucky me, they are less than 15 miles away, and all of it country roads. As close as they are, I barely managed to get in a March and October visit!

October was gorgeous. The valley and manor gardens are studded with Japanese Maples, threaded with reflecting ponds, and laced with hydrangea and ferns. I took the new camera, set it on ISO 400, and loaded the macro lens.

Today's offering is Carex and Fern, draping along the bank...probably of the Japanese garden area. Be Still, quiet your mind, breathe in the complex aromas of life at the pond. Listen for the small sounds.

The Insertion of Poetry

Summer 2011 at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. This is a fairly small raised pond beside an arbor with shaded bench (in which I am standing).The giant rounded leaves of Colocasia (Elephant Ears) dance above smokey silken water, softening the crisp hard edges of the modern pool. Photoshop filtering defines the edges, so that the bench and brick wall in the distance have character, as do the stems of Horsetail grass (Equisetum) and Pickerel Rush (Pondeteria cordata) in the middle ground.

Technical stuff aside, I always ask myself why an image speaks to me. When I give a thing meaning or a story, it becomes more precious, as though it finds its place. There are several metaphoric elements here: water-contained by unforgiving concrete, lushness thriving in the shadow and shelter of water, and the carefully crafted and arranged seats and walls of daily life. It's like the insertion of poetry into a life rigidly structured for function and beauty -- the juxtaposition of formality and tropical abandon.

Nikon Cool Pix 5700, taken 2011

Edgeworthia and Other Posts

I have been reworking the blog today, converting a short-lived garden/nature blog into the Art Photos blog, and updating the Painting blog to be just for painting again.

I did make a series of Art Photography posts there (April to July 2012) that I would like to keep track of here:

"Canna: Learning to Subjugate Color" demonstrates the artistic journey with color.

"Using Digital Tools for Artful Purpose" illustrates how an image with spirit but value issues, can be converted to art by emphasizing texture and line, pushing values, changing colors.

"Consider the Story - Trumpet Vine with Canna" Why did I take that shot? What was I responding to? How a hot spot puts the 'eye in motion' through the image in order to reveal the subject....not a flower, but attitude.

"The Spirea Series" In December of 2010 I was thrilled to learn of the early work of Joseph Raffael in which he made wall-sized paintings of the smallest things...natural patterns, no specific subject, no traditional rules of composition, yet the play of light and color and shape was mesmerizing. I went into the yard and commanded myself to see with the eyes of such an artist: seek the shapes of negative spaces, the energy of shape, then see what you can do with it. The result was the Spirea Series, which continues to excite me.  Yet I have long been troubled over how to present these in an appealing way..and a way within my means. this post covers a proposed solution.

"For the Love of Cabbage" displays the best of a winter exploration in the beauty of cabbage leaves. Surprising color and value changes create exciting images.

"Life is a River" shares a beautiful, nearly abstract photo from the Nantahala area. It is rich in metaphoric possibility.

"Reflections in Old Nantahala" is a beautiful shot of colorful reflections in the sleepy and sandy Nantahala River headwaters.

"Nantahala Aqueduct" shares two photos of the aqueduct that follows the Old River Road long the Nantahala just below the lake. It's a beautiful hunk of pipe.

Finally, I will share Edgeworthia, from the Atlanta Botanical Garden 2011. Edgeworthia chrysantha, aka Oriental Paper Bush,  is a large, rhododendron-looking shrub with thick branches. The specimen in the ABG is 6-8' x 6-8'. In winter, it blooms in scattered, heavenly fragrant bundles of fuzzy yellow or white tubular flowers. The 'plain' photo is fine...just green leaves...but there is nothing about it to hold your attention for even a fraction of a second. With adjustments it becomes exciting enough to linger over. Notice the poetic arrangement of the foliage, the pale veining of the leaves.

Nikon Cool Pix 5700, taken 2011.

Creeping Jenny

 At the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, the property is dotted with tall urns in assorted glazes and topped with plants. This urn had a marvelous grain to the surface. The green pearl leaves of Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia), draped elegantly down the flank.

Nikon CoolPix 5700, taken 2011

Heuchera Silver Scrolls

I am glad to see that Heuchera 'Silver Scrolls' has settled happily into the new shade bed. While she was lovely in the garden center in March, she sulked in her pot all April and May until she could be planted. More fun with the macro lens in this post. Elegantly arched scalloped edges form an interlocking puzzle with sister leaves.

Blue Crisp Fern and Bonita Shea Begonia

When I first wrote this post, I was trying to setup this blog as a nature and horticulture space. A friend of mine brought up Blue Crisp Fern, which I had used the previous year on the patio.

The patio is the perfect place for a plant lover to indulge without having to commit to the never ending job of 'gardening'.

In this photo we see the young Blue Crisp Fern (Polypodium aureum), snuggled into the shell planter with Bonita Shae Begonia and an unlabeled silvery Rex Begonia.  Blue Crisp and Bonita were well matched in rooting strength, but they outpaced the Rex, who remained tea-cup small.

As is usual for me, the 'plain' photo struck me as 'fine', but not exciting. Whip out those Photoshop filters and discover a pleasant 'painting'! 

Nikon Cool Pix 5700, taken 2011

Crape Myrtle: Wheel Spokes and Cellophane Noodles

More fun with the Macro lens. In this series I learned details about Crape Myrtles that I never noticed, despite handling them for 30 years. In fact, it's the macro lens that SHOWED me these details. I could not see them while taking the shots. They were 'mined' from the photos, a process that just 'tickles me to death', as they say in the south.

Lagerstroemia indica x Fauriei 'Tuscarora':
Known as an ornamental tree when pruned properly, this hybrid cultivar was for decades the default 'Red' crape myrtle commercially. (We all knew it was a coral pink...it's just the best red we had). It replaced Carolina Beauty, which was a more magenta color, but that plant had powdery mildew and black spot issues. Tuscarora is always clean and reaches for the sky, something landscape architects like in a crape.

One thing a retail buyer might not be aware of is that local seed propagation can eventually result in slight changes in hardiness, without making an outwardly observable change. It's not the act of propagation, of course. It's that the seed selections are naturally a little variable. People in the north are conscious of buying  red and sugar maples that are from northern seed sources. It makes a difference in the landscape hardiness. My Tuscarora was born and raised in central Florida. I've had it for 13 years now. It's been severely slowed down (lots of dead mature wood), over a handful of the colder zone 7b winters. It's still a tall and lanky shrub, not the stately graceful trees that my Muskogee and Natchez are. Even the Acoma Crapes have exceeded it in size.

I don't mind though. It's way too close to the house, so the small size is fine. I planted it for the coral pink flowers. And here they are:

First the 'Art Shot':

Crape Myrtle 'Tuscarora'

Here's another. I have filtered this one with 'posterize' to give it some separation from the background. Looks like I can't just use it 'out of the box' any more with the macro lens. Those dappled light pools have hard edges and abrupt value changes now.

Since I bought the new equipment, I also sprang for the membership to NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). They publish a magazine so crammed full of Photoshop how-to and tips it makes my head spin. Was just browsing this month's issue and I see that there are new and better painting and filtering tools now in CS6 that might do a more elegant job with this sort of work. I really have to prioritize that PS education.

Anyway, I thought she had graceful posture with just a few of those signature curlicue pistils showing. If I should paint her in watercolor, I will be sure to include them. Once you see them in the following detail shots you'll see how essential they are in this one to expressing her 'crape myrtleness'.

Now for the surprises:

The curlicue pistil is the first element out of the cracking bud, racing to get far ahead of the pollen-laden stamens  swelling up behind it. It wants pollen from other flowers, not from it's own bud.

The stalked petals snap outward, propping open the stiff bud leaves so the stamens can finish unpacking.

Look inside the capsule and see the stamens are slender and delicate. They make me think of cellophane noodles topped with little toasted sesame-seed anthers bursting with pollen.

That was too much fun. I may never paint again.

Oxalis 'Silverado'

Garden Meditation

This morning I perched on the low wall surrounding the new shade garden and 'practiced' (as practitioners say) a 10-minute meditation. It's a new thing I'm trying and it was remarkably easy. I think being in the garden was the key, in a cool, breezy spot. There was plenty of wordlessness here to which I could a-tune   in that simultaneous inward and outward listening mode. We'll see if I find the promised magical transformation. Every meditation needs an intention, and mine was to open myself to the beauty of Nature.

After meditation I noticed that the Oxalis regnelii 'Silverado' (Silverado Shamrock) was doing quite well. I bought these last year from Plant Delights online but  didn't 'do' the garden last fall. I managed to keep them alive, if stretched, over the winter. By their May planting I didn't know if they had enough strength left to survive.

I've never seen Oxalis roots. Fascinating little fleshy fingers seemingly composed of pinkish scales. Today, just 6 weeks later, the two plants have filled in nice large mounds and I see a pair of leaflets sprouting quite apart from the parent groups. Is that a scary sign?

The light was dappled, so I ran for the new camera and macro lens. I need to practice with this baby! So here we go, this blossom cropped from the full plant shot below...something you can do when you have a lot of pixels!

Speaking of pixels, I'm still amazed at the detail this 100mm Macro lens will deliver. I bought this plant because I loved the silvery mottled splash in the center of it's heart-shaped leaves. In the final image below, I can see the finest blue and pink fairy dust that is this leaf's surface. I hope it will show up in the smaller web-sized image.

What Lies Beneath

The North Georgia and North Carolina mountains are rhododendron havens. If you ever purchased a Rhody to plant, you were probably told to dig a very wide and very shallow hole. On this trip I found myself beside several walls where the road had sliced through the rock and the rhody forest could be seen clinging to a shelf of rock at the surface of that hill. The tangled colony of rhododendron  is rooted in a dripping mat of moss and detritus just a few inches thick. The water appears to be a near-constant drip, slipping between mat and slab. Think about 'that' next time you are trying to build a place for your rhody's in the landscape.

In this image, I loved the way the rock broke into rectangles, the rusty staining of it, and the old elegance of the Rhody's clinging for dear life.The photo was adequate, but I find that when I really like the design elements in a photo, I hunger for texture and interpretation that would appear in a painting. I use filters and adjustments to satisfy that appetite.

Wayah Bald and Dicks Creek Falls

For the past couple years I have vacationed in a quiet, unassuming little area of western North Carolina near Franklin. From my base along Wayah Creek, one of my early explorations was to drive left on Wayah Road up the mountain. The key attraction is down a long forest service road to Wayah Bald. As you near the ridge top the trees are noticeably short and thick as if they are crammed against the sky. In 1937 the Civilian Conservation Corps built the fire tower which commands a sprawling view of the region to the north, east, and south. More views from Wayah Bald Lookout Tower.

Back at Wayah Road proper, there remain several more choices: so many in fact, that it took two vacations to explore most of them.

Wayah Road from the Franklin, NC side winds up and up like a private Blue Ridge Parkway through gorgeous forest. When it finally slips down the other side of the ridge you are passing Nantahala Lake. The waters that drain from the dam below the lake are unmarked. It's easy to assume this is the famous Nantahala River, but locals refer to it as Dick's Creek.

True to its Cherokee name, the Nantahala gorge is narrow, deep, and dim even at noon.  Just below the man-made lake, Dick's Creek twists around bends and crashes over boulders. Trout fishermen cast a line at every calm opportunity. The original Nantahala River rejoins Dicks Creek before it gets to the power plant. As I recall, this fall was after the two waterways had rejoined, putting this on the Nantahala River...but I have to admit, I have YET to find a map that actually names all the creeks and roads in that area. It seems to be the provenance of local lore.

Here is the largest falls, called 'The Cascades' very near the bottom of Dicks Creek.

Kalanchoe Flapjacks

One summer I purchased Kalanchoe Flapjacks. She sat on the patio table all summer, looking marvelous. I must have taken 50 shots of this plant, but none really captured her architectural beauty until this one. Thank goodness I had the camera handy. In the years since, new varieties of this plant populate the succulent selections, most with wavy leaves and less upright habit. I prefer the structure of the original.