Picture Process

How beauty shows itself to you

This week, I survived

• Murder by Matcha Latte

• Gaslighting by Car Dealership

• Explosive Box Truck 

• Bald Eagle Mating 

• Tempestuous Teammates 

• Radial Kinetics

• Wearing Shorts

• New Moon Bleeding

• Friday's Five Hours of Zoom Meetings

Therefore, this week's newsletter is different. I’m cracking a window and sharing my image collections with you along with ideas I have resting in my Boneyard of Big Ideas¹. 

Favorite Images: Week of 9/11-9/17

Falling stars. Detail from the Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, France ca. 1450-1470.

Lithuanian woven grass

Silver Bracelets of Queen Hetepheres. Old Kingdom,4th Dynasty, ca. 2575-2550 BC. With inlays of butterfly’s From the Tomb of Hetepheres I, G 7000X near the Great Pyramid of Giza.

30 million-year-old Praying Mantis, encased in Amber

Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill. For 738 days, between 1997 and 1999, Julia 'Butterfly' Hill lived in the canopy of an ancient redwood tree, called Luna, to help make the world aware of the plight of ancient forests.

Medeina or Medeinė (derived from medis (tree) and medė (forest)), is a one of the main deities in Lithuanian mythology, similar to the Latvian Goddess, Meža Māte. She is the Ruler of Forests, Trees and Animals. Image, illustrated by Rockwell Kent

I’m an image snatcher, catcher, collector. Scrolling, saving, and screen capturing too often. When I see my images together I see an illustration forming, something intuitive, something often illusive in one image but evident in the collection, even if what it is, is a question. I don’t always review the images I gather and they often collect dust on my overfull data shelf.

I appreciate this opportunity to review my week of images together.

What fascinates me is the chance encounters that arise. For example in this this weeks collection the inherent synchronicity between the butterfly’s, the Lithuanian goddess of the tree’s, the Lithuanian grass, the gesture of prayer. I collect my images with no purpose or rhythm from random stumbles. To have a comprehensive collection is credence to psyche.

This weeks collection I might title: Hope

Boneyard of Big Ideas: Week of 9/11-9/17

Remembering Our World: If ten people made a small female figure every day for ten years, that would represent the number of years from Venus of Hohle Fels to now. Imagine a beautiful mountain of earth materials that are 35,000 handmade female goddess figures. What if we make these to remember ourselves?

21 Days of Visual Definitions: Commit to a daily practice for twenty-one days of investigating (Choose one word) Joy, Love, Beauty, Celebration, etc., capturing how that looks in your everyday life by photo documentation. After twenty-one days, examine the images to write a personal definition of what these words mean to us. This exercise is inspired by Mary Oliver's directions for how to live. (I'm pretty sure Mary is iterating on Rumi's advice².) 

Mary Oliver's directions for how to live

*PS> This week I was invited as a guest on Thoreau College’s podcast to share my personal history and how it braids with Place Corps, the Gap year and non-profit organization that I co-founded. It’s an interesting listen for folks who are curious about intersections of education, art, and new models for learning.

I hope you all are enjoying this Sunday. I hope you have an opportunity to raise your arms up in praise for something and someone you love.

1. A Boneyard of Big Ideas is a place where you can park all your enthusiasm and brain firecrackers. It’s a sanctuary of good intentions that can be visited anytime. Some Big Ideas may move into reality but most are happy to retire at the Boneyard.

2. “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

―Rumi