Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category
vessels of light indeed
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged colors, flowers, Inspiration, light, Photography, plants, tulips on April 7, 2013| 7 Comments »
sadness as a teaching tool?
Posted in Inspiration, Publication Updates, tagged colors, Contributing Writer, English, grief, Inspiration, literature, motivation, Photography, poetry, teaching, writing prompts on April 4, 2013| 4 Comments »
Via this link you can read English professor Hank Kellner’s latest article on Using Poems and Photos to Inspire Writing, an article that incorporates my poem, The Color of Sadness. Throughout our lives, if we’re lucky, teachers guide us. English teachers have been very important in my life. That is why I am so honored to have met Hank who is so dedicated to helping other teachers inspire their students to write. He enables teachers to help their students view a photo or a poem as a launching point. He has certainly helped me view my own writing with new eyes. I wrote the Color of Sadness as an expression of lingering grief over the loss of my parents. I have watched him turn it into a teaching tool. What an amazing world. 😉
and the petals want their due
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged colors, creativity, flowers, Inspiration, light, nature, petals, Photography, plants, tulips on April 4, 2013| 5 Comments »
it began with the tulip petals …
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged arts, colors, flowers, Georgia O'Keeffe, Imogen Cunningham, influences, Inspiration, light, nature, Photography, plants, tulips on April 3, 2013| 7 Comments »
… pink and glowing with sunlight, of course. A long-stemmed bouquet sitting in a vase not far from my desk. I yearned to photograph them but hesitated. The camera enables and empowers me to procrastinate wonderfully when I should be completing writing projects. But the light grew so intense in those petals that I did rise with camera in-hand and began to snap photos. But as you can tell from this post, it was not the petals that held my attention, it was the stems and leaves, their lines and curves and those beautiful shadows.
As I viewed the images, I could not help but see the many influences continually shaping the creative me. From Imogen Cunningham and Georgia O’Keeffee to the many wonderful photographers and other artists whose blogs I follow on wordpress and via other venues. Thank you for the beauty — and lessons learned — you choose to share.
on the black slate, tiny bites
Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged appetizers, colors, creativity, food, food photography, healthy snacks, Inspiration, Photography, slate, styling on April 2, 2013| 8 Comments »
pistachios & figs
sunflower sprouts & cheddar cheese
dark chocolate and dried cranberries
books, books, books … and art
Posted in Inspiration, tagged architecture, art, books, Boston Public Library, family, Inspiration, john singer sargent, murals, Photography, reading on April 1, 2013| 1 Comment »
Reading Emily Toth’s The Public Library Was My Bookstore just reinforced for me that there is no greater public institution than the public library. As a child in Lynchburg, Virgnia, the public library was one of the few places my mother would allow my younger brother and I to walk by ourselves. When we were older, and our young niece and nephew would visit for the summer, we would literally carry them piggyback to the library to keep them entertained. My nephew who is now 30 with a child of his own still remembers those rides. Once I moved to the Boston area, one of my homes away from home quickly became the Boston Public Library.
If you are ever in Boston, please visit the main branch located on Boylston Street in Copley Square. It was the country’s first public library and remains one of its most important. It is an expansive structure that has evolved over time. In the “old part” you will find some of the most beautiful and unique art of John Singer Sargent. In the “new part” you will find the books and there amidst the shelves and sitting at the tables you will find the mix of Boston’s humanity – young mothers with children, high school students studying (kind of), college students researching, business people escaping the office for a bit, the homeless resting, people learning English with tutors, tourists snapping photos (without flash), and everything and everyone in between. It is an experience.
happy easter
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged Easter, flowers, Inspiration, Photography, plants on March 31, 2013| 5 Comments »
bamboo in the evening light
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged bamboo, Inspiration, light, nature, Photography, plants on March 28, 2013| 4 Comments »
This bamboo stalk sits in an old fashioned glass milk bottle in the kitchen. It has done so for years after an impromptu pickup in the plant aisle at my local grocery store. Every now and then I change the bottle’s water, always experiencing a twinge of guilt because I feel like I should have found it a better container by now. I’ve photographed its lengthening roots and widening leaves and considered posting them on this blog but the right rooty or leafy image has yet to jump out. I’ve been focusing on the parts so much that I think there are times when I forget to see the whole structure. Luckily, I am reminded.
blue branches
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged Back Bay, blue, Boston, Branches, colors, Huntington Ave, Inspiration, nature, nature photography, Photography, sky on March 27, 2013| 2 Comments »
Lin Nulman’s Sights of the City Haiku
Posted in Guest Contributor, Inspiration, tagged Boston, charity, culture, homeless, life, nature, poems, poetry, poverty, prose, Spare Change News, street life on March 26, 2013| 1 Comment »
Boston Public Garden Street Light
When I first read Lin Nulman’s haiku, I told her that her words made me want to paint, to capture the vivid impressions she conveyed of Boston. I have yet to pick up a brush but I did think of her words when I rediscovered this photograph. Her work appears in this week’s issue of Spare Change News, the longest continuously running street paper in the U.S. Over 100 vendors, many of whom are currently or formerly homeless, purchase the papers from a distribution office for .25 and sell them on the streets of Boston, Cambridge and Somerville for $1.00. If you’re in the neighborhood consider purchasing a copy, or making an online donation. The writing is excellent and the stories not often told. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy Lin’s words below.
Sights of the City Haiku
Boston winter night—
streetlight caught in the glass rim
of a sun-catcher.
Dark birds float to a
bare tree. Underneath pages
of newspaper blow.
A young man reads poems
by Lorca on the train, lips
moving, body still.
Sky of milk and slate—
the sails below are whiter,
the river bluer.
Vs of geese fly east
across a violet sky, haze
above the wet earth.
My pages ruffle,
and the willow grows pale leaves.
They also ruffle.
T-shirt heat. Black-haired
boy’s block-print tattoo fills his
forearm: FORGIVEN.
Early autumn day.
Bronze beads pepper a bench from
a broken earring.
Blue sidewalk. Lights of
table candles tremble their
small constellation.
Lin A. Nulman is an Adjunct Professor of English at Bunker Hill Community College. Her poetry has appeared in Black Water Review, Tanka Splendor, and the anthology Regrets Only: Contemporary Poets on the Theme of Regret, among others.
Words + Images 