Red plus yellow equals orange. Yellow plus blue equals green. Red plus blue equals purple. And so on and so forth. I can’t remember when I first learned the various recipes for creating colors but I do remember the childlike joy I experienced last week when I cracked open “The Color Kittens,” a 1940’s Golden Books Classic. Most of the Golden Books I buy I share with the young children of close friends, but “The Color Kittens” I purchased and sent to my adult friends. Why? Because that book which is so well-written by Margaret Wise Brown and beautifully illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen reminds the reader of what it means to be a child and to look upon the world with complete openness to discovery.
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Food has been an inspiration of late. More can be found in the Arts and Crafts/Food Gallery here: http://photosbycynthia.smugmug.com
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On a day when I received numerous “nice work but not our style” rejection notes, it was wonderful to receive word from Rambler Magazine that the editors liked one of several pictures that I had sent and would like to, possibly, use it in the future. Meanwhile, the current issue of the magazine is available, and as always, it appears to be a beauty of text and imagery.
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I’m happy to announce that the Winter2009 issue of Life Images is on newsstands. Inside you’ll find a picture by moi. While proud to have a photo on display, to be honest, I am mostly humbled to be included in the company of such great photographers. The beautiful cover only gives you a hint of the glorious images that are in between.
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It is Monday. The sun is shining. The air is (relatively) warm. I sit at my desk committed to writing. Yes, committed. To write. Not draw. Not photograph. Not dream the day away. To write. To put pen to paper. Or finger to key. Yes. Write. It’s not easy. Because I could just take a short walk in the sun with my camera or even just a notebook and a pen and then come back to my desk and write something sustained with a beginning and an end. Really, I could. But I know myself. If I walk out the door right now, into the sun, hours will pass. A few words may get jotted down on paper. A picture or two or one hundred may get taken. But I will have reneged on my promise to myself to write a sustained piece with a beginning and an end. And so I sit. I am lucky that I have windows all around me. Through one window I see an oak tree with its branches bare. Perhaps a bird will visit soon to keep me company. As I write.
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Sunlight shining through a water droplet. A tealight candle flickering in a blue glass votive. Lamplight through a sheer a silk panel. Illumination in all its forms, and from all the various sources, reveals the world. That is what I think of when I see sunlight dancing on a wave or flashing in the bright eyes of a child. Similar thoughts run through my mind when I see a painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner. His works are considered pre-cursors to those of the Impressionists. Events and details are only suggested not made explicit through the fluid use of light and color.
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I remember, as a child, drawing a sky using orange and purple crayons. A twilight sky in Virginia. In the fields below were white tailed deer. I had forgotten that moment until I viewed this picture recently shot at work.
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Cold enough for ice to form on the windows. But what ice formations they are!
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She may be more famous for Mrs Dalloway and Orlando, but it is her Blue & Green that I love the most. Imagine that.
BLUE & GREEN
GREEN
THE POINTED FINGERS of glass hang downwards. The light slides down the glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the lustre drop green upon the marble. The feathers of parakeetstheir harsh criessharp blades of palm treesgreen, too; green needles glittering in the sun. But the hard glass drips on to the marble; the pools hover above the desert sand; the camels lurch through them; the pools settle on the marble; rushes edge them; weeds clog them; here and there a white blossom; the frog flops over; at night the stars are set there unbroken. Evening comes, and the shadow sweeps the green over the mantlepiece; the ruffled surface of ocean. No ships come; the aimless waves sway beneath the empty sky. It’s night; the needles drip blots of blue. The green’s out.
BLUE
The snub-nosed monster rises to the surface and spouts through his blunt nostrils two columns of water, which, fiery-white in the centre, spray off into a fringe of blue beads. Strokes of blue line the black tarpaulin of his hide. Slushing the water through mouth and nostrils he sings, heavy with water, and the blue closes over him dowsing the polished pebbles of his eyes. Thrown upon the beach he lies, blunt, obtuse, shedding dry blue scales. Their metallic blue stains the rusty iron on the beach. Blue are the ribs of the wrecked rowing boat. A wave rolls beneath the blue bells. But the cathedral’s different, cold, incense laden, faint blue with the veils of madonnas.
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I have a “thing” about the color blue. As I have written in the past, growing up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains has certainly shaped my color-love. And, then there’s the fact that my mother loved all things blue. One of the items she treasured most in life was a small cobalt blue candy dish that my father gave her. Every now and then I tinker with a neverending essay about the color blue, and I usually start by searching the internet for images that will both inspire me and ground me. A search for “blue butterflies” introduced me to the website of Peg Steunenberg. A visual treat for sure. http://www.pegsteunenberg.com/index.html
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Words + Images 