Posts Tagged ‘beauty’
found a rainbow, too
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged Arnold Arboretum, beauty, colors, landscape, light, nature, Photography, rainbow on July 7, 2014| 2 Comments »
ephemeral beauty
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, dandelion, flowers, Inspiration, musings, nature, nature photography, Photography, plants, urban landscape on June 30, 2014| 7 Comments »
I’m not sure if it was a dandelion. The wispy head was the size of a softball. I’d never seen one so large before. There were, in fact, three growing on the side of the hill. I saw them as I raced to the train station. Running late, I couldn’t photograph them at the time. A few hours later, heading home, I saw that there was only this one remaining. The others had blown away.
This one’s placement on the hill was too high, and the plants around it too thorny, for me to get too close. I zoomed in as best I could but I could not brush away the grasses growing in front of it. Later, I considered deleting the image — it was not what I had expected — but something stayed my hand long enough to see the beauty of what I had captured, and which existed no more except in memory.
beautiful design
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged animals, beauty, design, Inspiration, nature, nature photography, oceans, Photography, sea urchin, shells on June 28, 2014| 6 Comments »
The sea urchin shell was whole when I picked it up off the beach but I was too cavalier when I placed it in my bag. In the end, only one section was broken, and not lost. So, if I am careful, I can recreate the whole with barely perceptible, yet beautiful lines, marking the breaks.
phillips brooks window at trinity church
Posted in Inspiration, tagged architecture, arts, arts and crafts, beauty, book cover design, colors, design, history, Inspiration, Phillips Brooks, Photography, Sarah Wyman Whitman, stained glass windows, Trinity Church in Copley Square on June 28, 2014| 4 Comments »
Like Lucy R. Woods, mentioned in a prior post, Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) taught Bible class at Trinity Church in Boston for over thirty years. She was also an accomplished artist working in multiple media, from painting to glasswork to book cover design.
She was friends with Phillips Brooks, the rector of Trinity Church. Upon his passing, she and her Sunday Bible class gifted the church with a window in his memory.
It was begun in 1895 and installed Easter, March 1896. In a letter dated March 12, 1896, Whitman writes:
“The little memorial to Mr Brooks which my Bible Class has long dreamed of, is now finished and waiting to be put up at Easter. Someday I will show you this, and meantime send a little rough sketch. The three windows are in the Parish Room where the Class meets, and as it is also used for many practical purposes, 
the windows (three giving on the cloister to the south) are kept in clear glass with jewelled flowers at the intersecting of the little frames …and then the middle one with a single device.
In the glass of course there is a depth and richness that this paper sketch little conveys.”
The window is located in the parish library, and is another hidden gem of an architectural masterpiece. If you would like to learn more about Sarah Wyman Whitman, there are some great resources available online including her letters. The Boston Public Library has put together a gallery of her book cover designs. Learn more about Trinity Church architectural tours here.
from which nest, I do not know
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged abstract art, beauty, colors, feathers, Inspiration, nature, nests, Photography on June 25, 2014| 2 Comments »
a feather blew through the kitchen window to land upon a bottle on the floor
the house is surrounded by sparrows and blue jays and a baby robin I know I saw on the parking lot below
hawks fly past and pigeons dot roof tops and seagulls are like rats constantly on the prowl
but from which specific nest this bit of white fluff came, I’ll never know for sure
I can only imagine
how time flies … spring into summer
Posted in Inspiration, tagged art, Asian influence, beauty, collaboration, collage, creativity, geisha, illustration, Inspiration, paper arts, Photography, seasons, summer, Zoe Langosy on June 20, 2014| 2 Comments »
Spring/Summer Geisha, artwork by Zoe Langosy
I feel like I was just complaining about how long the winter was and now spring is easing into summer. That’s all the excuse I need to share this post from the past — Embodying Nature Through Collage — about a collaboration with artist Zoe Langosy who is one of the few people in the world encouraged to cut up my photos because she incorporates the pieces into such beauty, like this Spring/Summer Geisha. Have a good weekend, folks, and here’s to having a good summer. 😉
in light and shadow, beauty
Posted in Inspiration, tagged abstract, beauty, family, Inspiration, kindness, life, light, Photography, shadow, storytelling on June 9, 2014| 7 Comments »
One day, one of my brothers called and it was clear that he was in need of immediate assistance. Not for physical trauma. He needed someone to lean against, as we all do at some time. I was thousands of miles away. I could not get to him so I called a person that my brother had mentioned in recent years, an older gentleman who’d been an important figure in high school but I had not seen or spoken with him in over two decades. That day I used the online white pages to track down his home number. With barely a greeting, I told him I was sending my brother to him. He simply said, in a lovely warm voice, “Okay, Cynthia. I’ll be waiting.” And then I called my brother and I told him that he needed to get to that gentleman’s house and when he did he was to call me. He said, “Okay, Cynthia. I’m going.” Time did pass but then the phone did ring. My brother said, “It’s me. Hold on.” Then he passed the phone to the gentleman who said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got him under my wing.”
Why does that story come to mind today? Years have passed. My brother is fine. He and the gentleman remain close friends. I think the story surfaces because over this past week I have been witness to other acts of kindness, and reminded of people like this gentleman, willing to spread their wings over those in need, without question and without expectation. They are bits of brightness in the sometime dark, men and women who are often not recognized by others or even by themselves for the beauty they add to the world. By the way, I have not seen the gentleman in this story, or spoken to him, since that day. I did send him a postcard saying thank you. And, he sent me a card back saying you’re welcome.
while walking in the back bay, I paused and looked up …
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, Boston Back Bay, Branches, colors, Inspiration, leaves, life, nature, neighborhoods, Photography, trees, urban landscape on June 7, 2014| 8 Comments »
an empty bottle at the window
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, colors, glass, green, Inspiration, nature, oak tree, Photography, sake bottle on June 2, 2014| 7 Comments »
For many weeks, I’ve admired its shape at the window, and how the morning and afternoon light fills its form. A beautiful green vessel, for sure, that empty sake bottle. I’m always shifting things about but that bottle I have not moved since placing it at that window. I began to wonder why.
I think it is the layering of the bottle’s illuminated form against the living, shifting greens of the oak tree outside. As the wind blows and the branches shift, bits of blue sky or gray sky are intermittently revealed. The background is constantly in flux. The scene of bottle against tree is a still life always in motion.
And yet even as I celebrate the serendipitous layering of light and color at the kitchen window, I also could not help but wonder what would the scene reveal with the absence of color.
Simply beauty expressed in a different way.
shades of gray
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, clouds, colors, gray, Inspiration, nature, Photography, sky on May 31, 2014| 2 Comments »
Words + Images 