art is what you take away

after five, going on six, years of a blog based on a minimalist vision, i still find myself struggling to realize that vision consistently. my first choice of images is still quite often the complicated composition, full of busy beauty, when the right subject is waiting there, patiently, for me to take all of the imperfections away, and leave it to be itself.

blade of grass

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

here we go

a few days ago i saw the first tinges of red on the sumac. yesterday a yellow leaf fell across my windshield. today, i felt an urgent need to document the green around me, which seemed so common as to be almost oppressive a short month ago.

ostrich fern frond

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

ripening

i love how graphically this photo shows the nearly bursting quality of a plant about to ripen. there is so much quiet drama in the swelling buds and blossoms of spring and summer, aching with a fullness and tension that can’t last–like late term pregnancy, like adolescence, like young love. something has to give, but it hasn’t quite yet, and meanwhile there is this delicious state of youthful beauty, and anticipation, and nearly completed promise.

allium

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

terrestrial angel aquatic devil

tiger lilies are almost too strikingly beautiful to be of this world. each year i sort of gasp inwardly when i see the first one of the season, as if there has been some mistake, and someone has left behind an exquisite silk purse on the hillside along the highway. but as angelic as the flower is, bobbing in an august breeze, imagine this thing ambling six-leggedly across the sand of a shallow bay, directly toward you. context is everything.

tiger lily (Lilium superbum)

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota

i didn’t have a plan for this design. i just started placing stems head to toe, and kept building outward. i’m not claiming it’s anything that belongs in the louvre, but what i like is that i just kept playing until it felt done, and when it was done, i kept looking at it, and every time i looked, i liked how the design fell across my gaze. it felt balanced, and shapely, and not too symmetrical and just a little bit messy, and close enough to a 4×6 dimension that it fit comfortably inside the frame. i may have mentioned before that one of my favorite definitions of art comes from a description of how they make hershey’s chocolate. basically there is a single guy who is the official taster, and he just keeps tasting until he feels he can say, “this is hershey’s chocolate.” he couldn’t possibly say exactly what all the elements are. he just knows. so i hope you appreciate the hershey’s chocolateness of this prairie clover pattern. but if you don’t, it’s ok. because i do.

purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)

sucker lake trail, saint paul, minnesota