variety and harmony

i end up spending a lot of my life thinking about palette. what are the colors that belong with each other within a particular field of view? how can colors create a mood that both invigorates and soothes? how much variation is enough to create an interesting thing to look at, but not so much that the view becomes jarring or chaotic? as always. nature is the first place to look for answers.

palourdes, mediterranean clams

birthday bouquet

yesterday i turned 55 years old, and although it was a coincidence of school schedules and available flights, i ended up spending my birthday evening flying to paris to see our daughter, who is spending her spring quarter the way i might have dreamed at her age–studying art and design on the left bank. here’s to birthdays occasionally spent well. and to good dreams occasionally coming true. hers for her life. mine for her.

pink tulips

final flight

i love this time of year because all of the warblers gather in the trees outside my window on their way up north. i hate this time of year because all of the warblers try to fly through my windows on their way up north.

tennessee warbler

plaza blanca

i just returned from a weekend trip to santa fe, new mexico. i fell in love with o’keeffe country. i could happily have spent a year there doing STILL photos of that austere high desert landscape. we had a packed weekend itinerary, so i didn’t have much time for exploring and gathering. i brought home only two things. some quartz chips scavenged from a hike among the gypsum and limestone badlands that surrounded o’keeffe in abiquiú. and this twig i found at the base of plaza blanca, which struck me as a perfectly eloquent expression of the cost, and the stark beauty, of a life lived in the desert.

desert twig from plaza blanca, abiquiú, new mexico

when it rains…

in late may here in the north, we go from one spectacular show of opulent abundance to another without even catching our breath in-between. last week apple blossoms. this week trillium and lilac. i found this cluster before the florets opened–hoping for a slightly different take on the traditional grape cluster of a flower head.

lilac branch with un-opened flower cluster