a change is as good as a rest

i don’t work much with triangles. i find them more energetic than other more organic shapes, and to me it feels like an anxious energy. not very STILL like, in other words. but i decided today that i had done too many circles lately, and so invited a little bit of anxious triangular energy into my living room. it spiced things up. but it didn’t win me over. back to circles.

assemblage of dried and pressed botanicals

standing proud

i drive by this stand of poplar trees every day on the way to my son’s school. i have been eyeing it for STILL for years. every time we have a winter-white sky i think to myself that i ought to get out there and photograph it. but it stands beside a busy county highway, and it usually feels a little dangerous to pull over on that particular stretch. other days, i feel ready to pull over and take my chances, and all of those days have so far been sunny or partly sunny. so i’ve been waiting for the right day to come along. it came along today.

poplar trees in winter

defying gravity

if you look at this grass stem it really is a wonder that something so slender can stand upright against winter winds. but then look at the frost crystals and try to imagine what kind of anchor they could possibly be using to stand straight out, horizontally, from so inconsequential a perch. i’m so glad i went out on a beauty search this morning, because apparently beauty was out there waiting for me to show up.

hoar frost on winter prairie grass

mermaid tears

i came home from france with a new stash of mediterranean sea glass. as i have mentioned many times, the sea glass near sète, france (and i am guessing most of the mediterranean basin) is pretty much wine-bottle green. but not all of it. here is a sorted collection of the more muted pieces. i call it my winter sea glass collection. although i wish i were currently enduring a mediterranean, not a minnesotan, winter.

mediterranean sea glass

points of view

i just finished reading The Biography of Alice B. Toklas by gertrude stein. picasso and the birth of cubism both feature prominently in the book, and perhaps i had him in mind today when i tried to see these chestnut leaf fans from two different perspectives at the same time.

pachira aquatica leaves (guinea chestnut)