almost four years into still blog, i have seen a lot of sunflowers. and a lot of tree leaves. and a lot of feathers. and a lot of blank white papers with sunflowers, tree leaves, and feathers stacked beside them waiting to be arranged interestingly. so the first time you post a sunflower, you do the single flower smiling out from the middle of the page. then you maybe think of the daisy chain, with a circle of flower heads providing some graphic interest. then maybe the next time you create a grid, or a random pattern, or a rainfall of sunflower petals, or a single petal-less center staring out like an eye, or a bouquet of stems, or an arrangement of flower calices facing away from the camera. it starts getting interesting when you have have no new ideas at all. that’s part of what this project is about, which i didn’t know when i started. how do you work with the same materials in a new way, year after year? there are only so many seasons, and only so many species. but the ways of looking at them might just be inexhaustible. i don’t know. you’ll have to talk to me in another year…

wild sunflowers

along highway 35W, minneapolis, minnesota

just tell me the first thing you see. don’t stop to filter it. there are no right or wrong answers. just look at the image and blurt out what comes to mind. wait, what? you see what??? oh, man. you are messed up.

milkweed seeds

saint paul, minnesota

the flotsam and jetsam of my STILL blog collecting gets deposited around our house like the tide line of an ocean beach. then i go beachcombing, and  the best of the best get set aside and saved. here is a collection of the current keepers…

collected september specimens

minnesota