sometimes i can’t decide whether a daily creative practice is a tiring obligation, an inspiring challenge, or just good discipline. usually, it simply is. a daily practice. like good hygiene. you know there’s a goal out there–good long-term artistic health. but any given evening, it just feels better to have washed your hands that day, and brushed your teeth.

poplar branch in winter

rice creek regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

i was attracted to minimalism out of a scandinavian genetic predisposition, combined with a life lived in the flat light of a northern climate, combined with a general feeling of freedom it gave me to be unencumbered by things. but the other effect of pared down material surroundings, which i am not the first to notice, is that having less visual clutter requesting my attention  has acted as a creative accelerator. i don’t think it’s any coincidence that still blog was born in 2012, very shortly after i painted all of my floors white and purged the main floor of my house. it has me looking around for more things to get rid of.

balsam branch with fresh snow

saint paul, minnesota

usually i choose my photos for this blog because they are either pretty, or interesting, or both, and usually i have several photos to choose from, so i choose the one that is 1) either pretty, or interesting, or both, and 2) has a story attached to it, whether an interesting biological fact, or an interesting personal connection. this is just a pretty thing. it is not particularly interesting, except that it is a white poplar which is not native to my region but which thrives in conditions that are identical to my region. and it doesn’t have a story, except that i, mary jo hoffman, found it pretty (but not particularly interesting) on a day when my husband and i talked for a long time about how many balls we have in the air right now and how we sort of have to keep the lucrative balls in the air, and how we very much wish to keep the creative, non-lucrative balls in the air, and so i felt, at 10:00 pm, that i needed to post something that was just pretty and easy and not necessarily interesting and that didn’t have a story attached to it that would require me to think about the story, and now that i am done with this post, i realize that the photo is both pretty and interesting, and has a story attached to it.

silver poplar in winter

sucker lake regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

we’ve had an unusual thaw, and the newly re-exposed forest floor has presented me with an expanded, but still limited, color palette to work with: gray, russet, (ever)greens, brown, and straw. for those of you living in more temperate climates, that may sound like a dull, dull world, but i find it invigorating. i am often paralyzed by the full spectrum of summer. i prefer roaming every square inch of a fenced off area to staring at the rocky mountains and wondering where to begin.

a collection of late autumn/early winter finds in two colors

rice creek regional trial, saint paul, minnesota

i just discovered that the beautiful, stitched-looking scars on birch and poplar bark are called lenticels, and they act as pores to let the tree breathe. which makes them both beautiful and functional. like a good math equation.

poplar bark

sucker lake regional trial, saint paul, minnesota