January in the North

I try to keep STILL seasonal. But, let’s face it, winters here in the North are at a minimum 4 months long. If I truly stuck to only seasonal subjects, you would get a whole lot of images just like this one. By far, the vast majority of subjects I would have to choose from are bare branches. Sure, there are evergreens, pinecones, tree bark, weed stems poking though the snow, and even some colorful fruits and berries still clinging to trees and shrubs. But mostly, if I scan my horizon, I see a tangle of bare branches like these. I could be very happy for a while, say a month or so, studying the shapes, curves, and negative spaces created by all those branches. But, even minimalist me, has a limit to how long these could hold my attention. That is why I stash away a fair amount of dried summer and fall each year. It’s my money in the bank for winter. You can expect a smattering of winter’s sparseness like this one over the next couple months. And a few dried reminders of seasons past when i feel we could all use a little color.

P.S. Have you noticed that I am using capitalization now. After 10 years of using all lower case, I am making a shift back to proper punctuation. The whole reason I started with all lower case, was a simple notion of wanting “i” to be in lower case so the the art was primary, and the ego was secondary. I am not sure anyone picked up on that, and it has become cumbersome to continue the practice. So, going forward, “I” will be at the center of “STILL” as I have always been.