order out of chaos

my friend michele brought me these. she did not wrap them individually in adorable paper sacks. nature did that.

groundcherries

michele’s garden, minneapolis, minnesota

  • margie says:

    that really is one of nature’s best designs :)

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  • chel says:

    Hey look at that!! LOVE.

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holding on

the many bouquets of flowers we received for my dad’s funeral are starting to wilt.  i was taking them apart today on the deck, tossing the dead stems, and trying to salvage the rest. of course, they are just bouquets, and at the same time, they are not just bouquets.

funeral flora

saint paul, minnesota

  • Jane says:

    You will carry a wonderful bouquet of memories with you and within you always Mary Jo, and they will never fade. Thinking of you at this time and remembering myself in that situation just 2 years ago. Jane

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  • margie says:

    sending you a warm hug

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  • Jayne says:

    I’ve just spent a good hour, blissfully lost in your exquisite images – put you in my ‘reader’ and thought I’d leave you a note on your latest post, just to say how much I love your work.
    And then I read this… Oh I’m so, so sorry to hear about your Dad. Coincidentally today marks the 11th anniversary of losing my Dad. I think about him all the time but so much more as Sep 9th approaches each year. It’s maybe of little comfort right now but I’m sure, like me, you will always carry your Dad with you in your heart and feel him near when you think of him. What a beautiful gift to him you’ve made here.
    My deepest sympathies and a warm hug …

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  • Susan says:

    I was talking to my husband just yesterday about how we express our emotion. I express through my photographs, while he expresses himself through his music collection. This photograph strikes me as expressive of sadness, yet I feel some hope too. There is some beauty left in these flowers, though most of them are gone or are in the process of going. And yet, curiously you arranged them in a circle. This is where I see hope, one element pointing to the other, never ending. I do not believe death is the end of living, either. But it still hurts for those left behind. My condolences.

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olives to acorns

one year ago, i was arranging a grid of wild olives on white paper in yellow mediterranean light adjacent to our south facing terrace in the languedoc. today i swept up this pile of fallen acorns in the blue northern light of minnesota, adjacent to our rear deck on turtle lake, minnesota. the two subjects might be mistaken for each other, but not the two settings.

fallen white oak acorns, our deck

saint paul, minnesota

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the beginning of the end of summer

the cattails have just reached the full height, way above my head. now they will begin to die back, and it will happen fast. the whole process takes place in three months.

cattail leaves

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

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pressed into action

i started a crazy project to make advent calendars using some of the nature specimens that are piling up around my house.  i am only making twelve calendars, and i completely underestimated the effort involved.  anyway, i am already up to day 20, which will be pressed fern leaves.  here they are all laid out waiting to go into the calendar.  you can get a glimpse of the calendar under the “shop” button above. it seemed like such a good idea at first, but alas, i am not going to sell these calendars–too labor intensive for commerce, too commercial for art. oh well.

pressed fern leaves from my yard

saint paul, minnesota

  • margie says:

    it sounds like a most beautiful project and one i would love to have

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