For Mind Over Memory’s Sculpture Saturday Prompt.
Sculpture Saturday
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Monthly Archives: June 2020
Active Writing Life Lakeside
The Ojo del Lago just reran this piece on writers who live in the Lake Chapala area. It was written by Jim Tipton, a wonderful local poet who passed away a few years ago. It gives a view of the vast variety of writers who live here. Go here to see it: https://www.chapala.com/lakechapala/writers-at-lakeside/
With Science
con·science: Origin Middle English (also in the sense ‘inner thoughts or knowledge’): via Old French from Latin conscientia, from conscient- ‘being privy to’, from the verb conscire, from con- ‘with’ + scire ‘know’.
With Science
This word conscience–that pull from deep within us to do what’s right for the world? If we look at the original meaning of the root word “con,” it means “with science or knowledge.” And if science is the study of the natural world, then look to nature to understand yourself. Be cognizant of the fact that we are interdependent. Begin to hear the echoes of your own well-being in the state of nature. It uses what ammunition it can to bring its truths to our notice: flood, fire, more violent hurricanes, a rise in temperature, Coronavirus.
As much as we search for truth in the laboratory, it is in the wilderness that we find our answers. We cannot create anything except from the materials of nature, for that is all there is. We are a part of it, not its end. In choosing to blithely destroy the patterns of nature, we destroy ourselves.
Prompt words for today are wilderness, cognizant, begin, conscience and echoes.
Hibiscus: FOTD June 13, 2020
For Cee’s FOTD
Biker Wedding
Biker Wedding
Though I’m just your uncle and backward at that,
I’m exceedingly fond of my sister’s sweet brat.
I hear there’s a biker you’re eager to wed
and though I’d suggest a nice banker instead,
I’m here not to alienate, but advise
(since I am your kin who’s most apt to be wise.)
Instead of a veil you’ll be wearing your patches
and learning his lingo by listening to snatches
of biker bar gossip and those conversations
spawned over road talk and major libations.
You’ll be in your flannels and Kevlar-lined denim
(I’m sure that no bride ever looked better in ’em.)
You’ll whisper “I do” and then exchange your patches
before you head out for a ride down to Natchez.
But, first things being first, you have asked me to aid
in getting your wedding invitations made.
I’ve checked out your spelling. The words are all fine.
Only the printing may be out of line.
Though responsible service may not be impossible,
are you quite sure that leather is embossable?
Prompt words today are uncle, alienate, backward, responsible and service.
Everything is in the Shape of a Bird, a Fish or a Woman
Everything is in the Shape of a Bird, a Fish or a Woman
Look how they frown in the old photograph:
my grandmother, her sister,
her two daughters and her granddaughter.
All of the women are very stern.
Grandma looks out of her element,
her eyes shielded against the sun.
In the yellowing photo,
“Taken at homestead” written on the back,
They stand, stark house behind them.
From the porch overhang, a sparse vine hangs,
but on the hidden tendril of the vine,
in the dead tan prairie that surrounds the scene,
in the summer grass bent low, I imagine birds.
It is a drying photo—brittle, cracked,
of three generations of prairie women.
Although none there knew it,
a waterhole is in their near future,
and in this stock pond that my dad would someday dig,
would swim perch and crappies,
sunfish, northern pike.
And although none there will ever see it,
in my house, everything is in the shape of a bird, a fish or a woman.
On the wall hangs an earthy goddess–
stolid and substantial.
Birds perch on her shoulder, arm and knee.
On the hearth, a crow formed out of chicken wire.
A soapstone fish swims the window ledge
beside that aging photograph
and on another window ledge
are two ancient terra cotta figurines.
The small one kneels in her kimono, playing pipes.
The large one stands wide-hipped
with arms narrowing to points
above the elbow.
In my studio,
a still-damp terra cotta figure
holds a fat plum.
On drying canvasses,
Women recline in their vulnerable states–
layers of wet flesh tones, yellows, purplish reds.
The house in the photograph
has been long-felled by rot and fire and rust.
All of the people except the youngest are dead.
Yet still in the grass, the meadowlark.
and in the muddy pond the minnow.
In the glass of the photo frame, I see my own reflection–
thinning lips pulled into one straight line.
around me is their house, their sky, their prairie grass.
In the glass, my face
turns into the face of my grandmother.
I flinch but do not falter.
I look deeper.
Reflected in one eye, a perched bird.
in the other eye, a swimming fish.
(To enlarge all photos, click on first photo and arrows.)
On the Straight
Sometimes it is hard to decide which line it is most important to make completely vertical or horizontal in a photo. Especially in Mexico, where things are many times not exactly square! Here are two shots I took and the decisions I made in leveling. The first shot in each sequence is the original shot.
Since none of the trees were parallel anyway, it bothered me most that the roofline was not horizontal, so that is what I used to level the shot.
Since my house is situated on a hill, it is always a hard decision to decide what to make horizontal and it looks off no matter what I do. In the original shot, it bothers me that the front wall is not horizontal. Even if I level it, the shot is awkward because of the upward slope of the hill. One solution is just to crop off the bottom part of the scene so the street doesn’t show.
For the Sunday Stills Challenge. “Let’s Get Something Straight.”
Hibiscus: FOTD June 12, 2020
Remember the flower that vanished a few weeks ago between the time I first saw it and two hours later when I returned with the camera? This is the newest flower on that bush. Finally, my patience has been rewarded, but not my curiosity over where it could have vanished to in a back yard behind locked gates with only me there!
For Cee’s FOTD
My Front Door, Newly Embellished. Thursday Doors
Front door mural completed
Some of you have seen my newly-muraled front door, but it seems so perfect for this prompt that here it is again. The artists are Jesus Lopez Vega and his son Eduardo.
Bobble Head: Cee’s Hunt for Joy Challenge, June 11, 2020
Cee’s challenge is to publish a photo of the cutest thing on your desk. This is the little Bobble Head in the shape of a steer that Ollie batted off the shelf in the guest bedroom and bit the leg off last week. I’ve inserted a toothpick in lieu of the lost leg but haven’t painted it yet. The paint is down in the studio and I keep forgetting to take this down or bring paint up. He has been sitting on my desk trying to remind me to finish his transformation but meanwhile is the cutest thing on my desk.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 