A blog about photography & transformative art
Today's walk was canceled due to smoke. I've been going on about the smoky air for a few days now, but it seems to be getting worse! I can smell smoke in my nostrils, like after a night in a smokey bar. Last night the sun was a terrifying orange ball in the sky. It felt like the end was near.
Just about every day I walk a three-mile loop near our home. Sometimes I mutter to myself along the way. Muttering seems to be an art form that comes with a certain age. When I was thirty I rarely muttered. Now I mutter daily along the daily walk. The scary thing is that I often fail to notice people as they pass. Muttering aloud is hardly accepted social practice in suburbia.
I sit here in my studio surrounded by machines. They attract a lot of dust so I’m constantly vacuuming around here. Clients and students are forever dropping by so I need to at least present the illusion of neatness. Never mind that there are stacks of useless paperwork and unread magazines in the corners. I pretend they aren’t there and so they’re not. Denial is my friend.
This morning I was greeted by real, genuine smog, a combination of smoke and fog. Granted, our fog is different than London fog, the fog that once mixed with coal smoke to originate the term, smog in the first place. But, today, it was smokey fog all the same.
Yesterday the fog returned to Marin County. For many of us, fog is an addiction. We get cranky in the heat, can’t handle the dry, blast furnace from Four Corners. The nastiest heat waves always seem to come from that mysterious spot in the Southwest where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet. When high pressure builds in Four Corners, it sets in motion the heat wave from hell.
I’ve always found it hard to be creative in broad daylight. Maybe I prefer living in the shadow. I’ve often described myself as a Moon Child rather than a Sun Child. This is all very odd behavior for someone who works with light, etching a facsimile of reality onto a silicon chip. No light, no image. Camera or no camera, I still like the dark.
We’re just getting started here. I just installed WordPress and am getting familiar with its customization and interface. I just graduated from John F. Kennedy University with my MFA in Studio Arts. So, it feels like a new beginning here. Each day the blog and web site will get better. Welcome and come back soon.
