View Through Screen | Asheville, NC | April 2019
Don’t undervalue the screened porch. Sure, we appreciate that it lets air in and keeps bugs out. But the best benefit is how it softly filters the outside world. Everything — dogwood blooms, bird chirps, kid laughter — seems slightly distant, blurred or muffled. Perfect. Now I can focus undistracted on (more…)
Baling Twine | Twisp, WA | April 2019
Things pile up. It’s not too far-fetched to claim that a primary law of life is Accumulation. Books on shelves, dimes on dressers, hairs in drains. Or heaps of memories, blessings, regrets (college sweethearts come to mind?). I like to imagine that our ranching neighbor has tracked his decades of labor — hay harvests, cattle sales — through a growing mountain of discarded baling twine. It’s a measurable mass of (more…)
Horse Barn | Ellensburg, WA | February 2019
Total independence is a fantasy. When I slow down for a closer look, I see that my life is braced — embraced — in a thousand ways. The underpinnings of spouse, family, friends and home buttress everything important (health, wealth, work, leisure) with added support from, say, our dog and the beauty of our surrounding landscape. It all makes for an intricate structure — this life — held together, standing straight, by love and (mostly) good intentions.
Taxidermy | Ellensburg, WA | February 2019
What scares you? Each of us faces fears that affect our lives — public speaking, heights and crowds, revealed secrets, big teeth on carnivores. Fear inhibits the spirit, hardens the heart, suffocates the soul. You’d find romance in Rome if you could steel your nerves to fly. I could dance wildly till dawn if I were fearless in the face of ridicule. Americans’ well-being would soar if (more…)
Mirror | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2019
A small boy sits on the floor in a car dealership’s play area and stacks blocks. Each time he leans forward, a carnival mirror on a nearby wall catches his reflection. It distorts his cherub-like face into a monster mask with malevolent eyes and teeth. I have felt such an ugly transformation myself — impatiently waiting in a checkout line or fuming over politicians — and have learned (more…)
Tulip, Study #5 | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2019
Flowers wallow in attention. After all, they’re the flashy wrappings of the tulip’s sex organs. All lushness and lust. So I felt bad ignoring the plant’s workhorse systems, the leaves and roots that provide the food and nutrients that make those beautiful blooms. It’s a kind of upstairs/downstairs situation — posh elegance up top serviced by (more…)
Tulip, Study #3 | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2019
I often forget about the delicacy of the world. Driving a car, living in a house, walking concrete streets — all dull my awareness of Nature’s exquisite workmanship. How and why could a tulip’s complexity emerge from a seed? Where is its programming? What directs this cell to be stalk, that cell stamen? I contemplate petals, life unfolding, and imagine the (more…)
Brushes | Asheville, NC | April 2019
Artists leave behind more than paint on canvas. Their creative efforts touch souls long after the brush strokes dry. Asheville artist Jonas Gerard, a dynamo who reportedly paints in an ecstatic flurry, invites visitors to reap inspiration from his richly spattered studio. Colors glow from hundreds of brushes and bottles, while stray drips and daubs transform (more…)
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