san fran 01.2013

Last month I took a quick trip to San Francisco for work.  
We had a few moments to take in some of the sights.  
As seen through my i-phone....

sea lions at the Fisherman's Warf

San Francisco has the largest Chinatown outside of Asia!

sweet window display at Swiss chocolate shop Teuscher

Palace of Fine Arts Theatre

Ghirardelli Square

Capitol Building lit up in the 49ers colors - I was there right before the Superbowl

Trendspotting

May I suggest you take a ride on the World Famous Cable Car!

San Francisco was experiencing an "arctic freeze" when I was visiting....boy was it chilly!

Delicious eats & festive decor at The Stinking Rose...a garlic lovers dream!

spring flower i-phone photo dump

I have been a little off my blogging game lately.  I am still here, just busy and occupied with a million other life happenings...kind of let my blog slip.  With all this beautiful (and very early) warm spring weather we having here in NY, I decided to share with you some of the boomings in my yard.  After last summer's "freak" hurricane and then the devastating snow storm that surprised us here Halloween week...our trees and plantings sure took a hit.  It is however now a breath of fresh air to see all of the new growths, buds, and flowers each day as we take walks around the yard with our dog Mel to explore.  These are from Mel's and my walk yesterday...enjoy this latest i-phone photo dump!

yellow daffs = :)

Our magnolia was hit hard by the storms...but it still blooms strong

These were potted hyacinths I was given and planted in the ground after bloom...

they come back year after year!

weeping cherry makes me smile

worms eye view through the forsythia

Even the stumps in my yard have "growth"...love interesting fungi!

What's growing & blooming around you?

shadow chasers

12/31/2010

1/7/2012

notice the lack of snow...it was almost 60 degrees!

both photos were shot in the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation

I took a photo yesterday that was almost identical to one I took almost a year ago.  I didn't realize it at the time.  I take photos of shadows a lot.  It is actually one of the assignments I gave my students when I taught a photography class a few summers ago and I remember having been given the assignment in photo class myself many years ago.  Shadows are made from light and are things we see everyday, but there is something very intriguing about them as a photographer and artist.   Photographers have always paid very close attention to light and many noteworthy photographers have recorded remarkable shadows on film.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Kenneth Josephson

Lee Frielander 

Lee Frielander 

Andre Kertesz

Gilles Peress

Ralph Steiner

Henri Cartier-Bresson

For photo sources/links, please check out my pinterest gallery Shadows

pumpkin heads

My husband Tom and I took a short trip up to the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire this past week.  We love visiting this area and have camped many times before in the areas surrounding the White Mountain National Forest.  This year we brought along our dog Mel and decided to rent a cabin at a local motel instead.  This worked out just fine for our few days of leaf looking, Mt. Washington Auto Road driving, trail hiking, and of course a little rainy day outlet shopping.  When we first arrived we were driving in the small town of Jackson, and noticed the above display of a bed on the side of the street.  With Halloween approaching, I thought it was a very clever and inventive decoration for the nearby inn to have to welcome their guests.  As we drove around Jackson, and the neighboring towns over the next few days, we began to notice what we coined "pumpkin heads", popping up all around, each with a unique theme or message.  Deciding it must be more than a coincidence that "everyone in the area was decorating with pumpkin heads"!....I did a little research to find out that indeed, it is a Jackson Chamber of Commerce sponsored event called, "Return of the Pumpkin People".  This event has been going on for 24 years in Jackson, NH and the surrounding area!  On our last day visiting, the weather was quite rainy, so after lunch, we decided to take a nice drive around and view as many of the Pumpkin People as we could find.  There is a map on the Jackson website, however we chose to make it more of a scavenger hunt, looking at the map quickly once, and then going off on our own to explore the area.  I photographed the ones we found and Tom, Mel, and I chose our favorites.  I noticed also on the website there is a ballot for a "People's Choice" award.  I think I will be printing that out and sending my vote in.  We had a great time checking out all the hard work that went into these creative, whimsical and inventive designs.  Just one more reason to head on up to NH!

Beetlejuice...a classic!

This boat named after Attitash Mountain Resort which is in Bartlett, NH...

I love how they used a tarp for the water!

 This was outside a restaurant we went in....I didn't even notice it at first!

Perfect advertisement for this cleaning service!

Who doesn't love Dr. Seuss?

more classics...

Go Patriots!  It is New England after all :)

LOVE all the mini pumpkin heads in this Gulliver's Travels re-creation!

Disney Princesses welcoming visitors at an Inn.

Out front at the Grammar School...art, music, sports & academics all represented!

The local Ski Club sends a very important message!

Tom's favorite!  Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash at an Inn in Jackson, NH

How appropriate!

Cinderella, out front at what used to be an educational theme park called Heritage New Hampshire.

Heritage is no longer open, but the building is still there.  It is right next to Storyland.

Mel thought maybe he could join this cast of characters.

I'm still not sure which one to mark down on my ballot.  Which one would you vote for?

the challenge

I shared this photo with Tom for his 1st photo...It 's a family portrait 9/25/11

There are many challenges in everyday life.  One I find I come across more often than not is the constant struggle to create art in my everyday life.  I consider myself a working artist, however most days I feel I work more than I make personal art.  Last year I did give myself the "challenge" of entering and completing The Sketchbook Project.  I had a great time participating and welcomed the challenge...however I have to be honest and admit, a little part of me has been missing my sketchbook.  I will definitely have to go visit it now that the books have returned to the Brooklyn Art Library's permanent collection.  While on vacation last week, my husband Tom was showing me one of  the latest i Phone apps he had downloaded called Photo365.  We are both photographers, he is as a professional photographer and I have a degree in photography where it has now become a favorite hobby more than a profession, but never the less, we are both usually snapping away with some kind of camera, and many times, it is with our i Phones.  So there we were looking at our i Phone photos of the day and decided, wouldn't it be a great challenge to do Photo365 together!  We decided to make the official "start" date our 7 year anniversary, and then go for a year and see what we each come up with.  I even added it to our "shared" calendar so each day at noon an alarm goes off  on our i Phones to remind us to take our daily photo.  Last night Tom told me it is much harder to "do this" now that we are no longer on vacation...I do agree.  However I feel that makes it even more of a challenge.  Maybe some days will not have a photo, and that is ok too. What I see is most important is to at least try to find some time where you can look, feel or find some inspiration to help create art for yourself, then the rest can all fall into place.  Sometimes just making the commitment is the challenge in itself.

This is my 1st photo...9/25/11

Katie, over at Adventures of an Art Teacher talks about setting goals in art as well and about the Project 365 in 2010.  I "googled" Project 365 and found that there are many photographers and Flickr sites out there where photographers have been taking daily photos and recording them, some better than others.  I think it is often a great idea for recording a pregnancy, aging of your children, progress of a garden,  or even the growth of animals. I am definitely looking forward to Tom's and mine.  

Has anyone else started a new and interesting challenge? 

spring green

I'll be honest with you, spring is not my favorite season.  I enjoy it because it takes us out of the bitter cold of winter, but in New York, it is all too often a very damp and chilly season in itself.  Right now, it is particularly rainy...those April showers just keep on giving and giving.  Late this afternoon there was a break in the showers and I took a nice walk around my yard.  I do love seeing all the new growth that is popping up and discovering all the flowers I forgot were even there.  I had my i-phone in my pocket so I took some shots with the app I am most recently obsessed with, Hipstamatic.  You can see some photos from my trip to DC that I took with the app last month by checking out the post spring sculpture series.  The walk really made me appreciate all the rain...without it the flowers would not have had a chance to poke up out of the ground, the trees wouldn't be blooming and everything around me would not be that lush, spring green.  I couldn't help but smile as I took these photos, so I decided to share them with you so you could hopefully have a smile too :)

looking up at the lilac tree...the smell is incredible

bleeding hearts

dogwood bloom...the tree is near the end of blooming but is still one of my favorites

our fern garden

peonies...look close and you can see the ants helping the blossom open

lilly of the valley...smell is just so sweet

my husband's bamboo...started with one clump, now has spread along the wall

stairs to a cottage covered with moss and grasses

Seeing these stairs reminded me of a book I had just read to classes when I was substitute teaching in the library.  The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown, is about how flowers and a garden can survive in an old, rundown city.  The author was inspired by the High Line, which is an abandoned, above ground railway in NYC that has since been turned into a public garden and park.  The children loved hearing the book and we had a great discussion after about how nature can grow and take over abandoned buildings, sidewalks, stonewalls, etc.  The students even have a community garden at their school that used to be an old tennis court...how appropriate!  Oh, and if you ever get a chance to visit NYC... put the High Line on your list of places to visit, it is a must see for sure!

What do you have growing and blooming in your yard?