The color of frustration (!)

Don't get me wrong...I love a strong, slightly warm charcoal-y gray (sewing an entire wardrobe's-worth of clothes from a bolt of charcoal wool is a dream of mine)...but the gray skies & lack of light lately seem to be conspiring to drive me crazy when it comes to photo-taking. White becomes gray, warm whites come out cool, and the usual gorgeous, rich shadows are nowhere to be found; everything seems dull to me without the sunshine. And just when I finally started instagram-ing!

I could have simply pointed the camera at the sky at any given moment this week and ended up with a vast collection of images for this month's installation of the ROY G BIV photo challenge, but decided instead to take a journey through my photo archive. The first trio shows the light-play/shadows of glass tealight holders on a nicely textured paper...I liked how the resulting marks almost could have been created with a water-soluble pencil or paints.

The next trio features the Venetian lagoon on a sun-less day. The overcast sky created a distinctly gray effect/feeling; yet, compared with a "standard" gray, you can make out shades of blue, green & various neutrals mixed up in there. I suppose it's actually quite rare that a color is indeed pure, i.e. unaffected by the influence of its surroundings. And of course our different computer screens further impact how we interpret colors...

This last trio is of the paving stones in Piazza Pitti, just after a storm. There are few things more glorious (in my opinion) than the moment the sun emerges after a rainstorm, when shadows return and the city is clean & refreshed.

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A few details in case you are not familiar with the
ROY G BIV  photo challenge ~ Artists Jennifer Coyne Qudeen 
& Julie Booth started this project a few years ago; each month
is devoted  to a different color of the rainbow. Since we have
already explored the seven "official" colors, we will spend the
rest of the some bonus colors. Everyone is welcome to join in
the search. Please visit Jennifer & Julie's blogs for links
to each month's participants. Guidelines are here.

Shades of Venetian Rose (Pink Part II)

As you can see, the sun did come out in Venice...interesting to contrast the cooler pinks on my first day there with the photos I took on a sunnier day. While pink is not a color I am normally drawn to (unless it's as "hot" as pink can be, as in fuchsia), I do love the endless rosy shades everywhere you look in Venice. In fact, I realized on this trip that Venice wouldn't be Venice without pink!

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{P.S. I haven't made it to see everyone else's PINK yet,

but am looking forward to this month's ROY G BIV tour.}

As summer begins to fade...

You can already feel summer taking its leave—in the cooler air, in the scent of early morning fires in the fields, in the sun reaching further in the room. I've barely had a chance to look at the last several months' photos until now, as I design the 2014 calendars for PaperSynthesis... In a way, I have also been reliving the summer. I equate fall with nostalgia, something I always assumed was related to decades of back-to-school memories, but lately I've been wondering if maybe the nostalgia is for those hot, glorious days of summer. I know some are ready to embrace fall (and I can relate to this because it was my favorite season ever since I can remember), but as I get older I find I love summer even more. Before it slips away this time around, I thought I'd share a few moments of this summer.

The photo at the top of this entry shows a weaving I made with these strips of green 'ribbon' that came in with Venice's modest tide each day. They smell like seaweed, salty & pungent. Below is the weaving back in the studio, after being pressed/preserved in my journal for a few days. I was surprised to see that the green strips had retained their color, as the handful I brought back in my 'shell' tin had blackened as they dried. So now this 'weaving' joins those I have been working on in the studio over the last eighteen months, since my early forays into found poems (images to come, one day).

It can actually be quite discouraging to see how long it takes me to carry an idea to 'completion', especially since I usually seem to 'get' about ninety percent of the way upon the initial inception of a concept...it's that last ten percent that can take months, or even years. But I also find the 'magic' comes from those last ten percent, so I believe the wait is worth it.

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I have been trying to make more time to read fiction, and what better time than summer? The vast majority of the books on my bookshelves are non-fiction, and I'd say I probably acquire seven or eight non-fiction works for every novel. I had been looking forward to reading Vanessa Diffenbaugh's The Language of Flowers since picking it up on my final bookstore browsing session in the US. It finally came along to the beach with me earlier this month; in the (occasional) periods when I could tear my attention from the water, I enjoyed losing myself in the story of the main character, Victoria—a young woman whose traumatic upbringing in the foster care system made it difficult to communicate with the world, but who managed to find her voice through the language of flowers.

A dictionary of flower meanings is included at the back of the book, as well as an interview in which the author comments that "some will never forgive me for attaching a negative definition to their favorite flower!" Indeed, I was a bit disillusioned when I learned the meanings of some of my favorite flowers. Hydrangeas signify 'dispassion', acanthus 'artifice', and peonies 'anger'. (But then there are dahlias—'dignity'—sweet peas—'delicate pleasures'—orange roses—'fascination'—and ranunculuses—'you are radiant with charms'.) I loved how Victoria was able to silently 'speak' her feelings with a well-chosen flower. At first it would be one that expressed sentiments like the anger, bitterness or mistrust she felt. But eventually, as chapters alternate between her past and the present as it unfolds, in the role of a florist she finds herself fashioning bouquets to convey the emotions her customers sought either for themselves or wished to elicit in the recipient. Ultimately, Victoria reaches a point where she can expresses positive feelings of her own: forgiveness, reconciliation, gratitude, hope.

I finally finished reading the book, a chapter at a time with morning coffee, after returning home. I liked that it wasn't a 'page turner' (a type of book which I tend to avoid). The first-time author describes some of the writing—and the inevitable rewriting—of the book as quite intense, but I came away feeling that her delicate crafting of the story paid off beautifully. And, with its salt-air & salt-water wrinkled pages, it will serve as another reminder of this sweet summer. (Not to mention as an inspiration when I participate in National Novel Writing Month again this November).

 

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The heat in Florence can be pretty energy-sapping & brain-numbing in July and August, and a/c is not a given. One way we stay cool is by making granite (plural of granita). Machines at the front of most bars (i.e. cafès) in Italy churn around colorful icy mixtures that are generally flavored with fruit-'inspired' syrups (though some of the better gelaterie make them from fresh fruit). At the sea, a granita generally means a cup of granulated ice squirted with what is probably the cheapest, highest fructose corn syrup-y liquid available (but my, do they taste good after a few hours on the beach!). Making them is so easy, though, and I've found you can use just about anything, from cranberry juice to limeade, orange soda and milky coffee. And no extra sugar needed. Simply pour the drink of your choice into a freezer-proof glass that can withstand prodding from a fork & freeze until it begins to harden. You can break up the semi-frozen liquid with a fork at intervals during the freezing process or leave a completely frozen glass of your chosen beverage at room temperature for ten to twenty minutes, then use the fork to break up the semi-melted mixture until it's uniform.

The granite shown below are, from left to right: cranberry juice; almond milk with cardamom & cinnamon; pineapple & watermelon blended into a juice; and tonic water + lime juice, garnished with mint (unfortunately this last one had melted considerably by the time I got the photo, but was still icy-cold & very refreshing).

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Though the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Song in the video included below is not named for the Italian Venice, but rather Venice Beach in L.A, I can't help but think of 'la bella Venezia' whenever I hear it—the melody is haunting, soulful, multidimensional and beautiful, just like Venice. The lyrics are a tribute to the woman who counseled lead singer Anthony Kiedis to the other side of his drug addiction, and sadly died of cancer soon after he bought her a house in Venice Beach. Below I've included a live version played at Slane Castle. Around minute four, John Frusciante picks up his acoustic guitar, taking the song to a whole new level. The studio version can be found here.

 

Some of my favorite lines ~

...In the moment of the meantime...

...Do it all then it all again...

...Disbelief that I do suspend...

'Venice Queen' is from the 2002 album By the Way, which my daughter & I finally bought in the US this summer, and played over & over on a road trip to visit our friends in Chapel Hill. Besides 'Venice Queen', my favorites are 'Universally Speaking', 'Dosed', 'The Zephyr Song', 'Midnight', 'By the Way' and 'Can't Stop'. I only have to hear one of these songs—or, better yet, the whole album—to take me back to Highway 85: windows down, hair flying, singing at the tops of our voices. Even though we traveled in the slow lane (it had been seven years since I'd gotten behind the wheel), that trip embodied the sweet freedom of summer.

And on that note, my word for August is 'dream'. It seems to encompass my frame of mind at the moment, as I dream on these perfect summer days of dreams for the future.

Wishing happy dreams to you as well...

Violet in Venice

 

This month's ROY G BIV photo challenge color is 'VIOLET', so I was quite excited to find that the Lido (where my daughter & I spent our beach week) is full of purple-tinged shells. Even though we've gone there for the past few years, I must admit that it had never registered just how many of the shells are purple inside.

Each morning I spent some time at the edge of the water, looking to see what the waves had brought, and (no matter how hard I tried to limit myself), each evening my little tin was full of shells when we returned to the hotel.

 

They amounted to a plate's worth by the end of the trip...

 

Many of the purple shells were in fact fragments, reminding me of shards of broken china, or the finds from an archeological dig. I don't know what they may one day become, but I did enjoy composing them into 'story strips' (an ongoing experiment that you may remember from past posts), shown in the first image, as well as the simple arrangements below...

While most of our stay was spent on the east (beach) side of the Lido, one evening my daughter & I sat for a while on the west side of the island, facing Venice as the sun disappeared into a haze of purple & orange...

We took turns with the camera. As with the past visits, I was most interested in the reflections on lagoon, but it was my daughter who decided to photograph the final stages of the sunset in ten-second increments, and I'm pretty sure the photo above is one of hers.

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After the past couple months of 'gallivanting', it feels good to be back in the studio again. There is a lot to do, but I hope to find some spare moments to share more photos, books, music & other good things as I work through the projects awaiting me. I have resisted the desire to share a slew of purple-themed songs for 'VIOLET', but leave you with a favorite U2 song of mine, 'Ultraviolet'...

 

* The ROY G BIV photo challenge was begun by artists Jennifer Coyne Qudeen & Julie Booth in 2012. Each month is devoted to a different color of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo & violet. Guidelines are here if you'd like to join in this month, or in future rounds.

And back to green again...

This post actually began 'growing' back in July. I had the images and tabbouleh recipe in mind for the 'Thinking of Green' post, but everything wasn't quite ready at the time—and then I got sidetracked by the green Arno reflections, the Regina Claudia plums and all of Venice's delightful shades of green. 

Whenever my daughter is away I use the time for a solitary creative retreat of sorts, streamlining the usual daily distractions as much as possible. This includes being as efficient as possible with my time in the kitchen; I eat well, but very simply. One of the things I like to make is a huge bowl of tabbouleh—my daughter doesn't really care for it and I love it. So much parsley...so much green goodness...

As always, I offer 'recipes' as guidelines, with the hope that others will use what they have/what they like and adapt that which they don't.

Each time I've made tabbouleh lately—or any other recipe for which mise en place is fundamental—I have used it as an opportunity to continue research for my Book Art Object (BAO) edition, as the title I have chosen is 'Mise en place', i.e. the assembly/preparation of ingredients. (I have only mentioned this project obliquely a couple of times this year and will give more background when my edition of artist books is complete, but the gist is that a group of nearly one hundred artists is borrowing story titles by another artist as inspiration for their own books.) After making so many past artist books in a period of mere weeks, in order to meet deadlines for various 'calls for submission', it has been such a pleasure to luxuriate in the creative process for this one. And from all of the research/brainstorming sessions/contemplation/experimentation has come the idea for yet another project using ingredients as inspiration...

I wrote this passage from the Piazza di Santo Spirito chapter of The Piazzas of Florence when the parallels between the studio and the kitchen were just beginning to dawn on me. It was perhaps the seed of what has grown into a fascination with photographing ingredients (usually before transforming them into something new), as well as learning how to embrace time spent in the kitchen.

After returning from the market I arrange the vegetables that will go into soup for dinner tonight. Each time I enter the kitchen my eye is drawn to the orange flesh of the pumpkin, the papery purple skins of red onions, the feathery tops of the fennel and the leafy cavolo nero, a cabbage so dark that it's called 'black'. In a brown wicker basket I compose a still life with the sunset colors of pomegranates, persimmons and new apples, then select a dark green and raw siena bowl whose colors, if mixed together, would create the same mottled hue of the dusky golden grapes now cascading over the edge. Although I often only have time to arrange the produce quickly, in my mind I am capturing these simple shows of beauty with a paintbrush or pencil. Of course, food is also a medium in its own right, offering the opportunity to express creativity for fleeting moments of time—as a weekday dinner, a long lunch, or a gorgeous dessert.

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Returning once again to the green theme, here are a few more photos from the recent trip to Venice. I was already on the lookout for 'BLUE', but since I had just put together the series of images for 'GREEN' the day before we left, I found myself continuing to be alert to all things green. While Venice has plenty of blue, the lagoon is famous for its often-green shade. I'm not sure what causes the phenomenon, but it can be quite striking, and even jarring in its opaqueness (as in the second photo). The foliage of the hydrangea bush in the third picture looks rather anemic—a chlorophyll deficiency?—but was surprisingly similar to the color of the van behind it (this was on the Lido, where vehicles are allowed). I always enjoy catching the occasional mossy-green reflections of trees along the canals (bottom pair of images).

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And here's one last photo, with multiple layers/textures of green, taken during a quick visit to the Rose Garden this month. I'm not sure what the sun-baked flowers in the foreground are, but they certainly caught the light beautifully that morning...

Surrounded by blue

Blue is September's color for the photo challenge that artists Jennifer Coyne Qudeen & Julie Booth have inspired these last several months. For many years I have thought of blue as my least favorite color, yet I do like many shades of blue. My first pair of starter earrings, chosen at age nine, were set with sapphires, and I remember consciously switching my favorite color to blue while watching fireworks on the Fourth of July the summer I was thirteen. Since college I have been partial to tubes of Prussian Blue oil paint, and the depth of blue at twilight still takes my breath away...

As with 'ORANGE', 'YELLOW' & 'GREEN', this month's selection of photos also features Venice. At the top of the page is an all-time favorite view of the lagoon...I just love all of the sparkles that appear when the sun is behind the water. Next are a few sets gathered from past visits, and they are followed by several more from our beach stay on the island of Lido last month...this is actually the first chance I've had to look through them properly. Some were shot with an eye toward this month's color, but out there on the eastern edge of the island, with a direct view of the sea, you can hardly escape all of the blue! (And, coincidentally, the public beach where we rented umbrellas/chaise lounges was called Blue Moon...)

It was a truly wonderful, restorative trip. On the chaise lounge next to me, my daughter read literature assigned as summer reading & guitar magazines, reviewed drumming rhythms and listened to hours and hours of music. But I found that following the coming and going of the gentle waves held my attention much of the time.

I've been very behind with my blog-following and blog-writing in the last month or so, and am happy that the latest photo challenge has given me a little push to put together a new entry (the followup to GREEN that I had mentioned last time has been hovering at 'almost-ready', but then BLUE snuck up on me). I hope to begin catching up again soon...autumn tends to have that effect—of getting things back on track again—I think.

And below is one last image, this time of the Arno (which is not blue as often as one might think a river should be!).

Happy autumn to those of you above the equator (and lucky those of you enjoying spring!)...

{Please see the guidelines here if you'd like to participate in the color-themed photo challenge in future. October's color will be 'INDIGO'.}

Thinking of green

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.

     ~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.

     ~ Oscar Wilde

Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious.

     ~ Wassily Kandinsky

I thought those quotes offered some intriguing thoughts on the color 'green', this month's theme for the photo challenge inspired by artists Jennifer Coyne Qudeen & Julie Booth. Upon doing a bit of research, I was interested to discover that our eyes are able to perceive a wider range of greens than other colors, and it's certainly true that green contains a whole palette of its own. 

Just as my photos for 'Orange' and 'Yellow' included rather muted/non-primary shades of those colors, so does the selection for 'GREEN'. The quartet of images at the top of the page were taken on an early morning walk along the Arno earlier this month. Toward the west of the city, outside of the boulevards that mark the outline of the last set of city walls, the river is bordered by trees and green space. This makes for some lovely reflections in the Arno. I'm not sure what kind of purple flowers those are in the lower left corner, but they made a nice splash of contrast.

The first of the next set of images features 'Regina Claudia' plums, which are back in season again. I love their dusky green, and how they are sweet and melt in your mouth (devoured in just a bite or two).

Following the plums are three quartets of images of Venice taken on past visits. The city provided plenty of inspiration for 'ORANGE' and 'YELLOW', and green is no exception. These range from mossy greens to verdigris to more usual greens—though nothing is very 'usual' about Venice. I am actually thrilled to be heading there tomorrow with my daughter for a beach holiday on the island of Lido. Considering that Florence is expecting an even more intense heat wave this weekend, the timing couldn't be better. I'm looking forward to sitting at the edge of the water and listening to the ocean....it should be the perfect place to 'arzigogolare'—to truly experience summer before it slips away.

When I return I have something else green to post (I'm out of time now). Happy weekend!

{Please see the guidelines here if you'd like to participate in the color-themed photo challenge in future. September's color will be 'BLUE'.}

Finding yellow

Once again, a monthly challenge proposed by two US-based artists, Jennifer Coyne Qudeen and Julie Booth, has inspired me to gather a selection of photos: July's color is 'YELLOW'.

I've seen acres and acres of sunflowers this month—a subject at once seasonally & geographically fitting for the YELLOW theme—but I wasn't able to photograph them. Instead, I returned to my stash of Venice photos. In fact, one of the two-page spreads in an artist's book I made earlier this year features dashes of yellow, and its images served as my starting point. From the vaporetto stops (and their reflections in the lagoon) to the yellow buildings, masks and boats—plus all of the gold that attracts and reflects the sun, on both water, glass and metal—Venice is rich in golden shades.

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Life seems to be moving too quickly to keep up with writing about it these days! After a fun trip up north with my daughter, I had a solitary creative retreat of sorts while she went to visit her Dad. I always miss her good company & youthful energy when she's away, but it was a perfect chance to catch up/recalibrate in the studio. There are several blog entries in the works but, true to the original premise of 'Arzigogolare', they keep growing. I hope to share more soon...

{Please see the guidelines here if you'd like to participate in the color-themed photo challenge in future. August's color will be 'GREEN'.}