On Twitter | November 2011

Mad to live, mad to talk

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!'” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Wind Whipped Weeds

[bctt tweet=”“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…” – Jack Kerouac” username=”cherylspelts”]

On Twitter | October 2011

A.K. Smiley Public Library

The A.K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands, California is one of my favorite places on this earth – and by far my favorite library! Built in 1898, back when Redlands was known as the City of Millionaires, the architectural style is Moorish, which was surprisingly popular in the Victorian period. We may think of the standard Queen Anne when we think Victorian architecture, but the Victorians themselves were fascinated by the exotic. The wealthy traveled to Europe and the Far East, and they brought back not just rugs, and vases, and other furnishings, but also ideas about architecture. The A.K. Smiley Public Library, in my opinion, is the perfect architectural example of Victorian Moorish architecture in America. It’s fantastic!

And it’s not just a beautiful building – it’s also a great library. If you’re looking for a place to read a book in a garden – you can do that here. If you want to do research on local history – you can do that here. And if you just want a good old-fashioned library with books and computers and helpful librarians – that’s here too!

A.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public LibraryA.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public LibraryA.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public LibraryA.K. Smiley Public Library

A.K. Smiley Public Library

On Twitter | September 2011

On Twitter | August 2011

Baroque & Beautiful

I’ve mentioned before on this blog how much I love the Victorian ideal of a yard full of fruit and flowers – all together. They didn’t relegate their fruit trees to the backyard – they’d plant an orange tree right in the front yard, next to the roses. And grapevines would twist up and over the front porch, right next to a wisteria covered in blossoms. Fruits and flowers, in the yard, and in their art…

But the Victorians weren’t the first to love still life art consisting of fruit bowls and flowers. And in fact, during the Baroque period, a kind of art emerged that I personally find fascinating – called Vanitas, they were still lifes with rotting fruit and faded dying flowers, and sometimes the artists even included insects in their paintings.

Why would anyone want a painting of rotting fruit? Or dying flowers? Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the genre flourished, the religious message was that life is fleeting, and that death is inevitable, so you better get with it and live right! Rotting fruit and flowers symbolized how quickly life and time passes – and if life is brief, then you better get good with God now, rather than later, because it might be too late if you wait.

I remember seeing a huge painting of a dinner table in a museum in Paris in 2004. I had no idea what it meant when I saw it, but I was transfixed by the fact that the subject matter – imperfect fruit and flowers – was painted so perfectly, and so beautifully. It was this huge gorgeous painting, beautifully done, of wilting flowers and food that looked way past it’s prime. Gorgeous, but oddly disturbing. I stood in front of it far too long, and kind of fell in love with the strange genre of Vanitas art. But I never thought about creating any Vanitas art of my own.

But this summer, as I’ve watched the plants in my yard wilt and wither and suffer from the heat, and as I see some plants start to die back, as we head toward Fall, I’ve sort of enjoyed seeing overblown roses fade, and my lone Hollyhock come to the end of it’s blooming life. Everything in the yard is pulling back, and withering, and it’s not unattractive – it’s just different than the lushness of Spring. Everyone is drawn to the first perfect flower in Spring – but can just anyone also appreciate the last rose of the summer?

Yellow HollyhockFaded Yellow Rose

Pink Tea Roses

Pink HybiscusHollyhock

Rose of Sharon

Hollyhockpurple flowers

Pink Flowering Tree

So that’s my first personal experiment with the Vanitas genre – not exactly the most pure of attempts, but definitely inspired by the ideals of the movement! Art, even the oldest genres doesn’t have to be stuffy – it can be fun!

And I want to make one quick point – art doesn’t have to be time consuming either, or require a lot of thought or preparation. All of these were shot very quickly just after sunset, on two consecutive evenings. I started at 6:38PM yesterday and finished up at 6:47PM – so just nine minutes the first night. And then I started at 6:22PM tonight, and shot my last frame at 6:35PM – so 13 minutes tonight. And the processing of the images took about 50 minutes total. Writing this post was probably the most time consuming part of the whole process!

As for the technical details, the first night I shot everything with a 85MM lens and the second night I used a 50MM lens exclusively – and everything both nights was shot at f/1.8 or 2.0, except for the horizontal image of the pink roses, and the very last shot of the fushia flowering tree branch, which were both shot at f/3.5.

On Twitter | July 2011

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live…

If I found out I only had fifteen minutes to live? Right now?

I’d get up from the computer and run outside and lift my face up and soak up the sun. I’d listen to the birds singing, and arguing and gossiping. I’d smell the grass, and the dirt, and the honeysuckle blossoms that are hanging on, just a little past their prime. Then I’d open my eyes and LOVE the bright blue sky and everything around me – the shaky fence, the rambling roses, the rock chimney on the back of the house.

And then I would tell God thank you. Thank you for everything I’ve experienced in this life. The triumphs, and the near triumphs, and the trips and falls. I’d say thank you for my art, and for making me not just a girl with potential, but a full blown artist. An artist who may have wanted to achieve more, but who achieved enough to feel fully expressed. That’s rare and wonderful, and I’ve been lucky, and I know it.

I’d say thank you for everyone I’ve loved, and everyone I should have loved, but didn’t quite – because they all made a difference in my life. A big difference. A profound difference.

And I would say thank you for giving me these final fifteen minutes, so that I could soak up the sun one last time, and feel grateful one last time, and go out of this world exactly like I came in – happy!

 


I just found out about an interesting project, starting today.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey. http://RalphWaldoEmerson.me

And the first prompt was so interesting, I signed up…

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/prompts

I don’t know that I’ll go beyond this first day, but the first prompt made me want to write, so here I am, fifteen minutes later… What would you do if you only had fifteen minutes to live?

I think I need to go outside and enjoy the sun a little. I may have more than fifteen minutes left, but that’s no reason to waste anymore time inside!

 

Spring Flowers, April Showers

One of the best parts about moving into a new house is seeing what happens in the yard over the course of the first year. Sometimes the tree you sort of, kind of don’t really like all that much, breaks out in blossoms, and you’re in love. Sometimes a neglected corner starts to fill in with new growth, and then explodes in riotous blooms. I’ve heard it said that you should live in a house for a year, before tearing out any plants, because you never know what those existing plants may do – and if you tear them out too soon, you may miss some great potential.

I moved last summer, so this is my first spring in this house, and evidently the previous owners were big on flowers – because the yard is full of blooming plants. It’s very cool!

We’ve been told that some of the trees are black walnut, and when I Google them, the leaves do look right – but I didn’t find any images of the blooms that were as magnificent as the ones here. We have pink blooms on one tree, and white blooms on two other trees. They look just like wisteria blossoms – and the leaves look similar to wisteria as well, but the rest of the tree, and the nuts that form later are definitely not wisteria!

ETA: Ooops! I’ve been told that the trees are actually Black Locust, and Googling proves that to be true!

Black Locust // Photo: Cheryl SpeltsBlack Locust // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

Black Locust // Photo: Cheryl SpeltsBlack Locust // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

Black Locust // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

Black Locust with White Blooms

There are lot of different kinds of bulbs and some primroses…

TulipsPurple Flowers

Primroses

There are probably too many iris in the yard – if that’s possible.

Purple Iris

Purple Iris

During the Victorian Era, they were big lovers of fruit and flowers together – and it’s one of my favorite looks. There’s only one fruit tree in the yard – a lemon tree – but hopefully someday there will also be oranges and tangerines and apricots – all things that grow well in Hemet!

Lemon TreeBlack Tulip

And I’ll end with a black tulip. Have you ever seen a flower that elegant? It’s definitely a statement blossom!

On a technical note, all of these were shot between 4:09 and 4:30PM this afternoon – so a few hours before sunset – and the wind was blowing hard for most of those twenty minutes. I used a 70-200mm lens, at f/4.0, ISO 320, and as high of a shutter setting as was possible. Part of the challenge was in shooting flowers that were blowing and moving – and still trying to get a perfect image, that looks like the world was perfectly still when it was taken. The 70-200mm is my least favorite and least used lens, but sometimes it’s fun to shake things up and force yourself to do things in a slightly different way than you may be used to.

Shaking up your art – especially when you’re doing something as trite as shooting flowers? It’s a good thing! So grab an unfamiliar lens, shoot in a windstorm, whatever! Just shake it up and see what magic happens…

And as I sign off, raindrops are starting to hit the roof again… Hopefully the very last storm this season!