“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
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!
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?
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.
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.
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!
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!
There are lot of different kinds of bulbs and some primroses…
There are probably too many iris in the yard – if that’s possible.
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!
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!
Just a pretty little image of some pretty little carrots…
And a link to a great post on food as fuel…
And finally, a wish for today! It’s March 1st, which in my world is the true start of Spring. The sun is shining, the sky is bright blue with fluffy white clouds, and the birds are singing. It’s perfect! And my wish is that today is is the start of something new and wonderful for everyone who reads this.
Here’s to the Spring of 2011!
Seriously? Why would they do this?
I was just looking at a package of six cheese danish, and I decided to flip the box over and look at the calorie count, and I’m shocked to see it says 170 calories. Really? That seems so low? So then I look at the portion size, and it says 55g. But how much is that? Maybe grams should compute with me – maybe that’s a flaw that I need to fix in myself – but right now 55g is a completely meaningless measurement to me. And I almost let it go at that, because after all, the entire package is marked as 21 ounces and 6 count, so I’m thinking that means I should be able to divide 21 ounces by the 6 count, and get about 3.5 ounces – that seems logical.
Then I notice the servings per container figure. Keep in mind that the label says in large print, 6 count. And there are 6 distinct danishes in the box. But what is the official servings per container in tiny little print? Approximately 11.
Seriously? If they wanted to say that half a danish was the serving size, that I could see. That would make sense. But approximately 11 servings? How do you get 11 servings from 6 sweet rolls?
Yes, I know they can sell more sweet rolls if the consumer sees 170 calories, and doesn’t realize that’s for only a fraction, and not the whole roll. I get that. And I also get that half a sweet roll is probably more than enough, and it’s a flaw in my thinking to just assume that a serving size should be a full roll. But if the package has 6 rolls, and yet the official servings per container is 11? That just seems unnecessarily complicated and frankly, deceptive!
I want to post some support for two people I know, and one I don’t – but all three have some very cool footage on national TV this week!
First up is Tod Burr, also known as drumtech! I first became aware of him while he was on tour with INXS – and more recently I saw him with one of his own bands, Merle Jagger, out in a dusty bar in the middle of the desert. It was so much fun! He’s brilliant, and talented, and hot – which is a pretty good combination. And he’s in a new commercial for Lexus! When I first saw the finished commercial I thought it was all faked, but turns out it’s real – and he’s part of the team who made it happen. And he’s wearing black nail polish in a Lexus commercial, which is a whole new level of hotness!
Second, I have to give a shout out to Lara Johnston! I shot her backstage at Rock the Cradle, in 2008, and at the time she was just the freshest, sweetest thing – and a true talent! Well she’s back! She was on last night’s American Idol, and she got a golden ticket, which means we get to see her again at the next level. The footage of her is a little short, but hopefully that just means they’re saving her for better things later in the season!
And third, here’s another American Idol contestant – one I’ve never met – but he lives in Idyllwild, and attended Idyllwild Arts, and he’s talented, so I’m feeling the love for Casey Abrams…
And Tadd sent me this one… Best of the ’80′s, for sure!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-AbHItLrJw
My friend Shelly sent me this one, and I thought I’d share!
