Galvanized by metal . . .

While in Tucson, I was excited by seeing this big ol' fence made of galvanized metal. I liked the combination of blue and rust colors, the linear compositions I could create where the various layers of metals came together, and then the cool shadows, which added not only depth, but strong compositional elements as well.

It amuses people to see me shoot this stuff. And I'm amused by their amusement. Win-win!

©Carol Leigh

Two more postcards received . . .

Sarah M. is apparently having way too much fun as she travels the "continent." A card from Cassis last week and another from Giverny today. And for each one she sends me, she's getting one back, although she won't know that until she gets home.

Wishing her well on her travels. She deserves all the fun she can get!

Cacti on color . . .

Wandering around Tucson, I specifically looked for cactus that sat in front of brightly colored walls. I then deepened the color even more in post-processing -- just because I could. So I offer you these three bits of photographic fluff, fluff that makes me happy on a rainy Oregon day. ©Carol Leigh

Lindbergh: The Moon Shell

We fill our lives “with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen.” —Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As I’m reading “Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, I’m continuously reminded how our lives haven’t changed much since 1955.

The music and the chatter continue on, multiplied a thousand times. We seem to have continuous companionship, but how many “real” friends do we actually have?

Lindbergh’s lesson from the moon shell she picked up on the beach is solitude. The need to get away and be alone, even for just a few minutes, and how important that is.

I was talking to a friend about the appeal of going on a retreat and had she ever considered it?

She had, “but I have my studio here and all my supplies, so why would I want to pack all that up to make my art somewhere else?” Good point.

I think the benefit of a retreat is, as the moon shell suggests, solitude. No family interaction, no distractions, freedom from household chores, from noise, from domestic responsibilities.

Unlike me, my friend has a large family all living under the same roof, including young adults. Talk about noise and distractions! But maybe it’s those very distractions that go into making her art. Maybe without them, she might not be as prolific. Perhaps those seemingly mundane chores keep her grounded, keep her balanced. Maybe they're not distractions at all. Maybe they make her art better.

For me, a person whose only distractions are a loving spouse and a cranky cat, a retreat still sounds exquisite! To be alone, creating, sleeping, and eating and exploring whenever, sounds incredibly decadent, incredibly appealing.

The previous chapter in this book, a chapter called “The Channeled Whelk,” talked about simplification.

If I want to simplify AND have solitude, what do I need a retreat for? To simplify I need to make do with what I have, to appreciate what I have rather than accumulating more. A retreat would be just another acquisition, don’t you think?

I can easily create my own retreat here on the Oregon coast. Leave in the morning. Do whatever I wish. Then come home whenever I wish in the evening. Okay. I’ll give it a go sometime next month. I’ll let you know the results.

In the meantime, I’m just going to stare at this moon shell. . .

©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "When Worlds Collide"

I usually have some sort of story that accompanies my work, but in this case, I don't know what to say. I began the picture by creating a variety of circles and then added texture, color, tiny circles and triangles, scrawling lines, thin-lined rectangles, a weathered page from an old scrapbook, a clock spring, scratched metal, and more until I felt it was finished. The appeal, to me, is the rich color, the slightly hidden geometric elements, and the swooping lines here and there. ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Bar Pilot"

The Columbia River separates Oregon and Washington and, where the river meets the sea, it's known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific." More than 2,000 ships have gone down attempting to navigate this treacherous bar crossing.

Columbia River Bar Pilots risk their lives ensuring that ships enter and depart the channel safely. Their sturdy boats maneuver themselves alongside freighters and tankers, log and container ships, where the bar pilots clamber up a wood and rope ladder to safely navigate the ships into or out from inland ports. This is one of the most dangerous harbor entrances and the bar pilots do their job extremely well.

As I was putting this piece together, I liked the feeling of the sea that my texture photos and a photo of a tire tread created. I added some hand-painted elements that made me think of the rustic ladders these bar pilots climb, and how the pilot may fall and be swept away (as happened in 2006), perhaps to climb another ladder safely to the sky. ©Carol Leigh

Lindbergh: Channeled Whelk

I continue on to chapter two of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The chapter is entitled “Channeled Whelk.”

She writes from the perspective of a woman in the 1950s and how her life is a series of distractions — spouse, children, housekeeping, cooking, doctor appointments, school conferences, car-pooling, laundry, cleaning, social obligations, etc.

Today our lives are all that and more with the distractions of the Internet, Facebook, blogs,  national and international news, e-mail, jobs and lack of jobs, television 24/7, all info all the time.

The quest for balance and simplification was strong in the 1950s, a thousand percent greater today.

She gazes at the simplicity of a channeled whelk, a seashell, a perfect and simple and beautiful home for first a snail and then a hermit crab. Now empty, but perfect, it inspires her to pare her life down somewhat, to see what she can do without, rather than accumulating more.

As I read her words, I wonder. Is the “accumulation syndrome” something we all have when younger but which then becomes the “simplify mantra” as we age? Have we seen so much, absorbed so much, experienced so much that we’re “full,” and the concept of simplification and balance is thus so appealing now that we’re older? Perhaps (and hopefully) wiser?

I’d ponder this a bit more, but I’ve got to check Facebook, read my latest e-mails, watch a basketball game, critique some photos, check out Pinterest, help fix dinner, create a photomontage, upload a few pictures to Flickr, and then maybe figure out how to simplify my life . . .

©Carol Leigh

I got mail!

I was very surprised to receive not one, but TWO postcards today, apparently in response to my blog post celebrating National Postcard Week.

The first one you see was sent from Sarah M. who is in Switzerland, frolicking among "sweet Swiss cows with their clanging bells." There's a cool stamp and cancellation mark and a "prioritaire" rubber stamp on it, too, which I'll put to good use in a photomontage someday.

And then you see a card sent from Judy T.'s iPhone (she's such a techie) of what I'm assuming are some succulents from her garden. How cool is that?

So in return, I sent each one of them a postcard back. To Sarah I sent a collage postcard I made using the packaging from a ream of photocopy paper I got at Staples. I cut it all up and then reassembled it onto a piece of watercolor paper. A couple of color-coordinated Czechoslovakian matchbox labels add to the mix.

And to Judy I sent a collage postcard I made using a page from an old book, various bits of paper, an old matchbox label, and a graphic I cut out of a promo piece I received from a printing company in the Palouse (Washington State).

I hope both postcards make it to them with relatively little damage . . .

Thank you both -- what an unexpected little gift.

Methinks every week should be postcard week. Send me one and I'll send you one back (make sure you put your address on the card you send). And my address is PO Box 1269, Waldport, OR 97394.

©Carol Leigh

Unfinished business . . .

The other day I posted a photomontage I made after having taken a walk around my block at twilight. Looking at it a day later, I decided it was unfinished, so I tweaked it.

Here you see first the finished version and then the original. You can see that I took away some of the "stars" up top but left the lower "stars" in place at the bottom. I like how the bottom "stars" echo the top ones, just in a more subtle manner.

I then photographed an old, rusty, scratched watch face and used that image as a "moon." In the higher-resolution version you can see the tick marks here and there on the watch face that represent numbers.

I added that same watch face along the bottom of the image to create five (five!) more moons, one of them encased in a square.

Notice, too, that the squiggles I drew are more pronounced in the final version than in the original. I also softened the overall look in the final version.

So there you have it: Basically a background created using various textured papers, a few dots, a few squiggles, and a watch face. Hope you enjoyed seeing the process and the alterations I made.

©Carol Leigh

National Postcard Week May 4-10, 2014

"Undeliverable: Too Messy"

Yes, it's that time of year again. And how will YOU be celebrating? Come on, you know you want to . . . send out a few! Don't have anyone to send a card to? Well, my address is PO Box 1269, Waldport, OR 97394 . . . just in case you get the urge!

©Carol Leigh

National Postcard Week

It's a good day to . . .

. . . celebrate our diversity! You probably aren't aware that May 3 is National Two Different Colored Shoes Day®, a day created by Dr. Arlene Kaiser to express our individuality and to honor all the sorts of people who are in our lives. So today, put your best foot forward and stride with pride! ©Carol Leigh

What I'm reading . . .

I remember reading Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh many, many years ago and enjoying it, so when my friend Laura began reading it, I ordered the book and am reading along with her.

The first chapter barely fills two pages, but its words strike a chord.

She’s on Captiva Island in Florida, alone on vacation for two weeks. She says the mind “begins to drift, to play, to turn over . . . like those lazy waves on the beach.” She talks of “chance treasures” the waves might bring in and warns not to be “too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient” for those treasures. “Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches.”

I think of my photo of a starfish that a large wave washed in. Patiently waiting in the sand for a wave to take it back out, it leaves slight indentations below and around it, showing us how it has moved softly in concert with smaller, less powerful waves.

And, in time, the starfish will slowly be washed back to its original habitat, will affix itself to one boulder or another, awaiting whatever new adventure the next strong wave may provide.

For me, this chapter encourages me to slow down, to let things come to me of their own accord rather than me impatiently rummaging about, digging in the sand. And could it apply to creating photomontages? To perhaps not force them so much?

And it reminds me of a morning I spent on Sanibel Island, right next to Captiva. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but there was a veritable parade of shell-seekers moving past, some with flashlights strapped to their heads, the better to find, spot, and secure treasures before others snapped them up.

This seemingly peaceful activity — beachcombing — had an undercurrent of anxiety, urgency, and acquisition — completely the opposite of what Ms. Lindbergh writes about. I look back on this memory with a certain amount of humor and a certain amount of sadness — but mostly humor. I mean, really? Headlamps?

©Carol Leigh 

Twilight Walk

Yesterday was an astonishingly hot day here on the Oregon coast. Our little weather station showed that at one point it was 93 degrees outside and 82 degrees inside. Now for us, accustomed to highs of around 59 degrees outside, this was amazingly hot! Humidity was way down, too, down to around 20%, so no, this wasn’t like Louisiana hot and humid, more like Palm Springs hot.

Just after sunset I took a slow, contemplative walk around our block. No camera. The robins — seemingly the first birds up in the morning and the last to bed in the evening — were making their loud, final squawks.

There was no wind, so it was easy to hear all the frogs, frogs I never think about except on quiet evenings like this. And it’s somehow reassuring — hearing frogs at twilight — figuring as long as we can hear frogs, everything’s going to be all right.

And then, as I rounded a bend, I stopped to watch a hummingbird moth, looking eerily like a small hummer, working the bright blue lithodora flowers. Wings a total blur, a slightly spread “tail” like a hummingbird. How can an insect and a bird appear so similar? Be so similarly designed to effectively accomplish the same goal: sip nectar from flowers? Amazing. So amazing I simply stood and watched until it finally noticed I was there and moved on.

I moved on as well. A thoroughly delightful walk filled with beauty, quiet, and wonder.

Yes, it was hot here on the coast yesterday. But oh, what a lovely twilight!

©Carol Leigh

"Hot and Cold"

I uploaded this image to Fine Art America at the end of last year. I doubt that it will ever sell, but that's okay. It's a different sort of image for me and I enjoyed the whole process of making it.

Here's how I described it:

A woman's face, with a rather aloof expression, gazes out from this piece that I created with photographs I've taken of fabrics (including a scarf), hand-painted papers, torn papers, and some old scrapbook pages. I like the contrast of the overall warm look and her cool expression.

©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Land Bridge"

Photographs of ordinary objects such as metal, and paper that I've used to clean my paintbrush, come together here in this image that makes me think of ancient peoples and their gradual movement across the Earth. ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Major Cool"

Wall art mash-up. I can't even begin to describe how I put this photomontage together. But it all began with a walk by the ocean on a sunny day... ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Five for the Books"

When I first began making photomontages, I made a LOT that revolved around letters or numbers. And I see that that predilection continues today . . .

I particularly like the number five, for no apparent reason. Maybe it's because it's my birth month, or because it's an interesting shape, or because it's a yin/yang thing with straight lines and curves, or maybe I'm just weird . . .

So here we have yet another number, this time mixed with hand-painted papers, stained papers, paint splotches, my own marks, and textures.

Five. Number 2,479 in a (continuing) series . . . ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Table I"

So many elements went into the making of this piece, including photos of some of my hand-painted papers, envelopes, stained paper, thin torn cardboard, an interest chart from a very old math book, and more. I like the warm colors, the texture, and all the linear elements that contrast with the messy swash of paint across the bottom. ©Carol Leigh

Boom

This began with a letter "B" I photographed on the side of a truck. I cut it up and rearranged the pieces. Why call it "Boom?" Not sure, other than I sort of see some "O's" and maybe an "M." And I kind of like the word "Boom!" ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Trout Fishing in America"

I hand-painted the background, slapped a trout onto it, used a couple of appropriate postage stamps I'd photographed, used a few more photos and then called it done! The name comes from a famous Richard Brautigan book. http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Brautigans-Springhill-Disaster-Watermelon/dp/0395500761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398118449&sr=8-1&keywords=Brautigan+Trout+Fishing+in+America

©Carol Leigh

Collage: "Night Fishing"

I hadn't realized how many collages I've made until Chris and I began rummaging around, deciding what to frame and display. Before we framed this one, I photographed it to show you here. I like the various worn papers, the textures, and the way the red Japanese stamp stands out against the blue.

The stamp (1953) depicts a traditional way of Japanese fishing at night, using cormorants. The blue colors represent the night sky, the sea. I also cut up another stamp and glued the "bits" in the lower right, representing fish and echoing the red color of the stamp. White painted dots on blue-painted paper represent stars. Not bad! I surprise myself sometimes, and that's always a good thing. Wishing YOU a day of good surprises.

©Carol Leigh

It's a good day to . . .

. . . just doodle a little bit! ©Carol Leigh

Burglar flees crime scene . . .

In yesterday's post I mentioned a break-in. Our shed was forcibly entered and a LOT of birdseed went missing from a galvanized metal trashcan. We suspected raccoons.

At 3:20 this morning I hear something crashing around in the shed. I lay in bed wondering if the raccoon could remove the 4x4 piece of wood I'd wedged tightly between the garbage can lid and the handle.

Lots of thumps and thuds. Forty minutes later I hear a crash and a sound not unlike a garbage can lid crashing into the shed door. Then silence. Then I sleep.

Later this morning, around 6:45, I glance out the window to see the culprit emerging from the smaller of the two holes he's made in the shed roof. Slowly he pulls himself out, gazing groggily around. Takes him about 20 minutes to figure out how to jump from the roof to the trellis to the deck to his final getaway.

He runs across the yard slowly. It's hard to run with eight pounds of birdseed in one's stomach...

©Carol Leigh

P.S. Photos hastily taken through a dirty window using a Lumix G2 at ISO 3200 before sunrise. Colors are wacky and light balance runs to a bluish green. Not unlike the raccoon, I was groggy and in a hurry!

Breaking and entering . . .

We have a shed in the back yard, maybe 6 feet by 10 feet, made of weathered cedar. The rudimentary roof is covered with cedar shake shingles, a few of which have blown off in storms.

Inside we keep typical sheddy things such as empty flower pots, lumber, rolls of chicken wire, and a small galvanized metal trashcan that holds a fair amount of birdseed.

We returned from vacation yesterday and this morning I wandered around the yard to see what was blooming, what was leafing out, etc.

I noticed a couple of largish holes in the shed roof. One of the holes was big enough to admit one, two, or maybe three raccoons. Uh-oh.

With a certain amount of trepidation I slowly opened the shed door. (Raccoons can be cranky when unexpectedly awakened from a mid-morning snooze.)

The trashcan lid tumbled out of the doorway and came to rest at my feet. Uh-oh again.

Even though the lid fits rather tightly, and even though there’s a metal loop that secures the lid even more, the raccoons managed to move the secondary metal bit, removed the lid, and have been gorging on birdseed. They also opened a large plastic bag of thistle (for the finches), which apparently exploded open as thistle now covers everything like black confetti.

Raccoons, so cute in TV commercials, a pain in the ass in real life!

©Carol Leigh

Industrial art . . .

I like the horizontal blue base, the way the weld seam leads your eye vertically, and how the round nut/bolt acts to soften the more linear elements. And then there's the texture -- yum! What is it? Detail on the side of a fishing boat. ©Carol Leigh (still on vacation)

Plane art . . .

Nothing like visiting an air museum to encourage you to take abstract (weird) shots like these. Invariably the planes are packed in close to one another, there are people all over the place, so overviews aren't possible (well, they're possible, but they tend to look like snapshots).

The Pima Air Museum in Tucson is a particularly wonderful place to shoot, which is where I took these four images. The dust adds to their patina. The bird poop doesn't, so I do my best to keep it out of the frame and get rid of the rest (at least most of it) in Photoshop.

Love the saturated colors and the overall simplicity of the shots. Ahhhhhh...

©Carol Leigh

Gridwork

As I wander around with my camera, just looking, I find I'm drawn to simple compositions that consist of squares and rectangles. This gridwork format offers a lot of compositional possibilities, from straight-on centering to incorporating other elements that sit off-center, or that fill the lower or upper third of the frame.

Here you see one of my favorite buildings in Reedsport on the Oregon coast (which, every time I visit I expect it to be torn down and gone). The second photo is a reflection I found in a skyscraper in downtown San Diego. The third is a window in Portland while on a walk with Linda H. The last shot was taken in a fabric/sewing store in Eugene, Oregon where the clerk kindly granted me permission to shoot. ©Carol Leigh

Signs of the times . . .

As you're reading this, I am on vacation! Yay! Enjoying some sun, some warm weather, and valued compatriots. No laptop with me so I shan't be posting photos to this blog until I return.

In the meantime, watch where you're going, look before you leap, and pick up your feet!

©Carol Leigh

P.S. Hello to Ginny G. and Jan H., back in my old stomping grounds in and around Nevada City, CA . . .

Cheap love . . .

I photographed part of a physical collage I made and then altered it in Photoshop, including adding a few dots here and there. I'm particularly fond of the colors. Back in college when I was tan and had a hot bod, I had a bikini in this same fluorescent pink. Yowza! ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Facing Future"

A raven faces forward, his posture echoed in the faint swirls behind him where we see, perhaps, the head of another raven ahead of him. I used all sorts of photographs to create this, including pictures of torn paper, a bit of a physical collage I made, one of my favorite shots of scratched metal that I use in a LOT of my work, letters, lines, and more. I may end up turning this into a postcard, but for now, I like how things stand. ©Carol Leigh