Something Borrowed

blue crowns in the shadows

up in the trees, blue is everywhere

Birch curls

neat and tidy

a collage



window and wood

in memory

I went away for a week and spent most of the time in the woods of western Massachusetts. I haven't been camping since I was a teenager. The new theme of blue has me thinking about memory and it seems like woods are full of memory. Especially woods like these and especially in the fall. Tombstones beneath the trees by the river. The wind in the trees. Houses left to fall apart in a meadow. Empty wasp nests. Owls hooting at night above our campsite. Stone lambs on the graves of children. The sound of geese flying south for the winter. Broken bottles we recover and try to suss out what went in them and who drank from them? Where are they now? A shaker community abandoned and resurrected. Crockery refilled and wooden floors swept with ancient brooms.

At our last meeting I was amazed at the number of us looking back for our inspiration for the Blue theme. Upon reading a description of blue in a book on color, this made sense. "Blue tends to recede in a picture relative to other colors. Blue tends to withdraw while other hues advance." I'm still trying to work out what form my piece will take. What is it about memory I am trying to capture? While we were in the area we went to Mass MoCA and I really fell in love with the photography of Disfarmer and how much his photographs evoke memory. It's been awhile since I worked with photography but I've been thinking about going back to it for this project and producing a series of portraits. At the very least tying photography in to a larger piece.