One Hundred Years

Pine Hill, NJ

Our neighbor Joe had this big oak tree out front of his house. He had told my husband that he wanted to bring it down but never got around to it before he died last year. His family decided that it needed to come down and so it did. As it layed on the ground waiting to be picked over by those in need of firewood, I went outside and began photographing it. This piece once I had scanned it into the computer reminded me of a clock. The years it took to grow are in the rings. One hundred years to grow and only 1 day to die.

The King of Bourbon Street

Pine Hill, NJ

The King of Bourbon Street and his entourage traveling down in colorful costumes making his presence known to all the revelers. There are other images made in this series. I decided to use these three, The King of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras and Parade Dancer, to represent my vision of Mardi Gras.

Parade Dancer

Pine Hill, NJ

When I started working on the bark abstracts I noticed that several reminded me of dancers at Mardi Gras. I saved those images to display for this week. This is number 2 in the series Mardi Gras. A masked reveler dancing in the night in New Orleans. Each tree bark of the series was photographed here on our property in Pine Hill, NJ.

MARDI GRAS

Pine Hill, NJ

This week is Mardi Gras. Bill and I have never been there. But while I was working on my bark abstract series I would every once in awhile find an image that looked like it belonged walking down a New Orleans street strutting to the sound of Dixieland. This is one of the first images. Over the next several days I will add some more.

The Blind Story Teller

Pine Hill, NJ

This abstract image taken from the bark of one of our dogwood trees. I know that I'm getting away from the city and landscapes that I've taken in the past. But I am more and more drawn to these images.

Torment in Black and White

Pine Hill, NJ

Today has been a bad day. I took a day off from work in order to spend it on the phone trying to find money for her to keep her apartment and continue her rehab. She is on Medicare and it will end in 16 days. Medicare told me that you only get 100 days for long term rehab. Her insurance AARP only gives the same 100 days. Medicare pays for the first 20 days and then AARP and medicare will cover the other 80 days together. That stops in 16 days. Medicaid will take over but all your social security and pension money goes to the facility that is caring for you with medicaid picking up the rest of the tab. They give very little money for apartments, utilities or incidentals. The family must do the rest or find a way to finance it. So today is a "Torment in Black and White". Happy Halloween.

The Flames of Hell

Pine Hill, NJ

Leaping red and yellow colors against the blackness of Hell.

The Evil Among Us

Pine Hill, NJ

Every once in awhile I work on one of the "bark tree abstracts", as I call them, and something scary or evil or just gruesome pops onto the screen. This is one of them and I call it "The Evil Among Us". We can be a cruel people as well as a kind and gentle people. Watch a reality show and you can see just how mean and cruel we are at times, even the show "Kid Nation". Last week there were these children being mean to one girl and in the process brought a very nice young man to tears, to the point he wanted to go home. Granted they were able to work the problem out. It reminded me of when I was in 6th grade and a group of us ostracisized another girl and one of our classmates came along and told us in no uncertain terms we were wrong to do what we were doing. I was embarrassed to be a part of the group and it has stayed with me all these years. For just a short time evil got in the way of otherwise nice children and made us cruel to someone else. Evil is among us and here is my version of evil personified.

Melting Jack-O-Lantern

Pine Hill, NJ

Yesterday Bill had me add his image of a carved pumpkin. Today my spooky abstract called "Melting Jack-O-Lantern".

A little over a week from today will be Halloween. Over the next few days I will be entering some of my abstracts that have a eerie feel to them. My first example is below. I did it yesterday and call it "Taking the Dead".

Taking the Dead

This image comes from a recent series of tree bark slides taken this past summer. It is the same dead dogwood tree that I made the images "Brain of Genius" and "Praying for the Debauchers". This image is very small as I cropped at just a very small portion of the slide. On the original slide I had seen a discoloration that looked like two forms holding something between them. I began to brighten and darken the image. The form on the left took hold becoming a man, he was still holding something. The second form on the right began to disappear. The sometihng being held began to look like a man his legs dangling, his left arm held away from a body being lifted by the man on the left.

Night in the Mountains

Pine Hill, NJ

I have a roll of film of trees and bark taken at our home. As I have mentioned in other abstract images, I have become fascinated with finding the abstract image with in the photograph. Several previous works have been from the same dead dogwood tree that I have here. In my first attempt I had taken the color slide and removed all the color rendering it a black and white. I then inverted it to a negative. I didn't like the result and went back to the positive. The result is "Night in the Mountains".

The Brain of Genius

Pine Hill, NJ

This is the second picture I made from the same dead dogwood tree slide I scanned into the computer. If you look carefully you can see some of the details found in "Praying for the Debauchers". I like the texture found in this version and the reddish brown colors. The brain matter has the color I associate with old weathered bones. The whole picture is surreal and abstract.

The other day I took one of my new bark slides and created two abstracts. But, I wonder if these two should be considered surreal instead. Yes, they are abstracts but the image is nearly as surreal as Dali's painting are. Of course I'll never be able to compete with a Dali. Today I'm putting my first image on "Praying for the Debauchers".

Praying for the Debauchers

In this picture I began to see party revelers out of control, having an orgy and one person at the lower left praying for the souls of the debauchers. Can you see his gray hair, long bird flowing down into his hands. He bows his head in prayer. Tomorrow I will put in the other picture from the same dead dogwood tree that I photographed.

The Cowboy

Pine Hill, NJ

It has been 12 days since I've added a photo to the blog. Two words: Work and Mom. At work we have become so short-handed that every week I work from 3 to 4 hours overtime. This coming shift I may have to work to 4AM on 2 consecutive days. The other is my mom's broken hip. I spend a lot of time running out to see her, checking on her apartment and taking care of her bills. So the blog has taken a back seat.

The other day I got a box of slides back. Most of the images have been of tree bark and dead tree branches. This image above is from a dogwood tree that died 2 years ago. We have left most of the tree standing. The birds crawl along the trunk hunting for small bugs, etc....

With much of the bark gone, I got this really neat red, yellow and black image. A man began to pop out and I see a hat. Then I began to see this cloak around the man's shoulders. At the bottom on the left could be an animal's skull that might be seen out on the plains or desert. Although the cowboy's horse in not visible, I had the feeling he was riding it, maybe on a rainy night just outside of town.

The Iridescence of Light

We just got back from lunch and I took another look at "The Iridescence of Light" and tried something new. Here are the two new versions of the picture.

NO. 2

NO. 3

I like No. 3 best. It has a more luminescent quality to it.

The Iridescence of Light

Atlantic City, NJ

As always we walked the beach at Atlantic City, NJ, taking photos of beach scenes including this string of seaweed. At home I took my photo and scanned it with our slide scanner a Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart scanner. With Ulead I began to change the contrast and brighten it. On a whim I inverted the picture and then changed one of the colors to red. Back at the brightness and contrast setting I darkened it more until the seaweed became an iridescence of light.

The Velvet Flute Player

Pine Hill, NJ

This was the bark of one of our oak trees until I turned it into "The Velvet Flute Player". The green and black colors remind of velvet.

The Capture of Our Young

Gloucester Township, NJ

I used this image this past winter. It was of a birch tree in the snow (see image 2/12/07). Today I wondered how it would look as one of my abstract bark series. I began to rework it from one of the original images I had saved on the computer. I cropped to a more square shape. Brightened it, darkened it, took all color out until I began to see black lines and white swatches. You can still see the birch, but now I began to think of three tall cigarettes. The one on the right keeps staring toward the viewer. Way below the dark ring at the top I see an eye with a dark slash of a brow. A side profile. The cigarette standing tall, challenging me. To the left is a second one here the eye is not as prominent as the one on the right but its still there. In the middle is a third one and if you look real careful a bunny trapped in its grasp. This is our young trapped and caught by cigarettes.

Thirty-four years ago I quit smoking. It was the best thing I ever did. A few days ago I watched as two teenage girls walked down the street. One had a cigarette in her hand and wondered why? It came to me that whether it was thirty years ago or yesterday, somehow society has made it seen cool to smoke.

Poodle

Pine Hill, NJ

This image is the bark and lichen at the base of an oak tree found on our property. As I played with it a lovely little poodle took shape.

Rock Star

Pine Hill, NJ

I have been so busy this week that my Thursday blog is being finished today Saturday. In July my mother fell again and broke her leg, the same one as last year and she is in the hospital unable to put weight on it for 2 more months. My days off are spent visiting her and trying to catch down time. The rest of the week finds me working a 40 hr a week job. This hasn't left much room for Bill and I to get out and enjoy the summer. So I'm a little behind on blog entries. This image came about by looking at the bark of a tree and as I worked with it I began seeing a man and a guitar with his leg out in front. I liked the name "Rock Star" and like a real rock star the red spot light captures the star as he prances and dances and sings.