by Susan Lobb Porter | Photography |
“Summer in the deep South is not only a season, a climate, it’s a dimension. Floating in it, one must be either proud or submerged.” ― Eugene Walter, The Untidy Pilgrim
Last week the weather was so HOT, so sticky sultry all consuming miserable, I could’ve been in Florida. Or Texas. Or some place sane Yankees don’t venture to in July. I know because back when Daddy was alive and my parents retired to Florida I used to have to go there every summer for his birthday. For his ‘this might be the last birthday’ guilt-trip vacation.
I’m NOT a fan of Florida. NOT. At. All. But my children have fond memories of those southern summers: beaches with holy roller baptisms and alligators all in the same day, giant grasshoppers and cute little armadillos squished into the pavement alongside the highways and back roads.
But the thing that impressed them the most was the exploding cow.
She was dead, lying in a field and puffing up in the summer heat like a bovine balloon. Until. She. Popped. I kid you not. And let’s just leave it at that, okay?
So I know something about summer. Sultry heat. Know something about what Eugene Walter means by that quote up above. And last week, in the hills of northern California, far far from the deep south, I let the heat get the best of me. Let it wring me out like an old sweaty rag and leave me shuffling through life limp and cranky.
I’d walk into the studio, look around and walk out again. Over and over and over. Couldn’t think of what to do, couldn’t get the creativity rolling when simply being worked up a sweat.
Just when it looked like my life was one big creative sputter (drumroll please) ta-da… I started another online photography class with Catherine Just, In Plain Sight.
Handsprings! Backflips! Da Muse is back in town!
The assignment: pick a topic and photograph it for 30 days. Well, you know what happened the last time…the pony series. Which is still going strong 170 something days later.
I had to pick a new subject for this class. But I was hot and cranky, remember, and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. On the first day I had to run an errand downtown and I came across this.
Shadows and Reflections #1
Susan Lobb Porter
The lines and shadows intrigued me. I thought of all the ways I could take that concept. Shadows. Paths that I walk. Lines. Convergence. The possibilites were making me crazy until I decided to let the photos lead the way.
Day two took a slightly different turn. I woke up early, around 6. The sky was yellow and heavy with smoke from a distant fire. I lay in bed thinking so much for shadows.
But I was wrong.
Shadows and Reflections # 2
Susan Lobb Porter
I caught sight of this on the wall as I went to take the dogs out. Aha! Heat, dull sky…mystery. Time to sacrifice another chicken to da muse. (Disclaimer: No chickens, except for the one that went into last night’s chicken salad, were sacrificed to the cause)
Day three dawned bright and sunny. And hot. I did say hot, right? First thing in the morning, probably between 6 or 7, I went down to feed the horses. But my shadow wouldn’t cooperate, she stayed behind me.
Shadows and Reflections #3
Susan Lobb Porter
No matter how fast I moved, how much I twisted, she was there where she wanted to be. As long as I remain in the light my shadow self will always be there.
Day four. 6 AM. Same time of day, same wall but look at the difference between this and day two.
Shadows and Reflections # 4
Susan Lobb Porter
The sun was bright, the light against the wall shifting and changing by the minute. I hurried to take a few shots before taking the dogs out. But the windows needed to be shut against the promise of the morning heat as well.
Dogs won.
Day five. Puppy potty break before bed. I never noticed it before but the lights on the patio cast two shadows. Two illusions of me connected , overlapping at the lower legs like a couple of conjoined twins.
Shadows and Reflections # 5
Susan Lobb Porter
Bean decided to come between them. Did he prefer one over the other, I wonder? Did he even know they were there? Oh man, getting way too existential here. Whatever. I think this is an interesting image.
Day six. Early morning. On my way to feed the horses. I stopped at the top of the front porch steps and thought holy crap! Visions of good stuff all around me!
Shadows and Reflections # 6
Susan Lobb Porter
Shadows. Lines. Angles. I was AWASH in creative inspiration.
Day seven. DearDaughter’s birthday. It was evening. I was in her old room, the one she painted hot pink the year she was 16. The only light came in through windows to the north and east. There wasn’t much, just enough to catch me sitting on her bed.
Twenty-six years, almost to the minute, that she was born.
Shadows and Reflections # 7
Susan Lobb Porter
And here I was twenty-six years later, sitting on her bed taking pictures of my shadow. Thinking about the time that passed. Wondering where it went. My baby’s milestones…learning to walk, learning to talk. Going to school. Graduating from Berkeley. Where she’s been. Where she’ll go. Future milestones she’s yet to define.
And then I realized those memories were like the shadows, shifting and changing over time. The only thing about them that remains consistant is the love. And that’s good enough for me.
Because no one need the daily reality of exploding cows, now, do they?
Technical info: All photos were taken using an iPhone 4s. There was a little tweaking involved in PhotoShop with some of them but not too much.
So that’s it, m’dearies. What I did on my summer vacation. Oh wait, I’m not on vacation. Okay, what I did the first week of July, the first week of In Plain Sight. There’ll be more next week. Perhaps some painting as well. So come on back and check it out.
Meanwhile, as always, if you liked this post please share it with your friends the world the whole freakin’ UNIVERSE. I’ll give you a pony if you do. Or chocolate, yes, chocolate. Which I’ll eat for you and enjoy very much.
XOXOXO Heart emoticons here because you are my best best best beloveds.
But you KNEW that, didn’t you?
Now go share this post, okay? And thanks for the chocolate.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Kids, Life |
This is not the post I thought I was going to write tonight. That one was about art. Imagine that! This being an art blog and all.
And then I saw something FirstBorn posted on FaceBook.
Himself, my handsome brave crazy-ass son, legs dangling from an amusement park ride, the sole purpose of which is to go straight up. And then…STRAIGHT DOWNNNNNNNNNNNN. As fast fast FAST as possible.
The kind of ride you do not go on immediately after lunch.
The kind of ride I do not go on EVER. Ever ever ever NEVER.
The kind of ride my adrenalin junkie son has loved since he was tall enough for The. Sign.
I looked at the photo and saw his legs hanging down. Yep, I’d recognize them anywhere. Then I saw a pair of legs next to his. Teeny tiny little legs that didn’t hang down so much as stuck out. And I realized holy effing crap! That’s my GRANDAUGHTER on the ride with him. My too-young-for-kindergarden-for-at-least-another-year granddaughter.
Who apparently has her Daddy’s gravity defying fearlessness. Because she likes it so much they went back the next weekend and rode it at least 10 more times.
Are you dizzy yet?
There’s a piece of me, the grandma part, that screams nooooooooooooo! It’s dangerous. Someone could get hurt. She should stick to the Merry-Go-Round. Or better yet, stay home and color. Something safe.
But there’s another piece of me, another grandma part, that is jumping up and down whistling and clapping and doing hand springs and back flips because I’m thrilled, positively absolutely thrilled that this girl-child is being allowed, encouraged, to be FEARLESS.
It’s easy to raise a fearful child. Just tell them they’re too young, too small, not ready yet. Tell them they can do something later, when they’re older. I was raised that way. I was the youngest, the baby of the family. Never able to do what the big kids did because, well, they were bigger. Older. More capable.
And so I grew up never believing I was ready for anything. Other people published novels, wrote the screenplay, started the company. Other people who were more…grown up.
I’m finally figuring out how wrong that inner programming was. Finally. And it’s about time.
Does this mean there’s a totally insanely scary amusement park ride in my future? Hell no. But I will gladly wave to my granddaughter from down below. Will take photographs and blow kisses and never, ever let her know that it scares the shit out of me.
I will never hold her back from being fearless.
And I WILL finish that novel. Count on it.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Life |
This week I went waaaay beyond my creative comfort zone. To the place that has rulz.
Rulz? Really??? Mwahahahahaha…YES!!!
I kid you not!
I stayed within the lines. Gasp! Did not drip on the floor. Ohhhhhhhh… No Springsteen, no air guitar, no jumping around with fully charged brush in my hands. WHAT??? And no scribbling. Oh nooooo, say it ain’t sooooo!!!
I was BORED out of my ever lovin’ mind. It was torture. Every minute of it was nothing less than fingernails on the chalkboard painful. It was the ultimate stick-a-fork-in-the–eye experience.
But…and this is a BIG but, a HUGE but…the walls of my bedroom are now painted. YAY!!! They’re clean. And fresh. And some flavor of khaki. Yes, I think you could call it khaki. Sort of.
Even tho the photo looks yellow. Trust me, it’s a more earthy color with a slight gray note. Khaki. Definitely.
Which brings me to my next point…picking the color was whack me upside the head crazy making H.A.R.D. After hours of swatches and samples and indecisive color wheel impotence, I took three paint chips up to the counter and asked the kid behind the register which one he liked best. He looked at them for–oh hell, I don’t think he even looked at them at all, he just pointed to one.
And I said great, I’ll take a couple gallons of that. Even tho it was my LEAST FAVORITE of the three. I took his advice because I went to art school and I can’t pick WALL paint to save my ass.
And I like it just fine. Because now it’s all done I can crank up the music, bounce around the studio and and go back to painting like this.
And make things like this.
Ahhhh…. And I know the perfect wall to hang this on, until the next show, that is.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Blogging, Everyday Ordinary |
Oh. My. Goodness! Where did this week’s post go? Where???
It went…AWAY. Poof! Just. Like. That. To the interwebs away place, wherever that may be.
I didn’t discover it was missing until this morning. I thought maybe it was just a crappy post and you, my best beloveds, were insulted that I put it out there. Insulted enough not to comment here or like on FaceBook.
Just one of those things, y’know. I’m a big girl, I can take rejection.
But after two days of cyber silence this little worm of an idea began squirming around inside my head (under my hair, the place where magic happens). The little worm said, ummm…did you hit publish?
What a silly question! I’ve been blogging almost two years now. I know ALL about the Publish button. The Save Draft button. The Move to Trash button.
Uh-oh…
And now I know all about the Publish in a Parallel Universe button.
Yes, Parallel Universe. You have to trust me on this. It would also help if you were a theoretical mathematician and/or physicist. But mind-altering drugs, drinking too much and listening to this episode of Science Friday will get you there too. ‘There’ being parallel-land where parallel-you is reading the original post and snorting your coffee out your nose because it’s so damn good. The post, not your coffee. Although I hope the parallel-you indulges in decent coffee too.
And of course parallel-you leaves pithy comments and shares Arty-Life around the parallel-interwebs.
Just like you do here, right?
Okay, are you sufficiently confused yet? Good. Then I guess it’s time to climb off the dog ate my homework wagon and share a little ART with you now.
Bottom of the Bowl # 1
Susan Lobb Porter
This, my best beloveds, is the beginning of a new photo/digital series I’m calling The Bottom of the Bowl. I realized one morning that the marks left on the bottom of the bowl of yoghurt were akin to the marks I leave on canvas. Imagine that! The original photo was all white and boring but then again, so’s a blank canvas. Right? But thanks to cyber-fairies and technology ART can happen even from dirty dishes.
Stay tuned for more. And please, tell me what the parallel-you would think of this. I’d really like to know.
xoxo
