shadows of squares -8

wandering through an alley’s shadows and light…

The magic of photo walks undertaken with an intention to be open to the silent, “see me.”

The desire of seeing and escaping from preconceived labeling and private musings.

Wakens one from blinding concepts of the mundane to the uniqueness created by light and shadow.

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shadows of squares -6

The Art of the Egg or the Egg and I

“It occurred to me that I have done an awful lot of egg drawings and paintings. Not quite sure why. It is a subject I use in my drawing classes quite frequently and I tell my students that if they can draw an egg, they can draw anything. It is like a little creature, a tiny model – and symbolic of so much: new life, fertility, possibilities … It is the perfect shape to to practice tone and get the 3-D effect. Some love this exercise; some will never look at an egg again!”*

*Catherine Wells,
Director, Pointe-St-Charles Art School

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shadows of squares -5

In Adelbert von Chamisso’s, Peter Schlemihl, Peter the title character of the 1814 novella, sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet, only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human societies. Later when the devil wants to return his shadow to him in exchange for his soul, Schlemihl rejects the proposal and throws away the wallet. After this he seeks refuge in nature and travels around the world in scientific exploration, with the aid of seven-league boots.*

Schlemihl finds reconciliation with others as they care for him during a long illness and he no longer searches for his shadow. After he recovers, he returns to his scientific studies and in time develops a deep harmony with both nature and his personal self.

*Seven-league boots are an element in European folklore. The boots allow the person wearing them to take strides of seven leagues per step, resulting in great speed. The boots are often presented by a magical character to the protagonist to aid in the completion of a significant task.

Asked which book by another author he would most like to claim as his own work, Italo Calvino once said without hesitation, Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemiel. First published in 1814, this brilliant novel is not only a precursor of Poe, Kafka, and the magic realists – it is a timeless fable with a remarkably contemporary flavor.

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shadows of squares -4

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” ~Carl Jung*

*Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychologist, and psychotherapist who founded Analytical Psychology.

shadows of squares -3

light and shadow…ongoing movements … playfully evolving … never ending … story-ing nature’s transitions of … light touching objects … creating shadows … forming … redefining … altering … narrating reconciliations of opposites.

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lens-artist: ephemeral

She with a cup of coffee, embraced within her chilled palms, both blanketed by the first light’s silence … her eyes looking, not seeing the eastern horizon’s slow transition from darkness to light. Suddenly, the sky’s canvas painted by the dance of the sun’s rays and clouds broke through her internal musings, “Wait, wait, please don’t move,” she pleaded as she began a search for her camera and trying so desperately, once again, to win her battle with … the moment by moment changes within life, the ephemeral nature of all that is…

across a concealed blue sky

aimless shifting stories...

gathering and dispersing – obscure particles

painting stories … anew,

moment by moment

Thank you Tina for the week’s lens-artist challenge: Ephemeral

saturday morning with joanne harris

“She’s growing up, I tell myself.”

becoming…Nikon D750 f/2.5 1/1000s 35mm 800 ISO multiple exposure, 3*

” Receding, dwindling like a child glimpsed in a hall of mirrors – Anouk at nine, still more sunshine than shadow. Anouk at seven, Anouk at six, waddling duck-footed in her yellow wellingtons, Anouk with Pantoufle bouncing blurrily behind her, Anouk with a plume of candy floss in one small pink fist – all gone now, of course, slipping away and into line behind the ranks of future Anouks. …Marching faster and faster towards a new horizon –“**

*becoming first included in July 31, 2019 post, Dreaming Dreams.

**Joanne Harris. Lollipop Shoes, p.33.