"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."

According to Oscar Wilde, "It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information," and, with that in mind, my blog post today is designed to right that wrong, and to provide you, dear reader, with what might be some useless information, as I may have done in some of my previous posts, in the guise of having you think you could apply it to your own endeavors. For example, both this past April 2011 and December 2010, in blog entries which you may refer to by clicking here and here respectively, I shared with you some thoughts and images on how I enhanced my indoor succulent garden.

This little garden, as you may recall, is a little  garden which "rests" on humidity trays that have been placed a-top of an old (two-hundred plus years) armoire that I have under a cold/warm lighting system in my kitchenette. I maintain this succulent garden with great care as I do with my outdoor terrace garden.In any event, upon reflection of the aforementioned April 2011 and December 2010 blog posts, I wonder, what made me think that my ideas for enhancing my succulent garden would spur you on, dear reader, to add trinkets to your succulent garden? Do I have any real business in presuming what you may or may not want to do with your gardening projects? What makes me an authority in the area of indoor succulent gardens, other than the fact that I like them, and that I am wise enough to know that if I like something, there are others that like it too, and that I also realize that if I appreciate the sharing of ideas, others most likely do as well? 



Having clarified this point brings me to the first two photographs posted at  top of today's blog entry, which are views of my indoor succulent garden with a fairly new trinket arrival — a miniature sculpture of a bathing beauty in a 1920's style bathing suit — shown at two different vantage points in my succulent garden. It is a nice trinket to have, and to use to decorate my terrace garden during a non-traditional holiday time, and so I share this admittedly non-prolific and possibly  "useless piece of information" with you, dear reader, in case you find yourself in the position of wondering what to do if you have an indoor miniature garden and are fond of decorating it — but cannot find any useful information on the subject.




This unusual trinket was purchased (and I assume that all beach towns have gift shops that sell unique trinkets) and given to me by a dear friend, who contributed a photograph for one of my blog posts this past winter, that you may refer to by clicking here. Like yours truly, my friend's husband also maintains a succulent garden, and when I was with her in the beach gift shop and saw this unique figurine/trinket, I pointed out to her that he might enjoy a figurine for his project — an endeavor that I wrote about earlier this year (you may refer to this by clicking here) —  and she ultimately bought it for me as an early birthday gift.




However, while it is a blessing for me to have such a wonderful and thoughtful friend, and while my succulents are enjoying the new figurine, what use is this information to you, my dear reader? Hopefully, it will not only inspire you with your own endeavors, but it will also cause you to reflect on friendships which are meaningful to you. Meanwhile, fear not, if you are only looking for concrete-useful style information: Beach towns with boardwalks, although they often have an array of shops, also have signs that direct beach-goers with 'useful information' as indicated in the photograph posted below.

Then again, in keeping with my intent to right the wrong described in Oscar Wilde's quote about there being "so little useless information" — an intent laid out at the onset of this post with a "promise" to provide useless information, did you know, dear reader, that today, July the 15th, is Cow Appreciation Day? Well, at least according to Holiday Insights, today's the day, (source information found here), and, if I were a better marketer, I would have directed you, dear reader, to this fact, in an effort to "steer" you towards my photographic print Cow With Children, which can be viewed along with my other original photographic prints via the extensive print collection pages of my web-site, Patricia Youngquist Photo-Art where purchase information is available.

My photographic print, Cow With Children, has also been rendered into an impressionistic, all occasion greeting card, which can be viewed via the unique store-front pages, of my web-site, Patricia Youngquist Photo-Art, where purchase information is available. 




The image, Cow With Children, may look familiar to you, dear reader, as I featured it in a post (you may refer to this by clicking here), about a prominent cheese-maker couple who run Bobloink Dairy. The owners surely appreciate cows and the dairy products made possible by these animals, as well as the endearing role cows play with autistic children; however, I am not certain if the fact that today is Cow Appreciation Day has crossed their minds, for they are busy with their lives, bringing to my mind, another Oscar Wilde quote, "Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event." This quote causes me to think that Oscar Wilde himself, while lamenting the fact that he could no longer find very much useless information in his day (evident by his quote about information which provided the title for today's blog entry), need only have looked to a calendar to provide him with that apparent loss — since there were no blogs at that time to give him the much needed useless information which he craved. (-;




With that thought, dear reader, I will leave you with two more Oscar Wilde quotes, because, even though he was born 99 years and 2 months before yours truly was, and he died at the beginning of the twentieth century, the same year my grandmother was born, his quotes are still prolific today; and without further ado, even though I set out to provide you with useless information, I have broken my promise by ending with the following inspiring and useful quotes from Oscar Wilde.

"I am not young enough to know everything"

AND

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning,

and took out a comma.

In the afternoon I put it back again."

"Cows, Bread and Autism", Bobolink's Answer To What's Cheese got to do with it?

Last Saturday, June 18th 2011, I left you dear reader, with photographs of mouth-watering cheeses, (known as Drumm and Very Special Cave-Aged Cheddar respectively), and a promise to tell you a little bit about them as well as discuss the folks that make them in today's post. So, without further ado:

I have always liked cows and goats, but having had severe allergies since childhood has caused me to admire them from afar. However, once upon a time, after being given allergy shots, I was able to get close enough to some grazing cows and photograph them, and one of the resulting images was my photographic print, Cow with Children, as seen in the first image at the top of today's blog post. This image has also been rendered into a greeting card and both are available for purchase via my web-site, Patricia Youngquist Photo-Art (patriciayoungquist.com.). For specific information on the photographic print, please click here, and for information on the note-card, please click here.

Fortunately, my allergies stop with where these animals graze, and I am able to indulge in the cheeses they produce. "You have a friend in Cheeses," (a play on words of the old time hymn, What a Friend we Have in Jesus), is a "slogan" on "base-ball-style-caps and T-Shirts that a cheese shop in the West Village of New York city sells, and today's blog post explores, a "friendship" related to cheeses which has evidently given Jacob ("Jake") White a lease on life. (More on this later.) Jake is the son of Nina and Jonathan White, who are cheese makers at Bobolink Dairy, a business that now includes rustic bread baking, and a business that they have named for the spirited bobolink song bird whose image is imprinted on the labels they use when wrapping cheeses (this can be seen in the photograph posted below) that they sell at a Greenmarket that serves Tucker Square in the Upper West Side of New York City (where I live) on Thursdays and Saturdays.

The Whites also sell their delicious products at other greenmarkets in New York City, and New Jersey (where their farm is located), as well as via their web-site, cowsoutside.com ,but it is the Tucker Square location, where I first met Nina White, pictured in the photograph posted below, where she can be seen holding a sign that usually is propped up on a table where she sells the yummy cheeses and breads.

The cheeses are seasonal, and the ones being offered at this time of year are Drumm, Very Special Caved Aged Cheddar (again both of those were pictured in last Saturday's blog entry, the other two being offered as of today's posting are Armram and Tower of Bobol as noted on the left-hand side of Ms. White's sign and pictured below respectively.

On the right-hand side of the sign, the Whites give a shout out to local growers whose ingredients they use in their bread. Local is right. Some of the growers that are mentioned also sell their products at Tucker Square. This year round  outdoor market is "the gateway to the Upper West Side" and, as per their web-site, I can attest to their fine offering of "seasonal vegetables" that "range from fresh staples to certified organic and Mexican specialties". The orchards represented at the Tucker Square Greenmarket, "boast sweet berries, stone fruit and over eighty varieties of apples." On many occasions, there are cooking demonstrations which offer unusual recipes and tastings, hence, this market is a great haven. And, like the folks who give the cooking demonstrations, Bobolink Dairy is very gracious in giving tastes of their unusual, distinctive cheeses, as well as making recommendations on what other foods would go best with the cheese of one's choice.

A unique thing about Bobolink is that not only do they offer tours of their farm, but they have internship programs which from what I've heard (straight from the mouth of an intern who moved from Oregon to the east coast to intern with the Whites) are empowering. The Whites are no strangers to the relationship between cows, cheese-making and baking, and empowerment, for these things have had a profound effect on their son Jake. As I mentioned earlier, they have given him a "new lease on life" — and a much needed one at that, for Jake, the eighteen year old son of the Whites, is autistic. I understand that "while he is quite intelligent, he has very limited speech capability, equivalent to a typical three year old." and that he is "very outgoing in matters that engage him" which apparently are "cows and baking". 

Their web-site states that "Jake seems to have a particular affinity with cows, and cows seem to respond well to him." As I read this, I thought about my image, Cow with Children (mentioned earlier in this post), an image that was created long before I had heard about Nina and Jonathan White, or tasted cheeses from their farm, Bobolink Dairy, and I thought about the unconditional love between cows and children, an observation not lost on the Whites, who also  indicate on their web-site that, in terms of Jake, the love from child-towards-cow is reciprocal: "hey they {the cows} don't even know that he has a speech handicap". 

Jake's passion for "kneading, baking, and most importantly eating baked goods" is the impetus for the Whites' recent move to a new farm. They write, "We hope to make a bright future for Jacob. In {our} extensive collection of old dairy and farm books, there are many photos of people working on farms and in cheese factories, who appear to have one learning disability or another."

The Whites take this one step further saying, "one photo that particularly comes to mind is of a young man in perhaps the 1950s, with biceps like Popeye's, operating a manual cheese press. His bright eyed, proud and smiling face belies the markers of Down's Syndrome, although their is no mention of it in the text. This young man had a good job and was proud of it. Nowadays, a Down kid or someone like Jacob is more likely to have a job putting parts in a bag on an assembly line. Agriculture and food production, in simpler times, had more room for people with disabilities. As modernity has taken its toll of the quality and flavor-fulness of food, it has also eroded the opportunities for those of us who are different."

"So, wish us well as we set out to set it right", the Whites ask. And so, with this post, I do wish the Whites well in their endeavor, for as you know dear, reader, I suffer from Neurofibromatosis Type-One as well as Legal Blindness, and  have written about this in posts which you may refer to by clicking here and here as well as here.I am painfully aware of attitudes towards disability — a word I would like to see changed to challenge. Physical challenged as opposed to disabled. Disabled is what they call stalled cars as well as stalled tractors, trucks, busses and trailers. "Disable it", is what techies and geeks tell you to do with a program in your computer when it is not functioning properly.

M y afflictions are mild compared to many folks, including some whom I knew personally including, Colleen Ormond, who died in November of 2010 from complications of her hydrocephalic condition, and my dear friend KM, who died last week after a long battle with near blindness and multiple sclerosis. (You may recall that I mentioned KM in a couple of posts this past May that you may refer to by clicking here and here (when I wrote about one of her sister's passing and now she too has passed away).

The Whites, in their unique attempt to give their son an opportunity to be the best that he can be, remind me of the mother of the dearly departed Jennifer Mahoney (who was born with Spina Bifida, and who died in an accident with her wheel chair, a fact that you may recall, dear reader, because not only was Jennifer an inspiration for my photographic work that was acknowledged by the American Printing House for the Blind, but she is someone that I have written about in a blog post which I referred to in a blog post that you can access here),  Mahoney's mother, as you may recall, spoke to me at her daughter's funeral and of her keen desire to let Jennifer live the fullest life possible, saying "I always knew that I was on borrowed time with Jennifer." 

And so as I conclude today's post, I hope you will indulge me in re-posting the image of Jennifer, 

who embraced life, but realized attitudes were the disability, and did not hesitate to voice her position, leaving a legacy at Hunter College where she was receiving her education before her untimely death. Now, perhaps, Jacob ("Jake") White —even with limited speech — will be able to leave a legacy through his work on the Bobolink Farm, which not only produces great cheeses and amazing breads to feed the body, but provides opportunities to nourish the soul and confidence of the physically and mentally challenged.

    

Happy Cinco de Mayo from the Physocarpus opulifolius (Coppertina) to you

Allow me to introduce myself on this day known as Cinco de Mayo, a name I like pronouncing instead of saying May 5th. In any event, my name is Physocarpus opulifolius, however, you can call me Coppertina — just don't call me Coppertone. I am so over those suntan lotion jokes when it comes to my name. In any event, I am posting an entry to this blog from where I usually stand, in the extreme northwest corner of the urban terrace garden belonging to Patricia Youngquist, who normally writes the blog that you now are reading, which she calls The Last Leaf Gardener. With all her focus lately on her Paeonia suffruiticosa (Tree Peony) and her Tulipa (Tulips) in her blog entries these past few days. I am ready to rename the blog, The Last Straw Gardener, if she doesn't write about me! Did you know that since this past April she wrote about the tulips six, yes six times? Count them:

ONE: May 4th 2011

TWO: May 1st 2011

THREE: April 30th 2011

FOUR: April 29th 2011

FIVE: ;April 27th 2011

SIX: April 26th 2011

Well, actually it's five times, because one of the tulips took it upon himself to post his opinion (the April 27th post) about a Sylvia Plath poem where he bemoaned her reference to tulips. How ungrateful! No poet ever wrote about a Physocarpus opulifolius. I mean the tulips are fairly newcomers to The Last Leaf Gardener's garden, and I have been here for nearly one year, and I don't recall her ever writing a post about me! But the tulips? All those posts about them occurred in less than one month! I guess I should be used to flowers getting attention by now. After all, last year, my gardener (aka your blogger) posted about her Paeona suffruiticosa (Tree Peony) six times in six weeks, and remember, she was only posting once a week in those days, so the Paeonia suffruiticosa got all the“press”last year!

ONE: May 29th 2010

TWO: May 22nd 2010

THREE: April 24th 2010

FOUR: April 23th 2010

FIVE: April 17th 2010

SIX: April 10th 2010

Do you realize, dear reader, that your blogger even featured her Paeonia suffruiticosa in the back page of her downloadable brochure? This brochure, as you may know, are where The Last Leaf Gardener“show–cases”some of her selections of her line of invitations that preserve a moment in time, event program covers that enhance any occasion, and greeting cards that are about more than communication, which she sells on her web–site. These creations are mostly based on images of things that she grows in her garden, but so far I've not made the cut. So, if you'd like some images of me, I highly recommend that you contact my gardener (a.k.a. your blogger) and suggest that she render some photos of me into her unique collection of correspondence materials, or even a fine print. Additionally, The Last Leaf Gardener has already posted about the Paeonia suffruiticosa four times this year, and she only re–opened her garden the week of April 13th, so it has not even been a month and the peony already has four posts!

ONE: May 3rd 2011

TWO:May 1st 2011

THREE: April 16th 2011

FOUR: April 13th 2011

What about featuring me? After all, with my coppery–orange foliage, I provide a beautiful contrast (if I do say so myself) to the H.F. Young Clematiswhose leaves you can see to my left in the photograph posted above this blog entry, and if you look closely, you might even see the many, many buds that are about to burst into gorgeous purple flowers, which of course, The Last Leaf Gardener blogged about last year without mentioning my name.

I guess I shouldn't take it so personally, after all The Last Leaf Gardener hasn't posted much (if anything) about the little guy to my right (in the photograph at the top of this blog entry), who goes by the name Acer shirasawanum (Autumn Moon) and whom I've nicknamed Limey because of his leaves.

BTW, that purple color that you see in front of his container is basil and it smells SO good. And speaking of containers, I can't feel left out when it comes to where she houses me. I have pretty nice digs, eh? Actually I just got them earlier this week when Juan V did some repotting, and I love 'em! I used to be in terra–cotta, and that's nice too, but my rim cracked (at the end of my growing season last year) while I was being moved out of the corner by Juan V and Patricia, which they did because they wanted to protect me from the harsh winter elements.

I was safely wrapped — like everything else in this garden — for the winter by The Last Leaf Gardener and Juan V before this past winter's onset as you may know from the blog entry discussing urban garden winterizing. Since I'm not on Facebook (yet), you can check out my photos, both in my former terra–cotta home and also what I looked like in my winer gear when I was just before I was unwrapped for the spring.

However, since I'm in a New York terrace garden, I'm really lovin' my new“Viducci”home, especially since my garden comrades already have Viduccis! The Autumn Clematis (which is on a diagonal from me so I get to stare at it) got its Viducci two years ago, while the Actinida kolomikta and Actimida (Kiwi Vine) got their Viducci last spring, and the Continus Coggygria (Smokey Bush, Grace) got her Viducci last fall. These can all be seen in the photographs posted below which were taken this past autumn.

FYI, the Autumn Clematis is going to be featured with the Actinida lolomikta and Actimida (Kiwi Vine) in a YouTube movie about the life in an urban garden from the Kiwi's point of view, as mentioned in a previous post.

And an image of the Continus Coggygria (Smokey Bush, Grace) has been rendered into a greeting card that is not only available through the store–front but it has been featured in The Last Leaf Gardener's On-Line Brochure in the section featuring single-sided cards, and Continus Coggygria (Smokey Bush, Grace)has been the subject of a number of posts including this one, this one, and this one.

Hopefully, I'll“join the ranks”and be featured in The Last Leaf Gardener's line of invitations, event program covers, greeting cards, or movies, but for now, dear reader, thanks for hearing me out. I guess my new container has given me the confidence to boast and post on my own behalf. It's black color is pretty elegant, don't you think? (You probably have heard how New Yorkers love the color black, and I gotta say, as a Coppertina who has seen it all, so do I.)

And, before I leave you, let me wish you, once again, a Happy Cinco de Mayo, a great excuse I've heard for having a Margarita. My gardener had this to say about a grapefruit/cilantro variety that is pictured below (and available down the block from where she lives):

“What EVEN Jimmy Buffet (when he was wasted again in Margaritaville) may not have known is, while having“booze in the blender,”may render a“frozen concoction”that helped him“hang on,”having a Grapefruit (yes, I said grapefruit) Margarita at Santa Fe (a restaurant service southwestern cuisine in the Upper West Side of New York City, just off Columbus Avenue on 71st Street), you will be doing more for yourself than just 'hangin on.' This is without a doubt the best margarity in New York, and deserving of a nod from The Daily News' Best of New York. The grapefruit Margarita (pictured above) is refreshing, with just the right potency, and it was“designed by bartender extraordinaire, Alex (pictured below) . . .

. . . who gives all the credit to a bar he came upon by chance by traveling to Pennsylvania of all places. What makes it better than the booze-in–the–blender Margaritas? Well, first of all, no blender — just wonderful ingredients that include fresh white grapefruit, agave, guava nectar, fresh lime juice, cilantro infused tequila and of curse the mixology skills and secrets of Ales. The grapefruit margarita can be had at Santa Fe, located at 73 West 71st Street, a fun bar and superb restaurant serving southwestern cuisine. Open Sun–Thurs from 11:30AM–11:00PM and Fri–Sat from 11:30AM–12:00AM. Credit Cards accepted. 212.724.0822.”

Now dear reader, I'm signing off, but do feel free to put in a good word for me, the Coppertina, when you next contact The Last Leaf Gardener, and do enjoy your Cinco de Mayo, whether you are puttering in your garden, toasting with a Margarita, or just going about your day.

Perspectives on the Arrival of Spring

It has been nearly a week since the "official" onset of spring, but, in New York, the bitter cold temperatures would not indicate that we were having a spring at all.  Last year, on the first "official" day of spring, it was quite warm, and I wrote in a blog entry that "nothing was better at being the first harbinger of spring than the purple flowers poking out of the Chives plant which I have in my urban terrace garden", and I described how the Chive plant provided inspiration for a single-sided card that I designed. It can be viewed in the store-front pages of my web-site (where purchase information is also available). Today, as I reflect on this card and the chives that inspired it, I confess that agree with Chris who has "marked" it as an Easter or Passover card in those store-front pages, and I truly believe it might be a good selection (though very non-tradional) for an Easter or Passover card (both holidays are coming up next month) because, like those holidays, chives can be seen as a symbol of resurrection and renewal.
It is somewhat odd that I have come to this conclusion, at a time when resurrection and renewal do not seem close at hand given the long winter and the tumultuous state of the world; but history tells us that there will be a springtime, and springtime is a theme that I've used in my black and white photography (both in my collection of impressionistic note-cards and in my original prints like Springtime in the Greenhouse, which can be seen at the top of this post).

But signs of spring are not limited to first flowers, first buds, or nuances in a greenhouse; signs of spring are not even limited to temperatures; signs of spring often appear in subtle ways such as the arrival of spring as seen by E.B. White in an article he wrote fifty-eight years ago, March 27, 1953.


"SPRING ALWAYS USED TO ARRIVE in midtown in the window boxes of Helen Gould Shepard house. Something about the brightness and suddenness of that hyacinthine moment said Spring, something about its central location, too. The other day we passed the Gould House and shed a private tear for olden springtimes. Spring struggles into Manhattan by other routes these days; Rockefeller Center has pretty much taken the occasion over. Rockefeller's is different from Helen Gould's. Less homey. More like Christmas at Lord & Taylor's — beautiful but contrived. One never knows where one will encounter the first shiver and shine of spring in the city. Often it is not in a flowering plant at all, merely in a certain quality of light as it strikes the walls. We met ours quite a while back, late one afternoon in February, driving south through the Park; in an instant the light had lengthened and strengthened and bounced from the towers into our systems, hitting us as a dram of tonic reaching the stomach, and, lo, it was spring."


After reflecting on E. B. White's observations, what, I ask, dear reader, is to tell me, what's your first sign of the arrival of spring?

. . . there is always edit/undo and control (or command) "Z"

As I have stated many a time, designing cards that are about more than communication, invitations that preserve a moment in time, and event program covers that enhance an occasion, has led me to information about many traditional and non-traditional holidays. In several of these cases there are silicone bracelets to go along with such events, and, if you can't find the bracelet that suits your needs, the made-to-order possibilities are at your disposal — courtesy of the Internet — as evidenced by a photograph posted above of the silicone bracelet honoring Don't cry over spilled milk day, (a day associated with optimism) which incidentally was yesterday, February the Eleventh.
For this occasion, many folks indulge in dairy products and so they like my black and white card known as Cow With Children, based on a photograph that can seen via the Black and White Gallery (Photo #2) of my web-site where purchase information is available). This card is posted below to honor this day of optimism. 

It can be found in my on-line brochure as well as the storefront pages of my web-site where purchase information is available. Other folks chose to honor this day by sending a card that includes another dairy product — yogurt —as seen in the image posted below known as Early A.M.

My Black and White card, Early A.M. is also based on an original print (#30) which can be found in the Black and White Gallery pages of my web-site. As for the card, it can be viewed via my on-line brochure or in the storefront pages of my web-site.


If you missed Don't cry over spilled milk day, there's no need to cry over that; rather, revel in the idea that every day represents a holiday of some sort and an excuse (if you need one) to have a soirée or send a card. Besides, if you are a MAC user, when it comes to editing your artwork or prose, there is little reason to cry-over-the-spilled-milk of hitting the wrong key on the keyboard because there's always Edit/Undo and Command (or Control) Z for that — ah if that were only true in 'real-life' . . . 

National Coffee Break Day

Drinking a cup of strong Venezuelan coffee (that I make a from a blend purchased at Sensuous Bean) in my apartment, and listening to 1010 WINS (a New York radio station) to find out the upshot of the traffic and transit report before heading to work is my morning ritual; and, doing it this morning, I learned that  today is National Coffee Break Day. This information prompted me to share my black and white photograph, Federal Café (posted above), on this morning's post. Federal Café, is not my only café-themed photograph. My image, At the Café, also pays tribute to reflective times that cafés offer, when one takes the time to truly take a "coffee-break" — a break without texting or tweeting or checking phone messages or journal or blog writing or making lists or  making phone calls.

Making the time to do nothing and allowing the mind to empty is the ultimate coffee break; it recharges the mind's batteries and refreshes the soul. Hopefully, I've conveyed this in these two photographs, which can be viewed with others on my web-site, where they also may be purchased. Additionally, the second photograph, At the Café, has been rendered into an all occasion note-card which can be found in the store-front  pages of my web-site.

Thoughts on the Creators of Photo-Albums

If you have been following this blog, you know that I create, produce and sell greeting cards for all occasions that are about more than communication. (Reminder: these can be viewed with my selection of invitations that preserve a moment in time and my event program covers that enhance an occasion via my downloadable paper-brochure .) Many of these works are based on my original prints and all of these items can be viewed on my web-site where purchase information is available. Perhaps my inclination to  design cards comes from my mother, who for the first nine years of my life designed our family's Christmas cards beginning with the one of yours truly posted above this entry.

These are the cards she designed are as follows:

Then again, the idea of my card making inclination coming from my mother stops there; and perhaps this is because the last card she designed was the only card that shows our entire family. It is posted below this paragraph. We are all seated on our front porch, the front porch my father constructed when he built our house (that we ultimately lost when our family came apart), the house which my grandfather, who was an electrician wired; and, we are looking quite like the family living the American dream, which could not have been further from the truth; and my father moved away soon after that Christmas card photo was taken, which resulted in my mother 's proclaiming (for years to come) how much she hated Christmas, and for years to come she did not send, much less design, cards.

In some respects these cards are more her memories than mine, as are the scrapbooks she made to preserve memories of our family life. For with the exception of the photograph above, which she asked someone to take of us, she was the photographer that documented our lives —obviously from her perspective — even though she proclaimed what she saw through the view-finder of her plastic camera, the Kodak Instamatic,was what we were thinking and feeling.

Perhaps this is why I do not like to have my photograph taken: I don't want people to tell me how I was feeling when they took my picture as evidenced by the shot they captured. For this reason I don't often take photographs of people — although I certainly have (and you can find them in the Black and White Photograph section of my web-site) taken a few and often at the request of the 'subject'.

Still, I am wondering about people like my mother who take pictures of others and insist on the interpretation of their "subject's" feelings. There is an observation in an essay, On keeping A Notebook, by Joan Didion which is this: "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant re-arrangers of things . . .," and I am now wondering aloud if the same might be said about keepers of scrapbooks and photo albums. I can certainly understand how my mother wanted to re-arrange our lives, given the sadness brought on by my father leaving and perhaps some emptiness before that event occurred. Did she make scrapbooks to remember or to forget? 

For me, years later, looking through these photographs on a Christmas Day, I find they still spark what I was actually feeling on a given occasion in spite of any facial expression I may have in the actual picture. No camera trick or photograph rendition will remove those feelings from my memory, but the photographs do define time into increments that might be lost in one big film dissolve. In another essay, Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion has described an event as"six months (turning) into eight years with the deceptive ease of a film dissolve . . . a long sequence of sentimental dissolves . . . "

The photo at the top of this post to the photo at the bottom of this post represent six months turning into nine years in a long sequence of sentimental dissolves that I am thankful were documented for whatever the reason.

Celebrating Texture

Since last Saturday's posting of honoring the days of November and beyond, I've been reminded that November is the month of remembrance that began with All Saints Day on November first. This feast day is followed by the solemn celebration of All Souls' Day on November second, and for the remaining days of November, special homages are made for all who have died. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," is a consolation of November. With it getting dark earlier due to going back to "standard" time, and the apparent focus on the dead, it is good to recall that November is a textured month, and so while people honor the dead during this time, it is also a month very much intended to remember the living.

In New York City, one of the celebrations that exemplifies this is held on the first Sunday (tomorrow) of the month, when runners from all around the world come to run the New York City Marathon. This year 43,000 are expected to partake, including Edison Peña, the twelfth miner to be rescued after spending sixty-nine days trapped in a mine that had collapsed in San Jose Chili. From what I understand, Peña has said that when he was trapped in the mine, waiting to be rescued, he ran six miles a day — with a heavy object — to show God how much he wanted to stay alive, certainly a tribute to remembering the living.  I also understand that Peña ran with an i-Pod listening to Elvis Presley tunes. Peña seems far from being some one who was "all shook up" ! 

I look forward to hearing how Peña fares in the Marathon, but, confess that I will hibernate at home and have my own marathon (with the various projects that have been piling up on my desk), until the New York City one is completed. Since the finish-line is in my neighborhood, the throngs of people who come to see  the race's finish-line can be overwhelming - even on a cold November day. I understand that the colder November temperatures are good for runners.

For me from an urban gardener's point of view, the colder temperatures of November provide a time to celebrate and honor my garden's textures. I love and appreciate the colors provided by spring, summer, and fall; but as my plants, shrubs, and herbs (as well as some of my trees), will be dying back for the impending winter season, now is the time to celebrate the textures of my garden. Every plant has its own individual texture and pattern. These sometimes get overlooked when my garden has its magnificent color.  I am paying homage to the glorious textures by creating photographic garden images that are based in black and white tones. 

Having shot Black and White photography, and gone through the process of printing my work in a darkroom in years gone by, I have been left with a need to embrace the beauty of texture. I look forward to producing a line of invitations, event program covers, and greeting cards that give homage to this aspect of nature as I have done in the photograph, Pyracantha coccinea, (posted at the top of this entry). This shrub is one of my garden favorites and the black and white tones of the photograph show off its array of textures.

My experience as a black and white photographer, which I have blogged about in two previous posts titled Jennifer and Felix as well as Thanksgiving in Riverdale, inspired my first collection of cards. This Black and White greeting card collection can be seen on my web-site (where you can also view my Black and White original prints).