20.12.13

Last Summer

It's that time of year again: cold days, winter weather. These photographs are a flashback to two summer ago, when the air was abuzz with life and the skies were blue instead of this bleak gray. We drove north Maine on a road trip, where we feasted on Italian pasta and lobster in our hotel that faced the ocean.Mornings were spent capturing the sun climbing the sky and hitting the waves with its yellow rays. I sat on the boardwalk with a notebook and my camera, waving to early morning wanderers, and ordering iced soda from the nearby shack.
We went on drives up the mountains and spent a night sleeping in our car underneath the starry sky. 
I spent time by the rocks and sat, watching boats find their way across the ocean.

14.12.13

Knit Knee Socks

Winter creeped up upon us without notice and the world outside is now covered in a blanket of white powdery snow. We have been sipping hot tea and chocolate coffee in knit socks in front of the fire or heater that hums us to sleep every night. My life this month has been a lot of writing, reading, and reflecting underneath sweaters or blankets into an endless pit of questions. Here are snippets from today, taken between breaks of working.
 


9.11.13

Autumn Fires Burn

On early autumn mornings neighborhood chickens wake us from sleep, and late nights smell like burning firewood underneath the clear crisp skies. Days are getting shorter and the frost welcomes every touch of  morning sun light. We have stocked up on cable knit sweaters, boots, and scarves. Late evenings, when the sun is on its descent, I enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and read one of my many new books in front of the fire. Our cabinets are filled with jars of all different types of teas and coffees, and nearly everything is topped with cinnamon and whipped cream.
I have been sick lately, laying in bed and watching the sun climb down the sky from my bedroom window. Sometimes, I go to a nearby library downtown and work in the corner near the window that overlooks a pond where geese gather in the evening. Sometimes we just go on short drives around the town with my camera in hand, sometimes we gather around the fireplace and hide under blankets. Autumn, be good to me.


6.4.13

The Children of Spring Winds

In the winds we danced and let loose our hair. In the winds our hands tangled and touched the tips of blossoms--floating by our eyelashes and tickling the tips of our noses. Your curls unfurled with the blossoming season and turned into roses themselves. Our moon crept behind the trees and watched our feet mingle with the cool grass underneath. This is what it means to be a Spring child.




Model: Rehana

27.3.13

The Life of Wanderlust

 At the raw age of three, my father took me by the hand--his aged fingers wrapping around my young ones--and guided my stumbling feet to the wonders of this world. The sun hit my eyelids and I felt the prick of the thorn for the first time, from the roses my mother grew in her little garden. We lived a humble life, in a small apartment, secluded but happy in our town. After school, my brother and I would get our knees bruised and toes muddied playing under the summer sun. Spring would bring long walks to the ice cream shop and trailing after stray kittens. We'd come home under the stars and stumble through the woods when the moon had risen. In the depths of the night's darkness, we'd listen to crickets and the trains passing in a distance.
I held my first camera at a young age--around the same time--a small, cheap and bulky 90's camera. Perhaps unknowingly, I had touched one of my first passions. I became the child that wore braids to school, in strawberry dresses, and wrote poems underneath maple trees, with its light drawing patters on my scratched legs. I went on long walks among the spring blossoms that lined my elementary school, and discovered squirrels following me home. I may have not been a complete wallflower, but I became a wanderlust. Dragonflies circled my head; my fingernails were coated with layers of paint or chalk dust and my eyelids full of sleepy dreams. I chased chipmunks and ran underneath the stars. From the mud in my father's tomato garden, I created miniature clay statues. It was then my fingers and mind began to crave creativity. 
About twelve years later, I came across bumps across the road. I began keeping to myself, behind closed doors and drawn blinds. Finally, the camera I picked up all those years before made its way back into my life. On a warm, summer night in June three years ago, I held my first very own camera. I remember my first photograph: the saltshakers on our dinner table. From there, my camera became a constant companion, scratched and broken, repaired and replaced--but my passion stayed the same. As my work improved and I gained publicity, I began recieving comments: "Oh you have nice photos..your camera must be really good!" or "I love your photos, what camera do you have?". For a while, my camera began to catch dust and I felt like the magic in my fingers had disappeared. After all, it wasn't my talent..it was my camera's, right? Wrong.
I realized that even if you hand a standard phone camera to two different people, they will produced entirely different results. A photographer is not made of his camera, but a of his talent.
Then I began to share my work online, places like DeviantArt and Facebook, where I built a community of lovely friends from all over the world. To them I am eternally thankful, and there support is the only thing that gives me confidence today.
But the thing about the internet is that there are as many cruel people as there are wonderful, kind-hearted ones. Artists, being open with your work and sharing your inspiration on the internet takes as much courage as it does confidence. Remember at first that if you don't succeed, try and try again. People may laugh, mock, or even ignore. But if art is your passion, remember that others do not have the right to come between it and yourself. Every artist has been through that trough, a ditch where you can't see anything, but wish to see something--anything.  It's perfectly normal to feel down, upset, and blue. At one point in time, though, we've all climbed out, and if art was truly our passion, then we even succeeded. Living a life of an artist, of a wanderluster, is not an easy one, but maybe the most rewarding. To see the world in an entirely different light is a burdensome but extraordinary task, one that knits each and every one of us to the quilt we share as artists.

23.3.13

Spring Awakening

Breakfast under the window
The past few winter months were spent hiding beneath blankets and fur socks, sheltered from the blistering cold of the wind outside. We spent time listening to the howls and the crackling fire next to the couches, sipping on steaming cinnamon tea with cloves.
raspberry blotched fingers
Lake taken with a film camera
Now, the squirrels have returned from their hibernation and the birds have made our hallows their home once more. The wind carries a warmth of a promising spring, and the grass piques up when the woodpeckers peck. Life is emerging from the darkness once more, as we watch our home come to life. This morning I awoke to the birds twittering outside my window and sunlight pouring onto my skin. I drove past marshes and open skies, past families of geese and bugs gathering on top of the waters. Rose buds in our garden are emerging and blossoms are creeping out from the grayness of our yard.
Creatures growing in our yard

Times like these color my mind with inspiration and a longing to create endlessly. To read and read and read. To write poems and read more. Then take photos, go on long walks, water flowers and pick roses. To revive my likeness for iced tea and strawberries, and go raspberry picking.
Winter storm from my back window
I just want to string my '80s film camera around my neck, and take photographs until my eyes become weary and my fingers tired. I want to make smoothie shakes and go on long walks and water my flower garden. I want to play with the butterflies and go on adventures and come back muddy. I want to sleep tangled in sheets with the window cracked open so I can hear the frogs croak in the pond behind our home. Then I want to start all over again, savoring the spring harmony.
Harney and Sons tea box
I want to buy a type writer so I can write flawlessly, I so I can be true to myself; so I can frame my thoughts with unfiltered beauty and rawness that I can't find elsewhere. I want to spend my morning roasting my back in the sunlight warmth dusting my mind and letting words flow from my heart. I want to listen to the symphony of the frogs from my open window and let the song of my snow glob sing me to sleep. This is how I want to spend the rest of the year, beginning with the awakening of Spring.

Pressed dried flowers

9.2.13

La Belle Blanche



The first day you brought me roses it snowed while the dawn broke and the orb shadowed behind your clouds. It fell from our sky and slid down our noses but we ventured together in the trenches of the forest. We played with pigeons and fed them what we had, your roses still in my arms. I returned to my abode to realize that you had left me and all that was left of you were the their petals. That night my fingers were frozen sticks and my feet melted by the fire, swallowing the last of our adventures and burning your petals forever.