Kissing Cate

Thursday evening, at the end of a glorious spring day, my tiny niece decided to enter the world.  She already has her father and her grandfather wrapped around her tiny finger.  Her mother is bespelled.  It's not surprising. She's an enchanting little thing.

Little Catherine Hope is a little doll-baby, quite literally.  Though completely healthy, she's about the size of an "American Girl" doll, or a little smaller.  Doll clothes would probably fit her.  All her newborn clothes swim a little on her. At 5 lbs, 14 oz birthweight, she has hardly any heft at all.  She's such an ephemeral, fragile looking little thing.  It's a wonder to realize she's a full human being, with all of the complex futures, a sense of humour waiting to be developed, everything that makes a person already built in and waiting to unfold.

Marie Aull, I Love You...

...because you created beauty, and then gave it away.

My friends, today I'm rather blissed-out on beauty and sunshine.  Remember that feeling after your mom let you spent an entire afternoon at the pool? Where you're tired, slightly sunburnt, and have enjoyed yourself to the point of exhaustion.  Well, that's me right now, and I owe it all to Marie Aull.

This afternoon, my aunt and I took a leisurely stroll around Aullwood Gardens.  We talked family history, green (or black) thumbs, and admired thousand upon thousands of specimens of ornamental plants. Of course, I had my camera with me. I took about 200 luscious photographs, but have picked only the top 20 or so to share with you.

Aullwood gardens was the personal passion of Marie Aull, wife, then widow, of a well-to-do local businessman.  Mrs. Aull designed the gardens so that each of the spaces and plant specimens harmonize with the natural beauty of the locale.  The borders of the garden naturally fade into native Ohio woodland.  The spaces flow one to the other.  Most of the plants are native to Ohio, and none are invasive.
It is a ridiculously peaceful spot of heaven.  It's as if time flows more gently there.
Every time I'm there, I just keep thinking of the word "sylvan." I bet Marie did too, everytime she looked out onto her garden from her house, perched on a central, small hill.

Back in the 70's, Marie decided to share her personal patch of ground with everyone else.  She donated the farm and grounds to the National Audubon Society.  The garden is now part of the county-wide parks service.  Even though she had donated her land, Marie still lived in her house, perched at the top of the hill, until her death last year.  She was 105.
What a wonderful legacy to leave behind you.

I took ever so many pictures of flowers, but my eye kept being drawn back to the algae in the ornamental creek (an artificially diverted off-shoot of the Stillwater River).  It's not usually like this, but something about this warm spring has caused every rock in the creek to grow a refulgent, vibrant green "beard" of algae.  It was both beautiful, and rather disgusting looking.

back to the pretty flowers.

Four Days Late...

Unlike her cousin, this little one is in no hurry to arrive.

My sister and her husband are remarkably chipper and content, though Sarah may not be quite so full of smiles if this keeps up for another week or more.

in other news, my goodness but it's beautiful out!!!
So, of course I have pictures to prove it.

Lullabies and Love

I am now the proud aunt to a smooth cheeked, dark eyed nephew!

Last night, I was on the phone with the Proud, Shell Shocked Father aka my brother.  He asked me to teach him a few of the lullabies I know.  I have a whole library of lullabies rattling around in my head, from singing my little brothers to sleep at least once a week during their pre-school days.
My dear brother had only been able to think of one, which he had been singing to his son over and over when he gets fretful.
It's the same simple melody that our mother sang to us.

Mom has a funny, undeveloped alto, and was shy about singing when we were little.
Our father is the singer.  He has a fine tenor that has only grown sweeter over time, if less strong.  He also has an ear for new melodies and harmonies, plays guitar, and knows i-don't-know-how-many songs, including all the words to every traditional christmas carol ever.  He's the one who more or less taught us all not only to sing, but to love music, and most importantly, to love singing together.

However, we demanded that mom sing to us too, and not just dad, so she learned precisely one song, which she would sing over and over at bedtime.  It's the words to the "Hail Mary", set to a simple melody.My memories of my mother singing to me are so sweet.  They are all the more sweet because she sang even though she's not very good.  She gave out of her lack.  So I am not surprised that the one lullaby that my brother remembers clearly is that one, and not the ones my father sang, dear as they are.
If I could only remember one, I'd pick that one to remember too.

one more pic because I just can't resist!

Collecting Inspiration

"The artist is by necessity a collector; 

he accumulates things with the same ardor and curiosity [with which] a boy stuffs his pockets. He borrows from the sea and from the scrap heap; he takes snapshots, makes mental notes, and records impressions on tablecloths and newspapers—why one particular thing and not another, he may not know at the time, but he is omnivorous. He has a taste for children’s wall scrawling as appreciative as that for prehistoric cave painting."

                                                                                                 -Paul Rand, American Graphic Designer

I can't tell you how much that quote comforts me.  I look about at my welter of possessions with a sort of ruefulness.  And so many of them are art-related, which means I find it almost impossible to get rid of them.  
They are either inspiration, tools, raw material, a project in flux, by-products of a past project, or simply interesting (and therefore indispensable to the art-making process.)  It is such a comfort to know that I am not alone in this need to accumulate interesting stuff. There are thousands of people like me who do the same thing, pulling together the intuitive raw material which will become their art.


I am daily thankful for the internet, and for the many many people who post pictures of the things they find beautiful, or the work they are creating.  
I I never tire of looking at other artists and designers websites.  They inspire me and challenge me, and teach me to think in ever-more non-linear ways.


As I wander from link to link, I bookmark pages I find useful, and download pictures that I want to use later for design sources or photographic inspiration.  I thought I'd share what I've been looking at recently:


Perhaps because of the gray weather and the tentative spring plants, I've been lusting after color. Bodacious, glorious color.
These photographers and blogs have been providing my fix:

clockwise from top left: 1. a picture of lichen via chanel no. fly  2. Eric Cahan, sky series via Butdoesitfloat 3. Sarah Ryhanen, being unusually vibrant, via the Little Flower School. 4. Eric Cahan, sky series.


I've been thinking about color and its application to photographic portraiture.  One way to start playing with color is to put colored films over your lights, but I'm not sure how interested I am in that.  There are other, more subtle ways.
One of them is to put the subject against a brightly colored backdrop. Having the backdrop be a field of color also can eject a huge amount of emotion and energy into an image. Also, If the subject is close to the backdrop, then the light bouncing off of the backdrop will bounce onto the subject, creating a color cast to the shadows on the person. 


I have dreams of photographing people against fields of vivid red and seeing the way it interracts with their personalities.  However, few people's skin tones can survive infusions of red.  It makes them look flushed, like they ran around the block a couple times before you snapped their picture.  Pink on the other hand, makes everyone look good.  Baby blue is also frequently nice.


Here are some pictues I've been looking at that have been giving me ideas.

I've done about 4 different types of searches, trying to find the source of these images, but to no avail.  I'll keep looking, and update if I find them.

Here's a few other things I'm loving:

• dreamy, interesting paintings by Phillip Haager, found via Butdoesitfloat.
• Delia Creates.  She's expecting a baby girl, and has done a series of beautiful, unfussy DIY tutorials getting ready for her little one.  My sewing machine broke halfway through sewing a strawberry baby hat based on her tutorial, and now I have to wait 2 whole weeks to see what it looks like! So frustrating for me.
• Aunt Peaches.
• She always makes me laugh.
• Jessica Hische's design work.  You've seen it most recently on February's exquisite Love stamp.

P.S. Sorry for the rambling quality of this post.  I blame it on my cold.  
Also, as you can see, I've been experimenting with making gridded digital collages, especially when citing another person's image.  What do you think?

Black Velvet and a Little Girl's Smile

Last week, I did a short portrait session with my sister Mary.  She needed a good picture for a work related website.
It was late, and I was feeling lazy, and I knew I only needed one good shot.  So I whipped out my favorite go-to backdrop: black velvet and a tension rod.

After a little silliness...

 well, actually a lot of silliness...

 ...we got the pictures we wanted.

I love black velvet. I love the way it looks in a picture
Black velvet just looks so classy every time.
It soaks up light, so that all you get is a pure, unadulterated black wherever it is, and beautiful detail wherever it isn't. You can swaddle babies in it, and just get their adorable arms and legs and squidgy faces.  You can put someone in front of it in a black shirt, and they will instantly look artsy.  If you put a woman in front of black velvet in a black shirt, they always end up looking like an opera singer: all soul and possibility.

It's only downside is that it's a little fiddly to get a "hair light" or "back light" to work properly, because the velvet won't bounce any light onto the back of the person.  For all of you I just lost due to the usage of technical terms, a back light is the light that, when you're lighting a portrait, lights the back of the person to add definition to the edge of them and separate them from the background.

Black velvet is also killer for taking pictures of objects.
This is Mary's most recent project, a crocheted recieving blanket for our nephew, who is due any day now.  She forgot to take a picture of it before she gave it to me to put in a package, so I took a few for her.

Lovely, no?

Speaking of things wrapped up in dark, velvety beauty, here's what the moon looks like tonight: