Tropical scene 2013

Dear Everyone:

This folk art painting is of a tropical scene
as a way of acknowledging all of the
individuals who go on a tropical vacation
down South each Winter. Or reside
in a warm climate on a full-time basis.

tropicalscene2013


Enjoy.

Helen.

Winter scenes 2013

Dear Everyone:

My mother has been visiting me for a month.
We have done some photography outings together
as she is also an avid amateur photographer like me.

For these shots of hers we stopped at a nearby park
after a snowfall. Funnily enough she saw the
shots and I simply didn't.  So her shots turned out
and mine didn't.

Enjoy these captivating winter scenes of
hers (Sheila Louisy).

winterscene#12013

winterscene#22013

winterscene#32013


Helen.

Peggy's Cove 2013

Dear Everyone:

I don't really get tired of shooting
Peggy's Cove.

I was particularly interested in the iced up
ocean this time of year.

peggy'scovevisit#12013

peggy'scovevisit#32013

peggy'scovevisit#42013

peggy'scovevisit#52013

peggy'scovevisit#62013

peggy'scovevisit#7


Helen.

Peggy's Cove Single 2013

Dear Everyone:

My mother has been visiting me for
3-4 weeks for the holidays.

It is a tradition to visit Peggy's
Cove and have breakfast at
The Sou'Wester restaurant together.

I took some shots of the area in
Winter.

Here is one shot- more to follow.

Enjoy.

Helen.

"It Doesn't Matter Where You Sit" poem 2013

Dear Everyone:

I am working on a project featuring
art and photography illustrating the
4 seasons.

Here is a recent piece on Summer.


"It Doesn't Matter Where You Sit"

Recently a friend spoke of sitting
lazily in a chair in Summer outside reading
a book, her dog at her feet
Summer-all about the outside
Being in the outdoors
Sit and daydream at the end of
a path overlooking the sea on a bench
Pull up a candy-coloured Airrondaack chair
to view the yachts on the water
Swing in your hammock
on your front porch
Sit in the park on the grass-
ignore "the don't walk on the grass" signs
Or at the beach-pile onto a beach towel
or blanket and watch the children building
sandcastles or playing ball
By the ocean, at the marina, in the park-
it really doesn't matter where you sit-
in my imagination-Summer is blue sky
and endless, fluffy, white clouds


Helen.

"Defining White" poem 2013

Dear Everyone:

I discovered this poet in a
magazine. Naomi Shihab Nye is
a poet, songwriter and author.
This poem is from "Words Under
the Words" (1995). Portland,
Oregon: Far Corner Books.

DEFINING WHITE

On the telephone noone knows what white is.
My husband knows, he takes pictures.
He has whole notebooks defining
how white is white, is black,
and all the grey neighbourhoods in between.

The telephone is blind.
Cream-white?Off-white?
I want a white, he says,
That is white-white,
that tends in no direction
other than itself.

Now this is getting complex.
Every white I see is tending
toward something else.
The house was white, but it is peeling.
People are none of these colours.

In the sky white sentences form and detach.
Who speaks here? What breath
scrawls itself endlessly,
white on white, without being heard?
Is wind a noun or a verb?



My interest in this poem was increased
by working with acrylic paint - and dealing
with the various pigments. One of my whites
has what seems to be pale pink in the pigment,
for instance.

Helen.

Remembered poem 2013

Dear Everyone:

I came across this poet in a magazine.
Her name is Naomi Shihab Nye.
Of Palestinian-American heritage
she is a well-recognized poet, songwriter
and author.

This poem - "Remembered" is from her
book "Words Under the Words (1995).
Portland, Oregon: A Far Corner book.

I find the poem to share startling insights.

See below.

REMEMBERED

He wanted to be remembered so he gave
people things they would remember him by.
A large trunk, handmade of ash and cedar.
A toolbox with initials shaped of scraps.
A tea kettle that would sing every morning,
antique glass jars to fill with crackers, noodles, beans.
A whole family of jams he made himself from
the figs and berries that purpled his land.

He gave these things unexpectedly.
You went to see him and came home loaded.
You said "Thank-you" till your lips grew heavy
with gratitude and swelled shut. Walking with him
across the acres of piney forrest, you noticed
the way he talked to everything, a puddle, a stump,
the same way he talked to you. "I declare you do
look purty sittin' there in that field reflectin' the
light like some kind of mirror, you know what?
As if objects could listen.
As if earth had a memory too.

At night we propped our feet by the fireplace
and laughed and showed photographs and the
fire remembered all the crackling music it knew.
The night remembered how to be dark and the
forrest remembered how to be mysterious and
in bed, the quilts remembered how to tuck up
under our chins. Sleeping in that house was
like falling down a deep well, rocking in a bucket
all night long.

In the mornings we'd stagger away from an
unforgettable breakfast of biscuits-he'd lead us
into the next room ready to show us something
or curl another story into our ear. He scrawled
the episodes out in elaborate longhand and
gave them to a farmer's wife to type.

Stories about a little boy and a grandfather,
chickens and prayer tents, butter beans and lightning.
He was the little boy.
Some days his brain could travel backwards
easier than it could sit in a chair, right there.

When we left he'd say "Don't forget me!
You won't forget me now, will you? as if
our remembering could lengthen his life.
I wanted to assure him, there will always
be a cabin in our blood only you live in.
But the need for remembrance silenced me,
a ringing rising up out of the soil's centuries, the ones
who plowed this land, whose names we do not know.