Hi from Guatemala

High heat, dry season began a month early...Climate Change possibly.
High poverty.
High inspiration from AFOPADI, step by step positive change.
High gratitude for all of it, especially teas from medicinal plants in the garden.

Reflective Art by Rita Stern Milch

While in LA, I bought this golden (in more ways than one) painting by Rita Stern Milch at rumba. I have known Rita and her art for many years; this move to abstraction was quite a switch from her many decades of representational portraits and landscapes. Of course, my better half says I am a sucker for blobs, quote/unquote!

But really, I find that this painting has enormous depth both intellectually and emotionally. Not to mention being beautiful. I unpacked it and put it on this table at home temporarily, but I like its location because it reflects reflected northern light. And with each shift of the light, the painting reveals different layers, different personalities. I didn't even notice the strips of paper collage until I got it home.

This is a piece of art I know I can live with for a long time...

Changing Light

No, I have not dropped off the planet. In fact, I noticed this image recently: it's light reflected into the north-facing window of my office, bounced off the neighbor's window. Spring is on its merry way.

Yes, I am soon on my hopefully merry way for my annual non-profit site visit to Guatemala. Lots of preparation for AFOPADI, Earthways & SSG, not to mention client design deadlines. Always grateful for a full life.

Clouds Over Grand Canyon

Flying out to Southern California last week, I had the perfect window seat to play with my Hipstamatic films and lenses.

 Then, we were graced were perfect views of the Grand Canyon...

(This was somewhere East of the Rockies, but I had to throw it in for color.)

I was pleased by the heavenly distortion through the plane window.

Random and not so...Irene Nemirovsky

I've been grateful lately to have such interesting work and non-profit projects that I don't have much time to read. Here you can see some of the random things I saw in the past few weeks. The metal work above prompted me to think about a client's swing. The bumper sticker below made me long for Sweden and its forests!

A good friend was generous enough to lend me this biography about the great writer, Irene Nemirovsky, who died in Auschwitz. If you haven't read her novel, Suite Francaise (about the German Occupation of Paris), you must. Equally fascinating is her Elizabeth Gille's book, The Mirador:Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by her Daughter. These are perfect winter reading when it's dark and there is time to reflect on history and the human condition.

What are you reading???

And thank you all for the emails about my last post. Yes, bulbs were poking through until this past week of wacko weather: freezing, spring-like, rain, ice, snow and now super cold again. We set a new record and went almost a year without an inch of snowfall...obviously: not good news. We are still in drought. One can hope. And practice sustainable life components.

Nature vs. Man Made

I hope this image from a hike on a trail at Red Rock Canyon outside Vegas demonstrates how much more the natural qualities of the landscape are intensified when you have something man made, like this sign, that heightens the juxtaposition. This part of the Mojave Desert is very, very dry.

A guiding aesthetic concept in the midst of disappointing, worrisome and continued drought here in Chicago. Yup, some of the bulbs are starting to poke up in what passes for my garden through very, very dry soil.

January Ducky

First three weeks of January have been chock-full of design deadlines, so little time for this blog...
As I was wrapping up a Concept Drawing for tomorrow's client meeting, this bit of it leapt out at me, looking like a rubber ducky. I realized that it (a transition line between ground cover and mulch) was the only curve in a large geometric design. I had to preserve its function, so I took a marker and rendered the curve into straight lines. Always room to edit.
Meantime: 61 degrees forecast for Saturday and, as usual, the local NPR news person announces it cheerfully: Awrgh!!!