gardens » I Shoot People

Fresh Grapes

Aug 182011

An example of grown skyrockets

I had the first grape from our four new vines in the “Park”. Blech…… not ripe yet. Tiny too….. but this season is the first grape I’ve had off these new vines at this new house. The plants have only been in the ground for 14 or 15 months now (I think). I was uncertain about whether they would prosper so close to the asphalt driveway — but they seem to be doing just fine and the soil there isn’t overly rich — in fact it’s pretty rocky.

We were sitting in the yard last night waiting for someone to show up and I realized that our privacy circle is really coming along nicely. We planted Skyrocket Junipers. In this case we actually did use Monrovia plants. We have had mixed results with their product here in Wisconsin. Some Wisteria’s we bought from them a few years ago did very poorly but these skyrockets are growing like crazy. We bought 1 gallon pots — so the plants were maybe 18-24″ tall. One of them is now 6′ — it hits me in mid forehead.

The grapes we bought from Blain’s Farm and Fleet. They were on sale and we paid bupkiss for them — they don’t seem quite as vigorous as ones we had in West Allis (our last home) but they are blooming and bearing fruit which those did not. So — we’re happy with that choice.

It was such a beautiful evening, that sitting in the privacy circle was pure pleasure. No ambulances during the whole time we sat there; and for what it matters it seems as if there have been fewer sirens lately — do fewer people die during the summer? I’d guess that might be the case.

I’ve been having a lot of meetings lately. I hate meetings. Too much talk and too little activity. But, sometimes you just have to do it.

I tried to get at some images I have been wanting to work on, but not much luck with the meetings in the schedule. I really need to stay focussed on them in order to hear what they want to become and yesterday wasn’t the day to do that I guess.

I am starting work on an image book. Will probably print it through Blurb. I have some projects that we’ll start (I hope) shortly, and I want a better portfolio book when talking with absolute strangers about participating in the project. I’ve never done a lot of “street photography“ — so this will be interesting.

Weeds Around the Edge

Images, Life No Responses »

Apr 022010

This time of year I come alive.

The first signs of spring are all I need to get the urge to get out and work in my garden, to get out to shoot more exteriors, but mostly just to revel in life.

Last year we tore out our parking lot. I live and work in a 90 yr old former schoolhouse — and we inherited along with the schoolhouse a 13 car beat up asphalt parking lot. The asphalt needed work, a lot of work, so we hired contractors to rip out the old stuff and put in a new lot — but much smaller than the original – I still have all the parking I need but I now have another 5000 sq ft of earth to play in.

After hauling in about 70 yards of topsoil we got things all leveled out (sort of) and did some planting of woody plants and flowers. And the wife and I are both eager to see how things look once they start greening up.

BUT…. last autumn we noticed that around the edges we had a lot of weeds. Not so much in the middle of the space — but always around the edges. And I’ve come to think of them as an artistic metaphor.

So much of art seems to be harassed by that which is only slightly related to the art. The interruptions that catch you just as you are on the verge of a breakthrough — and after which you can’t remember how you were going to do that post-processing technique. Dealing with galleries, dealing with customers, dealing with stubborn media or wonky tools ( It’s always the media/tools, isn’t it? It couldn’t ever ben the artist).

I’m heading South in a week and looking forward to a week away from home, away from the phone, away from anything that will get in the way of my thinking about my work — well, except for traffic, the need for sleep, and food — asking me not to think about food is like spitting into the wind.

I’ll be happy to return home a couple weeks later — but right now I don’t need any weeds around the edges…. I just wanna concentrate on my art.

And on that note, let’s close with an image without any weeds…..