41 Diorama

40 Stonespeak No.3

39 Birds Gone Bad no.2 (Penguins in Flight)

With my apologies to Billie's beautiful pelicans in flight.

38 Hands On

Borrowing from Hades Harp - Day 21

37 Globes

 

"Make the picture here," he would say, tapping two fingers of his empty hand upon his skull. "Once the picture is firmly marked in your mind, and the details firmly etched in that picture, then, put it, absolutely from your head. Only once you have purged the image from your mind, allowing it to liquefy as steel in the Great Forge beneath the city, will you be ready to begin. Do not think of yourself as the creator. Let the stone bring forth a life that you have not envisioned, and the forgotten image within you will grow and change in harmony with the image that breathes within the stone itself. The result is not quite stone, not quite flesh, but a wondrous creation that reflects the soul of both shaper and subject."

36 Constructing a Rose

If we look for a rose by its name, we will not find it; and if we look for its name by analyzing the rose, again we will fail. - Seng-Chao

A young girl begins slowly to dance, her arms outstretched and eyes that turn like a silent wind.

It is the dark of starlight and the old woman sits shrouded by her chilled cloak.  She watches a young dancer who has risen from beyond the mist.  And always the dancer's eyes seem to brush against the old woman's face, even as the smiling girl touches her own tiny wrinkles.

The dance nears an end and the dancer's eyes close.  She turns to wrap herself in a womb of cold linen and her hand gropes like grey-fingered stone for the old woman.

The two walk side by side even as the old woman wakes from her dream asleep among the stars.  She closes her eyes again as yet another old woman wakes from dreaming of an old woman who dreams of herself as a young girl embracing death.  She swoons as still another old woman wakes from dreaming of herself as an old woman who dreams of herself as an old woman who dreams of herself as a young girl embracing death.

And when there seems no end to wakings, the sound of a distant keyboard awakes the poet who begins to embrace the shroud that takes him adrift even as a young girl begins her dance.

35 Dragon's Back

So, did I ever tell you about Dragon’s Back, and how we’d climb it for hours, and the higher we hiked, the foggier it became, and the more like a place out of legend, and the heights would every so often become apparent as the mist cleared, and it seemed as if the spine of the beast undulated, like the back of a creature in flight, with its tiny occupants hanging on for one last thrill, and when finally we crested the hill and began our descent, it seemed as though we were at the edge of the world, and the horizon curved away from us, just a hundred yards away, but when we arrived, it was only to re-experience the same walk to the edge again, like Le Petit Prince, on our own private world, and with our own private thoughts, but together, a band of travelers making new discoveries, outside in the wilderness, and inside as well, in a place that was just as vast and un-explored.

And sometimes I feel each day is like this.

34 An End to Waiting

In the final day,

When shale and shadow to dust have turned

As one into the grand nothingness from which they sprang;

Only then, good sir, do the gods promise

An end to waiting.

33 The Cube Unplugged

An exploration into the fascinating dimension of geometric edges as well as a tribute to the n-sides of cubes everywhere, this depiction also celebrates the dreamy surface-scapes of Claudine Metrick and Kevin Calisto and the technical renditions of Stephen Hastings-King's Edge Effects.

32 Vena Arborum

31 The Lost Seal

30 Disturbance

29 An Old Man

An old man wants nothing more from life than to become the ladder by which he has made his living.

Each night before his wife calls him to dinner he lies rigid against the wall of their home, nor is he moved until his wife comes outside and says O my, someone has left a ladder by the house.  How glad my husband will be when I tell him what I have found.

Soon enough the old man will not come to dinner unless his wife uses him to scale the wall of their house.  But she has loved him long enough and every night she carries him to bed and caresses his cold metal rungs.  Every morning she bathes him and sets him up against one of the outdoor walls.

In time her efforts are not enough, and soon the old man is too worn and rusted to be moved.  I must bury my husband, she says, for he has given me all the days of his life, and I can do no more with him.

The wife is a strong woman and lives on a good many years.  One day she says to herself, I think the house needs painting.  I will go to the garage and fetch the ladder by which my dear husband made his living.

When she gets there, she finds an old man hung up by a nail.  Help me down, he says.  And once more, the good woman is warmed by the company of a good husband, who remains with her for the rest of her days.

* Photograph inspired by the work of Claudine Metrick and Kevin Calisto

28 In the Future no.2

27 A pox on you

"A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! ... A good wit will make use of any thing:
I will turn diseases to commodity." *

Thanks to Sue Ersinghaus for  Monkey Pox and Steve Ersinghaus for the inspirational monkeys that appeared one day and to *William Shakespeare for Henry IV.

26 StoneSpeak no.2

25 There Were So Many Doors

Thanks to Nicolette Wong for her inspiring Doorway

24 At the Edge

Bone-creak and moan, our fathers’ solemn song plays on

Groan of timber and broken brawn born of giants long-since gone.

They cry as one, a mournful chant, as a lone wind through mountain coils.

     excerpted from "At the Edge"  - 'The End of Tales'

23 Spirit Talkers

Thanks to Silvana's Madame Blavatsky for inspiring this image.

22 How Would I Begin to Paint no2

Again, inspired by Neha Bawa's Blanched and John Timmon's form.

21 Hades Harp

Inspired by Susan Ersinghaus - cosmic gong

20 Reflections in my Mind

Inspired by Jannelle Stone's Reflection - Black Glass and J Davies Windows.

19 Who will travel with me?

18 "How would I paint with color in your world of black and white" *

*Title from Neha Bawa's poem - Blanched. Form borrowed from John Timmon's l o o k.

17 Birds Gone Bad

Inspired by Shirley Zimmerman's story, The Swan

16 CarnivalTown

15 Dies Irae