Back Doors and Alleys

What is it with back doors and the alley? Utilitarian and faded, sometimes littered with discarded goods, a garbage can, maybe a place to park, the alley beckons with a bit of mystery. Unlike the front door’s public face, the alley may offer a glimpse behind the curtain, a slightly different view of the life of the city.

Water Features

Water can be a violent and stormy sea or calm and meditative, a soft yet powerful presence reflecting the sky above. Full of life, essential to life, water moves and changes like a living thing. These images pay homage to some of these qualities. The calm waters of Sarasota Bay spanned by the delicate line of the Ringling Bridge, and the rich freshwater swamp…

Doors to Different Realities

There was a greeting card with the picture of a dog by a screen door with the caption, “A door is something the dog wants to be on the other side of.” Anyone with a dog knows the truth of that. If he’s in, he wants to be out — and if he’s out he wants in. People, on the other hand, sometimes feel…

Readers in Flesh and Bronze

Large white tapered pillars support the upper level of the Selby Public Library in downtown Sarasota. The pillars create a shaded arcade on all four sides of the building. Near a side entrance that overlooks a small park is a lifesize bronze sculpture of a boy reading with his dog beside him on the bench. It is a romantic image inviting one to enjoy…

Details, Details

Understanding the “big picture” is important. But that doesn’t mean one should ignore the details in life. Sometimes, in fact, hints of the big picture can be glimpsed in the day’s details, like the mystery of a starry sky hidden in the door of an old Chevrolet, or the brief but brilliant song of a beach sunflower on a sunlit seaside dune. Stories exist…

Bayside Shallows

By coming to Florida, we’ve traded the stunning Caribbean blue for a new emerald green. Each place has it’s own palette. The brilliant white sand, the sunlight shining through clear water, and the pure white snowy egret with his yellow feet stridng along the sugar-sand shore are part of the palette here. What matters is not the colors or the subjects before us, but…

More on “The Kiss”

The images here are a more abstract follow-up to the previous post, which focused on the the somewhat controversial “Unconditional Surrender” sculpture by Seward Johnson. The warm toned image above shows the sailor’s almost feminine closed eye at the moment of the kiss frozen in time. His eye is framed by other elements from the work — elements that suggest some of the strangeness…

Unconditional Surrender

Public art on a grand scale often garners attention, both good and bad. The 25 foot tall “Unconditional Surrender” by Seward Johnson along the bayfront in downtown Sarasota is no exception. There has been plenty of controversy since it first arrived here in 2005, with some calling it tacky, inappropriate and out of place along beautiful Sarasota Bay. Also known informally as “The Kiss,”…

Enchantment

Concern with the modern world’s problems can lead to frustration not knowing how to help fix them. But in that frustration and the rush of daily life it is easy to lose sight of why it matters. The editors’ comment in the March-April edition of Orion Magazine says it well: “What is much harder is to live life in a way that does not…

Thinly Veiled

Arriving in Florida after 12 years in the Caribbean, I find myself surrounded by a manicured suburban environment, rather than the inherently picturesque disorder of nature and barely restrained tropical decay more common in the Caribbean. Perhaps it is the difference that makes me notice, instead of take it for granted. The gloss on the landscape along with the shiny baubles for sale in…

Bromeli-eyed Inflorescence

People often anthropomorphize, sometimes seeing facial or other human features in plants or inanimate scenes, and often ascribing human feelings and emotions to pets, to wild animals, and even to important religious abstractions. This human tendency to anthropomorphize can provide comfort or cause unease, depending on the situation. The desire to find human attributes in the non-human may reflect our social nature and the…

Those Coy Koi

Koi, those large highly prized Japanese goldfish, are a frequent subject of painters. It’s probably the colors and graceful motion, and perhaps the traditional symbolism of the koi as perseverance in the face of adversity, strength and good luck. Step up to a koi pond, and the fish seem very coy, shyly approaching, then quickly swimming away. It may be foolish to ascribe a…