Two Views of One Place

The qualities of a built environment have a lot to do with how people feel about a place. The alley behind the new Palm Avenue parking garage is wide, clean, new, and bordered on each side by towering walls of concrete. Looking down this oversized tunnel one is greeted with a surprising view of the run down and graffiti-graced backside of a Main Street…

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…

Circles

A circle of tightly clustered snails near the water’s surface seems to overlap the circle of rock polished by the action of the sea. Below, an arc highlights a cluster of red globules on the beach next to the round seagrape leaf. While the circle is not always an easy design element to work with, it has always been a powerful symbol and metaphor….

The Color Orange

Orange, the color of sunsets, mangos, and the aptly named orange. Every once in a while — and for a reason I cannot discern — I seem to focus on a specific color. This was orange’s turn. The subjects here were ordinary — a lone palm silhouetted against the fort wall, and the historic Christiansted church cloaked in orange canvas to rid it of…

Labyrinth at Mt. Washington

Estate Mount Washington in the lush tropical hills of northwest St. Croix contains the ruins of an old sugar plantation and rum factory. The current owners have cleared the bush from around the ruins and invite visitors to come explore the park-like grounds. Amid the ruins is a labyrinth. All are encouraged to walk it in contemplation and thanks. A labyrinth is an ancient…

Pointers in Red and Green

If there were such a thing as compass points within the picture frame, both of these images would be pointing off to the north-northeast. But they seem to be pointing to something else, too.

A Blood-Red Sea

Living so close to and surrounded by the sea, one develops a relationship with it — probably not unlike the relationship desert dwellers have with the desert, or forest dwellers with the forest. This awareness of place can help us be more attuned to messages from the world around us, and sometimes even feel its joys and pains.

A Feast of Fruit for the Eyes

Each summer, the local botanical garden hosts “Mango Melee”, a festival focused on mangoes and other tropical fruit. Many of these fruits are unusual in their texture and flavor, and unfamiliar to those of us used to the apples, grapes, peaches and pears more common in the temperate regions. Some tropical fruits are a bit sour, others cloyingly sweet, some firm and crunchy, some…

Visual Sorbet

The newly painted walls of Fort Christiansvaern beg to be abstracted. As I worked with these pictures, I began to view them as visual sorbet, or palate cleansers for the eyes that appeal to the senses without carrying any other message. Abstractions that lack any implicit social or emotional message may be a cop-out, or art-lite. On the other hand, perhaps their straightforward appeal…

Tethered

To be tethered is to be restrained, tied down, prevented from moving about freely. And that can feel uncomfortable to those of us whose moving about is usually unrestricted. However, some actions, when totally unrestrained or untethered, can trample the rights of others. So being tethered can also refer to being grounded, in touch with reality, one’s actions balanced by consideration for others and…