The Artistic Year in Review

The Long Walk  - 2nd Place MVAC Winter Exhibit

The year 2011 kicked off with a ribbon for a painting. But best of all a ribbon for one of my dark paintings.  I saw the award as endorsement of the new directions I was taking with my art. And sales, even in a poor economy, seemed to be further validation.

However, I was feeling the pressure to come up with a lower price point product for my studio. For numerous reasons I have gone on about in depth in previous blogs I did not want to get into giclee prints. But photography seemed a possibility so when I was urged to enter the Ralph Solano Competition I decided to take the plunge.

Been There - 2nd place Amateur  division

I entered three photographs in my first ever photography exhibition and got a second place and sold another.

Morning of the elk - 1st sale of a photograph

I felt totally encouraged and quickly entered two more competitions. Was not accepted in one. Accepted in the second but won no prizes. Undaunted, even though my sister beat me by winning 1st place in that second show, I quickly entered another show. And sold my second photograph - Been There.

Volkswagon Acid Trip - 1st place MVAC Fall Exhibit

Course my sister beat me with Best of Show in the same exhibit. However, I find I really love photography. The neatest thing is that with competitions I don't have to have a finished work before it is accepted. And I can sell more than one of an image. Currently I am doing limited runs of 20.

Admit I am not painting as much as I once was. But that could be because I am not doing fairs anymore. And so am not turning out volume. I am waiting until inspired to paint. Stampede below was one of my favorite paintings for the year even if it won no prizes.

Stampede

 And I was very pleased with the painting below - Celebration.

Celebration

Rumors that I am giving up painting are exaggerated. I painted and sold enough paintings to be encouraged. I still very much enjoy the process of painting. But I am also very much in love with the total photographic process. And this April and May my sister and I will have an exhibition of our photography at the Angel Fire Visitor's Center. And I am currently looking for the special half dozen photos I will enter in exhibitions in 2012.

Like a River

Like a River

In the last couple of years my sister and I have been through some major life events. It has resulted for us in changes in some of the traditions we have held for a few years. And we are making new traditions like the Christmas Day photography expedition. Last year was Ocate to Hidden Lakes and beyond. This year was Cimarron to Ponil Creek and up to the Elliot S. Barker Wildlife Management area. Don't tell anyone we were looking for the road to Dawson. Expeditions are like life: you take what you get. And sometimes what you get is better than what you had planned. Even if it does not seem that way at first.

Like a River

My life has flowed

Or stalled

threatened to jump the banks

Or dwindled to a trickle.

Still it flows on

Heading to the sea

dancing in celebration

Or slipping beneath the ice.

Meandering 

Over the rocks

through the trees

Or under a fallen log.

The waters flow

Remembering only the rain

knowing not where they go

Or how long the trip.

Babbling along

Or silently flowing

reflecting its path in its surface

holding to its journey.

No matter what comes

Still water

Shallow or deep

heading to the sea.

J. Binford-Bell

December 2011

Posted on The Poetry Palace Rally. And winner of the Perfect Poet award.

What a kick

Great way to begin the year

Now to sustain the momentum 

Move forward

Not fall back.

2012

Begins with a Promise

And long way to go.

J.Binford-Bell

I nominate Mystic Mountain's poem Labyrinth Reflection

Magpie Tales 95 - At Sea

Image by  Mostafa Habibi

At Sea

The image lingers

I can taste the salt

feel the sand

know the dread.

My ever over-active mind

turning wound blankets into sand

hopelessness into rising tide

fog masking my choices.

I awake

filled with dread 

of where I have been

knowing it more real.

I walk

the sand under foot

the brine in my hair

to the shower

to wash off the fear.

J. Binford-Bell

December 2011

For more Magpie Tales on this week's prompt.

Talk of cold

Ice on the Coyote

Talk of cold

I would like to talk today of cold
the cold that seems to go to your very soul
the sun seems to have no warmth
and the wind steals what little there is.

Long johns and sweats
shawls and lap robes
a roaring fire that gives no heat
zero, less than zero.

Another cup of hot tea
more fuel for the body to run on
more logs for the fire
a hoodie under the shawl.

I would like to talk of cold today
but my teeth seem clinched against it
my fingers numb deep in my pockets
the thermostat says the house is warm.

But my very marrow is chilled
listening to the wind howl outside
the crackle of the fire
the whistle of the kettle.

All are of no use.
It is so cold.

J. Binford-Bell
December 2011

The weather station says this is the coldest it has been in 40 years for this time of year. Even the dogs don't want to go out and walk. The Stellar Jay has fluffed itself up to a big blue ball waiting for its turn at the feeder. How cold is it? the old joke goes but I am to cold to remember the answer.

Magpie Tales 94 - Isolation

Lunch by George Tooker

Isolation

Not natural

to eat

with a pack that is not yours.

We share

bread

only with our friends.

And eat

totally alone

when surrounded by strangers.

J. Binford-Bell

December 2011

I dined with friends last night. The experience was so dynamically different than George Tooker's painting. I live in a near wilderness surrounded by open space. But once I lived in a crowded city and took of food in crowded diners. Never I think was I so alone. So are all of Tooker's diners.

For more takes on the Magpie Tales prompt.

Far Away

Surrounded by Time by J. Binford-Bell

Far Away

Sometimes

I believe

I am

Most

Me

When far away.

J. Binford-Bell
December 2011

Shared on The Gooseberry Garden

Letting go of Reality

I have an artist friend who said the longer he was in art the more abstract he became. That is certainly true with artists such as Pablo Picasso and Duchamp. And I can set myself heading that way. It first showed up in photography. And on some levels it has always lurked there because I love textures and detail photos like the ones above and below of ice.

But lately with the discovery of post processing it has shown up in use of color and extreme cropping. And I have just begun to experiment with layering.

Grand Canyon Dawn

At first I just began to push color a little bit like the picture of dawn in the Grand Canyon above. But every editing section began to more and more be an exploration in extremes.

Fire Escape

Shadow Dancers

And lately I have found myself wanting to take my photos, as I have done for years, and turn them into paintings. But now it is not the realistic canyons but the abstract compositions I want to paint. It is no longer about rendering the subject faithfully or even in a visionary manner but rendering the feeling and emotion.

The Red Love Seat

How like a love seat

Always just a bit uncomfortable

But so desirable

And in red so difficult

To ignore.

You could not miss her

The moment you walked into the room

You wanted to find a way

To include her

In your decor.

And yet

Red is such a hard color to match

It always seems to clash

With all other elements

In the room.

But there she was

The center of all the attention

Even when at the end

She was abandoned in the back alley

Of life.

Once

I had a red love seat

Sort of friend

And as hard as she was to accommodate

I shall miss her.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

In Memory of Libby

Posted to Magpie Tales 93 hosted by Tess Kincaid.

Come the Winter's Embrace

Icy Embrace by J. Binford-Bell

Winter's Icy Embrace

Come the winter

To the lands of fall

Streams sealed

Beneath an icy embrace.

Hope fighting back

Helped by the midday sun

Bubbles form

Below sheets of ice.

Race away

Run fast

Escape

The December snows.

October's pond

Sealed off

In winter's icy embrace

Before November's end.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Magpie Tales - I wonder

Woodward and Newman posted by Magpie Tales

I Wonder

When I see

People kissing

Are both

Comfortable.

Are their noses

In the right place

Their teeth brushed

Is the kiss

Memorable?

Or are they

Worried

About what the other 

Must think.

Am I doing this right

Is this as awkward

As it is going to get

Will the next kiss

Be Bliss?

Are these just my insecurities

Or do others

Obsess

About their tongues

The shoes on the bed

Worried about who

Is looking?

Will I get

Another chance

To do this

Right?

Jacqui Binford-Bell

November 2011

I often am transported by the Magpie prompt for the week but this one just made me itch. I worried about the wrinkles on the bed and the shoes, and how long they had to hold that pose for the photographers.  It all transported me back to my early days of kissing. 

Shadow Sisters

Shadow Sisters at the Grand Canyon

My sister and I did a ten day tour in October of national parks and federal lands along the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Usually we set up the tripod and do a photo of us in the we were here mode but this time we chanced in day one on the Shadow Sisters. They went everywhere with us.

Shadow Sisters

Me and my sister

When young she was my shadow

Baby sister following me

Everywhere.

Me and my shadow

We both grew up

Now our shadows play together

Everywhere.

So thankful

For my sister

And the shadows we cast

In each other's life.

Just me and my sister

And our shadows

At play in the western sun

Thankfully together.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Art or Snapshot?

Devotions

I have found a group of photographers to explore the realm of the possible with. I am going to call it digital art. But given the things I used to do in a black and white darkroom during college I think it is still totally permissible to call it photography.

Devotions above is the current state of play with a photograph I originally took as merely a snapshot in Mesa Tower at Desert Overlook on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I say snapshot because I was in a recording mode with my digital camera. I had taken this ten day vacation with my sister to be inspired to paint again, and to get some wonderful photographs that were not on film, and spend some time with my sister.

We are both photographers be it as a hobby or an art form that we are pursuing. As such there were times we set up tripods with a specific purpose in mind like sunrise in the Grand Canyon that morning. And times when you just point at an interesting juxtaposition of colors and shapes and snap.

The original photo

The lighting in the Mesa tower was challenging. My Nikon, on auto, was confused. A time existed, like with film, I would have tossed this particular photo but I loved the shapes so downloaded to my computer I ran it through my post processing program.

Heightened color

My first thought had been to just adjust for brightness and contrast and see what I got. But I couldn't stop just there. I had to push the saturation level and hues because if nothing else I wanted to use it for a painting idea. And I still might.

But I was inspired by those friends of mine to add some texture to the photograph. And that gave me the opening photo Devotion. It is an artistic statement within itself. Will I still do a painting of this subject? Yes, I might. But more as a concept and with addition or rearrangement of elements. Or I may have the photograph printed on canvas and sign it.

Wandering Lonely as a Chair

Wandering

From chair to chair

Room to room

Seeking something

Undefined.

Wandering

From dream to dream

Always not finding

What is missing.

A chair unoccupied

A room empty

Boxes without contents

Hallow walls.

Lonely as a chair

Empty as my heart

Hallow echos

Of something lost.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Posted in Magpie Tales 91 hosted by Tess Kincaid. Visit for more poetic and creative takes of this week's prompt.

Angry Clouds

Angry Clouds

The clouds are angry today

They rage across the mountain tops

Racing before the winds

Whipping the grass

To a frenzy.

The sun is depressed

Cannot seem to find its proper place

Skirts along the ridges

Looking for escape

From the day.

My skin itches

As if the wind is a swarm of gnats

The storm assaults my senses

Sucks the very air

From my lips.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Magpie Tales 90 - Cemetery Strolls

Magpie Tales by Tess Kincaid

Cemetery Strolls

Just Mother and Me

Seeing the sights

In ancient Rome

Old World Cemeteries.

All those miles in a stroller

All those centuries of history

Names carved in marble

Shelley, Keats, Bellini, 

Sir Thomas Moore and Michelangelo.

Cathedrals and cemeteries

Frescos and fountains

Fables and myth

Etched into a young mind

Recorded on Kodak film.

Albums of photographs

Recording me at two

Before Bellini's crypt

On the square at St. Peter's

Memorial to martyrdom.

At times most alone

I go to cemeteries

Walk among the monuments

To lives I never knew

And feel at home.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Visit Magpie Tales for links to other poetic flights spurred by Tess Kincaid's photographic prompt. 

Bird of a feather

Raven Chatter by J. Binford-Bell

Bird of a feather

Raven

Of Edgar Allan

Standing so still

Not on a door or window sill

But a log of petrified wood.

Poe's bird of Nevermore

Speaking nonsense in the desert sun

Not a midnight dark and gloomy

Cocking head to stare

Fixing me with its stony gaze.

I stood and stared back

Waited for him to fly away

But still he stood as if wanting 

To speak to me

Relay some important message.

I crept close with camera

To listen to the whispers from his feathers

Or capture his spirit in pixels

And he opened his beak

And cackled. 

The breeze ruffled his feathers

I waited for him to fly

But still so stoically he stood

Not until I walked away

Did he fly.

Had he been waiting for me

Some message to pass on

Evermore

Not nevermore

Poe's raven had it wrong.

J. Binford-Bell

November 2011

Note: Posted to The Gooseberry Garden Poetry Picnic

Walnut Canyon National Monument

Cliff Dwelling at Walnut Canyon

Walnut Canyon National Monument was one of the last parks we visited on our Arizona junket. We did Sunset Crater, Wupatki Pueblo, and Walnut Canyon all in one day because of their proximity to each other. It could have been a park too many. We had been given rave reviews of it but compared to the others we had seen it seemed rather less than spectacular but that could be due to landscape.

Walnut canyon itself is gray. And the canyon is narrow. The cliff dwellings are built in the layers of the canyon walls. It reached its highest population density after Sunset Crater erupted. Safety seemed the primary concern of the residents.

Looking down in the canyon from the 240 steps to the bottom

There is a stream at the bottom of the canyon but it comes and goes dependent upon rainfall. The residents farmed the land at the top and built extensive trails to to other pueblos around the canyon walls and from top to bottom. The ledges are narrow and the cliff faces steep. Hopefully nobody walked in their sleep.

Debbie walking but the remains of a pueblo

As you travel down to the bottom and around the loop trail you pass the remains of many dwellings and see them everywhere on the cliffs around you. It must have been a busy center of activity.

Hidden in the canyon walls

Debbie talking to one of the shadow people

Rock Eroded by wind

Tree hanging on to cliff

At Bottom Looking up

The modern steps and paths were laid out during the depression. There are 240 steps down and you have to do those up too. No elevators. Great exercise. Yes, those tiny little figures are people walking down. And yes, it was worth the trip but we took more pictures on the way up than down. It gave us an excuse to stop and catch our breath.

Once upon a time

Once Upon a Time

It was a dark and stormy night

No scratch that

Zip

Crunch

Feed in new sheet of paper.

Once upon a midnight dreary

Erase dreary

Deep?

Return

Once upon a midday last.

New sheet of paper

All nice and blank

Stare

Sip coffee

The lonely writer sat.

First chapters are the hardest

Begin with number two

hmmmm

Sip

The bed where he had lain was cold.

Light streamed through the basement window

Erase that line

No

Chapter 3

How long had the sun been up?

How long had he been dead

Here in his basement office

Writing

Not Writing

Goodbye cruel world.

The suicide note began

Still rolled into the typewriter

Crumpled paper

Everywhere

Body on the bed across the room.

J. Binford-Bell

October 2011

Painted Silence

Painted Silence

Surrounded by hills of painted sand

Whispering of a past long gone

Listening for wild calls of a forest primeval

Drowned beneath the roasting sun.

Walking a trail winding down

Into the erased past beneath

The hills of vivid color so silent

Swallowing every breath of air.

Above on the canyon rim

A reality turned unreal

Descending step by step into silence

Listening for whispers not there.

Surrounded by sands of a time long gone

Transfigured matter which speaks

In whispers not audible

Entombed in colored sands.

J. Binford-Bell

October 2011

San Mateo Mesa

San Mateo Mesa at sunset

My sister lives in a marvelous section of the state of New Mexico. It is filled with an abundance of little side trips you can take that get you beyond power poles and city boundaries. So when I arrived at San Fidel in the very early afternoon of our fist day of vacation we immediately loaded up the fur kids and headed for San Mateo Mesa to catch the late afternoon sun on the rock formations there.

My father maintained that Interstate 40 and 25 were positioned to go through the most boring parts of the state so people would just keep passing through. Surely they chose the routes for ease of building but the result was the same. Just off the highways lie the most interesting spots.

Lowering sun on outcrop of rock

The rock colors in this federally maintained land were fantastic. I found myself wondering if to a geologist they meant something because it is a mine exploration area and there are some mines on the fringes out of sight.

Hoodoos or vodoos or goblins

Wild variances in colors abound augmented by lichens. For a photographer it was a visual banquet.

And the rock formations are extremely varied. It was amazing to find it all in one short afternoon outing.

Debbie on top of a plateau

Ridge of rock

Reflection in a stock pond

Mesa View

San Mateo Mesa area is used for grazing and hunting and camping as well as mining. It is one of the federal lands where the combination seems to work well. I know two photographers that will probably be going back for more photos and off roading.

More of the Grand Canyon

The recent trip to the Grand Canyon was scheduled for one day. Actually we had only one goal and that was to photograph sunrise and its effects up the canyon walls. We left Flagstaff at 4 a.m. to make the west end of the south rim trail and set up tripods before dawn. No place to eat was open that early and so breakfast waited until after the sun was fully up. And so did the rest of the canyon.

Don't get me wrong. The Grand Canyon is spectacular in any light especially if you have never seen it. But mid day is not great for photographers. And the vistas can get like one more flavor at Baskin-Robbins. Both my sister and I have decided on a return trip of multiple days and staying a lot closer to the focus of our attentions. We want several sunrises and sunsets and we want more days to give all the views their due.

Where we photographed dawn is one of the most visited spots. As you head east on the rim highway the canyon broadens out and the sun rises higher in the sky. My first look at the photos I took along this path did not excite me. But just a bit of tweaking on brightness/contrast brought out the colors the digital megapixels had captured. And because the canyon is wider there are less dark shadows to distract from the patterns in the landscape below you. I found myself wishing I had taken more pictures in this expanse of canyon but I was dealing with a 3:30 am wake up and sensory overload.

Looking west at the Colorado River

At this point, near desert view, the canyon seems more like a broad valley than a grand canyon. But you get a good view of the Colorado River winding its way through the softer sandstone. Further east the river is in cased in harder rock and ergo the canyon narrower. Here it gets to meander.

Looking east at the Colorado

In this view you can see Hanse Rapid. If I remember correctly, when I went down the Colorado on a raft this was the first fun rapid. It is almost a mile long and has seven holes and crests. It is like riding a roller coaster. Doesn't look like much from up here.

The colors of the Grand Canyon are all about the layers of sediment and rock laid down at the bottom of a huge inland sea. The Colorado River exposes layer after layer after the uplift of the Colorado Plateau. The canyon also changes color based on the sun and where it is the sky. Here it was almost directly overhead. There are no shadows.

Now that I have seen the Canyon in dawn and full sun I definitely want to see it at sunset and in stormy weather.