Creative Journey

Shepherd's Delight

2012-01-30T03:22:00.000-08:00

Shepherd's Delight

Sunset

It wasn't the red of the clouds

which delighted us

It was that they could be

that color.

Winter took from us

the brilliance of the setting sun

giving us pale sunsets

in pastel.

This week the sun returned

in a flash of colored glory

a promise of spring to come

in Red.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2012

Magpie 101

2012-01-22T14:38:00.000-08:00

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder

and so does horror.

I cannot see the life

beneath the form

but only the manner of beauty's death

At the hands of some beast.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2012

The image was provided by Tess Kincaid for Magpie Tales 101. I wanted to run and hide from it but decided to embrace my horror.

WOW! This was nice!

2012-01-21T18:28:00.000-08:00

Angel Fire Chamber of Commerce featured an article about me and my painting lessons this week. Loved it.

Jacqui Binford-Bell Studio & Gallery says,

" I Know Jo, do you?"
by Jo Mixon

This week's featured " I Know Jo" business is

Binford-Bell Studio & Gallery

Tuesday my sister D.J. and I had the privilege of taking a full 2-½ hour painting class from outstanding local artist, Jacqui Binford-Bell. We braved the blowing snow to get to her studio in Black Lake because I was not going to miss this opportunity!

We were greeted with a freshly-shoveled path to the door of the studio. Jacqui welcomed us inside, offered us warm drinks, introduced us to her gallery pets; and immediately we began our watercolor lesson. I felt like a kid in a candy store. The first thing we learned is that Jacqui is an excellent teacher. She explained the details of what we were to do, the supplies we were using; and then by example, showed us how she accomplishes the creative masterpieces of her craft. Before noon both D.J. and I had each begun work on three separate paintings. Time seemed to stand still as we allowed our creative juices to dictate what would appear on the blank slates before us. Jacqui taught us secret details that would enhance our paintings and ways to make them reflections of our own personalities. She even treated us to delicious homemade muffins in a mid-morning break.

A fine arts graduate from the University of New Mexico, Jacqui has been in her studio in Black Lake, just south of Angel Fire, for several years now. As her web site states, "Her work is the visionary expression of the landscape in fauve colors that delight the senses." She travels around New Mexico photographing churches and canyons that become the enchanted subjects in her work. She says, "Arches, Canyon lands, Bryce, Escalante, Glen Canyon, and Kodachrome live within me and my work. Every time I sit down with a photograph to translate it into a painting I am revisiting these magical landscapes." And for her efforts she has received many awards.

Currently she is perfecting the photographs themselves as another way of her

artistic expression.

If you would like to experience the fun we had, leave your inhibitions behind for a few hours and book a painting class with Jacqui. Learn something new while she is running this special. The cost is $50.00 for a half-day session and you can bring a friend for that price. For groups of three or more the cost is only $30.00 each. You'll learn to pour watercolors, increase depth in paintings with the color and perspective, composition and drawing tricks, and much more. You choose the subject you want to explore. And you'll take a break and watch the snow outside the studio

windows.

Call Jacqui at 575-377-3602

or visit her studio located at 11 Llano Vista Rd. Black Lake

or visit www.binford-bellstudio.com

The Creative Process - Keep working in trying times

2012-01-19T06:12:00.000-08:00

Peace by J. Binford-Bell

In these trying economic times artists are extremely hard hit. We are all cutting way back on the expensive shows we partake in and galleries that represented us are folding. There is little to no room in the budget for $1500 a page ad in the more elite collector magazines. Barely enough money to pay dues to professional organizations that allow the artist access to call for entries, free group advertising, and validation with the IRS.

I was chatting this morning with another artist with cash flow issues. We were debating what exhibits to enter. The gut reaction is none. They cost bucks. Not just jury fees but preparing your art to display if you get in. With photography which is really free after the camera there is printing and matting and framing your photographic gem. Thankfully I do my own matting and framing but frames cost. Printing, even if you do your own, is not cheap.

And so begins recycling. I have rummage through the stored watercolors from my on paper era and decided to remove and archive the watercolors and reuse the frames for photographs I am entering in two shows. In some cases this will mean smaller prints. But that saves money on printing costs and mat board. The goal is to get your work before the widest range of people at the lowest cost to self. With photography if a patron really likes the image it can be enlarged to suit them.

With painting too frames can be taken off work that is being archived in your storage room and used on new pieces. And the advantage of stretching your own canvas is that stretcher bars can be reused once the painting is taken off them. I am doing that with several works at the moment. Not every painting is a masterpiece though all of them are a step in the progress of an artist. And lugging them around to shows took its toll on a couple pieces. I am saving the canvas removed from the bars and in some instances cutting out sections to use in a collage. Recycling? Could I make a whole wall mural this way?

No, I don't ordinarily do collage but artists have to do. It is who we are. I see the collage as an exercise to channel new directions into my paintings. And it is keeping me out of trouble and making space in the storage room.

I am also looking at taking better advantage of my studio. Running a winter Cabin Fever Special on art lessons with a friend. And while dropping fairs have centered more of the advertising I can afford around promoting the studio venue. In these trying times I don't see myself as seeking out a new gallery to just have it fail with my art locked inside. My studio allows me to display my paintings and my photographs and the jewelry I make and provides a space to entertain patrons and give lessons. Art magazines are touting the "Trunk show" approach to promotion and a studio is perfect for that. And its passive solar design is proving a real blessing with heating bills. And my usual winter depression.

Yesterday it occurred to me that we are back at the time of the Impressionists that lived in drafty lofts in Paris and even painted on cardboard if that was all the world offered up. Collectors might want to visit more studios in search of that gem to add to their walls at very reasonable prices.

Magpie Tales 100

2012-01-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

Sculptures by Jason Decaires Taylor

I found Jason Decaires Taylor's unwater sculpture gardens disturbing when I first ran across them on the internet. Maybe I downed in a former life. But this week after the disaster of the Italian Cruise ship that overturned they are all that more unsettling.

Cry the dead

The drowned

from their watery grave

silently scream

in the bubbles rising to the surface.

The surface

they will never again see

seals itself

over their deep decent.

The waves

go on about their path to the shore

not touching

the silent abyss below.

Cry the dead

no more from beneath the waves

ring the bells ashore

time to say goodbye.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2010

In Memory of the dead and missing of the capsized Costa Concordia

Magpie Tales

Not the Season

2012-01-13T08:16:00.000-08:00

Photo by J. Binford-Bell

Not the season

Not spring

by a long shot.

Winter by the calendar

but the snow is melting away

Reluctantly.

Too cold for fall

too dry for winter

Spring to my lilac's internal clock

buds already forming

Eagerly.

I sit at the window

bathed in winter sun

streaming low into the studio

Dreaming of summer's colors

Brilliantly.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2011

And my choices are?

2012-01-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

Stairway to the past

It is that time of year again with the call for entries go out. A bit easier this year as I am not submitting for any fairs, and because of funds, am going for just a limited number of exhibitions. But maybe that makes it more difficult. I want to most bang for my bucks. And by that I don't mean just the chance at the biggest awards but the number of people that will be introduced to my work. And because I have not done a lot of painting since last fall what I enter will no doubt be photographs. And so the process begins.

Window in time

Last year at this time my problem was finding five photographs to submit to my first ever amateur photography show. And this year the problem is reducing my choices down to five. That is good. But in this first year of taking my photography seriously I have been searching for my "voice" in this medium. I think like with my paintings it is all about color.

Dawn on the Grand Canyon

And then along comes an image that really captures my heart and there is nothing colorful about it.

Under the Ice

Or the color is "ordinary" by New Mexico standards.

On High

Come the Fall

Then I am back to my favorites. I won prizes last year with an two old wrecked cars. And I have sold a print of one since then. So another car?

Get your kicks on route 66

Or another look at the Grand Canyon.

Through the haze

All this, of course, leaves out my new pictures of elk, buffalo, cliff swallows and turkey. But I will do another blog about the choices in the wild life files.

Magpie Tales 99

2012-01-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Deliver me

Release me from this tangle

Concrete canyons

Paved paths of alien origin.

Give me back my wilderness

Forest roads

And game trails down the mountains.

If this is civilization

I want to regress

Back to my pagan roots.

You can have New York

I won't take Manhattan

I would rather be lost in New Mexico.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2012

Day One

2012-01-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

Day One

The Mayans maintained

and Nostradamus agreed

the world as we know it

ends before this year is out
No need for resolutions

How and why the world ends
go without mention

or how many times before

what we know has vanished

leaving behind just ruins.

And yet we can stand

before ancient evidence

the world has moved beyond many a doomsday past

Were the people of Waputki or Chaco given a date?
Would the outcome be different if they were?

After Pompeii

or Atlantis sinking into the sea

did those left alive
call it the end of days

or was it day one?

Jacqui Binford-Bell

January 1, 2011

Posted on Jingle Poetry At The Gooseberry Garden.
The Theme for this week is Fairytales, Hope and New Year's Resolutions.

The Artistic Year in Review

2011-12-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-12T06:22:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-05T04:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-05T04:08:00.000-08:00

Surrounded by Time by J. Binford-Bell

Far Away

Sometimes

I believe

I am

Most

When far away.

J. Binford-Bell
December 2011

Shared on The Gooseberry Garden

Letting go of Reality

2011-12-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-28T12:52:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-22T05:33:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

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?

2011-11-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-14T05:12:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

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

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

2011-10-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

El Morro

2011-10-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

Inscription at El Morro

El Morro National Monument, previously called Inscription Rock, is one of those places I always meant to visit and never got around to until this last vacation. It actually was not on our list but as it was very close to my sister's house we fit it in on a down afternoon after doing the laundry. It had a couple things going for it besides close; One it was dog friendly, and two was very photogenic.

Oasis that was major draw of pioneers

Closeup of pool that is sheltered by the cliffs

There is a half mile self-guided trail that takes you around the base of Inscription Rock and points out all the significant inscriptions and gives a brief history of the lives of some of the "graffiti artists" after they left their mark. Frankly I found that very interesting but was frankly amazed that they carved rock in old world script. We have to get back to teaching penmanship in schools.

Beyond the easy trail is another mile and half trail that leads to the back of the cliffs and ultimately to the top. The Mesa-top Trail at El Morro National Monument was hand-carved into the sandstone by a Civil Works Administration (CWA) crew in 1933. CWA was one of the New Deal programs initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

Rounding the point

Looking back on the switchback trail

Taking a breather at the top

This trip was about exercise and photography but also about educating the pups to be good on leashes over difficult terrain and lots of steps, and patient while mistresses took pictures. They were stars.

And so were the shadow people

At the top new vistas

Nobody mentioned these views

One of the reasons beyond the perpetual pool at its base that inscription rock became so popular is that it was visible for miles across the open mesas. I would like to revisit this national monument and explore other trails in the boundaries.

Grand Canyon Dawn

2011-10-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

South rim of Grand Canyon at Dawn

Of all the parks on our list to see this vacation I have been to the Grand Canyon most often. I first went after my senior year in high school. And in the '70's had the good fortune to go down the Colorado River on a raft twice. It is far more than a huge hole in the ground. And light changes it dramatically.

Our task this trip was to see it at dawn. My sister had accidentally had the great good fortune to catch it just this last year as the sun paints the canyon, so she knew where to go and set up our tripods and focus our cameras and wait for the sun.

Watching the canyon come alive is so spectacular that it is possible to forget to click the shutter. And other times I wanted three different cameras with tripods aimed in different directions. The only solution to this is plan another trip with multiple dawns to capture.

Current favorite

There are five inner canyons and at this point the river is so far down it cannot be seen. Does not prevent you from looking or even thinking you see it. On the Colorado at the bottom on both raft trips I kept looking for some sign of life at the rim. It is like being swallowed up by the earth. And at night there is only the sounds of the rapids and a zillion stars.

Where most tourists stood

I wish I had the money everyone had spent on camera equipment to capture this event that happens daily. One car parked next to us in the predawn disgorged three huge aluminum cases of equipment. Debbie and I grabbed our tripods and camera backpacks and beat them to the spot they wanted. First come and first serve. Many of the tourists perched on the canyon wall to the left in the above photo. Some ranged along the south rim trail and snapped at will without a tripod. I find myself wondering what they got in focus. And if those with iphones were able to see any details.

I must confess, however, that I found my photos a disappointment. Debbie with her super wide angle telephoto lens got some awesome ones. Next trip I am at least going to rent such a lens. I have left my photos of the canyon to near the end of my post processing frenzy because of my disappointment. But as I found out in college - darkroom can make a huge difference.

And I want to make use of my polarizing filter next trip. It proved to be such a great help in dealing with the desert light later in our trip.

Mission San Esteban Ray at Acoma

2011-10-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

Mission San Estaban Ray

The Mission San Estaban Ray at Acoma Pueblo dates from circa 1641, and has undergone reconstruction. All my pictures are of the exterior because photographs of the alter piece and the santos are not allowed. The mass of the mission and its nearness to the cemetery and other buildings also makes a total view impossible. Still the geometry of the structure makes it a wonderful photographic model.

Two bell towers

Detail of bell tower and original bell

School Balcony

The church and its interior and the art dating from the 1500's are all remarkably cared for even with the treatment the Spanish Catholic church gave the Acoma Natives. Two major Catholic feast days are still celebrated but the center of the spiritual life of the residents are the kivas.

The kivas on Acoma are not round but square as disguise from the Catholic friars and priests. Entrances are on the roof and ladders lead to them.

Kivas and ladders

Many of the residences are also entered from the roof and have ladders to enable access, however the ladders to the kivas are painted white. And the main kiva has a three upright ladder with cross piece to represent clouds. Not sure how this went along with the secret of kivas.

Main Kiva ladder

Chaco Views

2011-10-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Casa Bonito at Chaco

I rather like sepia treatment of Anasazi ruins. Seems to fit the era in which many of these archaeological finds were first unearthed. But the ruins and cliffs of Chaco are also great in color.

Pueblo walls against the cliff face

Petroglyphs

Raven soaring over cliffs

Balancing act

Wall at Casa Bonito

Geometric balance

But I also could not resist playing around with the geometry and shapes and shadings with some post processing.

Snugged up against the canyon wall

Standing alone

Kiva wall

Magpie Tales - Open Land

2011-10-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Friedman photograph provided by Tess Kincaid

Just back from a vacation with very few cities involved. The prompt provided by Tess for this week's Magpie made me want to run back to the open spaces. Looking back in the rear view mirror at the places I have seen in the last ten days and the sense of freedom few experience.

Open Land

East to west

North to South

Miles traveled without a turn

Like sailing the rolling seas

Unmarked by signs.

Driving for hours

Hill to gully

Mesa to ridge

A land unmarked

By neon signs or city lines.

Across the Navajo mesas

A random pickup

A gate to a hogan

A lone walker

Slowly walks in dust.

The setting sun

The only directional marker

Monuments of stone

and shifting shadows

Marking time.

J. Binford-Bell

October 2011

Raven Watch

2011-10-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Raven Watch

Praying high

Bowed on ancient tower

Head to rising sun

Listening to old spirits

As he meditates.

Raven with head bowed

Deep in his own thoughts

Unaware of the others

Preening sleek feathers

As the sun rises.

Raven stays

Safe on the wall of stones

Laid by ancient hands

High above the mesa floor

Gathering energy to soar.

Dance

Rise on the wind

Soar uncaring

Of the world below

Raven fly over the red cliffs.

Jacqui Binford-Bell

October 2011

Oh, such a surprise!
Recognition for words penned
When mother said I could not write
Right.

Thank you to the Poetry Palace

I nominate Peter

Success in another field

2011-10-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Stampede

I recently entered another juried exhibit and got all three of my pieces accepted: Two watercolors and one photograph. As frequent readers know my photography, a long time hobby, is just beginning to be taken seriously by me so I had hedged my bets on this one show by entering two watercolors. I seriously thought Stampede would win some prize. It did not. However, Volkswagon Acid Trip, a photograph did. It won first. My sister captured best of show with a black and white photograph she submitted. Interestingly enough not the one that won 1st place in the International show recently.

Volkswagon Acid Trip

She entered that first place photo in this latest show. It had previously won over Volkswagon Acid Trip but got beat out this time by another photograph of hers and VAT by me. Every show and every judge is different.

The really good news is the Binford Sister Act has scored the top two positions in the MVAC Fall Invitational show. Winners Reception is tonight in Angel Fire.

Once over lightly

2011-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Sunrise in the Grand Canyon

We have all seen those grand vistas of our better known national parks or monuments, so behind your photo opportunities is always that thought of coming up with something unique. You begin with choosing your time and place like dawn at the Grand Canyon. Digital is cheap compared with film so you snap and snap and snap.

There is no dropping off the film at Kodak these days. We are not merely the photographer but the developer and editor. I go through my photos several times and am learning to delete mercilessly. I try to keep in mind the old film rule that one great photo in a roll of 36 is exceptional. Download 225 images and there have to be a lot not worth taking up hard drive space. And then there are those worth fiddling with in your photo editing program. A much smaller number.

Painted Desert

I travel with my laptop for downloading of photographs. It is a 2006 HP and is very limited on photo editing options. I have Photoshop 5 on it. So when I get home to my desktop and Corel Paintshop Pro X4 is where the real editing begins. But a pass through the undeleted and minimal cropping and adjustment experiments allows me to zero in on those photos (original always untouched) I want to focus my post processing on.

Detail of Wupatki Pueblo wall

And as one goes from photo opportunity to photo opportunity you find yourself centering in on the shots those with point and shoot cameras or Iphones miss or cannot capture effectively.

Wupatki Pueblo with Moon

Water color treatment of tree trunk

And out of boredom of another pass thru the photos you have not deleted you play around a bit. And then one photo pops up that needs very little at all to be remarkable.

Painted Desert

No doubt my favorites may change over the next week or two but my raven will always be in that group.

Off to the Back Country

2011-10-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

Sandstone Bluffs New Mexico

Tomorrow I take off to my sister's house near the Sandstone Bluffs in New Mexico. This is part of the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, a huge uplift of once sea bed. We generally head north to Moab on the northern part of the plateau and vow to catch the sights south on the way home. We always linger too long and end up dead heading home. So this time we are beginning in the south part.

Debbie lives not far from Gallup and one of the trips will be west to the Grand Canyon above Flagstaff. Along the way there is the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. North of Gallup is Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly. North of Kayenta is Monument Valley. Those are just a few of the sights we have on our plans to hit but if we get slowed down by great photo opportunities we might not make them all.

And right in the neighborhood is of course the Sandstone Cliffs with the Ventura Arch. So if we don't feel like driving too far there are closer areas to explore further.

Thank heavens in this digital age we don't have to budget for film. Just gas and time. Stay tuned to this blog and Binford's Back Country Photography for postings of our latest captures.

In addition to the camera I have my laptop and also my watercolor sketch book and Van Gogh WC pencils. Oh, and my journal should I wax poetic.

Life is a Fairy Tale

2011-10-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

Little King by Stowe

Reality????

Morning again?
Coffee
A little King
And the daily news.

All that is fit to print
Not the white rabbit
Questionable coffee

A.M. or P.M?

Perusing the front page

It all seemed so unreal

More lies than truth

Need to return to the organic coffee.

The king just stared

What, pray tell

Was his role to play

What is on the schedule for today?

Obviously more coffee needed

Tossed the paper

In the box by the wood stove

Winked at the king.

Morning

Another day

More fairy tales

A new icon to study.

Once upon

A time

Happy

Ever after.

Did I take my meds?

Did they?

J. Binford-Bell

October 2011

Pachyderms on Parade

2011-10-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

Pachyderms on Parade

Birdie, birdie up in the sky

Aren't we glad

Elephants cannot fly.

Railroad crossings

Look out for the cars

How do you spell that

Without any R's?

Hide, hide the cow's outside

The time has come

To speak of many things

And quote silly rhymes.

Let us talk of elephants with wings

Of prophets walking on water

Hail Mary Queen of Kings

Purple cows and Royal flushes

Beat four of a kind.

Friends, Romans and country men

Lend me your ears, Father would recite

Why on earth would I want

Theirs even on a loan

Only one in five dies in the dentist chair.

Why is it on the verge of tears

The world facing a nuclear melt down

I remember most

My father's words and tales.

Elephants with wings

Purple cows and green eggs

And the lady that swallowed the fly.

As the world comes to a close

I will chuckle over Mr. Toad's wild ride

Atop a winged elephant of his making.

J. Binford-Bell

October 2011

For more takes on elephants with wings see Magpie Tales #85

Bridges

2011-09-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yellow Bridge Road
Original photograph by J. Binford-Bell

Farewell

I was so very good

At saying goodbye

Farewell

Crossing that bridge

And gone.

Always the first

To call it

Quits

Hit the road

See Ya!

Years of experience

Of packing up

Waving

Moving on

The end.

So why can't I say it now

Good Bye

I know you left

Let go!

It's been a year since

Your departure

And still I cling

To Memory

Death.

You crossed that bridge

Before me

But you never let me know

You were leaving

You never said

Goodbye.

But even worse

You never let me say it either

Adios

Mi Amigo.

Jacqui Binford-Bell

September 29, 2010

Decisions, decisions, decisions

2011-09-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

Volkswagen Acid Trip

I think I believed that developing my photography into an art form would make it easier to find and enter exhibits. And I thought it would give me a lower priced alternative for visitors to my gallery to buy for their home or as gifts. It has done the latter. People I find are also much more likely to purchase a framed photo for their offices than a painting.

However being a photographer as well as a painter has only made entering exhibitions more difficult. Few exhibitions, unlike fairs, have categories which allow the artist to enter three photographs and three paintings. No it seems to be just three per entrant regardless of what the medium. For the 35th International Bank Show and sale in Raton I submitted only photographs. I did this partly because of lower prices in these economic times. Now faced with the Moreno Valley Arts Council Fall Show I opted for one photograph and two paintings.

Stampede

I have tons of photographs I would like to submit but I also have two recently completed paintings I would like to exhibit. My frequent readers have seen these with poems.

Canyon Celebration

But I have several other photographs I really like and am currently looking for an exhibit for them. But I am also planning on doing a series of small matted prints for Christmas sales at the studio. Or the next exhibit

Ray dance

Escape Route

Red Door

Monarch

So many photo opportunities!

Raven Moon

2011-09-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Raven Moon

Waiting in the rain

For the emergence of the light

Witch and familiar

Casting a spell.

Witch and Raven

Trading places in the rainy night

Gown for Feathers

Wings for legs.

Dancing on the shore

Wet from the rain

Emerged the full moon

Illuminating the soaring bird.

Raven and witch wait

For the spell to be ended

Lifted with the parting

Of clouds for the raven moon.

J.Binford-Bell

September 2011

Dark Dreams

2011-09-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Snake Charmer by Henri Rousseau

Dark Passages

Mysterious images

Lingering into waking

Demons reflected

In the bathroom mirror

Things that dawn should have vanquished.

Hidden jungle paths

Snakes and strange birds

Dark figures charming the dreamer

The breath dense

With Ominous portents

Snatches of images beaconing

A return to the dream which will not vanish

Sleep impossible and understanding beyond reach

What the mind asks over coffee

Is the meaning of the charmer?

Jacqui Binford-Bell

September 2011

For more poems inspired by the 1907 image above see Magpie Tales.

Time is a River

2011-09-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Grand Water Passage

Slipping through Time

Slipping

Between silent walls

Slices of time across the eons

Before.

Gliding

Across a river stilled

Silenced by the narrows

Ahead.

Waiting

For the plunge

Bucking over the rough

Unseen.

Listening

To the distant roar

Water cascading

Closer.

Wishing

Away this still peace

Worry about what will

Come.

Knowing

The towering walls

Prevent an avenue of retreat

Life.

Flowing

Forever onward

Until our time

Stops.

J. Binford-Bell

September 2011

I have been down many a river and canyons in the west where I live and there is always something eternal about them. They are teachers of lessons I have yet to fully learn.

The "illustration" Grand River Passage is one of my paintings which has been featured here on Creative Journey. And part of my project of a poem for every painting of significance.

Come the Fall

2011-09-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

September Dawn

Fall has arrived to the high country of northern New Mexico. And with it the rains we missed this summer and the moist laden dawns. The tourists are largely gone and the hills ring with the call of elk.

Come the fall

Shrouded in morning mists

The elk herds are gathered

Each by a proud bull

Bugling into the silence

Answered

And echoed.

The challenge

Swallowed by the fog

Lying in the valleys

Where the cows are waiting

Anticipating

The clash.

Antlers paired

Rattling like dice

In the palm of the mountains

Calls of triumph

Echo

Silence.

Come the fall

With the sounds of victory

The silence of defeat

The valley waits

For the first snow

As fall departs.

J. Binford-Bell

September 2011

Gossamer Ties

2011-09-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

The Revernant by Andrew Wyeth

Gossamer Ties

The image was as gossamer

Threads woven into a ghost

A spirit painted of rays

Standing still in the breeze.

It was that very stillness

That woke me

Called me from some dark dream

Held me pinned with its stillness.

I yearned for him to beckon

So willing was I to follow

To leave this life

And go into that light he was.

So still did he stand

I knew the answer was no

Be still

Your time is not yet.

I breathed out his message with the pain

Inhaled the vanishing gossamer threads

The image gone

I remained still.

And waited for morning

The gossamer ties of sun

To anchor me again to the day

To live still without him.

J. Binford-Bell

September 2011

Go to Magpie tales for other links to great poems. Tess Kincaid provided our inspiration with the Andrew Wyeth work at the beginning.

Stampede

2011-09-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

Stampede

Wild horses trapped

A top a canyons mesa

Exit blocked

All vegetation eaten

Rescue late.

Mustangs in a panic

Hungry wolves circling

Alone on a pinnacle of rock

Sound of hooves

Echoing on sandstone.

Wolves howling

Ravens cawing

The desperate attempt to survive

Leap the gap to the next mesa

Off Dead Horse Mesa forever.

J. Binford-Bell

September 2011

The Creative Process - Tip Toeing into a New Media

2011-09-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

I think all artists play around with a lot of different art forms. It is hard to hold the creative eye down to just one way of expressing itself. But we hopefully excel at one and put most of our energies and time and money into one. For me since 2006 that major focus has been painting.

It is cheaper to tip toe financially into painting. You can do it without the $1200 easel. You don't have to buy every oil color available at first. Or invest in camel hair brushes right off. I slipped in with watercolors on paper and did all my own matting and framing.

Photography is a bit harder to slide into cheaply. Digital cameras and lenses are pricey but then I had a digital camera to record my paintings for websites which I built myself. You no longer need darkrooms but you need got photo processing software. I started with Adobe Photoshop which is one of the more expensive but I needed it for editing pictures I took of my art work and was going to put on my website. Good programs have gotten cheaper. But all take rather top of the line computers with lots of RAM and hard drive. There are some photo processing programs on line so you don't need the RAM but still need the storage and back up, etc.

Then there are printers. Tip - you cannot pick these up at Wal-Mart. Few beginning photographers have the money to invest $3000 or more on a giclee professional printer. And maintenance is actually more intensive on them when you use them less. So you develop a good relationship with a professional photographer that does prints on the side or as his major income. My skill at matting and framing from watercolors is a definite plus on keeping pricing down.

And for me that is what photography is partly about - having a more reasonably priced art form to sell in my studio - increasing my price point range. In this economy artists need to use every trick in the book to stay afloat. And diversification is done even by major corporations. You begin by taking stock of your assets: I have the studio and the display space. I have the knowledge of how to find and apply for exhibits. I had the camera, the computer and software. Photography was a natural way to go because of what I had for my painting business. Would have been stupid to try ceramics. Boy, is that hard to tip toe into.

It is hard to know, however, everything you do not know. Sure I have done photography for years but the digital revolution has changed the landscape. And now paper companies are jumping on board with better papers for the media. Back to reading books, taking workshops, and having conversations with professionals ahead on the knowledge curve. It can really be quite exciting.

Mother Nature is a Bitch

2011-09-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature is a Bitch

First it didn't rain

Not a drop for months

Nary a cloud to filter the sun

The earth parched

Crops withered.

The earth was fired like ceramic

Even the seed drill could not pierce

When the first drop fell it bounced

Every drop of rain rolling

Across the crust.

Prayers it would rain

Changed to prayers it would stop

That the creek would not rise

The levees not break

All unheeded by the gods.

From the upstairs windows

They watched the fields turn to seas

The tractor float like a boat

The silo tobble

Before the bass boat came.

Eventually the rains stopped

The waters receded

Sun dried the river silt into tiles

Turning farm equipment

To entrenched monuments.

The rusting truck a marker

To dashed hopes

And cherished dreams

The family farm abandoned

To Mother Nature.

Jacqui Binford Bell

September 2011

Visit Magpie tales for more participants in Mag 81 poetry rally.

Lots of comments below have mentioned that I have captured the cruelty of farming. We had a farm when I was very young. Later my father introduced me to many ranchers. And as an adult I was married to the son of a farmer in Kansas. It was from him I got the phrase - Mother Nature is a Bitch. And it seems of late that even those that don't live in farms - residents of the gulf and the east coast, forest areas of Arizona and New Mexico, grasslands of Texas, flood plains of the Mississippi - are constantly seeing proof of the same.

I dedicate this poem to all that have watched the waters rise, the flames rush closer, the winds crest, the tidal wall breached.

Art Sunday - Post Processing

2011-09-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

Lines

Photography has been in my life for as many years as crayons or paints but until lately I saw it primarily as a tool to aid in painting or as a way of recording the events of my life - the scenes that played in the background. But the age of digital photography has changed that. Today I find myself often "painting" in pixels.

Some disdainfully call it photoshopping, or photo manipulation. The spindoctors in the photographic world have come to use the term post processing, and making correlations with dark room processing with film. I tiptoed in and around the subject for some time. I have had a computer program for digital manipulation of images for longer than I had a digital camera. I would have digital images put on a CD when I had my film processed. I used Photoshop to crop, reduce an image to lines to print on watercolor paper for painting, or airbrush out that annoying artifact in a picture. After succumbing to my first digital camera in 2006 (primarily to record my paintings) I explored adjustment of brightness and contrast. Delicately.

My new digital camera having more megapixels requires a bit more playing with brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. It is the nature of the beast. So is my curiosity. What if games ensued primarily with marginal photographs. Take the bridge across Coyote Creek above.

Coyote Creek Bridge before post processing

I was attracted to the patterns of shadow, planking, and unmelted snow. Years of working with film cameras makes me pretty good at framing a photograph but immediately I wanted to crop off the top of this one. But I also wanted to accent what I saw - the patterns - so I post processed further with hue/saturation over the top.

For an artist that has been attracted to patterns and textures since darkroom 101 in college pushing the limits of my Corel Paintshop Pro program was exciting.

The original shed roof

Post processed shed roof

It also brought out the artist in me. No longer was photography just a way of recording a scene to take to the studio and use as a basis of the painting. It became a digital painting. I have a friend I met at an art fair that takes this one step further. She prints her image on canvas and then adds texture and detail with paint. It becomes hard to tell where the photograph ends and the painting begins. Art fairs are trying to find a term for this new "mixed media." So far I don't think they have exactly hit on the fact that it is just photography until you add the paint.

Volkswagen original image

Volkswagen post processed

The key in "digital art" as in all art is the artist. There exists those that think because the world has invented another technical tool they can do it. But if they don't have the eye to take the original photograph or manipulate it correctly no amount of technical toys will help. Photo manipulation programs are just darkrooms for the modern photographer. And at no time since the advent of complex color film kicked us out of the basement darkroom have we had such control over our final image.

There are the purists that think Ansel Adams would be rolling over in his grave. But he was as fond of darkroom manipulation of his image as most were in the day of B&W film. I think he would be ecstatic about post processing on a computer. But he also would not toss out the importance of the original image. No amount of digital manipulation will turn a bad photograph into a great photo image. You have to have an artist's eye.

His Kisses and Snowflakes

2011-08-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

His Kisses and Snowflakes

Night, you gentle seducer

What comforts do you offer me

Beyond dreams made long ago

And those which may never be.

For these I leave this fragile reality

To wander with the moon gods

Across clouds of snowflakes

A world made to melt with the dawn.

Dreams of his kisses and snowflakes

Like so much glitter from a long ago Valentine

And yet I take this luminescent hand

Following it to my night's bed.

To dream of past kisses

While snowflakes fall onto his golden head

Embracing this fragile happiness

And awake with only glitter in my arms.

Oh, night, seduce me again

Lead me from this tarnished future

And let me play with yesterday again

As snowflakes fall to our laughter.

Let not the dawn awake me

From the sweet memory of his kiss

Let not the day leave me

With just glitter to sweep from the floor.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

Escape in Red

2011-08-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

Red Umbrella by Christopher Shay

Escape in Red

A world in Blacks and grays
Street lights robbing the night
If all the subtle colors
The rain taking the warmth.

He stood at the rear entrance
Waiting for the rain to stop
For the gray dawn to take the dark night
For his fear to leave him.

The silence of the hall behind him
Became a weight after the call
His mind painting demons in the dark corners
Of his mind and the alley.

The only umbrella red
Was like a siren or a target
Announcing his red fear
Of the empty alley.

Walking swiftly from the panic of the hall
The sirens in his mind announcing his passage
Hiding his face beneath the red umbrella
Declaring his escape.

J.Binford-Bell
August 2011

Vanished - A Magpie Tale

2011-08-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Image provided by Magpie Tales

Vanished

It seemed such a lark

The four of them

In the old Chevy

On Route 66.

St. Louis to Barstow

Off to college

The summer of '54

One to remember.

Canvas water bag

Tied to the hood ornament

Luggage lashed to the back

Brownie box camera to record it all.

Three friends

And a stranger

To divide the cost of gas

Share roadside motels.

Pictures taken

We were there

Post cards mailed

Wish you were here.

And then nothing

Just a void

Like the desert

Into which they drove.

Just a picture

Mailed from Kingman

California here we come

Goodbye.

Just four more

That drove off seeking adventure

On the highway west

Unprepared for the emptiness.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

Clouds Illusions

2011-08-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

My sister and I returned to her home in San Fidel from Albuquerque and it was raining over the mesa. With the sun in the process of setting it seemed a good idea to get out the cameras. But little did we know what a show we were in for.

Light and dark

Is this what they mean by the sky opening up?

Light Show

The sun was off to the left of the pictures so this glow is a high cloud reflecting the setting sun. It looked like an alien space craft hiding behind a cloud.

In this photo the rain as well as the clouds were catching the reds of the setting sun and it almost looked like a volcanic eruption. With earthquakes in New Mexico and Colorado and along the Eastern seaboard it could have been. These mesas are basalt and not far from El Mapais Lava field.

As the sun set the clouds and rain lost their red cast but this picture looks a lot like the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion.

New Mexico is known for its cloud formations especially during the monsoon season here. And rain can be very spotty. While taking these photos not a single drop fell on us but we might have been a bit close to the lightning that erupted from time to time. But my sister and I could not miss this photographic opportunity. I don't know if we will ever see its like again.

Canyon Celebration

2011-08-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Canyon Celebration

Deep within sandstone walls

Memories of seas long gone

Written in the ages before words

Etched by wind

Water.

Distant rains on mesas high

Rushing over slick rock and down laughing falls

Drowning the ages

From today

The past.

Scare raindrops rushing down
Seeking the cliff bottoms
Hiding from arid winds
Quick
Hide.

Water racing away

Down slots of stone

Hidden liquid treasure

Of Life

Death.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

I won the Poetry Palace Perfect Poet Award for Week 50 with this entry.

The Hurrah
For When you
Pass
Back
Homeward bond.

Once upon a walk

2011-08-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Thoreau said, "Many men fish all their lives without realizing it is not fish they are after." The same thing can be said for photography, mushrooming, painting, etc. I picked up my camera bag this morning and called the dogs and headed out to capture the perfect picture or find the perfect mushroom, or get an idea for a great painting. And what I actually achieved was a state of Zen even if it did not match Magique's.

I so envy that look of pure spiritual transformation she gets when only on of four paws is on the ground. But I was rather happy with my Nikon D90 on the sport setting. I may still get blurred wings on hummingbirds but no more blurred dogs!

I think she spies some movement in the grass but it is almost as if she admires the view every bit as much as I do. I got pictures of this panorama without her in the foreground but she lends a scale and perspective missing without her there. Which reminds me that some of the things I crop out of a picture should stay because of composition. In the first picture I cropped out the blurred overhead branches only to go back to the uncropped version.

I have another picture of this same sun drenched glen without the pine and stump on the right. But it is that tree that sets off the aspens in the distance.

Another use for the sports icon on my digital camera is ripples on water. But I missed the muskrat that caused the ripples.

I am also using that sports icon for flowers. I tried it on a windy day to avoid blur and was thrilled that while it blurred the background it had greater depth of field where the flowers were concerned meaning I had a better chance of all petals or multiple flowers being in focus.

Don't you love the petal of the upper left flower draped over its neighbor? One of the things about looking through a camera or just taking a walk with a camera is that you become aware of details you would otherwise miss.

Details like the shadows of the hollyhocks on the wall. Or the intricate fold and subtle colors at the heart of a flower.

In the movie about Van Meer - Girl with a Pearl Earring, there is a scene where he asks his maid what color the clouds are and she first answers white. So what color is a white hollyhock? Or a black dog with the sun behind her?

The Tool Shed

2011-08-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

Image provided by Magpie Tales

The Tool Shed

Just out back

But so oft forgotten

Repository of the mysterious

And last looked for.

The tool shed shelters bits and parts

Those tools not much needed

Brushes and rollers

Paints and pans.

Snowshoes and snow shovel

All summer long

Hoes and rakes

Every winter.

Every spring and fall

The great tool exchange

Promises to establish some order

In all tossed in carelessly after last use.

I stand poised with doors open

Wondering what is at the far back buried

And just how much more

I can fit inside.

The tool shed

How did I ever do without it

And wouldn't it be nice

To have two.

Jacqui Binford-Bell

August 2011

My father once remarked that fish grow to the capacity of their tank. We were great keepers of aquariums. We also love our tools. Genetic trait I think. And as I prepared for fall and winter I once again faced the tool shed issue. I do have two - far and near. And once again promised to put them in some order. It is not that I do not do it from time to time but that the tools inside seem to party hardy when the door is closed.

Had I Known

2011-08-15T04:35:00.000-07:00

Passage of Time

Had I Known
*
Had I known
That March day
As you prepared to drive away
I would not see you so again
Would I have
Hugged you tighter
Begged you to stay
Not merely waved?
Farewell
**
Had I known
That day in July
When your call took me away
From my painting
We would not talk again
Would my words Have been sweeter
Not so in a rush
To get back to my brush?
Love you bye

***
Had I known
That December move away
Your life would be so short
Without me there
Would I have stayed
Endured more
In hopes to prolong yours
Not been so impatient
To get on with my life?
Divorce

****
Had I known
That day in August
Standing beside your bed
You would so soon die
Leave me crying
Would I have made
More time
To spend with you
Should I have foreseen
My last glimpse of you
Would be my last chance?
Awaken

*****
Had I known
That long ago day in May
I said I do
I would not be able
To change the course
Our lives would take
Would I still
Have tried
Would I still have
Loved you so?
Goodbye

******

J. Binford-Bell October 2010

Creative Process - Departures

2011-08-11T05:33:00.000-07:00

Dead Horse Mesa 10x24

As an artist I spend a lot of time alone in the studio. But I also know a lot of other artists even if sometime I am more familiar with their work than them personally. But it is their public work and their public personalities I am most likely to know because we socialize at fairs and receptions. At times I can become too familiar with their work and their wardrobe. "That old thing again!" I am likely to think from time to time even of my own work.

Artists get in ruts. Sometimes we seek the ruts because they seem to be demanded of us. Galleries want a Body of Work persona they can market. When they sell one of your paintings they don't want you replacing it with something new! They want another very much like the other. After all that sold didn't it. And when you submit to exhibits and fairs they want your five submissions to be a submission in and of itself. You have to not merely demonstrate that you can paint but that you can advertise and display yourself.

So you stop painting in a certain palate. You narrow down your subjects. And in the absolutely worst possible result you start cookie cutter art. For last year's Rio Grande Holiday show I did cactus flowers on panels - eight 6x6, six 8x8, and four 10x10. I did them because I sold out of the cactus blossoms I had done in a much smaller number at a summer fair. I sold none of them at the winter show.

And so began the winter of my discontent with myself. All along I have painted things I wanted to paint but never taken them out to shows. The gallery I was in seemed to shun them even when what I came to call my dark work won prizes. And because it won praise and sold out of my studio I painted more of it and less of my ever popular New Mexico missions.

Dead Horse Mesa above was a departure. It began as an idle sketch in my "work book" because a patron asked if I ever painted horses. I have several pages of tiny thumbnails of horses and horse heads sketched between photographs of paintings of others I had clipped out of art magazines and pasted in. Eventually I got a sketch I liked.

Hadn't a clue about colors or placement on the canvas or what I was going to do with my foreground. But I decided on a proportion and stretched a canvas. Then stared at it for a week or so as I hung the tracing of the drawing over it in different placement.

Working in my usual sequence I poured the sky and then painted in some of the foreground and decided I had boxed myself in. This sequence works with churches because I know what colors I am using on the church. I hadn't a clue about what color the horses were going to be. So I studied it some more. Hey, it was a study, right? I do all my departures as a study first. Sometimes they never get beyond that stage. Sometimes they never get beyond the stage above. I have three paintings in that place at the moment. I have lost interest in them frankly. Considering taking off the canvas and beginning again. But this painting was garnering positive comments from visitors to my studio and to my fan page. And it had a hold on me.

It remained on the shelf over my painting desk and haunted me. And little by little I would fill in more space until I was left with just the haunting horse heads and skulls. The more I painted the less options there seemed to be for the colors of the main subject and focus of the work.

Major milestone - all color blocks laid in

In the time I had been working on this departure I have finished a triptych, a study for another departure and the finished 24 x 36 painting it inspired, and Canyon Celebration. Finally I refused to let myself work on anything else. When I got to the above stage I almost stopped again. After all it was just a study. I could make notes on what I liked and didn't like, figure out the proportions for the full sized work, and rework the sketch. But at this stage a customer of mine wanted to see it done.

So if departures are such a big problem why do them? Because I learned so much out of doing this. Certainly more than I learned out of all those cactus blossoms.

Magpie 77 - End of Youth

2011-08-09T06:04:00.000-07:00

Summer Evening, Edward Hopper, 1947

End of Youth

Summer I turned six

Walker Air Force Base

Officer housing

Officer brats playing with abandon

Parents drunk on relief

All were back from Korea

Safe in SAC.

All I remembered

Is I was late for dinner

Neighbors on their porches

Catching the desert air

A sip of Mexican vodka

In gaudy Juarez glasses

The tinkling of ice over laughter.

I slipped in the back door

Limped to the bathroom

Cold water burning on fresh cuts

A whine escaping my lips

Please let them not hear

I begged some unknown god

That had protected Dad over unknown land.

But I guess you have to believe

To get special protection

And where was this god in that garage

Where were my parents then

Why hadn't they missed me at dinner

"You're in trouble," my brother said

As I climbed into the top bunk.

"And you too," I whispered back in the dark

"Especially if I tell you left me there"

Oh, and by the way it ends here

All the special protection I have provided you

You no longer have a big sister little brother

That person is now dead

I thought as I curled in upon myself.

Summer I turned six youth ended

I knew I was alone

Against boys bigger than me and little brothers

Sticks and stones can break bones I would learn

Not being missed breaks hearts

There is no special god of deliverance

In a Roswell summer night.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

Image and prompt for Magpie 77 was provided by Tess Kincaid at Magpie Tales.

Bell Tower

2011-08-07T14:54:00.000-07:00


Bell Tower

Toll No More

They always had that quality

Of ghost stories well told

And I always wanted to believe

They belonged to some distant past.

Indian children frozen in a blizzard

Running not from home

But back to their culture

Away from schools where they were held.

My parents would whisper

Words of injustice

Prisoner of war camps

For those that never fought the wars.

One by one they were closed

Reservation schools run by religious zealots

Young stripped of family and language

Stories of abuse lingered long after.

I stood decades later

Looking up at the empty shell

San Fidel Indian School closed

Its church in decay.

The people it sought to assimilate

Recovering their past

And culture

Burying the memories.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

The history of Indian Boarding Schools is not all consigned to history. In 1902 there were 100 boarding schools as part of the government assimilation policy for American Indian tribes. Between then and 1973 the population of these schools grew to 60,000 First Americans. A defense of the practice of boarding schools could be made because of the vast distances in areas like the Zuni, Hopi and Navajo reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. Was the boarding school policy better or worse than the forced busing in the south during the civil rights era?

A review begun by President Kennedy of the policy of taking children from their families caused the gradual closure of most of those schools beginning in 1973. These closures were largely due to records of abuse of the policy established by Congress. The schools were often subcontracted out to Catholic, Mormon or Baptists and review was not rigid. Those boarding schools that remain open are more dedicated to the preservation of the Indian cultures and languages and faith rather than its annihilation. And some of the students of these schools in the past speak fondly of their experiences there. Others don't. What I heard growing up in the southwest were the horror tales.

The Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico is one of the remaining schools with a great reputation.

______________

Check out Poetry Potluck Week 47: History and Stories

Canyon Celebration

2011-08-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

Canyon Celebration

Canyon Celebration is a revisit of a painting I did earlier this year: Cascade. Artists often revisit a subject especially if the first time they do it they are not totally satisfied. Or they feel there is more to be experienced in the subject.

There are aspects of both of these paintings that I like. But there are also things I have not tried in either that I think I want to try in a third painting.

Cascade

Unpacking paintings I had in Albuquerque I dropped a framed photograph on one and the corner of the frame cut the canvas. Hauling paintings back and forth to fairs I have really ruined very few. Chipped a few frames, broken glass when I did watercolors on paper, but really ruined very few paintings.

I was at first very upset but while this particular painting has been very popular I painted it in 2008 and it has not sold. I never throw away a sketch so I am thinking of redoing it, and finding myself excited by the idea. My style has changed a bit in three years and I have learned a lot about my medium. How I would hate to be one of those artists that is constantly reproducing the same subject over and over. I would be so bored.

Caller of Storms

2011-08-02T19:08:00.000-07:00


Old Wind Mill by Skip Hunt

Caller of Storms

Lying beneath the hand stitched comforters

In her mother's old room

She'd hear the steady rhythm of the old mill

Turning to the spring breeze

She'd awake to the turn of the rusty gears

Heralding a shift of the weather.

She thought she could hear it tell

Of the changes of the seasons as the years passed

Its functioning years long forgotten

It stood as sentinel

Its blades against the clouds

And cried, she believed, in a rusty voice of storms not yet seen.

Grandpa used its rise in pitch

As signal to lock up the barn

And herd the family to the dank cellar

Where wrapped in a quilt from her bed

She would listen to the howl of the wind above

Singing with the tin windmill.

And believe it called up the storms.

The storms would skip and run

Leaving broken trees and torn tin in their wake

When one leveled the wind pump

Her father bolted the downed pin wheel head

To the side of the old metal shed

As a hex sign, he said

To keep the storms at bay.

J. Binford-Bell

August 2011

Cry the Sorrows

2011-07-31T05:19:00.000-07:00

Canyon of Sorrows

Cry the Sorrows

Weep for me mournful cliffs
Let the wind sing of sorrows
And on this day filled with loss
Of promise gone

Whisper words

I wish I had said.

Cry sorrows
Of loves and lives lost
And those that have gone
Beyond the canyon walls
Sing of the memories
Etched in the past.

Let the cliffs weep
For all who have passed this way
Oh, cry Sorrows
Faces of stone
For all that has been cast off
Weep tears for love gone.

J. Binford-Bell

Revised July 31, 2011

Note: I originally wrote this poem, and painted this picture in October 2010. Showing the painting to a customer at my studio yesterday I noticed I didn't even have a final photograph of it for the portfolio, just the one above taken as a record of work done. When I pulled up the poem this morning I noticed it was also lacking. It sorely needed editing. I should write an ode to the distance time provides.

Cry

2011-07-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Cry

Cry

In the hours between dusk and dawn
I have been taking a long dark look
In the far reaches of my soul
Seeking bright memories among the pain
Looking for hope.

I have been seeking a positive note
Among the funeral dirges
But my vision blurs
With the tears of loss
Mourning the moments.

So very fleeting
Our time together
In the quantum concept of time
Your living like a shooting star
Lighting my life
But briefly.

And now I am left
With all these dark spaces
Filled with endless tears
Next life
You cry for me.

Jacqui Binford-Bell
August 2010

Note: Last August my ex-husband of nine years, dear friend of 23, died. He was reluctantly my soul mate and his loss hit me harder than I expected because we had been divorced for 13 years while remaining friends. I entered into what I call my "dark work" in painting and wrote numerous poems as an internal process to mourn his loss. Not all of them, paintings and poems, have seen the light of day. But as I near the year anniversary I am able to look back at this period and see its complexity, and the depth in fostered in my art and poetry.

Mag 75 - Dog Days

2011-07-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Dog Days

I sat on the top step of the porch

Partaking of my second glass of iced coffee

And watched the clouds boil

Over the nearby hills

Their dark bottoms hinting

At a possible relief to the drought.

Dad had called these the dog days

He grew up in the sultry south

I in the intra mountain west

For me dog days were those where we prayed for rain

And the dogs cowered under the porch

As protection from the thunder clouds.

The horizon is lit by bolts of lightning

The purr kids dash up the steps

Past me into the studio flicking their tails

Yes, I am an idiot, I say to the dogs hiding beneath me

But I love the smell of ozone in the air

The hint of damp in the breeze.

As the first huge drops of rain fall

I surrender my position

Hoping it is not for just a promise this time

Let the sky open up and christen the earth

Please dog days

Bring the drenching rains.

J. Binford-Bell

July 2011

Notes:

The dog days are the most sultry days of summer. The actual dates vary greatly from region to region, depending on latitude and climate. Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress. The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, in close proximity to the sun was responsible for the hot weather.

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek Σείριος Seirios ("glowing" or "scorcher"). The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris (α CMa). What the naked eye perceives as a single star is actually a binary star system, consisting of a white main sequence star of spectral type A1V, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed Sirius B. The distance separating Sirius A from its companion varies between 8.1 and 31.5 AU.

Reaching for the Light

2011-07-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Reach

Seek

From the depths

The Shadows

Reach

The sun's enriching rays.

Yearn

From dark despair

Seek the promised

Light

Know the warmth denied.

See

What was once hidden

In a sandstone crypt

Revealed

Truth of life lived.

Celebrate

Achieving the impossible goal

Bask in the sun

Atop

The canyon walls.

J. Binford-Bell

July 2011

Why Visit a Studio

2011-07-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my friend Jessica and I visited several galleries in that area known for its galleries. An art gallery: a room or series of rooms where works of art are exhibited. On Canyon Road there are fewer pieces of art in every room of the gallery and the closest you are likely to get to the artist is his signature at the bottom of the painting.

Galleries generally represent only the most elite of artists in an area though it should be allowed that this is of the opinion of the gallery owner, who is not necessarily the primary artist displayed. In tough economic times even the galleries owned by an artist are hedging their bets by carrying the work of more than one artist. As a New Mexico resident and not unfamiliar with the art world I was rather at a loss as to the "elite aspect" of some of the artists. i.e. I hadn't a clue as to who they were, and like a tourist assumed because their work was getting upwards of $150 per square inch (no small canvases displayed) they had to be worth that price. Paintings ranged from $6000 to $19,000.

Which brings us to the number one reason for visiting a studio rather than a gallery: Price. Artists cannot charge less than the gallery that represented them but most artists with open studios are not represented on Canyon Road.

Reason #2: Variety. A studio is an artist's work space where they frequently display all their works not currently represented by a gallery including those pieces that are not large enough to be expensive enough to support rents on Canyon Road. And it is where works that "don't fit" in the smaller galleries that represent them are displayed.

Reason #3. Investment. A studio is where you can get in on the ground floor. Let's face it an artist currently getting $150 per square inch for a 30 x 40 inch painting is getting close to the ceiling in these tough economic times. If you are purchasing art for an investment you will have to wait a long, long time for a $20,000 painting to double in value. Meanwhile it is hanging over the couch reminding you of your error. And even the Canyon Road art can depreciate.

Reason #4: Meeting the Artist. Being able to meet the creator of the art you buy is one of the reasons art fairs were so popular for so very long. It was a requirement that the artist be in the booth the entire fair. I find the paintings I sell are ones that have a story behind them (actually the vast majority of mine do) and it is telling the tale that customers drawn to a particular work get "hooked." And buying a piece of art from an artist in their studio becomes a whole other story to share with your guests.

Reason #5: Connection. How much easier it is to relate to a paint splattered painter looking for a paper towel than that snooty clerk at the gallery. How great to see other works in progress and know the process behind that fantastic sky in the painting you are taking home with you.

That is just five reasons. That the artist has more latitude to make a deal with you could be number 6 or just and addendum to number 1. The iced coffee and warm zucchini bread might be number 7. You only get treats an a gallery during opening events for which you have gotten an engraved invitation. The list could go on. Maybe in a later blog.

BTW I noticed that none of the galleries we visited on Canyon Road offered Giclee prints. I guess they cannot sell them for enough to pay the rent. And if they did they probably would be a great deal more expensive than the cost of the original from the artist at their studio.

The Other Side of Tomorrow

2011-07-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

The Other Side of Tomorrow

The Other Side

Poised on Today

Balanced precariously

In the moment

Trying to be here

And not beyond.

But always seeking

What awaits

Wanting to see beyond

Today

To Tomorrow.

If I were to climb

The far ridge of tonight

Could I see

The other side of tomorrow

Beyond what I wish it to be?

And if I saw what awaited

Would I continue my journey

Or run back sobbing

To yesterday

Stand frozen in today?

If I could see

The other side of tomorrow

Would I want to travel on?

Beyond today

And Tomorrow.

J. Binford-Bell

Note: The painting was inspired by a photograph taken in Lavender Canyon, Utah in May 2010. It was a wonderful day that heralded a change we could not see or, had we been warned, could have absorbed. The knowing of the future would have not changed much beyond our enjoyment of that day. And we enjoyed that day very much.

The Creative Process - Tithing to the muse

2011-07-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

As an accidental gardener I often wonder why it is that wildflowers you neglect, and weeds you try to destroy survive more than the flowers and plants you pay fortunes for and go to every effort to nurture. It is not the only paradox in the universe. It can be harder to start a fire than stem a random spark, or stop a malicious rumor with a single drop of the truth.

I made some decisions last weekend that opened up the whole realm of possible in my life - a life I had filled with too much busy work or intended flowers that must be weeded and nurtured. With the new openness I noticed the wild flowers and grasses growing just beyond my tended green space in my yard. And those that had thrived in that area I was watering during the drought. Those I had not had the time to mow down or weed out. Some of them are quite beautiful.

It took a week but the paintings are rehung and yesterday I actually sat down and finished one I had begun. One that did not fit my "style" but was an interesting experiment in techniques. It is hard to play with art when everyone figures they know what to expect from you, and it is difficult to waste time exploring techniques when a show looms to prepare for. Or to even play around with a second love like photography. I spoke with a student this week about tithing to the muse. It is so easy to fall into the raging waters of I must produce - this painting must be perfect - and get carried away with achieving perfection or rescuing a "mistake." We do learn from our mistakes if we will allow ourselves to make them. So we must tithe by playing with our talent - being open to the possibilities.

During the course of that lesson I worked on a few little examples on scraps of canvas. One of them begs me to explore further in that direction. And I look at the others and wonder if I could work them into a collage. I have not done a collage of scraps of this and that for decades. Too busy with my "real life." I have come to realize this week that I was too busy to notice what was real.

As for the weeds and wildflowers growing beyond the sprinkler's reach - they are pretty and survivors. I have come to appreciate their randomness.

Mystic Passage

2011-07-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

Mystic Passage/watercolor on canvas

Mystic Passage

I was so into the paint today that I was gone
Every fiber of my being
Layered one color upon another
On a surface outside myself
Inside.

Sometimes it is just a painting I create
This craft I can do so mechanically
Today it was like giving birth
To a reality only I see
Given to you.

None of the words people speak or write
Seem to apply to what occurs
When I am unconscious of all
But the brush in my hand
The paint.

As if the paint pours from my soul
Down my veins to my fingertips
Appearing by magic
On once white canvas
A life.

Figures and shapes and visions emerge
Scenes I was not conscious I dreamt
I was so into the paint today
It was hard to pull out
Some of me
I left behind.

(c) J. Binford-Bell

Perfect Poet Award Cafe

Wow!
Words fail me
When given an award
For words!

Mother warned me
I couldn't spell
Best not think of writing
Just paint.

J. Binford-Bell

I nominate Jeffery Lewis

Mag 73 - Let Me Out of Here

2011-07-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

People of Chilmark by Benton

Let me out of here

She hated islands

Hated the sea

Would never have surrendered to sail

If he had not lured her there

With promises of romance.

She did not willingly

Let herself be hoisted to the dingy

She fought like a cat on the edge of the bath

Preferring to sink

With the ship.

As the waves swamped the life boat

She looked wishfully at her husband on the deck

Tried to transport herself to the tilting deck

Screaming let me out of here

She rode the wave overboard.

Stripping off her heavy garmets

She struck out toward the distant beach

The death boat and ship

Sinking behind her

Let me out of here she yelled.

The sea coughed her up

On the rocky Massachusetts shore

A widow and survivor

She clung to life

As all she had escaped vanished beneath the waves.

J. Binford-Bell

July 2011

End of an Era

2011-07-07T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Bell Tower

Today is set up for the last art fair I plan on doing with my paintings. From Monday forward my art will be on display in my studio and the galleries that represent me. And it will be joined by my photography. I think I am tired of being a split personality though that is pretty common for Gemini's. And fairs are expensive and tons of work for an ever diminishing return with the rise of fair fees and the decline of the economy. Somewhat sad as I have mastered booth display, set up and take down.

Rio Grande Holiday Market 2011

Once fairs were where you could go and buy original art from the artist themselves. Now it is more and more likely you will buy an ink jet print (giclee) some even printed on canvas and sold as not prints. And you might only get to meet the artist's booth assistant or relative as the artist is off at another fair. There are so many these days.

And the question that I found myself pondering more and more this last year was how much of my painting was just for "the booth." I think the Rio Grande fair last Thanksgiving was a prime example of how far I could take that. I did small churches on panels and cactus flowers on panels and even Christmas ornaments to fit small pocket books and Christmas lists when what I enjoy painting is more meaningful and diverse.


The Long Return

I have taken to calling it my dark work because it does not come under the category of "Bright" preferred by one gallery I am in. But as one visitor to my booth at a recent fair pointed out it is not dark is spiritual energy.

The Other Side of Tomorrow

Spider Rock Triptych

I want to paint with a purpose beyond merely selling. I want to paint what it is that moves me and sell to those that are moved by what I paint. I have the studio. I am on Artistic Vistas and Treasures Trail and on Facebook with Binford-Bell Studio and with my sister with Binfords' Back Country Photography and that is where I want to base my marketing efforts. And paint what gives me joy.

Grand River Passage

Even if sometimes that is bright churches.

And with the studio you do get to meet the artist and buy real art. And this weekend I will be at the 30th Angel Fire Artsfest. If you are in the neighborhood come and see me and a select group of other artists displaying their wares in the spirit that began the whole art fair tradition. It never was about out doing Walmart you know.

Mag 72 - Quandary over Coffee

2011-07-05T04:12:00.000-07:00

Wheat Field with Rising Sun by Van Gogh

Quandary Over Coffee

Standing on the sagging porch
Leaning dangerously against the aging support
Drinking in the morning quiet
The first cup of coffee.

The wheat just turning gold
Looks so full of promise
Days before harvest
Still so much that could go wrong.

Too much of the once needed rain
Hail knocking off the promising heads of grain
Wheat futures crashing
Or simply a broken columbine.

So much depends on the fields of wheat
The new porch for his wife
Mortgage payments for the bank
Seeds of winter wheat to plant.

So much labor has gone before
So much prayer and hope
For a bountiful harvest
And now all he can do is fret the whims of weather.

But today the sun is full
The sky empty of clouds
The forecast on the radio
Said the line of storms were going north.

The porch post creaks
Threatening to break at last
Straightening up he takes the last sip of coffee
And pours the dregs as offering on the Morning glories.

J. Binford-Bell
July 2011

Open

2011-07-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Open to the possible

Slam the past shut

Lock the door to the road taken

Pause, back to the past

Take in the possible before you.

Why never burn bridges?

Close off the avenue to retreat

Leaving our options open

Keeps us guardians of the gate.

Flowers don't return to the bud

Birds rebuild their shells around them

Why remain open to defeat

Retreat down a path we loathed.

Why is it failure

To know the road taken

Is not our way

Look forward back firmly to the door.

Slam it shut

A chapter of our lives complete

Each door closed

Is a new path opened before us.

J. Binford-Bell 2011

Agonizing Reappraisal Week

2011-07-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

Last week was the long awaited New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair; the best artists in New Mexico. I always feel very proud to be selected and then very out of it once I am there. It can be very cliquish. On Saturday with visitors to the fair slow most artists were roaming the aisles. One told me I should do jewelry; she really likes my jewelry. Two asked why I wasn't still doing masks; Rita, Katrina, Ike, etc. Another suggested my work was not sophisticated enough for that market.

This week I have not even unpacked my paintings. Artsfest begins the 8th and it will be my last arts fair with paintings. I will continue to paint but I am just so tired of fighting the Giclee market. The NMACF was suppose to seriously restrict them but I believe it is impossible. It is like the federal government trying to stop counterfeiting. BTW you can counterfeit paintings easier if you don't use metallics like I do. I don't like my work reduced to a flat ink jet print.

In my youth I hid behind a book or a camera when I was defeated or avoiding making a decision about something - or afraid of what the next person would say to me. So I stayed away from blogging and painting and just took pictures this week.

It was a great week for clouds and flowers and just being still and looking at the world around me.

Seeking inspiration and spiritual healing.

My muse seems to have flown away for the moment.

Magpie 70 - Artificial Life

2011-06-21T07:51:00.000-07:00


Courtesy of Tess Kincaid

Artificial Life

Just one of many purchases

Picked up for cheap at the antique store

A relative for a new life

Pictures of an unknown

To deck the walls.

The oh so sterile walls

With no memories

Beginning anew

Living without a past

Not made up.

She had stood but briefly

At the edge of devastation

Saw the freedom of the total loss

From the horrendous storm

And simply walked away.

Picking up what wasn't true

From here to there

As she moved homeless

Nameless

Without a past she wished to revisit.

New identity in St. Louis

New name in Cleveland

New job in Pulaski

An apartment with rented furniture

New relatives from the antique store.

Total investment $1.99

For a new aunt

No investment in emotion

For a life

A nameless tornado could take away.

J. Binford-Bell

June 2011

Snowy Solitude

2011-06-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Snowy Solitude 12 x 12 on diagonal cradled panel

I saw this watercolor painting a couple weeks ago that was of a snowy canyon. I studied it every time I passed it. In oil it would be easy. Just splatter white paint over the painting when done. But in watercolor what is to remain white has to be decided in advance of any paint being applied. A number of methods can be used to leave an area white - masking paper, masking compound, a resist or something like soap that repels paint from an area.

The artist had to have used masking compound. And he had to have scattered it on like the oil painter but first. If I were to spatter white oil paint I would use a tooth brush and run my thumb down it. Generally the oil paint would be thinned but not too much. One wouldn't want to thin the masking compound because it would not peel off the canvas easily. Time to play and experiment. And I did using some scrap panel and canvas I had about. There are control issues. The painting that had inspired me was a full sheet of watercolor paper. It could be years before I had that much control. But I decided to give it a try on a 12 x 12 panel. Now for a subject.

The back of the Ranchos de Taos church seemed perfect because it is so plain; no complex details to confuse the subject which is clearly the snow. I was really quite happy with my results but I also see it as just the beginning. Currently sketching out a high county ranch complex which is slowly melting into the land. I think it will be perfect for my next attempt at snow on a larger format.

Artists should always look at the art of others. Otherwise our world gets too confining.

Grand River Passage

2011-06-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

Grand River Passage 2' x 3'

I thought on this particular painting rather than doing a step by step analysis of the process I would focus on some of the details in this painting. I began work on this large painting after completing a 19 x 13 inch study.

Water Passage

One of the biggest differences between a study and a full size subsequent painting is the amount of canvas that has to be covered. You cannot be as picky about details in some degree just because of scale. And yet because of the size some aspects of the painting have to be different. I find I can seldom do the same painting only larger. In Grand River Passage there is more sky than in Water Passage. And I found it necessary to carry some of the colors of the cliff into the water.


Water detail on Grand River Passage

On Water Passage this area of the painting is merely shades of green, gray and blue but on the larger painting, partly through a happy accident, I have brought in the purple and yellow and pinks of the canyon walls. And I opted out of using any of the metallic colors I used in the smaller work.


Upper Canyon Detail

I, of course, used my signature ravens in both paintings but chose to make them more numerous in the larger painting. Also I cast some gray shadows on the far walls. The upper canyon is also glazed with a white wash to give it a sense of distance and detail in the upper canyon is minimal.

Middle Canyon

This detail shows the line and granulation used in the middle canyon to focus the attention of the viewer. The delicate lines added with a pen and ink to me give the rocks more reality and substance. And it has always rather amazed me just how few lines this takes. Most of the "texture of the rocks" has been achieved with floating color with a granulation medium that causes a separation of the colors that appears as grain or texture. I then take a nib and India ink of various colors and define color "blocks." I did less of this in the smaller painting because to do too much would make it too busy.

The result of the subtle differences in the two works is that they are two different paintings even if inspired by the same photograph. I often think that the process of painting from sketch to study to full size work is a grand passage in and of itself.

Magpie 69 - Tiny Treasures

2011-06-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

Image from Tess Kincaid Magpie Tales

Tiny Treasures

A seashell smaller than a fingernail

Overlooked by so many others

Combing the smooth sands

Deserted by the departing tide.

Missed looking for larger beach treasures

Scotch bonnets, lightning Welks, conch shells

Found among the baby ears and jingle shells

Wrapped in a piece of kelp.

And then it seemed

They were everywhere

A window opened upon their presence

Dotting the beach.

Thousands of tiny treasures

Awaiting collection

Washed and saved

In an neglected brandy sniffer.

Tiny treasures

Given pride of place

Because like a magic charm

They opened an unseen world.

J. Binford-Bell

June 2011