How Cubism Was Invented ...

...The model moved.
For several weeks I attended a painting class that was divided
into sessions for still life and portrait painting. I hated the first sessions;
I spent four years in high school art classes drawing still lifes 
and swore I'd never do another one. The ones set up for the little class 
were nothing I'd have chosen for myself; I was neither stirred 
nor motivated by them. 
I also did four years of drawing portraits where I showed 
a knack for distorting the features of my subjects. 
Over time, I learned to draw them "correctly,"
but at the cost of individuality, of any distinct personality of line.
So I was torn when I drew this young woman, between the need to 
regain that ability make the painting "look like" my subject
and just painting for the love of color. 
Yep, she sure is crooked, but she resembles her real self, too.
I hadn't painted a human from life for, like, forever, and it shows, 
but I am happy that I just chose to let the brush sort of
fall where it wanted, to let the color do its job.

Because It Is

I love bricks. They add warmth wherever they happened to be used.

Here, on the wall of this building on South Meridian Street,

they are old. They've seen the passing of years, of generations

of shops and people wandering the streets.

Their varegated color speaks of the clay from which

they were formed, the hands that made them

a hundred years ago and more. So many are stacked, 

doing their job but needing to have their mortar cleaned, 

repaired, and replaced. They are blue and red, 

orange and brown, and running one's hand over their

surface brings one into contact with history,

in a way no thin coat of stucco, spread over 

styrofoam, can ever do. 

A Not Too Hot Sunny Day

After enduring a summer of drought, 

last week we finally got the cooler temperatures 

and rain we so badly needed. 

Flowers that had not bloomed, 

or that had bloomed and died from the heat, 

seemed to have blossomed again, in time 

for one riotous burst of color before fall.

Nailed It

Sometimes my motto is "Fucked up is good."
Strung at odd angles, the orange tape suited the coloration

 of both the pole and the yellow numbers.

Otherwise, it was all screwed up and out of place,

which is why I liked it.

A Sunny Day

The flowers above made a very sunny display at 

the corner of one Speedway yard. Their number was

so large they served as a hedge and so bright 

they seemed to sing loud enough for

 the entire neighborhood to hear.

The plants below, while much fewer in number,

are anything but innocuous, their shape

and color lending a bawdy air 

to an otherwise plain yard.

Sun-Sparkled Autumn

Last fall the trees were so beautiful. 

I didn't have to leave home to see autumn color because it was 

beautifully expressed within a mile of my house.

Here, it looks as though I'm in the middle of a woods 

when I'm really standing in a parking lot across the street from the

Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There are houses just on the other side,

screened by the trees. I remember standing there, mesmerized

by the way the sun reflected off the leaves, 

sequins in the middle of the day.  

Tree Poodle

There's supposed to be a reason for it, one I don't quite understand, but each year some of the trees in the neighborhood get a trim job. Their limbs are cut back, leaving only little poufs at the ends. While I enjoy the way the limbs divide the sky, with splashes of sunlit leaves for accent,

I prefer to stand amid these curtains of color,

 where the sun enters between the leaves, 

creating shadows of themselves, on themselves.

It's A Plot!

My neighbors ought to know better. 

They would fight any sort of addictive substance in their area, 

so why do they insist upon planting plots of color where I can see it?

Don't they know they run the risk of finding me rolling in ecstasy in their yards, the shutter of my camera going off uncontrollably?

Oh, the red! Oh, the purple!

Oh, the green and yellow! Do it to me again! 

Color, color, color! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Sigh ... I'm done now.

Want a turkey sandwich?

Because I Like Color

I saw this patch just outside the post office and thought the yellow-green

shrub against the fuchsia and purple flowers was so vibrant as to be almost overwhelming. I dunno. Sometimes I think a lot of people just see patches of anonymous petunias where I see a visual pornucopia of color. I didn't take the picture because I found the flowers in themselves to be beautiful; I was amazed at the intensity of the color and wanted to remember it. Click. 

Speaking of anonymity, this is a section of the strip mall where a lot of Speedway residents do their grocery shopping, pick up shoes for the kids, buy gas. It's neat and clean and has been around since 'way before I moved here in 1978. It's been remodeled, updated and added to several times. Stores close, stores open in an economic ebb and flow that the little mall seems to have weathered pretty well. 

I suppose when the surroundings are so bland, I turn inward, looking to my own little world for color -- or I keep looking for it in tiny wads like the petunias and their brushy neighbor.