Weekly Photography Challenge: A Good Match

This morning, wondering which “Good Match” to choose for this weeks challenge, my Rothko-esque painting caught my eye, and I decided on pink’n’orange, which is my favourite colour (combination) by far. My 3 year old grand daughter Juniper thinks it’s amazing that Granny has TWO favourite colours, but I love how they amplify each other, no matter what shade or tone is used.

So I took the camera for a little stroll around the house, collecting images of pink’n’orange matches.

I could have gone on…but I thought that was probably enough….

…except for this classic good match of a cat sitting on a mat (which happens also to be pink’n’orange).

Vale

Hey Kurt,
today was your birthday.
You would have, should have, been 50 today. But you are forever 27, a magic age, neither boy nor man, suspended there forever.
No grey hairs or paunch for you: the girls will always think you’re cute – girls who weren’t born when you died declare their undying love for you. If only you could have known, would you have felt validated by that?
I kind of doubt it. I remember seeing a video of Courtney telling you she thought you were “really cute”, and the doubt in your face. You really believed you were ugly, didn’t you?
People believe strange things, like the conspiracy theorists who insist you were murdered. It might be comforting, I suppose, to think that a clever criminal did it, and not you, despite your reckless drug use and suicidal ideation that pointed to a deep and corrosive despair at your core.
Lets not dwell on the bitter end, not today. Let’s remember you as caring, generous and sweet, a bright and beautiful young man loved by your friends, and by the punk rock community that took you in and released you into the unsuspecting world, adored now by fans the whole world over; a world the breadth of which that boy from Aberdeen Wa could not imagine…
Peace Love Empathy
lets remember and cling to them.
The world needs them more now than ever.
Rest easy, sweet Kurt,
wherever you are.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Shadow

Without shadows, what would we know about light? This thought occurred to me when learning tonal drawing, in which the shadows give shape to everything. A Japanese paper lantern casts just enough light to bring form into the darkness. Morning and evening are the best time for shadows, I think. The sunlight comes at a slant, casting interesting patterns on the curtains at my windows.I chose to layer a black gridded fabric behind a white curtain, just for the way it would look with the sun behind it, along with a dream catcher and other beaded pieces. Late in the day, a peach tree embellishes the striped shadow of a Venetian blind.

Cats are notorious for their love of sunbeams, but in this case, Morgen sat beside it, in the shadows, so that she stands out against a blaze of light. You’d almost think she did it on purpose !

Weekly Photography Challenge: Solitude

Oh, if only…the photography challenge is to portray solitude, but my biggest challenge is finding some…A wander with the camera in hand is a small refreshing taste of solitude for me, and I found these solitary ladies hanging about in my veggie patch. Apologies to any arachnophobes…

We have a number of agave plants ( my eldest planted a cacti garden before leaving home…). They have flowered a number of times, although not every year. There is just one this time, and it’s a giant. The flowers are just beginning to open, and the local Wattlebird Gang is moving in to lay claim to all of its bounty. They probably use at least half the calories they consume from the nectar on chasing away other birds…

Weekly Photography Challenge:Repurpose

One month already gone- it whizzed by, probably because we’ve had various family members staying, and/or been travelling for most of the time since Christmas day, and time flies when you’re having fun…

So, to this weeks photography challenge – Repurpose. As an artist and as a “greenie”, I’m often looking for ways to reuse old stuff, and that’s how I have made an old vernacular building (or bush shed) into a semi-outdoor living space. We call it the Seahorse Saloon.The walls are lined with pieces of old cupboards, the shelves were drawers. Parts of walls were doors or windows. A bedhead is the back of a settee made from a broken pallet, amongst other things. A coat of paint (a hand-me-down tin from a friend) ties everything together, and sets the watery theme. Most of the furniture was sourced in thrift store/op shops.

The miniature bar used to be part of a kitchen cupboard, the end was a door on a different cupboard, the lining boards are so old, no one knows…etc. You get the picture! I’ve had a lot of fun with it, and plan to have a lot more.

Unfortunately, spiders of many species also find the saloon congenial – here one has repurposed the ears of an old hobby horse into a spider house….Eeek!