Grimm's Faerie Tale Macros

A couple of years ago while visiting Seattle, I started a project to photograph the miniscule side of nature that defies imagination. Some of the images I compose are whimsical, but most of them have a strange and dark otherworldly feel. There are creatures hiding just around the corners of our sight and just small enough to escape notice. And if you squint your eyes just a little, the macabre faerie tales start to come to life...

Waiting impatiently for spring

The spice bush (Lindera benzoin) is the very first shrub to bloom in my yard every year and it is just not quite ready. I really can't wait to do some intense macro work on both the male and the female shrubs this year. I have one of each and this is the male who is the real showy one.

O'Keefe? Oh, no...

I have been trying to document the emergent spring in the trees and shrubs in super-tiny macro this year because I thought it would look great and be scientifically interesting. But now I feel as if I have been watching the sex lives of trees through a peephole. Have I been shooting plant pornography?! I am going to keep doing what I am doing, but I am not going to be able to sit down with any one of these plants and have a conversation over coffee. Ever.

From grief, a spark

I had sworn that I would be more diligent in my creative efforts and in holding myself accountable for my daily creativity, so I am giving this a fresh go.

Noodling around on the way home from work:

Muskegon Museum of Art Postcard Showcase

Just finished up my 5 postcards for the Muskegon Museum of Art Postcard Showcase. Now I have to get them in the post to make the hanging deadline. Sounds like a great show in the works! My contributions are scaled down versions of my Postcards From the Lunar Sea series. Hope they find good homes!

The great foretelling!

Did I tell you it was The Year of the Dodo?! Well, apparently I am on the same page as a few other people out there. Take a gander (heheheh) at the newest pro-animal blog out there on the feeds - The Dodo!

2 of 365: Frozen in place

Today was a weather setback and a little bit of a health setback with some deep snow and bitter cold winds. I stayed indoors and tried again to recuperate. I did not want to give in on my daily blog post, so here I will post my only creative endeavor of the day. I have a huge ice dam off the back of my house and the light coming through the icefall is just amazing. Turned sideways, it reminds me of a faerie forest, one that is ominous and more than a bit haunted.

Will be thinking of Grimm's Fairy Tales, the originals!

1 of 365: In all things, there is a beginning

The first day of 2014 and I am making an attempt to start new habits. Old habits are difficult to break, but new habits are harder to start. And so I am barreling forth on the coattails of my friend Took Gallagher, artist extraordinaire, who writes a daily creative blog on her current project. I applaud her tenacity for keeping herself on-track and accountable as a full-time working artist both in public and on the interwebs. And all projects begin, though some with more framework than others, in earnest. It is funny for me to admit, as both a perfectionist in my own work and as someone who embraces the seat-of-the-pants kismet of every creative project to evolve as it sees fit anthropomorphically, that one of my heroes is Adam Savage. He is a perfectionist, granted, but one of the engineering breed. If he were on one side of a triangular architects scale, I would be on a different scale altogether! See below:

Yet he inspires me with his joy, his absolute enthusiasm, his sheer goofiness! And then I watched this. I imagined us taking completely different paths on the same project and ending in two extremely separate project premieres, but each with total and equal merit and, well obviously, sheer goofiness! I beg of you to take 15 minutes to watch this and revel in his scientific charisma and to celebrate with me what I dub The Year of the Dodo, 2014!
 Happy New Year! See you tomorrow, fingers crossed.