Brownstone

The streets of Manhattan's Upper West Side are lined with brownstones, gracious homes whose steps and masonry stoop railings usually have slightly curved edges. More than once I've watched skilled workmen repair and restore them, carefully smoothing sharp corners into rounder, friendlier shapes. Using my camera's built-in Illustration setting, the subtle colors and strong shadows became a close-to-abstract interplay of horizontal and vertical lines. I tend to be more attracted to curves than to straight lines, but this image just makes me happy---a remembrance of a walk on a sunny afternoon.

Outdoor Seating Available

Although we've had some days above freezing, the snow lingers. Lingers? Every shopping mall has large piles that have morphed into snow mesas claiming squatter's rights to seven or eight parking spots apiece. Long, dirty Jersey snow-barriers squeeze traffic into one and a half lanes. Incongruously detached walls of snow rise here and there, two or three feet wide and five feet high, between the road and a dug-out car. Each looks like the one remaining wall of a fallen-down house. The sight of these tables and chairs outside a restaurant made me chuckle. Hot chocolate, anyone?

The Edge of the Rink

The Olympics are here. All work stops when the ice skaters are performing. Television gives us the miracle of seeing events happening a continent away, with super-slow-motion replays of triple axels and close-ups of the sequins on the ice dancers' costumes. But some things must be experienced in person. The cold rising from the ice, the sense of speed and movement from one end of the rink to the other, the shared excitement building into shared jubilation when a skater compels the entire audience to jump to its feet for a standing ovation. After the awards ceremony, the skaters take a victory lap and fans try to get one more photo. Here they are, in Cleveland, zooming in on Evan Lysacek and Brandon Mroz for one last shot.

What the Blizzard Left

Snowzilla, Snowmaggedon, Snowgantica. Two big snowstorms in one week have left us contemplating names. The first snowstorm lasted for two nights and a day. It softened outlines and made everything seem magical and romantic until we started to shovel it. The second storm was scary, with trees creaking and groaning from gusts blowing the snow horizontally. Oddly-shaped drifts collected against houses and fences, looking like sand dunes escaped from some far desert. In the morning, this is what greeted us, curved by the force of the winds as they grew overnight: Carrotsicles!

Frosty Windshield

The other morning, circular frost crystals speckled the side windows of the car. Frost ferns covered the front windshield. I sat in the passenger seat for a minute and enjoyed the view. Mundane buildings surrounding an ugly parking lot had been transformed into a shimmering composition. I wasn't sure if this photo would look like much of anything, but I took it anyway. It reminds me of looking closely at a small section of one of Monet's canvasses, of being too close to see the objects and instead enjoying the colors, shapes and brush marks. It's full of texture and ambiguity. I thought about how Monet painted his gigantic water lilies after he had started losing his sight. There are time when we may not see things clearly, but we can still have a beautiful view.

Make Your Own Rainbow

Last week, my table was covered with yarns, metallic braids and my hand-dyed ribbons. I laid out the colors then cut, gathered together, twisted, and knotted the bundles. Pinks, reds, browns, greens, purples. Fuzzy, smooth, shiny, nubby, crinkly, all running through my hands. The soft pile grew. Making these fiber bundles is a favorite task. It exemplifies all the reasons why I work in fiber. I love the colors and textures. Handling them and drinking in their beautiful colors satisfies some need as basic as eating or sleeping. As I worked, I imagined what my students might end up doing with them some day. Within the pile, I had this rainbow. What a joy.

Old Iron Bench

In the shelter of a 19th-century home, I found one of those absolutely perfect tableaux. This sometimes mystifies my husband, who is not really attracted to rusting iron benches set against walls clinging to their last vestiges of faded paint. Why do I like this so much? The bench mimics delicate lace but the rust declares its weighty iron bones. It took years for those shades of peach and orange to creep and speckle and blend across that bench. The wall behind it is a subtle half-and-half mix of blue and gray, almost the same values. I can't tell you why I am so strongly drawn to this, but I could find inspiration in it, over and over, for a long time.