photos from hug point, oregon coast

(nearby, a grandmother in a straw hat sits quietly dividing her attention between me and the actions of her daughter and grandson, who are redirecting the flow of the stream toward their enormous sand castle.. "i'm so glad there's somebody who notices the small things. now at least i know i'm not the only one!" she chuckles to me.)

Watch 'hug point healer' video

two birthdays: April 9th

 

From a crook in the valley floor, I hear the long wires lead away from here with their thrum among the wind--over and out to those places that you observed, seemingly with half-closed eyes.  I know that just over that not too distant ridge is the village of monstrous eyelids on outstretched arms, and the broken house with its fixed gaze. 

Your hepaticas fill the nearby swamps and an unearthly material vibrates across the treelines.

You painted the interstitial kingdom, the insect chorus, and the trenches of a night sky.  And you painted the way death calmly sits beside its bed in the rain. 

And now a small voice arrives in spring like two rings from a bell. 

Arrives through the canopy of green stars.

Happy birthday Charles Ephraim Burchfield.

Happy birthday Arthur Heron Chasse. 

(orb-jects) photographs taken at home while pacing...

a few things so banal

and situational

in a corner of

the livingroom

end up looking

like....

what?

                                                               "old orb
                                                                 slow lost center
                                                               axis become powder
                                                                         barely turning
                                                                   munching dust
                                                              old king"

from a paper planet...

For years now,  I've been working with paper as a sort of tympanum for sound-making and as a material for imaginary landforms--under titles variously using the idea of the footpath.  I've always wanted to properly document the state of the paper at the end of a performance, all covered in sand, pine needles, filings, pebbles, glass, or dust...variously folded, wrinkled, stained or torn.  This week my friend Matty Sidle helped me 'cheat' a bit by setting up the performance situation (without an actual performance!) and, with natural and artificial lighting, shoot some video and stills.  Here's the first...with many more to follow.

window panes for signaling to a child

children singing like bats

On a field trip to the Oregon World Forestry Center last week, two of my students (ages 7 and 8) called me over to listen to them singing into an echolocation simulator.  From nearby speakers, bat recordings played....

Muir Woods 'fantasy apparition'

is this optic flower a symptom of friendships on the footpath below?
it's tempting to project.

in any case, the 'gem' from a weekend in the Bay Area....