Visions and Revisions of Florence

Nancy was invited to present some research at the Kunsthistorische Institute in Florence earlier this summer. It's a pretty enough town but I'm not a big fan of tourist havens. Summertime in Florence? Outa control. Still...

2 views of the Duomo:

Tile in the Baptistry:

Candy, eye candy:

2 views of a garden:

A bike:

My obsession with masonry persists:

The San Niccolo hills:

Thru a portal:

2 views inside a shop:

She's the one!

And this from a short trip to Sienna...

The Madeleine Amulet: Producing the Amulet

This brief video shows the process of designing, drawing, calligraphing, painting, and illuminating an amulet for my sweet little kabuchki Madeleine.

At Museum Hill, Santa Fe

Heck, I forgot this one yesterdee, but it's too good to pass...

Golden G

Aen davvarreem...

Video: laying gold leaf

This 3 minute video shows me laying gold leaf on an amulet I'm making for my granddaughter, Madeleine. The voice-over provides explanations of what I'm doing, as well as some technical details that may be of use to craftspeople who want to learn about the process. The background music is entitled "Midnight in the Greenhouse" and was written and produced by Kevin MacLeod.

Photo Technical Studies

Here is a collection of cellphone photos and some technical transformations of them, trying to enhance their inherent mood. The photos were taken on Captiva and Sanibel Islands.
Your comments are always welcome and valued.

Boat and clouds 1

Boat and clouds 2

Ibis

Sunset, palms

brickwork to a new world

Welllll, the brickwork maybe only goes to a new(ish) back yard.
Here's some pix of some of the fun parts...

Weekend at Greenbriar State Park

Nancy and I went to Greenbriar State Park in West Virginia last weekend. WV has an amazing state park system with remarkably beautiful cabins, many of which were built by the CCC during the 1930's.

Below are excerpts of some things I wrote and a few pix of some things we saw. Your comments and feedback, as ever, are welcome and valued.

To begin, the view from our front porch:

Which I then posterized:

Sitting on the front porch, working on my Atternen Juez Talen, I wrote this revery on theodicy (translated back into Old English):

Piled and compiled the evidence
That God has cast this world from His heart
And left this beast, flesh and blood
That once was His body, eyes and hands,
To thrash in the muck, to blindly thrash;
To build on the sands of our violent shores,
Stormy drunk and full of ourselves,
Till the tides have undermined our works,
Till the waves have eroded the genome of us.
God washing His hands, shakes them thrice,
Says a blessing, dries them, and we are gone.

(No, I have not lost hope or faith, but surely we must look, and see, and consider such things as we critique ourselves.)

This is our living room. Here's the opposite view taken from that corner chair...

The creek behind our cabin:

I spent a fair amount of time revising a story I've been working on. Here's the opening paragraph as it now stands, two revisions beyond what I wrote in Greenbrier...

Darkness
How long will it take for this night to pass? The danger is palpable and I feel helpless and exposed. I’m afraid to move for fear of being heard. I try to penetrate the darkness but I think I’ve gone blind. I try to penetrate the confusion but anxiety is wailing in my ears. Is that the panting of an animal or my own breathing?
Perhaps I am dreaming. I try to wake but I don’t know how.

Down the road we found a pristine and prosperous little village, Lewisburg. It's a lovely place nestled in among the WV hills, standing in stark contrast to Caldwell, just 3 miles away, which, best as we could tell, was made up of 4 junk yards and a bar. Here's a little art installation in a gallery and a log cabin. The objects in the installation are about 4 feet long!

Zoey had a great time too. Here she is strolling with Nancy...

Here's a later scene in my story. Originally I talked Heisenberg and the psychology of his uncertainty principle. But Cal felt it was too cold and intellectual. So I scrubbed it a few times and this is how it turned out...

Formless. A last vestige before my own nothingness. Blown by voiceless winds. Washed away by rivers I cannot feel. I am a fragmenting atom. An uncertain thing. Uncertain of where I am. Of how I got here. Of where I’m going. I’m not even certain if I am. Or if I have ever been. Each moment is a separate reality.  Each act of observation. Each thought. Changes everything.
If only I could.
Stop.
Thinking.

And here are a few pix of some hikes we took...