Kat Eye Studio

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The City’s Forest

Architectural Salvage, Philomath, Oregon

Architectural Salvage

Perhaps it’s just because I enjoy framing street scenes, or perhaps it’s because the latest Find Your Eye lesson is on starting a series, but I stumbled on a new series topic in my photography last week: The city’s forest.

I first noticed an interest in capturing these trees planted along the street when we visited Hood River, Oregon a couple of months ago. I was attracted to the light and shadow. The shape of the tree contrasted with the shapes of the architecture. The interaction of these bits of nature brought into our hard, urban world. It’s as if we know we need the trees at some deeper visceral level, so we mark out spaces in regular intervals along our streets to make room for them. They shelter our path from the sun in the summer and the rain in the fall. They provide color and beauty. They are silent witnesses to the lives bustling under and around them. They survive and thrive, even where we neglect them.

Sheltering the Abandoned

Sheltering the Abandoned

Can you imagine our neighborhoods and towns without these trees? I can’t. Or maybe I can, but I don’t want to. I am always sad when a tree lining a street dies or has to be cut down. The trees we plant are physical extensions of the heart of a place, and something changes when a tree is lost.

I’m on the hunt now, to capture the city’s forest. To celebrate the life of these trees in manmade places.

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Standing Tall

At our favorite place to camp on the Oregon Coast, Washburne State Park, there is a half-mile (~1km) path to the beach from the campground. I find it the most interesting path, because the forest changes dramatically 3 to 4 times along the short distance. It starts out in this stately forest and ends in grass covered dunes and an expansive beach. I love this forest, where the trees stand tall and the ground is covered by layers of soft and squishy pine needles and moss. It’s very quiet and peaceful, walking through these trees. It can also been very eerie, depending on the light.

Lucky me, the sun came out from behind the clouds and lit the trees up from behind, making them glow.  I tried black and white with this image, and it does look great, but I couldn’t let the green of the moss on the ground and the trees disappear. It’s too much a part of my experience of the place. Which do you like best?

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Don’t forget…

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Time

 

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
 ~Carl Sandburg

 

How will you spend your time today?

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What’s going on around Kat Eye Studio…

 

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Love Letter from Italy

“You have entered my life and colored it with amazing colors I did not know before…”
This is a rough translation of one line of the love graffiti found on the path in Parco di Monza Saturday. Isn’t it beautiful? I captured this image of the graffiti for the interest in the photograph but when I looked at it on the computer, I fell in love with that line.  I could take that quote for myself, to describe my time in Italy. Or the beauty and peace I find in Parco di Monza. Or the relationships with my husband and son, also pictured in the distance. So many interpretations in one simple line. 

We had a beautiful weekend spent doing a few last, favorite things around our home in Italy before the dismantling of our lives this week. It’s a weird feeling, this dismantling. Taking apart piece by piece the life we’ve built here. What seemed so exotic a couple of years ago has become so normal. When did that happen? There was no exact moment in time, I know, but a gradual adjustment that just now becomes obvious as we shake things up again.

Beyond my move, there is quite a bit going on around here, I want to share with you too…

– I am featured today in Beth Nicholl’s “Shared Stories” on the Do What You Love blog. Please come by and say hi! There are also lots of wonderful stories in Beth’s archive, if you want to look around a bit.

– Exploring with a Camera: From a Flower’s Point of View continues for another day, link up by the end of the day tomorrow if you are participating. I am loving the entries for this theme!

– Will you share what interesting new sites you have found in the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap? Yesterday I shared the link list and asked you to share your favorites in the comments. There are so many wonderful artists participating! Please come by and let us know who you’ve found by leaving a comment on yesterday’s post.

– I did something crazy this weekend and entered a photo contest, my first ever. I’ve looked at a number of contests over time, but for some reason this one felt like it “fit.” Would you come by and vote for me for the “people’s choice” award? (This is an example of me feeling the fear – both of putting myself out there in a new place and asking people to vote for me – and moving ahead anyway.)

Whew. And I’m moving internationally in the midst of all of this. Doesn’t that sound a bit crazy? But for some reason, it’s all working out just fine.

I hope you have a wonderful, creative Monday! I am linking in to Creative Every Day and The Creative Exchange today.

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A Gentle Twist

This morning on my walk in Parco di Monza I noticed the tree trunks along the path. I noticed how some trees grow straight and tall while others have a gentle twist. Why is that, I wonder? 
If you know the scientific answer, don’t tell me. That was a rhetorical question. I would rather envision these stately trees reaching and stretching for the sun with gentle yoga-like twist to keep them energized.
Seeing the twist in the trees comes from the one and only sketch I did last week on our visit to Scotland. Much of the time it was windy and it rained off and on, so I wasn’t standing or sitting in any one place long enough to sketch anything outdoors until our last day in Edinburgh. We went to the botanical garden on a gorgeously sunny day where I found this interesting tree trunk. I sat and sketched the form of it – the details of texture and leaves are beyond me at this point, I’m afraid.

The best part of this drawing is not how it looks; the best part is what it helped me see today. This morning, as I was walking and noticing the twists of the tree trunks, I was very grateful to all that art has brought into my life. It doesn’t matter the art form, all of it helps me to see the world around me in different ways and capture it in my own way. Whether it’s photography or drawing or painting or words, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? Seeing, interpreting, and then sharing it here.

(Linking in to Creative Every Day and The Creative Exchange today. Happy Monday!)

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Claim your Artist

With everyone born human, a poet — an artist — is born,
who dies young and who is survived by an adult.
– Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve
This morning I came across this quote in the introduction Julia Cameron’s Vein of Gold, the sequel to her amazing book The Artist’s Way which I read early in my creative journey. I’ve had Vein of Gold on my shelf for some time, but it wasn’t until this morning that I looked at the shelf and decided to pick the book up. It’s time for me to revisit the topic of creativity in more depth.
Within the first few pages, she has already touched on something that I believe at my core: We all have an artist within us. You may not have realized or rediscovered it yet, you may not have claimed it yet, but the artist is there. It’s the same artist who approached a new box of crayons with glee when you were 4 years old. The same artist who doodled on your notebooks in junior high. Who brooded over which songs to include to create the perfect mix tapes (er, playlists) as a teenager.
We all create. And a person who creates something, brings something new into the world that wasn’t there before, is an artist. I can name you an artist, but that doesn’t matter. The only person who can truly name you as an artist is… you.
Julia writes this in the introduction of Vein of Gold: “…you will reclaim your keys to the creative gifts locked within you. You will discover that the keys have been yours all along. This means, of course, that it is not my place to name you an artist. Such power would be lovely, but it does not reside with me. You are the one who must name yourself. You are the one who must seek – and claim – your creative destiny. No one else can do that for you, but you can do it for yourself.”
Are you ready to claim your artist? I did, some time ago here, and it was an amazing, empowering experience that has changed my point of view in so many ways. You can too. Come with me as I explore the “art + creativity” part of my personal equation more here in the future. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to claim your artist and find your own personal equation along the way too.