It snowed, again, this morning. No accumulation this time, just a lovely interlude of winter. I took pictures from the inside looking down, and then ventured outside to photograph from the ground.

Then it was over. I continued photographing the yard...

Here's Claire as Alice, playing croquet, or trying to figure out how to. I'm back to "Down The Rabbit Hole". Show opens on my birthday. 

And now that it's been 60º I thought I'd post some photos of the snow. At night.

A drawing of Claire's from a long time ago that I found folded up in the pocket of a jacket I hadn't worn in many years. She loved the bath. Not so much with the shower.

And here's a photo of her, some years later, still enjoying the bath.

Last night was the Graffito performance. I was so pleased. Not like the run through, when the photos looked so bad I had decided I wasn't going to show up. We adjusted the temperature of the images, the contrast, the lightness; I could have gone on, but it was pretty good so I decided to be satisfied. Great reception of the piece, from friends and members of Allen's department. I have loved working on this. I want to do more. Here are a few shots, though one can't really tell that these are projections, unless you use your imagination. I invite you to do so....

Some photos from the short lived snow, Friday night to Saturday. It was almost all gone by 2:00. And Claire sleeping in on Saturday, missing it. And some of her in the snow two weeks ago, sledding in the back yard, definitely not missing it.

I wrote an email this afternoon telling part of the story of my time in Paris in 1975. I lived there, and worked at Atelier 17, an historic print shop in the 14th arrondissement. I was exclusively an etcher then, and had been at college, where I studied with Michael Mazur. Here is the print I did in his class (a not-very-good jpeg of same), the piece that convinced him to ask me to be his assistant the following year. I drew from two photographs; one of my father at 2 years old, and one of my grandparents. They must have been taken in 1906 when they all, including my Aunt Olive, who was Ida at the time, as she would not change her name to Olive to match that of someone in her office for 20 years, first arrived in this country on the S.S. Rotterdam. There's a much longer story to be told, about my time in Paris, my father's arrival here and Michael Mazur, but for now, this all will have to do. It seems to me, over and over, that I've been making the same picture for 35 years.

 

Some more photos of the back yard (and one of the front porch and lights) from the fall. More images that make me think of the paintings I am looking at, even now. Consumed with Graffito, my piece with Allen, all day, sitting here at the dining room table. Not good for my piriformis; good for my heart, though.

This searching for photographs for Allen's piece has brought me gifts; rediscovering old, and not-so-old, photos which I get to post in a new venue. Here are some I posted on facebook in the fall, found in a folder on my desktop, one of hundreds I've looked through, on external drives, on both computers, in iPhoto. These are of the back yard in fog. It was another rainy, cold day here in North Carolina today. We've had many of them this winter, more than our usual share, I think. These photos might have been taken today, though they weren't. They remind me of my paintings.

I redid the final piece for Alice. Well, actually the penultimate piece - I will have to come up with a small final image, Alice back in the un-Wonderland, though I don't know what I will do for that. Claire is a year and a half older than when I started and the dress is gone. I suppose I will have to invent a way to incorporate these facts, how returning to her life before her journey, she does that as a changed person. The girl has become a woman. Or not. Till then, here's Alice running from the cards. Back to Graffito, my piece with Allen, tomorrow...

On this somewhat bleak day, I am remembering a slightly brighter time. Bastille Day in New York. July 14th, 2009. Walking through Bryant Park behind the 42nd Street Library I discovered the carousel. I'd been there, in the park, many times before, broke up there, even, or was broken up with, can't remember which, by my high school boyfriend, in 1970. But I'd never seen the carousel before. I could have used the sight of this magical ride then. Oh well, 40 years later.

Claire has been sick this week, again. Took her to the doctor this afternoon and turns out she's got an ear infection and a mild case of asthma. She's been given an inhaler, which she's very excited about. Came home and found this contact sheet on my desk; I'd left it there weeks ago when I was cleaning out some boxes and bags in my studio. I've also been gathering images of her to use for a competition. Another post with a series of photos of Claire; she is my muse, as Emily noted a few weeks ago. And those are my Italian boots she's wearing in her Betty Boop costume (sans wig), bought in a little shoe store on the piazza in Strada en Casentino in 1991. They don't fit me anymore. So glad she will be able to wear them for a little while, at least. I think she is on her way to a much larger shoe size; girl's got the longest, skinniest feet I have ever seen.