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Month: August 2010

A map of my head

Undermined Alder, Joyce Quadrangle, August 2010

I have a spot on the top of my head that’s preternaturally prone to injury. Always the same spot gets bumped, banged. Balding too of course.  Re-denting  is exquisitely painful- just today at work under a trailer I found the leaf spring bracket with my ‘g’ spot. For just an instant all the life drains and everything goes all rubbery and the cosmos is put on dramatic notice for explanation.  I wonder how much damage I’m doing, and must rely on tender honesties of wife and friends, and a shove  in the right direction if I get a little stuck.

So my lovely wife-   into my second weekend of filmholder work, atop of 12 straight weekends of my  uninspired begumblement–  but into her 14th week of tripping over cameras bags and tripods abandoned by the front door, finally asks:  So, are you using this stuff? And  I’m finally missing taking pictures. Whooey, that seems easy now.

And speaking of dark forests, the latest gash through the densest of silver fir and alder behind the house is an odd study of contrasts. There must have been a million yards of road base brought in and the forest darkens at it’s perimeter like oxidation at the edges of a cut, bruised and almost embarrassed at the sudden exposure, and the ease of the humiliation.. I never find this stuff in the daylight hours.

Where you once were now there is not even rain

Treeline in Drought, North Peninsula, August 2010

Well I haven’t taken my camera out in several months, which is about the last time when got any rain. The irony is only peripheral,  I’ve been so absorbed with  printing lately I hardly notice the absence. A typical day printing starts at 5 am and ends…well ends isn’t the word. My latest obsession is 4 color gum printing. Don’t ask why; I don’t see well in color and am not entirely sure I like gum prints to begin with. Friday a.m. I finally broke down and went for a drive with every bit of gear I could cram in the truck in 5 minutes.

I like rotating my obsessions around like so much veteran but bitter pitching relief, it keeps me in a self-important state of micromanagement and nervousness that might be mistaken for productivity with the just right squint. The winter is for obsessing about new work and the summer is for  printing but the cycle can find occasional relief in busywork or other spontaneous projects. I started making some new film holders several weekends ago in such a ploy to distract myself.

Confronted with the mindless sun though, and outside only in the broadest definition,  I made for the darkest forest I could find. The drought extends from the cloudless sky in its 10th or 11th week and I now feel like I squint around the clock.  Not because I notice  the outside world just now but because maybe if I think about the work just right, I’ll like it ok.