Went to see Pina Bausch's last piece "… como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si …” (Like moss on a stone) at the BAM last night. The theme revolved around the Chilean landscape, deserts, folk songs and the bustling city of Santiago. In contrast to her previous Vollmond's dark and wet landscape, the scene was light and dry, with a floor that would crack open like parched earth as women in vibrant colors danced on it. It was filled with her usual absurd theatre and humor, followed by solo pieces of pure emotional expression. At times it felt a bit erratic and void of the driving energy of her earlier pieces. But there was a beauty, longing and a sadness, interactions of meeting and being pulled apart, ending as it began, one dancer- alone on stage. I couldn't help but wonder, as this being her last work, if this is how it ends, the way it begins. And all that was in-between, the joys, humor, absurdness, sadness, love and terror, come and go in vibrant flashes. Left with nothing and everything.

yellowfooted magic

Yesterday during my afternoon stroll I found myself tromping down to the stream bank not far from the house. In the summer a tangle of undergrowth by the road makes it a prickly mess to enter, but fall's thinning makes for easy access to the forest floor. The hill slopes gently to the stream and opens to a conifer canopy creating a dark and enchanting environment. The mosses were thriving in the cool moistness of the pine's shade, nourishing themselves on fallen needles. It was there on a plateau near a tributary trickling down to the banks that I found myself surrounding by a fairy ring of mushrooms.

I don't really know much about foraging mushrooms, except from stories of my mother's childhood in the woods of the Swiss Alps. I've had the fortune of dinning on black trumpets with friends along the lake of Geneva and admiring collections of wild things at markets. Out in the wilds myself, alone on top it, my exploration stop at fraise de bois, raspberries, black berries and the ocassional dandelion shoot. Certainly don't want to end up sick for days, or worst dead from an innocent mistake. What drew me to these beauties, I'm not sure. Something about them, the way they were growing, on moss and dead wood, in a ring, gave me a clue. Jumping on the internet they kept looking like winter or yellow footed chanterelles. Everything about them matched up. I went back and collected more, took photos determined to verify my find.

My "mushrooms of the northeast" search on google came up with Ari and Jenna who run The Mushroom Forager in Vermont. Their quick and enthusiastic response with confirmation of my yellow foot chanterelles was a delight. Can't wait to cook these up with butter and white wine over pasta tonight. The rest I'll dry up for winter. Yum!

fall's abundance

Along Wolf Hollow a ray of sunlight wove its way through the trees, a beckoning light streaking the hill. I put my collection of leaves and pods on a rock and scrambled my way along the ridge following it. It was if it pulled me, a pulley of light, blinding and completely directional. Whiteness, and warm, tangled with shale trunks, orche and chartreuse flickers. It was in this light my heart felt at home, “beam me up Scotty!”, a reassuring hand on my shoulder from “him”. Is this what we long for? To return home? Yes, I think so. It is not in a lover, or a house, or anything else but there. And it is also in all those things. We long to return home.

wonderful article on Yoko Ono here:
These two lines from the writer particularly held me " It takes willpower to overpower the will to power" and "It’s paradoxical, but it seems that when you accept loss, it loses its tenacity to stay lost". Oh I want to not forget that.

kids kids kids

sampling of art direction for Scholastic's Parent & Child. More to come!
Thank you to all the amazing talent that work so hard to make all these beautiful images happen.
(photographers: Tara Donne and Cheyenne Ellis stylists: Elizabeth Maclennan, Corinne Gill, Marcus Hay and Yael Gitai )

After 5 months of hard work, the redesign is happening: My covers from the Sept, Oct. and Nov 2012 issues of Parent & Child. Saving the best for last, december ROCKS!

This morning was painful. A sleepless night, rumpled sheets and tear damp pillows. Diving through big waves. The soft words of a beloved friend upon waking, a comfort. These dalias, a japanese maple and my shadow, reminding me that even on the humble sidewalk beauty awaits.

on the streets

I've been turning my eye to the street these days, meditations on what becomes in front of me at any given moment. In New York this often involves others, people, dogs, beautiful like flowers and plants in a field. And just so, when I'm in the woods, the country side, my eyes turn rightfully to what I encounter there. A friend recently asked me if my subjects know that I'm taking their photo. Most of the  time I'm sly, but lately I've found myself to be bolder. Taking the courage to approach another, to share with them what I'm seeing, that I find them beautiful for whatever reason, to make a contact, touch the moment, and then, if they are willing, the photo becomes an exchange of kindness.

ma fille

The other day as we were in the throws of our usual morning routine, I looked up from the collection of backpacks, lunch boxes and jackets I was gathering to be stunned by an almost filmic scene that my daughter was starring in. Bathed in matinal light, she calmly looked over commenting on something I have now forgotten. What I do remember, as I write this, was being struck by what I perceived as a child becoming a young woman*. This beautiful being blossoming. It was humbling to say the least.

*10/11/12: I want to reconsider this idea of a young woman. In Siri Hustvedt's essay Notes on Seeing, she reflects on a Vermeer's Study of a Young Girl (see below). At the Met, where it hangs, it is labeled Study of a Young Woman. Siri brings up the idea that we should not turn girls into women too soon. So in agreement, I'd like to adjust my above thought to: a child becoming a young girl. I think there is a necessary distinction here between, a child, a young girl/boy, and a woman/man.

rouge

Red has always been a color that I've been consistently drawn to since my childhood. My first dress of choice was of the color, swiss cotton dotted weaving, cinched at the waist for my 9th birthday. The hue of lady bugs and ending sunsets, a droplet on a pricked finger, the lingering sweet scent of decaying rose and wine. The history of Vermilion goes so far back, to the first marks in Pech Merle cave, Pompeii and the Song Dynasty that one could surely write volumes on it.

This morning I was stopped by the beauty of this simple backdrop behind the actress Sara Sokolovic by Judy Rogac. The striking line of her form against the solid hue matched only by her lips. The graphic boldness, a sea of crimson evoking painterly sensuality, the body: a broken heart, a vain rose cared for by a little prince on a far off planet.

pour la suisse

L'enfant d'en Haut (Sister)

september hues