when wicked weather this way comes

I wouldn't have normally posted this but seeing as we've got Fay on the way it seemed, timely.

This is one of the collection of impressionist abstracts I've painted over the years and it's title is, "When Wicked Weather This Way Comes". Painted just after Hurricane Wilma came through, it is my impression of how the ominous darkening sky appeared as the storm front approached.

In case you're interested, the original painting is acrylic on canvas gallery wrap, measures 36" x 36" and is available for purchase.

Good Luck & Stay Safe everyone. . .

shrimp boats - part 1

Stock Island, the next island north of Key West, is the industrial business end of the city. I got out there, not too long ago, to shoot the shrimpers.

This is what Key West looked like 30 or so years ago before the tourist economy kicked in, a pretty rough waterfront fishing town.

The shrimpers themselves are weathered old salts and, I'm told, They go out for days or a week at a time to do some really hard work.

When they get back to port , it figures they'd be sunburned, thirsty and pretty randy. (God knows, I would be. . .)

So after they've cashed-in their catches, I imagine them all heading into town where it's mostly every man for himself and hide the women!

grassroots

I don't own a television and three years ago, that was a lifestyle choice. When the old one died and I dutifully troddled off to K-Mart to replace it but, as I was considering which model and what size I thought, "how much of this crap do you watch anyway?"

The answer came back, "not so much. . ."
An episode of The West Wing on Wednesday night, a dumbed down documentary on the History Channel every once in a while and, in the mornings, with the sound down and NPR on the radio simultaneously, FoxNews. . . (not for content but to catch the occasional long shot of short skirts, hose and heels twitching around in uncomfortable chairs - a hangover from my younger life in the corporate sector). But even though that was all I was "watching" I had to face the fact that even when I wasn't watching, the damned TV was on all the time, like a gloomy, inane soundtrack. So, to make a long story short, I left the store sans TV with a couple of hundred dollars that was destined to be better spent, over the next few weeks, at B.O's Fishwagon and Schooner Wharf.

Sure, there were a few weeks of withdrawal (mindless habits are hard to break) but after a while something wonderfully unexpected started to happen. . .
I was spending more time with my cat, my plants began to prosper and I got to painting and writing a lot more. My energetic focus was shifting more toward my world and away from the chaos the TV had been telling me was so important.

Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those folks with their head in the sand. I like being informed but I refuse to be inundated (and let's face it, TV is an avalanche of information). These days an hour of WLRN's Morning Edition gives me the broad stroke on what's happening in the world and if something catches my special interest, I can find it on-line or in print and read more about it. (I'm an educated older guy and I read quite a bit - no need for a Murdoch manipulated media interpretation).

Here's my point. . .
Everything - you, me, the moons of Mars and even Rupert Murdoch (though I doubt he'd believe it) are all connected. Nothing in the universe is anything but one total energy field. Every thought we think, every action we take, effects every other one of us and the realities we perceive.
So here's the picture. . .
Imagine the world at large is this palm tree. Governments, corporations, media outlets and organized religions flailing like palm fronds in a wind of special interest, greed, fear and negativity. Now imagine that you and your day to day reality are the stalk of seagrass. You might not like the way that damned tree wags in the wind up there and it might even scare you a bit. But what can you do, the thing is fifty feet tall and you're ten inches small. . .
You can change the focus of your thoughts and actions and, in the doing, change the energy field more to your liking.

Close, or at least moderate, the window through which the world at large reaches you - your TV. Draw your own conclusions, say yes to peace rather than no to war and when you cast a ballot, vote for something, not against something.
Get positive!
Sure, at first blush, my proposal seems a bit absurd but our ability to direct energy is scientific fact and there is far more seagrass on the planet than there are palm trees. (By the way, the "palm trees" know that and fear it.)
Our combined positive thoughts and positive actions can effect the energy field of which everything is a reflection. We can clean up the mess they've made and avoid the disasters they're planning. We can change the world.

great egret

I read somewhere that Great Egret, also known as White Heron, were discovered in the Keys by John James Audubon in the early 1800s while he was shooting all those species of birds so they'd sit still long enough for him to make his drawings.

Strange, I thought, that the National Audubon Society was founded, in part, to prevent the killing of birds. . .

strained glass

Well, we're mid-way through hurricane season here in Cayo Hueso and this weekend my neighbors, Cathy and Bob and I did our annual inventory of the plywood protection we can screw in over our windows in the event something big blows through, (it turns out that 130mph winds can put a strain on glass).
We're in good nik here but, when I was downtown this afternoon, I got to wondering about these windows. . .
They belong to St. Paul's Episcopal on Duval. . .
Now, I've been here for a formidable storm or two or three and yes, I'm one of those nuts that goes out walking in them (honestly it's exhilarating!) but, through all those storms, I never noticed huge planks of plywood protecting these beautiful window works of art.
Still, they survive without a dent of damage and I thought, "it's a miracle!"

Well, no it isn't and, then again, yes it is. . .
Without the miracle of human imagination, those windows couldn't exist in the first place.
and. . .
Without the miracle of human imagination, there would be no plexiglas to protect them from the strain.


click on the cartoon to enlarge









These folks are good friends, great cooks and I'm happy to help them spread the word.
please click the logo to visit their website. . .

cigar maker's cottage

On a secluded lane, a few blocks from my home, are a handful of old cottages where, in the early 1900's Cuban cigar makers were housed by the companies they worked for.
Hand rolled cigars were big business in Key West at that time and all these years later, there are still hundreds of these little cottages peppered in secret corners all over the city.
I've always admired the interesting angles on this particular one.

water, water

So I'm sitting with my feet in the pool, studying the texture of the water's surface.

Unexpectedly, the automatic pump came on creating a chaos of bubbles and ripples.

After I'd studied those for a while I wondered, "what would all those bubbles and ripples look like if I set my lens at 12X?"

This is the answer. (artists, go figure. . .)

off the rock

If you're a thinking person living full time on an island that's barely 2 miles wide by 4 miles long, sooner or later "island fever" kicks in and your brain starts to feel a bit sautéed.
When that happens, most of us locals know, it's time to get
"off the rock".

Many hop in their cars and drive up to the mainland for a few days. (of course the price of gas is putting a crimp in that one, aye?) Others suffer the indignity of inspection, detection, infection, neglection and selection just to board a plane, fly north and be made crazy by the folks back home. (been there, done that too. . .)

So for me these days, wind and water is the way to go.

pelican sunset

Sunset is a tourist attraction in Key West.
Every evening any number of artists, fire eaters, tight rope walking dogs and a guy named Clem, wearing a kilt and playing bagpipes, get together with hundreds of tourists on Mallory Square to watch the sun sink into the Gulf.
I used to participate in the mayhem until one evening I overheard a woman, her gaze fixed on the setting sun a hands breath above the horizon, ask her husband, "do you think this happens
every night?"

I made up my mind then and there that, at the end of the day, my life might be better served spending time with life forms that have a better grasp of what's going on around them.

other than that, this photograph has also been published as cover art for the book "Between Man and Woman Keys"
by Rosalind Brackenbury

artman's alphabet - D

click image to enlarge

drunken sailor at key west bight - VIDEO

click arrow to play video. run time 3:12

phalaenopsis

Every other day, after morning meditation, I go out to my terra cotta tiled porch, let loose the hose and water the 14 potted plants that live out there. It's a sort of therapy that keeps me in touch with the easy rhythm of life and the health of the plants serves as a barometer for how well, or not, I'm doing.
We've had a few close calls, especially in the summer months when too much sun and not enough water will send any life form to an early grave, but no one has died yet. Today I realized that a few more buds on my phalaenopsis orchid, the jewel in the crown of my humble garden, had opened.
Didn't that give me an optimistic feeling about things to come.