reflection

There's none of my genius PhotoShop magic here;

Just a straight-up reflection of a boat at the bight in the night.

the dragonfly

Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.

An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

You are made of almost nothing
but of enough to be great eyes
and diaphanous double vans;

To be ceaseless movement,
unending hunger, grappling love.

Link between water and air, earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
upon your body and wings.

Twice-born, predator, you split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture,
you dart into the shadow which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
for you, the design and purpose stop.

And you fall with the other husks of summer.

Louise Bogan

deep fried butter on a stick!

Just a quick one here and no, these are not my photographs.

I looked in on the suedo-political hijinks in Iowa this past weekend and of all the "important" impressions I might have come away with, I came away with this. . .

Deep Fried Butter on a Stick!

Let me say it again . . .
Deep Fried Frikkin' Butter on a Stick!!!

A 4 ounce (a.k.a. 1/2 cup) stick of of butter dipped in some kind of corn-meal batter that's plunged in a pool of boiling chicken fat grease!!

Sweet Jesus Christ on Friday!!!

This is good, but universal health care is not. . .
What the hell are we becoming?

circling the drain

I'm about to bend one of my own rules here
and wax a bit political.

graphic by Art Winstanley © 2011

I read somewhere that the average shelf-life of "global" empires has been roughly 300 years and that their demise has been, more often than not, caused by economic collapse rather than invasion and conquest.

Take Rome for example. . .
By the time Alaric and the Visigoths (the infamous barbarian hordes) came riding over the hill and stormed through the gates of Rome looking for food, there wasn't any food
to be found.
After a century and a half of inept emperors, a Senate corrupted to the point of being dysfunctional and an overextended military, the Roman Empire was bankrupt.

By then, the political and monied classes had long since seen the writing on the wall and moved their interests, any sense of governance and chariot races to hide behind Christianity in Constantinople; leaving the plebeian/proletariat class
(the working stiffs like you and me) to fend for themselves.

Sounding vaguely familiar yet?

In the present American "global" empire, we have a President who ran like a visionary but governs like a functionary.
(face it, Barak is a disappointment)
We have a Congress and Senate that can't, or won't, legislate themselves past their own self-interests and, after ten years of worthless war, a military stretched so thin you can see through it. (oh but we've made great strides in robotic prosthetic limbs)

All our bullsh*t bureaucrats need to do next is move their "seat of power" to the Turks & Caicos to be near their corporate cronies who don't pay taxes and restart the chariot (a.k.a. NASCAR) races there, with Christ on their side.

It might be helpful, at this point, to remember that the American "global" empire is 235 years old.

Only 65 years to go. . .

night lights

Being out and about around Key West on my once weekly overnight gig for the Blue Paper offers me an alternative perspective on our fair city.

The first thing that can grab you is the quiet.
Even on Duval after 4am, the island is at peace. It's like the rock's daytime energy buzz stretched itself out in a hammock and took a nap.
But Key West, it turns out, is yet another city that never sleeps; at least not completely.

While most of the store fronts and small business offices are dark, the mini-mart gas stations are open 24 hours and so is Sandy's Cuban Coffee on White. The hotel front desk folks are on the job, the cab drivers and cops are always on the prowl and even after the bars close, there are the guys who hose down the sidewalks in front of the bars, the street sweepers and the working girls at the adult entertainment dives.

It's a different brand of people who work the overnight.
A little friendlier, more easy going. Definitely different from the folks in the hustle of the daytime world where I spent the other 6 days of my week. There's not as much going on and all will make the time to stop and chat. The security guard at the Federal building, the front desk dude at Ocean Key, my buddies Donnie and Michael at either of the Chevron mini-marts, the working girls and even the cops.

I've been pulled over at least a half dozen times for nothing in particular and of course they'll do their "official" garbled transmission thing on their shoulder radios with my license in hand but I always get away clean with the impression that all they were really wanting was a few minutes of contact conversation. (they are, after all, alone in the squad car for 8 - 10 hours every night - and, it turns out, cops are people too.)

So as much as the overnight in Key West is nicely lighted in all it's luminous neon glory from dusk to dawn, to my mind, it's really the overnight people who are the real night lights
on our island.

summerland key?

I don't really know where I was when I pulled off US.1 on my way back from Key Largo the other day.

All I knew for sure was, I had to piss like a race-horse and needed a pit stop.

The marina struck me as very colorful and there was a place nearby where I bought some fresh catch fish that, after I got home, cooked up real nice.

Maybe Summerland Key?
I'm not sure but, if anyone can offer any thoughts,
I'd be glad to know.

yes deer

Out on No Name Key the other day, I came across this family of Key Deer and got curious. . .

"Key Deer" (Odocoileus virginianus clavium) are an endangered species that live only in the Florida Keys. They are a subspecies of the White-tailed deer (O. virginianus)."

It is thought Key Deer migrated to the Florida Keys from the mainland (where else), over a land bridge during the Wisconsin glaciation that happened from about 110,000 to 10,000 years ago and are not found anywhere else
on the planet.

The earliest known written reference to Key Deer comes from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a Spanish sailor who was shipwrecked in the Florida Keys and captured by Native Americans in the 1550s. (talk about no damn luck at all)

The deer were hunted as a food supply by native tribes, passing sailors, and early settlers but the hunting of Key Deer was banned in 1939 when, after widespread poaching and habitat destruction, their population dropped to less than 50 of the critters.

The National Key Deer Refuge, a federally administered National Wildlife Refuge operated by the Wildlife Service, was established in 1957.
The refuge is located in the lower Florida Keys and currently consists of approximately 9,200 acres of pine forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, freshwater wetlands, salt marsh wetlands and mangrove forests on Big Pine Key, No Name Key and several smaller uninhabited islands.
(It turns out, Key Deer can swim between islands.)

There is also a private organization, the Key Deer Protection Alliance, that takes a hands-on approach to helping protect the Key Deer.

Thanks to all these good efforts, the Key Deer population has grown back to between 500 and 800 critters.

Still, living so close to humans, the Key Deer have little natural fear of humans so, as they roam around unabashed, the biggest threat to them is being turned into road kill if they try to cross US.1. The annual estimates are 30 - 40 kills per year.

So if you're driving through Big Pine and see those brown road signs that say 30 MPH, just think "yes deer" and slow the hell down. You might just save a couple of bucks. (pun intended)

water, water @ IBM

A kind of cool thing has happened in Artman-land over
the last few days.

I was contacted by a woman in New York who represents an ad agency in Los Angeles. It seems the ad agency's client, IBM, is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
As part of that celebration, they're putting together a
multi-screen/multi-media presentation that will run for
a few months at Lincoln Center in NYC and several other venues before being relegated to a single screen presentation on the internet, presumably, for the rest of time.

As part of that presentation, they had been looking "high and low" for a photograph of the surface of water.
(no, I don't know why)

Of all the hundreds or thousands of pictures they found, they chose a picture I posted on "Key West the Blog" way back in early August of 2008 and decided that, yes, they wanted to
use it.

The young lady asked me if I was cool with it, I said "sure" and happily licensed the piece out to them.

I did have to ask her though, how she found an obscure photograph I took of the surface of one of my ex-girlfriend's wading pools, three years ago.
Her reply was. . .
"don't ever underestimate the power of Google."

It just goes to show. . .
. . .you never know.

Click here for the original link.

the blue hole

There's not a whole lot to say about "The Blue Hole" up on
Big Pine Key, some 30 miles northeast of Key West.


It was, by all accounts, a limestone quarry that was used for Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad and the original roads on Big Pine. After all that, it was abandoned.


Today it's a tourist attraction and part of the National Key Deer Refuge. A lake that is mostly fresh water, it has no inlet or outlet to replenish it so, "The Blue Hole" depends on rain water and whatever salt water might flow through the leftover limestone underground.


It's a place alive with life. While tourists and knucklehead photographers, like me, might visit "The Blue Hole" for a few hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon, there are all kinds of other life forms that call it home all year 'round.

There are Key Deer, Green Iguanas, snakes, bugs, birds
and alligators.
. . .Yep, alligators.
I was only there for a few hours so I didn't see one but
the sign says. . .

DO NOT FEED OR MOLEST THE ALLIGATORS! IT IS DANGEROUS!

(. . .You think??)

Anyway, "The Blue Hole" is yet another quiet sweet-spot in the Keys and, like I said, not much of a story but a target rich environment for pictures of God's green,
(or in this case, blue) earth.

conch-isms

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall but we just assume it was meant for somebody else."

"I know you think you understand what I said but, what you heard isn’t what I meant."

"If people listened to themselves more often, they’d talk less."

"Don’t ever stand up to be counted; someone will
take your seat."

"Before you decide to borrow money from a friend, decide which you need more."

"Some people don’t hesitate to speak their minds because they have nothing to lose."

"Honesty is the best policy but insanity is a better defense."

"Dyslexics of the world UNTIE!"

"Question: is there another word for synonym?"

"Gravity is a myth. The earth sucks."

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness, hasn’t developed skin cancer yet."

"The more people I meet, the more I like my dog."

"I never cease to be dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe."

"You wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think about you if you knew how seldom they did."

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse
gets the cheese."

"SMILE, it make people wonder what you’re thinking."

"Always remember, you’re unique, just like every body else."

"If it works, take it apart and figure out why."

"Why is the word “abbreviation” so long?"

"All’s well that ends."

celestial dancer

I was commissioned to draw this piece a few years ago by a girl who had the notion of opening a sort of holistic day-spa.
The work was intended to bolster the spiritual and energetic flow of her endeavor.

"Celestial Dancer", digital illustration by Art Winstanley, © 2011

It's spacial background acknowledges that we are all, to quote Carl Sagan, "the stuff of stars" and one in a common being. The dancer herself, broken to imply the ancient-ness of the Hindu tradition in which she exists and gracefully positioned to translate our inherent energy on this physical plane of being. The hoops, with respect to order and color, represent the 7 chakras that govern that energy.

Sadly, the day-spa had a short shelf-life and not as many spiritually minded eyeballs as I had hoped, as an artist, saw the piece.

So to share all her spiritual energy and set her good intentions free, I've posted my commissioned Celestial Dancer here.

Enjoy.

. . .and while I'm a bit "on" about commissions, let me mention that I'm back on the "sales trail" and looking for a few more. Please take a minute (and 27 seconds) to watch my video portfolio. If we can work together on anything, feel welcome to be in touch.

Thanks.


Click arrow to start video. Run time, 1:27

fan palm

There's not much to say here on this rainy day in Cayo Hueso (that's not a complaint, the rain is a good thing) except that
I do enjoy the sight of sculptured plant-life like this.

But fear not, I'll start ranting again tomorrow.