Jelisava

Using what's on hand to create / August 2013

"Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity; be intensely yourself.

Don’t try to be outstanding; don’t try to be a success; don’t try to do pictures for others to look at -- just please yourself."

Jersey June Monarch / June 2013

“We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”

~ astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818-1889; in 1847, using a telescope, she discovered a comet which became known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet")

From her diary:
“Feb. 19, 1853. I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment. Betelgeuse is strikingly red, while Rigel is yellow. There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues that there is in looking at a collection of precious stones, or at a flower-garden in autumn. Blue stars I do not yet see, and but little lilac except through the telescope.”

“Feb. 12, 1855…. I swept around for comets about an hour, and then I amused myself with noticing the varieties of color. I wonder that I have so long been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the different stars are so delicate in their variety. … What a pity that some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of dyestuffs from the stars, and astonish the feminine taste by new brilliancy in fashion.”

(Source: MARIA MITCHELL: LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNALS, Compiled By PHEBE MITCHELL KENDALL)

Bottles of Twinkie's Tonic, The Hot Sauce Cure-All / Dec. 2009

... Although the Missonis designed as a couple, Mr. Missoni, known as Tai, was the technician, plotting patterns that were inspired by Guatemalan, Aztec and Incan textiles or Abstract, Impressionist and Art Deco paintings. He designed on graph paper, mapping out shapes with startling combinations: primary colors that did battle with earth tones, and polka dots that chased whirling stripes through kaleidoscopic prisms. Mr. Missoni once wrote that he created a chromatic harmony by adding a third color to two clashing ones.

“Color?” he wrote. “What can I say? I like comparing color to music: Only seven notes and yet innumerable melodies have been composed with those seven notes. How many basic colors are there? I don’t remember exactly, seven perhaps, like the notes of the scale, but how many tones or shades does each color have? An infinite number, just as always endless are the hues and nuances composing a work of art.” (NYTimes story on the passing of 92-year-old designer Ottavio Missoni who was born in Dubrovnik)

Happy 4th of July / NJ

This was another of those days -- the 4th day -- of that month of July when they feasted on picnic foods and then gathered to play games on the lawn at twilight.

"If the celebration of our patriotic holidays loses that old-time spirit of sincerity, earnestness and high purpose, it will be a sorry day for America. We have learned to smile at the old-fashioned; but let us not fall below our forebears in earnestness and intelligence." (from Dover Dates, 1722-1922: A Bicentennial History of Dover, New Jersey, 1922)

Summer Solstice early evening light / Wildwood, NJ

This was the summer day when the ocean wind whipped around and around and around, changing directions every few minutes; from the east, from the south; one minute cold, the next minute warm; change was literally, in the air.

Our Lady in blue by the sea / Wildwood, NJ

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality — not as we expect it to be but as it is — is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. This is not just the way things ought to be. Most of the time it is not the way we want things to be. It is the way things are. And not for one instant do I believe that it is by accident that it is the way things are. That would be quite an accident.”

~ Frederick Buechner

A warmish February morning lets curtains bask in the sun / Feb. 2011

This was the day of being grateful for the visual delight of contrasts; the persistent snow, the angled sun, and the blue shadows form the perfect backdrop for the colorful fabric.

* contrastere (Italian), "stand out against"

Detail from a tile, Aldie Mansion / Doylestown, PA / July 2010

This was the day of rejoicing in the power of the repeated prayer — whispered over and over and over during thousands of days and nights — to watch over the loved-one.

A collection of shells hanging on a front door / Beach Haven / June 2010

This was the day of blue skies and blue doors and blue eyes and windy walks and street sounds and meals eaten outside that worked to refresh and renew.

This was the gray, rainy day that cried out for color.