Life forced its way back out into the world

Clever eh?

I’ve been searching for this poem since Spring,  following a bit of a banter with Gerry,  it was something about trees and seasons, I can’t now remember what. It would have helped if I could have remembered who wrote the poem, it was Roger McGough.

It is National poetry Day, so it seems fitting to have finally got my act together.

Trees Cannot Name the Seasons
Trees cannot name the seasons
Nor flowers tell the time.
But when the sun shines
And they are charged with light,
They take a day-long breath.
What we call "night"
Is their soft exhalation.

And when joints creak yet again
And the dead skin of leaves falls,
Trees don’t complain
Nor mourn the passing of hours.
What we call "winter"
Is simply hibernation.

And as continuation
comes to them as no surprise
They feel no need
To divide and itemize.
Nature has never needed reasons
For flowers to tell the time
Or trees put a name to the seasons.

~by Roger McGough
[This poem can be found in McGough's
book Melting into the Foreground, 1986]

Louis I. Kahn, (Architect), American, born Estonia. 1901-1974
Salk Institute for Biological Studies (Laboratory, Meeting House, and Housing) La Jolla, California Laboratory
Drawing date: 1962, Project date: 1959-65

204/ 1PM
All sections will meet in 204 at 1PM. Please come to class with your Visual Journals and Graphite Stick/Ebony Pencils. We will be sketching from the projected image and I will be introducing the new assignment.

Due
Mapping Your Hometown in Two Parts (Collage and Lines)
Both parts are due today. Please hand them in together. Below are instructions per section.

Title Block
No title block; on the back of your drawing write your name and section in legible, block vertical capitals.

Sections Harmon and Welty
Please turn in the assignment at the beginning of class to your studio instructor in 204.

These sections have Field Studies/ Site Visits from 2PM-5PM

Sections Zarse, Ashe, Crosby

These sections have a Pin-Up with alternating AVSM studio time.

Please note: If you require help hanging your work, Emma Jasinski will be there at noon to assist.

2PM: Section Zarse
Where: Fourth Floor Hallway
Please hang Parts 1 and 2 in a tight grid on the section of wall that is reserved for your section. Have this done before 1p.

3PM: Section Ashe
Where: Fourth Floor Hallway
Please hang Parts 1 and 2 in a tight grid on the section of wall that is reserved for your section. All work should be pinned up before the critique starts.

4PM: Section Crosby
Where: Fourth Floor Hallway
Please hang Parts 1 and 2 in a tight grid on the section of wall that is reserved for your section. All work should be pinned up before the critique starts.

Work will remain on display until Friday at noon.

I miss y’all so much, I’m giving you a reading assignment! And it is waiting for you on Blackboard.

To prepare for the work you will develop in the category of Visual Journal: Field Studies &/or Site Visits with Studio Instructor/ drawing from observation please download and read a selection from “Visual Notes for Architects and Designers” by Norman Crowe and Paul Laseau. This is a time-honored text and once you spend some time with it, take special note of the sketches, you will be well-positioned for your field trips. The big ideas are:

Man and digger has arrived to sort our drains… Oh joy!

For Spud the dog this means the biggest mole hill to dig in that a dog could wish for.

It is going to mean mud everywhere, of that I’m sure.

Mind you, you may notice sheep in the field at moment, if the pile of top soil distracts Spud from rolling in sheep poo, it’s no bad thing, top soil smell sweeter.

*It’s a dream come true for us too, we’ve been expecting arrival of  man and digger since spring!

I have found it more than helpful to get outside and make field studies.

Painting in monochromatic tones gives me a strong sense of values. You can tell right away when the form is not reading right. It gives me a shorthand way to connect with my subject and see the intricacies.

These studies are done with Vasari, Shale oil paint on Wind River linen panels, and a nod to my mentor Deborah Paris who encourages us to get out there in our beautiful landscape.

I have added a couple of photos of the subjects.

Using the “Lines” handout as a reference, create an inventory of different kinds of lines, filling 6 sheets in your Visual Journal as your own research/practice.

Translate your collage into a line drawing using only the pencil of your choice. Avoid shading and outlines. We will hang the collage and the drawing side-by-side, so we should be able to see your systems in the drawing.

Pin-Ups on 10/3:
2:00 – Zarse
3:00 – Ashe
4:00 – Crosby

Sections 1, 2, 3: Do not bring your finished work to 204. Emma Jasinski will help you hang both the collage and the drawing side-by-side in the 4th floor hallway at NOON the day of.

Field Studies &/or Site Visit  on 10/3 (After Lecture)
Harmon
Welty

Sections 4,5: Bring your finished work to 204 as usual at 1p to be collected by your studio professor.

Every time I talk to her about it, I pull a (very) little something more out from it that I can understand.  (Which sort of kills me since I’m perfect and have my MD from Univ of Google.)

Today was her last day there, so she had a really tight schedule trying to get her freeze-dried samples into the French mail before the Post Office closed, pack up, clean up, weed, water, make last minute repairs on her four sites for the last time for the time being, etc.

She was doing her field work in 95ºF weather, being Europe is having one of its hottest summers on record.  (Yes, she usually works in the cooler early hours and later hours on days that are not her last day.)  She was minding her own business, getting her job done as fast and efficiently as possible listening to her music with her ear buds in when she HEARS this through her ear buds:

“PHBBRRRHHHH” WITH HIS LIPS

CLICK THIS LINK TO HEAR THE SOUND

Now if Sciencegirl was Viper Tongue, she’d go right on up to that (escaped from his plot) fat little pony and love him.  SG is more like me, I’m afraid of horses, but I think she’s “apprehensive” of them vs. “afraid”.  It kept wandering up to her plot where she had already, indeed, put a fence up (she’s a Jack of all trades); but if the fat little pony was determined enough, he could get at her hard-worked plot and eat away.  Sure enough the fat little pony played chicken with her and harrassed her the whole frazzled work-packed time she had up there.  Everytime it would get a little closer, SG would stand up and say, “shoo”.  He’d playfully/sneakily walk back a few feet.  Then he’d siddle up next to her again (he was a siddler, I tell you). Towards the end of her allotted time there, she took a run at him, and he took off running, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to have escaped.

She had no recourse as she knew the fat little pony owner lived down the Alps somewhere but not exactly where, and she had NO time to spare in order to tell them to get the pony off her yummy munching ground that she desperately needed to be munch-free.  And, the fat little pony’s horse friend who was in its proper place couldn’t do anything except watch. If a horse could look on with its jaw dropped, that’s what he would have been doing.

C’est la vie.  Maybe SG should have looked up how to say “Get the hell out, and stay on your own plot” in French.

So you see, when she goes back in September (she has to go back to the university  to teach, etc. for now) for her next peak at her plots and to get her blooms, the pony might have already been well fed (on her flavonoid RNA).

Love,

See, it’s Genetic

PS:  Andrea, it was really the pony you always asked for when you were little.  I finally got one for you.  He’s a cutie.

How heavy it has rained today! Just as well I have some holiday snaps to look back at.

On the coast path there were some fine lumps of rock (you know I’m fond of them) ancient gate posts, long since disused girded with hand forged iron.

The remnants of old walls

The bizarre weather we’ve had in UK this summer seems at least to have pleased the costal flowers, or just made them flower later than usual. I can’t ever recall  ever seeing quite so many as this year.

The insect world seemed appreciative

Just delightful really, *sigh*

And yet, if I had to choose between these urban delights and encounters with rock sculptures along the Big Sur coastline?  No contest!  Rapture is the only word to describe how I felt that day, scrambling with my camera over rocks stuffed with countless stories about powerful forces that shaped this planet.  Their textures are astonishing—ridged and grooved, etched and pitted, fractured and fissured, hollowed, striated and stacked, pebbled and aggregated.

Point Lobos, a crumpled sliver of continental crust formed 80 million years ago, during days of dinosaurs, the Cretaceous Period. What happened next, to summarize a two-page Wikipedia account, is this: during the next 30 million years, cooling magma formed what is called Santa Lucia granite. Uplifted to the earth’s surface, this became the bedrock for all the stratification to follow of younger sedimentary rock.

CLICK HERE FOR SLIDE SHOW

This coastal headland’s rough and tumble story of creation and destruction continues to present day, punctuated by cycles volcanic and tectonic activity and non-stop battering by wind and water. The three major rock categories—igneous, metaphoric, sedimentary—they’re all on exhibit here, displayed in glorious splendor.

Yesterday evening I was pottering around the hills south of Buxton, it was warm and rather pleasant. I don’t know who this little bird is (answers on a postcard please) but they were rather sweet and willing to pose briefly.

Tom has been in the Lake District completing the expedition  section of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. I’m much relived  that he is safely off the hill, given the storms and flash flood there have been (he tells me the thunder and lightening they experienced was ‘awesome’ I’m sure we will get the finer detail on his return this afternoon).

I’ve a stack of posts in mind, some of them about quarrying, some about the limestone and gritstone landscape around here.

For starters, the lay of the land. Quarrying is big,  it’s a big employer, it has a big impact on the landscape, lumps of rock on an industrial scale..

Half a hill, near Harpur Hill

(and if you are looking for the so called ‘Blue Lagoon’ don’t) go to Iceland please.

It only made sense to stop at Yellowstone National Park after my installation at the University of Wyoming Art Museum. It was on my way home anyway, and I’d never seen Old Faithful. And a grand show it was, boiling water spewing forth from deep in the Earth’s belly.

The gushing geyser, however, was not the highlight my Yellowstone field trip. Spectacular though it was. Unexpectedly, something else latched onto my senses and still hasn’t let go. A place I’d never heard of.

Grand Prismatic Spring is a few miles north in the Midwest Basin, which Rudyard Kipling dubbed “Hell’s Half Acre. One of the largest hot springs in the world, it discharges an estimated 560 gallons per minute.

The 370-foot diameter hot spot, emitting all the colors of the rainbow—as seen in the image above—is centered on a mound of encrusted minerals. Bands of pale blue enclose the deep blue center, then green algae forms beyond the shallows. Outside the scalloped rim, bacteria mats of yellow fade into orange, then red.

On the day of our visit, it was half raining, half snowing and windy! Steam shrouded the spring, obscuring the view. No matter, I’m not a colorist at heart. What cast a spell were hundreds of lines etched into the mineralized crust everywhere I looked. Crisp linear ribs joining wispy fingerlings to create exquisite fibrous networks.

I went a bit mad, shooting dozens of images. My fingers, curled and cramped atop the shutter, went numb in the freezing cold, but I couldn’t stop.  Frostbite, in a thermal area?  Yes, I think it’s entirely possible!

Here’s a sampling of the lines, which beg me to transform them into something on paper. Ahhhh, what pleasure mark-making could be, will be, as a response to those delicate lines.

I had one thought in mind: to find the view used by a Wyoming artist Travis Ivey for a painting owned Nicole Ballenger and Paul Heimer, my host family in Laramie. I came to know every line, every contour, Great Rock Face during my three-week stay. The artist’s dexterity in capturing the light and shadows of the landscape was amazing!

Split Rock is a cleft in the middle of Rattlesnake Range, formed by buckling of the 2.5 billion year old granite (nearly twice as old as the granite I scrambled at Veedauwoo). This natural landmark, hunkered into the Sweetwater River Valley, served as a natural landmark for fur trappers, traders and other pioneers making their way along Oregon Trail. On the praise, it was visible for nearly two days, rising 1000 feet and pointing a direct route to South Pass, more than 75 miles beyond.

It pleases me to know that I found the exact spot where the artist must have sketched his painting.  Except … he didn’t include the snow fence in the lower left of my photograph.  Hmmmm?  I would have included it. Why?

You don’t have to get too far out of town in Wyoming before snow fences become ubiquitous. They’ve long been used to effectively to interrupt the flow of blowing snow along roads in unpopulated parts of the state—at a fraction of the cost of snowplowing.

Their grid-like linearity appeals to me.  The juxtaposition of the long sinewy ribbons, rippling as serpentine as rattlesnakes, is beautiful to me. I call them “The Grids of Wyoming.”

Welcome to CHS 494 — Spring 2013!

Congrats — You have made it this far in your university career and are nearing graduation. You have accomplished a lot and should be proud. This should be one of the last courses you take that will allow you to gain real world experience in public health, to reflect upon your academic career in public health, and to give back to the community through the completion of a meaningful project.

This course allows you the opportunity to connect in-class learning from your Community Health Sciences career to the public health community at large. Think of this course starting point for your career. As you know, you will be conducting 100 unpaid service learning hours working at an agency or organization on a health-related project. Throughout the semester, you will be reflecting on your project, as well as completing blogging and personal branding exercises. Remember, the semester can go by quickly, so be sure to stay on top of your hours!

A few reminders of first steps to complete as you embark on this worthwhile journey:

1. You should find a site/agency and a supervisor ASAP. Be sure to print a copy of the Supervisor Handbook to give to your agency supervisor BEFORE you start your hours. Your signed field studies agreement is due to the Community Health Sciences front office by 3pm on Wednesday, February 13th.

2. Your Supervisor Information Sheet is uploaded to WebCampus Learn. Be sure to submit the completed form to me via email (gdermid@unr.edu) by 3pm on Wednesday, February 13th.

**Remember, these items must be completed before you begin your service learning hours.**

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Thanks!

G

The place is known as Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo), hallowed ground to many native tribes, who sent aspiring young warriors on vision quests here. The word is believed to come from the Arapaho word bito’o'wu meaning “land of earth-born spirit.” I’ve been hearing about its haunting beauty since arriving in Laramie. After this week’s long days on the lift, I couldn’t resist indulging today in a field trip to restore my equilibrium.

The giant 1.4 billion year old granite outcroppings were sculpted underground by freeze-thaw and groundwater weathering. During mountain-building that gave birth to the Rocky Mountains, cycles of uplift and erosion pushed the ancient granite through younger granite and sedimentar rock, to flop out on the surface. The bizarre wrinkle of boulders has geologic nicknames, such as tors and hoodoos. Some are as big as a house, often stacked on top of each other.

I had a glorious time, happily scampering higher and higher amid the outcroppings, fringed by aspen and evergreens. Then came a change in the weather. The wind picked up velocity and suddenly, sunny skies gave way to a howling storm.

I’m a rock scrambler, not a climber. But I had managed to scramble myself into a place you don’t want to be. At an elevation of 8,000 feet, lighting is no joke at Veedauwoo if you’re perched on exposed outcroppings. Frantic, I crawled between two rocks that formed a teepee-shaped cave, stripped off my windbreaker to squeeze out the water, and waited .. and waited … and waited.

An hour passed, slowly. Wrapped by the rocks, I couldn’t help being aware of a powerful concentration of power. Surely, the radically changeable weather is part of what seems to charge Veedauwoo with its sacred aura. Energy radiates from every rock, tree and crevice.

When the pounding thunder and lightening finally subsided, I slid my sorry butt down the rocks, unwilling to give up questing for another batch of rocks to scramble. Turns out, the lull was merely temporary.  Nearly a half-mile from my car, I was drenched, but deliriously heady after soaking up the sublime, mysterious beauty of Vedauwoo.

Have you any wool?

Yes Sir, yes Sir three fronds full…

Sorry about that, and apologies to the rhyme,  but  these unfurling bracken fronds had a distinctly woolly look about them and I was struggling for a title, I’d started out with ‘fleecy ferns’ and then realised it was bracken I looking at..

The immature fronds are called fiddle heads, I can see why, it’s claimed they are edible, I imagine they are a bit chewy.

It is Derbyshire Open Arts 2012 this weekend, I may have to brave the bank holiday traffic.

While packing her gear, she pulled me aside: “There are some fabulous rock formations south of town that I know you’d like. I’d be happy to take you. Are you interested?”

Omigosh, are you kidding, when? “What about tonight after you’re finished at the musem?”

We headed out early evening, packed with cameras, just as shadows began to overlay the range. Our destination was the middle of nowhere, black angus and antelope the only signs of life.

On my own, I would have never found this pocket of rocks wedged between Laramie and Medicine Bow Peak. Most locals don’t know about the place. Aly had only discovered it recently, after living in Laramie for more than ten years.

This geologic treasure is not marked on any map that I could find. I scraped Google raw tonight looking for data—something, anything, but nothing turned up. Sandstone, siltstone, shale—as best as I can tell. Sedimentary swirls, looking very much like patterns of sand on a beach.

But then, I don’t need to know more than what I saw of this sculptural oasis to savor the memory—the deep, sublime ache of its shadowy beauty.

Surfacing is an obsession, especially when I travel. It’s the word I use for taking closeup photos of surfaces that I encounter—anywhere and everywhere.  Peeling wood, eroded sidewalks, mildewed paper, rusted posts, reflective windows.  The list is long, getting longer.

Just about any surface appeals as a visual study.  I relish composing them just so, before snapping the shutter. I fantasize about using my surfacings as bait for drawings or printmaking. Sooner, than later

No matter.  I soak up simple joy when focusing the lens of my eye and the lens of my camera on delicacies of shadow, reflection, line, pattern,form and texture.  Every glance here and there reveals new possibilitie

Capturing these images must enliven my consciousness in some fundamental way. Which is why I take a gazillion photographs.  Which creates another level of tasks—photo management.  I’ve finally decided Flickr could be useful.

Click to a batch of my Laramie Surfacings.