Trees Taking Over The Sidewalk

The trees in the yard of Old St. Patrick's cathedral were being pruned the other day. I loved the way the branches looked like a haphazard forest growing out of the pavement.

This monochromatic image that I found later made me think about shooting in black and white film. The idea has been on my mind. It might be a nice way to deal with all the plastic new buildings sprouting up everywhere with their clashing colors.

I have also continued work on my hanging sculpture although I haven't hung the pieces I have recently finished. It is somewhat slow work and there are some pieces I want to redo because I found heavier polycarbonate.

I was trying to finish up the other day, but I kept getting distracted by the changing light out the window.

Churchyard

When I was gathering moss the other day, I noticed this oddly romantic church yard on Vanderbilt Avenue. The odd romance comes from the fact that this little yard is but half a block from a car wash and the mayhem of Atlantic Avenue.


The traffic is intense on this block, there is always the noise of cars. In the midst of it all is this tiny patch of plants that reminds me of the gardens of the Cloisters.


A hydrangea plant was still showing some faded blooms, my favorite colors.


There is some fabulous moss growing under the tree, quite velvety.


It spread out past the fence, over the bricks, not in a thick carpet, but in healthy green patches.

More Green

The last time that I blogged about this empty lot, its weeds had been torn out leaving bare dirt. I worried that one of those soulless new buildings would replace the weedy mayhem. I guess I needn't have worried since the weeds are back in full force. The tree is doing fine (a mulberry, also considered to be a weed).

There are even weeds that were not in the lot before, brazenly moving in on the open space.

The weeds were prospering, I wish I could say the same for my moss. I tried making the moss medium for painting. The moss did not grow, it just looked dark and clumpy.


I think my concentration of moss was too weak and maybe I had too much of the dirt the moss was growing in. I will keep trying as long as the cool autumn weather holds up. I saw moss growing last winter but it was milder than usual. This year is supposed to be colder.

Over the summer I took pictures of these weeds growing under a grate.

I felt that I didn't really capture the sense of the weed forest that was under the bars

I hoped that the weeds would push through and search the sunlight.

But they never climbed very high. I think people from the Parks Department were cutting them back. One evening, a few days ago I saw that the weeds had flowered.

They are hardly showy blossoms, but they were like a little gift at the end of the season.

Experimenting With the Hanging Sculpture

I had planned on posting other pictures today. Then one of my friends said it would be cool if I added one of my parcours jumpers to my hanging sculpture. So I tried it.

The effect is not quite what I imagined. Maybe the jumper needs to be bigger in the image. I think that it doesn't really work with the abstract forms though. Well it was worth a try.

I should have the other pictures posted over the weekend and I will return to my original plan with the hanging sculpture.




Updated entry...The morning light shone through the window where the transparencies are hanging.


It projected images of the transparencies onto the thin curtain in front of the window. It is sort of like a slide projector. I am pondering the possibilities...