Author: Deb Hemley

I heard it in the wind last night
It sounded like applause
Did you get a round resounding for you
Way up here
It seems like many dim years ago
Since I heard that face to face
Though tonight I can feel you here

Painting inspired on a recent walk (by a captivating tree trunk) and lyrics by Joni Mitchell, For the Roses.

Minutes after finishing this painting I was perplexed. What is it?

Hours later, I still wondered what it had been doing floating around in my head. My hand. My brush strokes.

Then as if someone had just selected a song on an old jukebox, the lyrics to David Bowie’s song, Space Oddity started to fill my head.

I’ve got to admit, it’s a bit odd. And, a little amusing.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you (two, one, liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You’ve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare
“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you “Here am I floating ’round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

No doubt, some days are better than others. What started out as a gray day internally (despite the sunshine and chirping birds outside my window) slowly has emerged more colorful. More hopeful.

I don’t discredit the power of artmaking to help turn things around. Some days I just have to pick up the pencil, and welcome whatever wants to come out.

A friend was house-sitting near a beach a few weeks ago. It was winter. (It still is.)

I’d been in my house for days. If I’d been lucky, I’d been out for a grocery run or two. Or for a quick breeze through express browsing at the library where I could scoop up a few books in 15 minutes or less.

My friend sent photos from walks on the beach. I was always in my enclosed porch with the heat cranked high.

She sent photos with envious views. I was sitting in the same spot in the middle of my couch that looks out at a couple of neighboring houses and a leaning telephone pole.

She was obviously inspired and energized. I was most definitely, uninspired and lethargic. Sleepy, in fact. Trying desperately to avoid a mid-afternoon nap.

When her latest image arrived one morning showing a 6:30 a.m. walk for sunrise on the beach, I was still sitting in that same spot on the couch.

Finally, I turned the radio onto 99.5 FM, WCRB where they play classical music all day. I heard the comforting, friendly voice of DJ Laura Carlo. She played some beautiful piece, one after another.

I reached for my iPad.

I looked long and hard at that sunrise on the beach. And for an hour or two, I lived vicariously.

When doing these digital paintings on my iPad in Procreate I often start with getting settled into my space and listening to music.

For this piece, I had sought out a playlist on Spotify of Tuck and Patti’s music. I had re-discovered the duo about a week ago after hearing Eric in The Evening on WGBH play a track of theirs. I hadn’t listened to Tuck and Patti in probably at least ten years. And there is nothing like the experience for me of hearing music that had always resonated with me, again.

For this painting, I settled into my armchair with my iPad on my lap and let the music take me back. And when I picked up the pencil, the marks and strokes quite literally took over.

Perhaps one of the most wonderful feelings is to trust the marks, the color palette you’ve chosen and to let go. Let go into the image. Let go into the world you’ve entered.

The names for pieces often don’t come to me until a while after feeling that a painting is done. I choose to let the words come to me and try not to force a name upon them.

Elements, seemed to wrap it up for me.

The book, It’s Not About the F-Stop is a beautiful visual and verbal exploration of photography from world acclaimed photographer, Jay Maisel.

Reading through the book feels like you are sitting next to the photographer (a wonderful storyteller) as he shares story after story about where a photo was taken, on assignment or in-between, and the process he went through to get the shot. In the introduction to the book, Maisel credits his good friend with saying, “Photography is not about photography, it is about everything else.” And that he tried to talk about “everything else.” It’s immediately evident that he masterfully accomplished his goal.

Maisel doesn’t discuss camera settings, histograms, the pros and cons of hand-held shots or tripods, instead he tells readers what he was thinking or feeling as he stood, crouched, and climbed to get a specific shot. And the serendipitous moments when the light changed or a person walked into a scene.

Maisel’s photos span over many decades and his comments about each image give credence to showing up, being patient, looking at the world around us and finding inspiration in both the extraordinary and ordinary.

Maisel also shares images that surprised even him, in one instance a beautiful photo of Marilyn Monroe that he doesn’t remember shooting, originally rejected because of the focus, but in the edit, decided he loved it. Another time, an ice rink where the skaters were moving so fast making it hard to get a good shot that he changed his attitude on what was presented on the surface. The photo shows a stunning dark silhouette amidst an etched blue, gray, green background.

Every page is subtitled with a few carefully crafted words that sum up the teachings; e.g. “Be Aware of Changing Light”, The “Gifts Are Always There” “To Thine Own Self Be True.” (A pocket-size guide of the headings would make for a wonderful book of daily meditations for photographers!)

More than half-way through the book Maisel suggests that “Sometimes It Is the Lens.” We learn that in the past few years the photographer has significantly pared down his equipment and now walks around with one camera and one lens–a Nikon D3 with a 28-300mm zoom lens.

Maisel advises photographers to look to art for inspiration, “its been around longer” than photography. While that may be true, readers won’t be able to help being in awe of the color, light and gestures seen throughout the photos in the book.

This is a book that can be read cover-to-cover, again and again. And will make for a fine coffee table book that readers and photography aficinados can open to any page where they’ll discover visual gems.