The Bridges of Bonner County
… let the country roads deliver me home Q.
Krister Allen lives (for now) in Sandpoint, Idaho. He is an architect, avid sailor and skier…oh and happens to be my true love.
What a wonderful opportunity to give depth to the shadows! In the shadows there is pattern, subtlety, tranquility and reflection. The dim light allows our other senses to tell us what we may not have noticed otherwise. We become aware of where there is carelessness or waste when we must reserve our energy for keeping warm and using just what we need. We take time to appreciate those we love, what we have and the beauty of nature.
Happy Holidays!
Every year I make something special as Christmas presents for various people who worked with me throughout the year. This year I made 4 pouches for 4 ladies, who supported me in many ways. I love colors and I actually feel colors in people.
The first pouch I made is for the lady who likes black. She is very mature compared to her age, but she has very strong and bright colors inside her. I am not sure if she realizes this though!
One is for the lady who always stays calm, whatever happens, and she is modest, but I feel her intelligence and clearness. She is like a big tree staying quiet growing her roots firm in the earth.
For the lady who attracts people and brings a lot of joy, she is always moving around like the golden wind with sparkling sand gold.
For the fourth, she is clever. She is right. She is a perfectionist, but she has an inner artist and this artist enjoys expressing her freedom sometimes. She has deep color, perhaps because of her many inner layers.
The world of color fascinates me. I love the special moments of picking out colors and fabrics for my loving friends and making something special for them. This is the way that I express my gratitude and connect to the them.
With best wishes for Christmas!
Makiko Aikawa
Makiko Aikawa is a color spiritualist, mother, wife, daughter, producer, promotor, coordinator, connector….has so many hats! Through her experience of living and traveling in Asia, Europe and the US, she is good at mixing culture and making very personalized products and connecting people in the world.
In the Mayan jungle. Rich, thick, mythical, ancient jungle. A crack in the rocks uncovers a beautiful, crystal clear, blue water whole. The Pit, the most famous cenote of all.
“The Pit” by Rodrigo Martinez
In the water. I breath deeply. Really deeply. I take one last breath and then invert myself. I swim down…20, 30ft, every movement is deliberate, considered. 35ft….40, and then I stop moving. Total surrender. The pressure makes my body heavy, so I let go and let gravity take me down. 50ft…..the water hugs you as the pressure increases to 2, 3 atmospheres…..60, 70ft….80….100ft…as I pass 110ft I feel my self transformed.
My mind is clear, calm, I am in a meditative state. I feel total connection with the water around me, connection with the molecules of every drop to be precise. This nurturing, calm sensation runs through my being. A humbling feeling surrounds me. My soul smiles.
At the same time, my body is going through the fastest and most dramatic transformation of any sport. The mammalian reflex takes over. My heart rate has slowed down, my brain reroutes my blood flow away from my arms and legs and focuses on my heart and brain, my spleen starts to over produce red blood cells.
“Cenote Zapote” by Julien Borde
I reach my depth. Slowly turn around. For a few seconds I see the trees at the bottom of this magical world. These trees are really branches that over millions of years have a crated a world of their own.
It has been 01:15, time to swim up. The pressure of 4 atmospheres has contracted my lungs to the size of a large orange. My body feels heavy, but somehow I feel strong, in control. I have been here before. With every kick I feel lighter. My mind slowly comes back to itself. The water becomes lighter, brighter.
“Cenote The Pit” by Julien Borde
I break the surface. Deep exhales, quick exhales. Again. I feel complete calmness, like waking up from a deep and real dream. My brain and soul reconnect with the world above the water. Somehow I feel more alive, aware.
The Mayans believed the cenotes were the door to another world. They were so right. There is a mythical, beautiful, deep world down there. And freediving has given me the opportunity to open that door.
Rodrigo Martinez is passionate about biology + design + the future. He is Chief Marketing & Design Officer at Veritas Genetics. He is a freediver and makes a mean guac & margaritas. @RodrigoATCG
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I strolled along the cracked sidewalks and buckled paths of the “fossil American Venice” as Pulitzer Prize winning writer John McPhee once described this city. While passing through the sprawling district of canals littered with old brick mausoleums, I always notice something new. A century ago, that serpentine curve of the Connecticut River must have been a sight to be seen. Smoke stacks bellowing, trains roaring, and the bustle of things being produced in those factories. Each time I return, I examine the widespread decay, hoping that the “Queen of Industrial Cities” has stabilized and that she is in better condition than when I saw her last.
“Hamilton Street” by Brendan Ciecko
Although many buildings and businesses continue to fall into ruin, the lack of forward motion has acted like a time capsule in some ways – preserving visual culture, commercial history, and proof of a more vibrant time. Behind flaking paint and around each corner, loom the ever-fading ghost signs.
“Depot Square” by Brendan Ciecko
Most of my professional life has revolved around all things digital. Design is core to my being, and typography, a notable passion. When I travel my camera fills up with pictures of antique typography; hand-painted signs, neon masterpieces, and chiseled cornerstones.
“Haberman’s” by Brendan Ciecko
One of the things I can count on when visiting Western Massachusetts is that my ghost signs are still holding on tight. I’ve counted hundreds of interesting specimens within a mile radius of Holyoke’s majestic Neo-Gothic City Hall.
“Coca-Cola” by Brendan Ciecko
Oh, those ghost signs! High Street and Main Street have always been a feast for the eyes. Just look at the texture of the downtown, with its signage, old and new. But, the real treasures are of the businesses and advertisements long gone.
“Main Pharmacy” by Brendan Ciecko
“Essex Street” by Brendan Ciecko
Like a shoe-gazer on stage, you’d be surprised by what you’ll find with your head down. Terrazzo in the dipping entries of the old storefronts. Smashed marble and glass with hand-formed numbers and names of old departments stores. There must have been an old appliance shop here judging by that GE emblem, but I’ve never had the time to look it up.
“GE” by Brendan Ciecko
“Thom M” by Brendan Ciecko
In the 1960s and 70s, internationally renowned photographer Jerome Leibling took to the streets of this city’s raw downtown. During his time at Hampshire College, he brought along his students, including a young Ken Burns, to open their eyes and capture the grit of life.
“Behind tenement” by Jerome Leibling
New York Times photographer Mitch Epstein documented the story of his family’s rise and tragic fall by the hands of Holyoke.
“Newton Street Row Houses” by Mitch Epstein
A few months back, while visiting the deCordova, I came across a photograph in an exhibition titled “Overgrowth.” It was of a half-shredded tenement with a hand-painted sign as an added bonus. Without reading the label, I knew where it was.
“Coca-Cola, 1982” by Bill Ravanesi
These declining American cities have always captured our eye and imagination. I hope someday they’ll rebound, but until that day, I’ll continue collecting my snaps of signs and scenes of these formerly glorious New England mill towns.
Brendan Ciecko is an entrepreneur, designer, and technologist. He lives in Boston, MA.
My hands grip the handlebars, palms pressing down on the cushions of my fingerless gloves. My back is straight, but I lean forward facing the wind. The steady breeze in my face increases as my speed rises. I begin down the path along the river. “Hi Charles” I usually say aloud, with a big grin. I shoot a flirtatious glance at the water, its velvety and rippling surface laps at the shore. Might catch a hot pink or bright yellow duck boat or the mini sailboats in the distance out of the corner of my eye as I ride along.
I know the bends in the path well, snaking around trees, benches, playgrounds, and sculptures. Every so often, tree roots intent on slivering underneath from one side to the other create little heaves in the asphalt, black burrows cracking up across my way. I steady my feet on each pedal and position them midway on the rotation exactly opposite one another. At the same time, I draw my elbows in and lower my torso closer to the handlebars. A quick lift off the saddle, thighs lightly pinch the nose of the seat for stability and control. Over the bump… bump… back in the saddle.
Legs pumping, I truly love this elegant invention. I have never owned a car. I play with my pedaling stroke to switch up the delicious muscle burn, sometimes slight sometimes intense. Maybe I’ll use my quads from hip to knee keeping my feet parallel stomping out the strokes. Or, activating my calf muscles I’ll start ankling. This technique involves pointing the foot slightly up on the down stroke and slightly down as you pull the pedal back and up.
The breeze shuffles my hair at my back. Little adjustments for total comfort, a tug here and there of my helmet brim and the back of my shirt. Breathing in, fresh air floods my lungs as I inhale deeply. Breathing out, my belly extends feeling peaceful as I become one with my bike.
Pumping. Click… click… I shift into a higher gear for more resistance and momentum. Letting go of the left handlebar first, then the right one, I sit upright. Lifting my arms out and up to the sides my shadow on the path is clear and tall. Bold and free, I ride over the dappled shadows of the leaves and branches from the border of trees beside me. This is me, I’m flying! I know I’ve got that twinkle in my eye, one of joy and pure passion. Nothing can compare.
Randi Mail is a lover of the outdoors, comedy, and the arts. She’s a positive change agent and natural leader working on sustainability from a triple bottom line perspective. From 2002-2016 she was Director of Recycling for the City of Cambridge in Massachusetts.
The spooky Wonder of the Natural World
Erika Riddington is a relatively new middle school science teacher, (former landscape architect), currently raising a family with her husband in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Meditation is at the core of so many of the healing arts. It allows us to pay attention to ourselves. It opens up awareness of our body and mind and their interconnectedness. It reveals a way of seeing life that we never knew existed. True healing of physical or psychological trauma can be had through meditation. New levels of being and awareness can be achieved and unlocked. And for artists, meditation helps us imagine deeper connections and inspirations within our work.
I find it so interesting that, like all the healing arts, meditation takes practice. We in the creative fields understand practice too well. Indeed, there is even an art to practicing (stay tuned for my next Living Arts post!) So how do we practice meditation? And how do we know if we’re getting it right? If it’s providing all that we hear it offers?
I won’t assume to know the best ways, or the best way for you. I’m still learning myself. But I do know that meditation has made me a happier, more creative person. I have dedicated time each day to a cycle of meditations on the body’s chakras by Lisa Erickson. The link to these meditations is below. After reading descriptions of each meditation, there is a streaming audio to listen to as you meditate.
http://enlightenedenergetics.com/healing-and-empowering-your-root-chakra/
John Aylward is a composer, performer and writer who lives in Cambridge, MA.
“Each year as December approaches,
And Earth turns gray, stone cold,
Summer green lush is faded
And russet–brown overtakes gold,
I’m not perplexed or longing
for that chroma, or sweet fruit that has been,
But I do still revel in the fresh and beauteous.
I do not wish to give up
the lavish gathering in.”
-Anonymous
I live for a good walk.
As stone cold December approaches,
Thanksgiving weekend with family is particularly special.
I go with delight at being together with the beloved people I rarely see.
I go to thoroughly enjoy simply breathing the fresh air and moving through space.
Farm in Amherst, MA.
I also go with a an eye for treasures to bring the freshness of outside in for the winter.
Gems stand out…
The treasures found? An abandoned wasp’s nest for the classroom, some bright winterberry from the marshy farm’s edge, emerald moss for an advent garden, fragrant boughs of balsam for the holiday house, a bird’s feather for no purpose at all.
These artifacts find a place in our home and become part of our celebrations.
Through our sometimes too hurried and harried daily existence, the fresh pieces from the natural world are reminders of a flow beyond and help keep us connected to the larger Life.
Erika Riddington is a relatively new middle school science teacher, (former landscape architect), currently raising a family with her husband in Arlington, Massachusetts.
So, It’s the holiday season. For many its holiday party time and the cheer flows and the music plays. I figure I would give you a bit of help in the holiday music and drink category. For me being born in the late 60’s my Mom and Dad listened to a great deal of early 60’s music especially around the holidays. Several such records / discs that hold a special place in my heart are:
To me this is perfectly paired with an aged rum. In particular I would suggest: El Dorado 12. Demerara rum that ages beautifully. The smoothness of the rum with go magnificently with the camp of the music. I would suggest listening and drinking this in a smoking jacket by the fire.
2. My next music selection is Robert Goulet’s “Wonderful World of Christmas”
To me this is perfectly paired with a bone dry Beefeater Martini. Preferably stirred and served in a chilled martini glass. I would suggest the drink be made 16 to one with dry vermouth and a dash of orange bitters. The most important part is that the lemon twist is misted across the the top of the drink. You want to hold your channel knife at a 45% angle and aim the opening of the knife toward the surface of the beverage – to the point that you can see the top of the drink actually move.
I suggest you drink this wearing a madman suit smoking a pipe after building a snowman.
3. Lastly I would suggest Burl Ives “the Christmas Collections”
To me this is best paired with eggnog. Homemade eggnog made with both rum and cognac. I recommend that you whip both the egg whites and the egg yokes. You want to make sure the cinnamon content is in balance so that the cream and the dryness of the spice work in tandem.
I would suggest drinking this while watching Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in Black and white, while wearing a black turtleneck.
Todd Maul is Co-Founder of Cafe ArtScience in Cambridge, MA and an amazing mixologist who has revolutionized the way we see cocktails.
Flowers. I love flowers. The colors. The shapes. The fragrances. The shear variety. And this from a city girl growing up in apartments. I never experienced many fresh flowers or gardens when I was a kid. They were exotic and something that occasionally showed up for special occasions.
I’m a photographer. And at some point in my adult life, I became acquainted with these flowers and I could not stop taking photographs of them. I believe it was after my mother retired at a place at the lake….she cleared out large parcels of the yard and planted flowers. Bulbs, beginner plants, cuttings….a big mix of types and species. And it was lovely. It was in progress and changing monthly, looking different every visit. And my mother was lost in the work of her garden, happy in her floral explorations.
And at some point, I finally lived in a house and there was room…for a flower garden! We cleared an area and mixed in rich soil. I bought loads of annuals and perennials. I drew page after page of garden blueprints and then I stood over that plot and mulled over the possibilities. I finally measured out my rows, dug in with my trowel and transplanted the little plants. And in the midst of developing my first garden, my younger brother unexpectedly passed away. That garden became a place of peace and with every flower I situated in that first garden, I planted a memory of him. I cried and I smiled in that garden. It was life and growth. It was sustaining.
I have owned 4 houses since that first one. At every house I have turned the earth and created flowerbeds. Big, puffy blue hydrangeas. Bright red poppies. Fragrant, purple Russian Sage, hearty and wild. Perky, yellow daffodils bringing us Spring. Flowing Butterfly Bushes. Fall Sedum. The beauty of flowers, the symmetry and wonder of what nature creates, the gift of getting lost digging in the dirt and how it provides the opportunity for meditation and contemplation…a flower garden provides us all that. And so much more.
Donna L. Gassie is a photographer, gardner, social worker, writer and occasional performer living in Richmond, Virginia.
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During my years in art I was always interested in painting and photography as a way to convey ideas that were maybe not so obvious to a viewer within what might appear to be obvious imagery. Through texture and colors and patterns more ideas regarding the meaning of the subjects might avail themselves to those of us in the audience, depending on a person’s point of view.
My images should be chaotic yet rhythmic. Organic, should be so packed with texture and physical substance that they can be viewed on different levels. Comforting, discomforting, beautiful, and transitory. These recent photographs reflect my continued interest in images that can be beautiful; images that are turbulent, from natural elements and that also evoke something less obviously marvelous.
Flowers and natural things are marvels of beauty and flora is a big subject in my work abutting elements of the unseemly, the degraded. These elements provoke thoughts regarding the contrast of the graceful and the less than beautiful. Themes in relation to mortality and vitality can arise from participating in these sorts of subjects and that thoughtful imagery abounds for me in my own creative process.
Within these images from composted organic materials I’m witnessing the decomposition of natural compositions. In this body of work, as in many, I’m exploring the mechanics of transition through time, neglect and natural decomposition. I hope to establish images that can be beautiful and chaotic. Subjects that in their own specific way function as part of a beautiful transient process.
Steven Duede is a fine art photographer, artist, designer and arts administrator living in Belmont, MA.
These and other works can be found at http://www.stevenduede.com
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