Friday morning in Albuquerque

Two blocks from my house, looking toward the southeast (yes, I am waiting at a light, not driving while taking pictures).


The sidewalk at work: enough snow to be beautiful without making life too difficult. Well, I suppose that depends on perspective. There were many accidents this morning and I-40 was closed entirely at Edgewood.

--the BB

Un tout petit peu de neige

Now, you who have real weather, please refrain from snickering at what is called snow in Albuquerque. Other parts of New Mexico have enough snow for serious skiing. If that happened here I would not have moved hither. I am a weather wimp and make no bones about it.

I enjoy the dusting of powdered sugar version of snow. It suits me fine. And even with that today, it was a long, slow, somewhat tense commute home this evening. I like driving fast on roads built for fast driving, with no car nearby. I don't think I got much over 40 at the fastest and most of this evening was driven between 15 and 35, hovering around 25 for the most part).

The last stretch was on road that had not recently had a car on it, so I was out in the middle of nowhere. That was all right but someone came up behind me and was just a bit too close for my comfort. I kept thinking, "Back off, asshole." When I came to the one stop sign out in The Middle of Nowhere, I slid just a bit while braking. Not much, just a teensy bit. Enough to remind me that this is not driving on a dry surface. I did not like thinking the person behind me might slide in my direction. Anyway, I made it home safely.

Here is the first photo I took today, before lunch. This is basically the view behind me, though with more scope since I stepped out on the balcony to take it.


The next shot is out the mezzanine window after I finished eating lunch.


This was taken as I was leaving work.


Walking down the street toward the parking lot.


And here is Rafa as I found him in the lot. He had more snow than this two years ago on the Tuesday before Christmas. That was the first time he had ever been snowed on and I had to clear him off with my arm. I promptly bought a combination snow brush/ice scraper that has been useful on several occasions since then, tonight being one of them.


Not a whole lot to report on my day, but those are the visuals.
--the BB

Contrast

10 September 2007

19 December 2006

How would we know day if not for night?

I deliberately took the recent late summer photo (top) to contrast with the one below it that I took last December (on what would have been my mother's 96th birthday, were she still alive). I wanted the concrete visual contrast of differing seasons in the framework of this familiar sight, the sidewalk I traverse leaving work.

A few millennia ago when I was an undergraduate, Mme Crosby shared a definition of art in a course on French Renaissance literature: "art as a frame to contain contradiction." Certainly all the "fire and ice" language that occurs in much Renaissance poetry lends credence to such a definition, and I think there is truth in it. Through our art we express the tensions of existence, struggling to show "both sides of the coin" if you will. It is the dissonance that gives music its forward thrust toward resolution, the tension of sundry conflicting needs and desires that launches storylines that we can care about. Without contrast and tension there is no texture, only sameness, a static condition without interest. It is not even true rest, only boredom.

Part of the joy of creative artistry is setting a challenge for oneself and puzzling out how to meet it. I remember how celebrating the Day of the Dead on the Sunday of the Bishop's visitation some years ago led to a creative challenge. We already had scarves for our Ethiopian processional crosses made of an African fabric with bright marigold orange and black plus bits of metallic gold. Perfect for Hallowe'en and Day of the Dead. But I wanted to make some new vestments. My love of color and design ran amok to create what I call the "festal green" set. The design is worked in blues and greens and reds with other highlights, but the lining is California poppy orange! Somehow it all works (and the vestments have been pictured in this blog). Who knew what would come out of trying to make certain shades of orange into liturgical colors?

A challenge, a struggle, a creative result.

Tension.

Contrast.

Resolution in some new whole that contains the tensions and contradictions.

[All the lofty discourse above is simply justification for the fun of posting the two photos. Confession is good for the soul.]
--the BB