So You Walk

June 2, 2012 by 3 Comments
Forest Path

The Path © 2012 Bo Mackison

How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? 

Anyone knows they are. 

How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm,

the rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? 

No, you cannot explain. 

So you walk. 

~ Author unknown, from New York Times editorial, “The Walk,” 25 October 1965

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Since Bo is in the big city at an art fair, she is visualizing this lovely walk int he woods.

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Leaves of Lettuce

May 31, 2012 by 3 Comments
Lotsa Lettuce

Leaves of Lettuce © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
~ Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass

Leaves of grass? Leaves of lettuce? Close…

I love this lettuce garden at Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens. It’s not every lettuce bed that is planted so that it is garden art.

Yummy, too!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is busy in her studio, finishing last minute details for the beginning of her summer art fair season. Short blog post today, complete info about this weekend’s 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago tomorrow.

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Walk and Wonder

May 30, 2012 by 4 Comments
Peonies in Pastels

Peonies in Pastels © 2012 Bo Mackison

Seeing form with the whole body and mind,
Hearing sound with the whole body and mind
One understands intimately.
~ Eihel Dogen

I walked the perimeter of a nearby pond this morning. I have been walking it weekdays for the last few weeks, and it is my intention to continue walking the pond path until the snow flies and the way is no longer negotiable.

I continue to be surprised by all the activity that takes place near the pond. The American Lotus are gradually emerging from the water, first as mere bits of green, now many are flat pads floating on the surface.

An egret and a blue heron – I suspect both are males – eye each other from a safe distance. I have not seen any large nests except for the geese, so I surmise those mama birds may be on the other nearby lake.

The male red-wing blackbirds are also out in force, alert and watching the passers-by for their mates and nests are in the above trees. These blackbirds are the main reason I always walk with a wide-brimmed hat for protection. After experiencing the males swoop at my head on several occasions serving me with warnings to “move on,” I keep my head covered. I do not enjoy their startling game of “scare the humans.”

Today I had to make a detour through the woods as a papa goose was giving his seven babies some play time on the path, and since he eyed me wildly and threatened me with his wide-opened beak, I gave in and turned around. I was in no mood to take on an aggressive father.

Then while passing through the trees, I saw a snapping turtle, maybe two feet long including tail, digging at the side of the trail. She was preparing to lay her eggs, and had dug a hole four or five inches deep. Since I purposely do not bring a camera on my early morning walk, I have no photographs, only the memories I stored in my mind, and a few sketches I penciled in my journal when I returned home.

I am experimenting with the camera free walk. I have well learned the habit of close observation in the last five years of carrying a camera almost everywhere, but there are times when it seems the need for a photograph interrupts a train of thought I would like to follow, or a time of quiet I am enjoying. I will try it for a month, and then choose whether to carry my camera again or continue with a camera-free hour first thing in the morning.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is spending the rest of the day in her studio, matting and framing photographs for her first summer art fair — this weekend.

(57th Street Art Fair in Hyde Park, Chicago – June 2 and 3. More info to follow)

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Looking through the Window Glass

May 29, 2012 by 2 Comments
Parq Central View

Parq Central View © 2012 Bo Mackison

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ Rumi

A handsome, hand-crafted door. Century old leaded glass with beveled edges. The view of the park across the street is framed so perfectly in the arched panes. I think the abstract view through the slightly imperfect glass panes is lovely – wavering colors melding from one hue to another, the cool palette of colors – blues, greens, purples.

But no matter how lovely the door’s wood nor the hand-crafted window panes’ specks of flaws, nor the meticulous workmanship to combine raw materials into a work of practical art, I still want to open the door and explore the outdoors. I want to cross the street and walk in the park, be a part of the park – bare-footed in the grass, looking up at the sky through the over-arching leafy branches. Feel the grass tickling the soles of my feet, the wind brushing against my face, let my hands touch the bark patterns – rough, smooth, bumpy.

The view through the glass is lovely. But sometimes even barriers are deceivingly beautiful or unhelpful. Knowing when to remove the barrier and explore further is the true test.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

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Peony in Stillness

May 23, 2012 by 7 Comments
Abstract Peony

Peony © 2012 Bo Mackison

The need to listen carefully creates its own stillness. ~ Toni Packer

Quiet. Solitude. Stillness.

When I am out in my garden with my camera, I wait for stillness, for the wind to quiet enough so that my photograph, or at least the portion of the photograph that I want in focus, is in focus.

On a calm day, it is easy to take photographs outside. But on a breezy day, I decide if I want to add some extra work into the photography equation. From which direction is the wind blowing? Is it gusty? Can I block the wind with a building or a fence or the clear acrylic panels I built into a wind shield?

Some of the time, I choose to out wait the wind if it isn’t blowing steadily. And while standing or kneeling or even lying on the grass, motionless, that is when I begin to hear all of the sounds of minutiae. (Can I use the word minutiae in that way? . . . Well, I just did.)

First, I notice how incredibly loud the wind is, especially when I want it to die down so the swaying peony will stop its dance and hold still so I can take its portrait. But wind can be really loud. And of course all of the bushes and leafy branches are twirling about. Even the grasses I am resting upon are brushing against each other and sound like the swishing on a snare drum. Then I start to listen closely – do I hear the wind itself or only that which is tossed about by the wind’s movement?

And while I am listening so carefully, I notice all the other noises that I prefer to consciously block. The low hum of a neighbor’s lawn mower, a car engine revving as it passes on a side street, the loud thrumming of a descending airplane heading to a nearby airstrip.

Suddenly I am thankful for the winds’ blustery sounds, glad that its whooshes and whispers let me focus on the sounds in nature.

Eventually I get my photographs, one way or another, or change my plans. There is never a dearth of subjects for me and my camera.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She has discovered that when carrying a camera outdoors, she discovers much that hasn’t a lot to do with photography.

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