Some of it, all of it... ?

Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum) • North Carolina, June, 2022

Whyah Bald, North Carolina, June, 2022

This last week Franca and I went to Cullowhee, North Carolina to the Southern Lepidopterist’s Society annual meeting. There were about 75 people attending. The attendees range in age from 25-26 to 80+ years. There were both men and women and several ethnic groups represented, no African Americans. We ventured into the North Carolina countryside on a field trip and on succeeding days we were shown evidence of the research many of the participants have been involved with for years of their lives. All of them were quite impressive.

Much of the data explanation was difficult for me to mentally resolve absent the time it would take to do the research myself, but the enthusiasm of the presenters carried the day. These folks are dedicated to knowing as much as possible about butterflies and moths. They are an amazing bunch.

The field trip revealed to me where I stand in the natural world. I’m interested in all of it. Over the 3 days we saw birds, butterflies, moths, beetles, snakes, dragonflies, damselflies, turtles, true bugs, picture-winged flies, harvestmen, snails, millipedes, larvae of many not to mention wildflowers and the greatest variety of trees I’ve seen in a while.

The highlight was the “field.” I appreciate the intense laboratory work these folks go through but it’s all out there, under the sun, sometimes under the leaves. Fine art wherever it’s encountered.

Franca Nucci Haynes
We Go On...

We go on… Hmmm. As though there were another way. The SSPG ‘s resurgence is assured after a walking meeting with Chip and Jonathan this last Sunday. I posted this message to the group…

“Chip, Jonathan and I sauntered around midtown couple of days ago. We ended up discussing the SSPG and its future and concluded it is definitely a force for good in our pursuit of this elusive art form. Whatever our personal take on what we are doing individually the group is and has been instrumental in helping us move forward. We are a bunch of folks who move around a lot so we have to be flexible from the outset.

The up shot is a general "print review" once a month starting in July 2022 extending to June of 2023. Same price as before, $650. Each individual will schedule one on one sessions with Chip whenever both parties agree. The monthly print review will be no more than 6 prints from each participant. We'll meet at Chip's apartment unless health conditions force alternate action. Our discussions concerning book making will continue and other topics will be discussed through the year. We need to get back in the saddle.

This space will be used as always, almost never finished work but a running record of what we photograph. "Liking" etc. is OK but how someone's photographs strike us in terms of the craft might sponsor more insightful comments. At this stage I doubt we'll hurt each other's feelings much.

We need to make a decided effort to go together to see other work... maybe not all photography. (Personal comment here). What we're doing is important and the work of like minds regardless of medium, can only help us.”

I am convinced that we need to embrace the decisions painters, sculptors and other artists make adjunct to those of photographic print makers. I keep this mantra before me: “Art is what artists do.” “Artists are those who say they are artists or behave as artists.” There is no need for complexity, that comes from actually doing the work.


 

I’ve been working on a book. It celebrates eclecticism, and would have to, given the photographs I make.
The book is an unusual shape and because of that it’ll have to be a handmade, hand bound piece. I’m
looking at 5 in the edition to begin with and an upper limit of 25.

Franca Nucci Haynes
A Carousel, No Calliope...

The world is still in orbit around our little star, the trees made leaves again this year and there are flowers most everywhere. The insects are hatched and foraging as are the birds with that precedent and, yeah, life goes on.

In April I completed my 81st year on the planet. I have been looking back into my memory of thought… what I thought the world would be like when I reached this age. As I was educated in science and schooled to look for reason, logic and an ethical approach to discovery, as time has passed I have to say I’m pretty disappointed in what the passage has revealed. I’m beginning to think the species is doomed because of a couple of flaws. One is religion. I don’t mean I think the ideas put forth by the leaders from the past we revere are wrong, necessarily, just that we don’t follow their teaching while pretending to do so. We claim to be the followers of one or another to the point that we would kill someone who disagrees with our saint, prophet, god… whatever. Stupid, hypocritical, infantile, lazy.

Another strange thing to me is how we choose drama over reason at every opportunity. It seems everyone is clamoring to be the first to reveal an event or a crisis looming or a scandal… In lieu of compassion, courtesy and truth we’ll opt for humor even if it totally distorts the truth or the approach to it. We have a need to feel successful by making others laugh regardless of at who’s expense or the facts. The advent of television in all it's forms hasn’t helped, we’re coached everyday as to what is funny and what’s allowed to be funny. The internet is merely the continued evolution of the electronic piper.

Some eschew science while our whole modern existence is based on what science has done for convenience, health and wealth. When evolution is mentioned in some quarters one can get an automatic “pariah” staus conferred on their little heads. It’s becoming clear that there are things about the universe we do not understand and maybe never will, while the revelation of god’s hand in it all is funneled to us through our very accessible knowledge of evolutionary change. Just so much bigger and more complicated than we thought… Magic works in place of fact, right?

Couple from a walk with Chip downtown.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Shadows and Color...

Franca, Judy and I walked a bit this last Sunday. I walked 12,500 steps and I think around 9000 might have been better for me. But we had fun and the day was a wonder, bright sun, clear air, not too hot. I’ve mentioned Mason Mill before and this time we went further into the “ruins.” Of course the graffiti artists are looking for any neglected flat wall.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Scrambling in an evolving chaotic sea of interests...

It was my parents who began for me some practices that have served me well, eating a wide range of natural foods and reading everything in sight. However, I’ve never conquered liver with or without onions and I’m not a big fan of tripe and reading Heidegger is more like torture than reading.

As I sat on the arm of our old faintly patterned easy chair with my dad reading aloud it became obvious to me that reading was the door to everywhere. My dad wasn’t the most social person in a group but he was great one on one with anyone he met and I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone… well maybe there was a kinda benign exception or two. He lined the words with his index finger as he read and I learned to read by picturing the words.

As time went by it was visual experience I was attracted to, a world that linked the natural world of butterflies, birds, water buffalo and plants to painting and sculpture.

Fortunately I’ve never had to give up my love of the wild world for my love of art. This site is devoted to fine art photography. For my ongoing involvement with wildlife there is http://www.flutterbys.net.


Franca and I were informed this last week that we have work to be included in the “Fourth LaGrange Southeast Regional” art show. We have been fortunate in the past to be in this show and that experience has confirmed for us that Georgia’s art world extends well beyond Atlanta. The pieces “Deadline Gone” and “Donna’s Backyard” are in the LaGrange show and “Winter” is in the Atlanta Photography Group show here in Atlanta. Good way to start the year.

 

By the way the photograph of the “circle” in the woods is of the remains of Mason Mill. Mason Mill was a flour mill built by Ezekiel Mason before the Civil War in the 1850s, and located east of Atlanta on the bank of Burnt Fork Creek close to its merger with the south fork of Peachtree Creek near Decatur. 

Mason Mill Road meets Clairmont Road near this point. Built by slaves, the sluice or flume for the mill ran back to Clairmont Lake.

In 1906 the property was sold to the City of Decatur, and Mason Mill became a part of the Decatur Waterworks, a complex system supplying drinking water to the City until 1947.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Tackling imagination...

Yes, well, imagination is the culprit isn’t it, the thing we don’t really get?. Our imagination can help us solve problems or lead us down a path of the never possible. Because we associate imagination with dreams or “day-dreaming, " we sometimes don’t take it seriously until someone's runaway imagination can lead us astray and we end up in a demand for reality.

Right now I’m investigating what generates the compulsion to “do” art? Where does it come from? Is language of some sort needed to enable it and what part does imagination play in in its development? I suspect that some of the examples of what we call early art, cave art for instance, were less about self-expression rather made with a purpose in mind that surpassed “exposition,” or depiction. And I think the development of the Homo sapiens brain to harbor imagination had something to do with bewilderment at considering the unknowns, yet eventually lead to an enchantment with the process itself. Imagination is a strange thing in that it can provide us impetus for invention but it can also allow a tangent of fanciful thought that can produce regression from reality and, carried to the extreme, violence. But I think an understanding of our imagination is at the core of understanding art, artists and observers of art.

There comes an instant in the life of a would be artist at which they decide to “try” or they become convinced to “do it.” At which point the traditional supplies, materials and space are acquired leading to the default process and a beginning. After that beginning chaos reigns. If an artist stays nimble and curious there is no limit to where their creative mind can travel. Looking back, it was always there, like radio waves, just needed a receiver. It may very well take some time to be out there on ones own. If the process gets frustrating there are always “courses” or help books, temporizing moves. But there can come a day when the well of creativity is tapped apart from outside influence and the flight is self-sustaining.

As an aside I’ve noticed that really  good bakers, shoemakers, automobile detailers, dog trainers… anybody totally devoted to an almost or actual obsession are called artists when their work product obviously rises above the ordinary. So it seems the colloquial assessment of expertise and talent carries with it that title. No one questions it when a house painter is called an artist because of their attention to detail and obvious care taken with their work.

When questioned about art directly most people think of art as painting, oil painting on canvas. Sculpture, mixed elements follow and eventually music and dance and print making like engraving, etching and photography are spoken of as art even though they may also be used for more utilitarian purposes. In almost every instance there is the persistence of association with depiction in that there must be a product of the art-making process to see or hear that can be presented and experienced. In a kinship with instrumental music, decidedly abstract, the visual arts can take on emotional effect with elements of the natural world in a totally abstract manner as well. If abstraction is a warp of structure and form then any art form can follow that course.

When we marry our industry with our imagination the outcome is difficult to predict but often beautiful and useful.


Carry on…

 

 

Franca Nucci Haynes
The end of ‘21, about time, but then…

No politics, no severe medical situations, just imaging. I’m experimenting to circumvent the pain I’ve had since July and yesterday that process was augmented suddenly by steriods in my spinal column and, yeah, relief. Wow, when people know their job. Good doctors.

I made a pixel dump from the heart of the machine, drove it carefully through the pixel pusher to combine chance and a schooled eye… to see what happens. I’m looking for the opposite of still and sharp, enhancing the difference between an extreme range of grays and lines of motion.

Franca Nucci Haynes
Tis the season to be...

Been a while. In the interim we’ve had our boosters and remain relatively healthy. My pinched nerve is still pinched although a bit less painful. After MRIs and a couple of shots of a clear liquid of some sort I still have to have another series in my back.

Thanksgiving was really nice with Joy and Ken and Mary. Good food and a lot of conversation.

We went to Hampton, Georgia today to get a tree for Christmas. They’re a different kind of tree, Carolina Sapphire. We usually get Frazer Firs, as much for the fragrance as the structure. These trees are less aromatic but since they were live just before we brought ours home it should last awhile.

A couple… some sweet potatoes from our wash tub out back, gone by day’s end on Thanksgiving. Some light patterns from Grant Park and a couple from Brown’s Christmas Tree Farm in Hampton, Georgia. (click through)

Franca Nucci Haynes
Autumn Approaches...

The hummingbirds have gone. We saw two females and one male quite often through the summer and now they’re winging south. With all the storms in the gulf I wish them well.

Franca, Chip and I went to Molena to drop off the photograph of mine that will be included in the “Urban Landscapes” show at SXSE. Nice little trip. Franca had to drive. I’m still having “pinched nerve” issues. MRI this week and then a decision by the doctor. Made a few terrible photographs on the Molena trip. I can’t make much progress when I’m in pain.

I did make a couple of a derelict house I’ve been photographing off and on for about 5 years. With all the changes surrounding the old house, the woods have been cut and the open land shorn, I’m surprised they haven’t razed it.

(Click for Larger Image}

Been reading a lot of A. D. Coleman this week from “Light Reading,” which is a book of his past columns about many photographers, and “Depth of Field,” a book of essays on photography. Maybe I’m just not finding them but I don’t see many books of this calibre available these days. We continue.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Nice Surprise...

From Nancy McCrary at SXSE:

“Every two months I ask the curator of the current exhibition at SxSE Gallery to choose 8 photographers for inclusion in the feature Curator's Choice in the upcoming issue of South x Southeast Magazine. I have asked Julie Grahame and Stella Kramer (Urban Landsccapes) to choose photographers for the October/November issue. And she chose you in the collection!”

The choice was up to me and I came up with 85 images from the last three years. After a bit of whittling…

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Attempting normalcy...

While a very large group of folks try to make themselves another vaccine “star” by refusing to be vaccinated a very large group of folks are dying because of that irrational indulgence. Too bad. If we don’t remove Public Health and Voting Rights from political control… we ain’t gonna make it.

I was accepted into the SXSE, “Urban Landscapes” show… The image of the beautiful young skater in Grant Park is the contribution. She was about 10 years of age, totally self-absorbed and quite accomplished. I asked her if she was to be the next Simone Biles and she nodded rather absently with a little smile. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the entries and Nancy in Molena in November. (Click the image for a larger view.)

Franca Nucci Haynes
Remembering Gene Autry...

You know… “Back In The Saddle Again?” I am entering shows here and there. I was accepted for the first two I entered but had to withdraw from one. It’s very difficult for some folks to get the services they need after COVID-19 so the APG show was a “no frame” show and there was a limit on size. It’s too difficult for some people to get framing, matting, etc. done still. The work of mine they chose had to be a certain size, which was too big per the instructions, and needed to be framed. I apologized and withdrew. They do a great job at APG and I hope to get in there again down the road.


Then I was accepted into the “Columbus Photographers” show at the Rankin Photography Center in Columbus, Georgia. The curator there is Kenny Gray. Kenny is a great guy and a great photographer. I think he’s worried that the show might be canceled if this Delta Variant gets more widespread. Fingers crossed. The work in the show…


Franca’s working on a really nice collage right now. I can’t wait to see it finished. This is one of the series she has created from the letters her father wrote to her mother during WWII and it is amazing.

Received the book, “Got To Go,” by Rosalind Fox Solomon. She’s been photographing a long time really well.

Summer rambles on but has been cooler than most and the rain has been adequate to keep the yards looking nice.

Franca Nucci Haynes
Stumbling onward...

Back to masks. For the first time in my life I’m aware of a “stupid” map of the country. All you have to do is look to where the highest number of COVID-19 cases are and you’ve got it. CDC says the rate of new cases is up and almost entirely among the un-vaccinated. I have to laugh at the “forced vaccinations,” and the violation of personal freedom when service is not available for those without masks. My goodness, such a loss of freedom! Sorta like “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” to which nobody objects.

Enough rain, good summer. Ever onward.

Franca Nucci Haynes
Headlong into Summer...

Summer is most definitely here. Even so Franca and I are eating outside most meals. The temperature and mosquitos haven’t driven us inside as yet.

I’m finally getting around to organizing my photographs. I developed a convention for file naming and box labeling so I can keep track of things old and new.

Took a bike ride to Oakland Cemetery with friends. The bikes performed well and the experience was really fun.

We had dinner out last week… new thing, going to someone’s house for dinner… really, really nice.

Sitting here listening to Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” by the Juilliard Quartet. Woke up at 5 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep. Nice, the quiet mornings.

st.6.21.m._labrynth.jpeg
Franca Nucci Haynes
Another Time...

Wow! Spring. The back yard is really nice. We’ve been eating outside a lot. The combination of rain and care has paid off nicely.

olive.jpg

The olive tree is a big surprise. Last year, after 40 years of living in our back yard, the tree had 1 olive. It was a perfect solitary olive. Now it looks like that was a “testing of the waters.” This year it appears to have blooms all over the tree.

We’re beginning to venture forth. We went to LaGrange with Donna Jackson to see the Cochrans and had lunch at a restaurant. Weird.

Chip gave us an assignment… self portraits. Never done that much. It is sometimes difficult to come to liking a photograph of ones self.

spiPh.jpg

Stay well.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Ruminations...

Enough of “the unusual, bad, weird” times. From the viewpoint of an artist working in the modern world a pandemic is just life. You play the hand you’re dealt.

There is an event approaching, my 80th birthday, that is surprising to me because from my memory the family members I watched at 80 were different than I am. I “feel” about the same, think the same, approach things only slightly differently and that because my body is wearing out. But the ideas stay or appear at the same rate and questions always recur for extended thought and puzzlement. It’s still fun to be here.

I’ve noticed lately that I photograph with the iPhone in a more spontaneous way… something that may be teaching me to behave the same when I’m using other machines. I use the Canon pretty much for nature photography but the Leicas for the same things I make with the iPhone. Nice to have all of it.

Long discussion with Jonathan Hillyer yesterday about a comment Minor White is supposed to have made about photographs revealing the photographer who made them. Jonathan was asking how that works exactly. I’m not sure it does. First you’d have to determine if you can reveal very much about anyone with an analysis of the creative elements of their life, with or without their narrative about themselves. What can you know for sure about someone beyond the physical obvious? Not so much, I think. Not to say humans are always deceitful but we seem to hold the truth of ourselves we think we know in reserve, seldom revealed, if ever. If that’s the case was White saying a photograph reveals that part of us we are holding in reserve separate from any other sort of life event? I don’t think so because if the truth were revealed it would be the same for all observers and it’s not. Talking about a photograph to discover something about the photographer probably says more about the observer than the photographer. Or something like that.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
The winter of our discontent...

Cold.

callanwolde2021_2.jpg

Franca took this collage to Callanwolde a few days ago to be included in the “2021 Callanwolde Juried Art Exhibition.”

We went yesterday to see the hanging and it was pretty good. The show was a bit more sparse than previous years but hung well and lit well.


franktrain_8.jpeg

On February 27th I’ll drop off this photograph which was accepted in the “Member’s CHOICE” show
sponsored by the Atlanta Photography Group.

 
Franca Nucci Haynes
Go ahead, take a shot...

And we did, in fact Franca has had 2 of ‘em and I’ll get my second this coming Friday. Then things will be exactly the same except that we are going to breathe a little easier knowing we have some protection against the unseen.

The Atlanta Photography Group is having a show starting in March. The photographers choose their group of 5 and there is a guarantee of 2 getting in the show. I had no idea how long it might be before I could do this again. Judith Pishnery and Beth Lily are judging, both very competent and dedicated. I submitted these five. It’ll be interesting to see the 2 they pick. (Click Through)

Franca Nucci Haynes
Well here it is, now what?
trees.jpg

The clock ticked over to 12:01 AM and nothing changed. Well, nothing changed anymore than expected, the same as years before at midnight when the year ticked over.

The new year, 2021, has arrived. Considering the events of 2020 I suppose we can choose to be optimistic. Every day Franca seems stronger, sleeps better, her monitored heart rhythm is on target and she seems to have more energy. Cool! I’ve also learned that we will more than likely have the COVID vaccine this month.

I’m hearing that the South Street Photography Group will go on with many of the same crew. That’s encouraging.

But I see the same crap from ”us.” The values that I grew up with after the “war” are gone, completely. People are self-centered and mean. Of course there are those who don’t fit that description at all. We have the best friends of our lives and we’re so thankful for that. But the country at large has been fooling itself for so long… we keep saying , “We’re better than this.” No, we’re not. We started by displacing or outright killing the people who lived here, a whole big bunch of people, then we brought people here as slaves and have kept them in some sort of slavery ever since. We have allowed politicians to establish a society that rewards only the rich and, from 2016 on has allowed an uneducated, know nothing to establish a cult of personality that has taken advantage of half the country. It’s a group of people scared to death because they opted out of participation in the civic organization of the country and when they realized they didn’t understand how anything in government worked and maybe needed to, they went with the loudest talker, the man who waves his arms and lies through his teeth, but the guy who reached the dramatic threshold they had to have to believe in something.

Now he’s gone or at least on his way out. But evaluating the application of reason and ethical behavior in making laws and policy by the party of T reveals those principles are not understood anymore and yet they’ve “ruled” the country for a while. Half the country cannot apply reason to any situation. They rely entirely on a practiced charlatan whether someone in the government or in the “media” to tell them what to do. The fact is revealed that a really good job of duping people is hard to overcome and harder as time goes by… becomes a way of life. Can’t go back, won’t go back even if you suspect that you’ve been had. Gotta save face. The rest of us have that weight to avoid and tolerate, waiting for the reason option that may never be chosen.

We can hope. This is the 2nd of January and the election in 3 days here in Georgia may be the most important in the history of the country. If the democrats cannot take control of the senate we’re in for another 4 years of not much; legislation to enhance the bank accounts of the rich, nothing on health care and probably nothing to help small business and the average guy get over this epidemic. Grim reaper my ass… the behavior of Mitch McConnell is not treason by definition but the equivalent in terms of our civilian government.

Fortunately I still see photographs appear and come to fruition at least on the electronic display. I don’t print much to paper, no real reason. The earliest I could have anything on the wall will probably be late in the year. That’s OK.

We’re pretty healthy. I’ll complete my 80th year in April. Franca is now on a much healthier track. We eat well and smart I think, lots of vegetables, less and less red meat. We’re learning to cook with recipes from various ethnic groups; Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Middle eastern and more Italian.

Looking out the window here… the birds don’t seem to care about the election. Orchids are blooming upstairs in the bathroom, beautifully. Franca’s new Calamondin Orange trees have recovered from their travels, straightened up and they’re ready for spring. We’ll be alright, won’t we?

 
Franca Nucci Haynes