From Another World

I have moved. Sold house and land and moved.

Slowly settling in and curiosity, which I thought dead these last 8 months or so is starting to stir. A stumbled-upon word that seemed to be not in context; the word was "processing". I tracked the awkwardness, out-of-context-seeming use and found a new (to me) language call Processing. Two books from amazon.com and five days later, some fruit from the tree I thought dead.

VT2000 Adventures in Processing

I now have four books and my toe(s) is/are in the digital waters. We'll see. But I was excited enough to make the page.

And we wonder why the US is behind ... ?

Here's the subject line from today's email ad from Apple:

Go Back to School with the App Store, Role-Playing Games, and More

I'm getting ready for the fall term at CCV and this just plain ticked me off.

Ball Lightning

I've had a wonderful adventure this morning in using the internet as it was envisioned. It started on the BBC's Tech page following articles about the Bletchley Museum's computer collection, and from there I went to the Science page which led to the World Wide Lightning Locations page and from there to following links about about ball lightning. In one of those articles were these sentences:

And Dr Abrahamson believes their theory will even explain how ball lightning passes through windows and walls.

"Most, especially old, houses have cracks around their windows and cracks near doors," he says.

I've always been interested in ball lightning because of a story told in our family. I've no date for the story, but am guessing it was sometime in the 1920s or '30s. The house it happened in burned in 1937, so it was before that. The house was located in the northwestern corner of Fletcher, Vermont on the Buck Hollow Road. The house was likely close to 70 or 100 years old at the time.

My grandfather was sitting in the kitchen near the old cast iron wood stove when a ball of lightning came in, circled around the stove and wandered out through the wall again.

My family is not given to made-up stories, so I do put stock in this.

Tennis, Anyone?

No. Not tennis; this is me.

But, I've a new addiction: Google's Ngram.

Here's the game. And of course you can make your own.

Find ten NON-NOUNS that pinpoint the start of the industrial revolution to within a decade.

Or maybe you want to play the easy version. Find five.

Ngram

How long before someone with money puts out a game, apps, a Wii Version?

Not long I bet. But you heard it here first.

Glorious sky

A grand and glorious evening sky, with a murder of crows in St. Albans, Vermont. Shot with my iPhone.

Finally -- real fonts available for the web

In my other life as a typographer (going on 40 years now) I have long bemoaned the absence of "typography" on the web. Early on it was non-existent. A bit later, madly cumbersome, but possible-- as here in my very old site for Fairfax Press.

Today I was checking out my recent, non-urgent emails, and found one from the Monotype Corporation. (They are a venerable type foundry that did much to influence typography in the 20th Century.) There was a message from them about using their web fonts service. I read it and tried it. And it worked. Because this free facility used fonts which resided on their site, I was experimenting to see if it would slow page-loading significantly; it did not. Consequently, I send you now to the manifesto page of my iPhone Photography work once again, but this time just to see the type face.

It's Bembo--the face I decided upon for my house face decades ago when I was setting up Fairfax Press. However, I couldn't afford it and settled on Deepdene instead. But Bembo was my first love among the book faces, and it remains so. (I note with pleasure that Edward Tufte's books are set in Bembo. Though I just bet I was onto it before he was!)

Of course, if you have a strong interest in pursuing web typography, I suggest you carefully select your face and buy it. A good body face will only cost about $25USD.

New Work

After months with no posting -- it's time to pony up.

I've been concentrating on iPhone photography and it has already morphed into work I am pleased with. My approach matured fast from idle shooting and tinkering to real work.

I'm fixated on pushing the iPhone to the limits of its native capabilities. To that end, I shoot anyway I can get an image and that's that.  No cropping or manipulative post-processing with the exception of turning some images to sepia.  What I saw is what you get.

From now on, organic images and pure abstractions will be in their native colors, as will the odd shot of something which caught my eye (like Matching Attire at the left) . For the most part, man-made things will be "sepia-ized" as in Freight at bottom right. All prints are made in the native iPhone size (5.33" x 4"); 8" x 10" matted and framed.

Newest images are here:
New iPhone photographs.

The Artist Gardener: iPad painting by Corliss Blakely

The Artist Gardener iPad painting by Corliss Blakely
Originally uploaded by Corliss Blakely Artist in Vermont

This iPad painting by Corliss Blakely is fascinating for me. Especially do I like the blurred sketch of what I'm guessing is one of her black/white watercolors. A group of those watercolors is hanging at the STAART Gallery in St. Albans, Vermont right now. And, though it wouldn't be quite a $600 million heist as recently occurred in Paris -- it would still be a heist nontheless -- and one I've contemplated in my weaker moments!

But, I love the casualness of this particular painting--seems a departure from her more structured/studied paintings. This makes it richer and more appealing for me. I look forward to more in this vein; it's valuble to be aware of an artist's growth

Continuing Color Obsession

Even as my own world grows duller and thicker, colors eventually explode in my brain. They chew away until they have a space large enough for them to combust. I'm grateful for this, but wish I had the ability to exercise some control over their unruliness within me.

Our World I - 9" x 12" - Watercolor on paper.

SOLD

To View in Gallery