We have had torrential rains here in WNC, not record breaking, but substantial. Flooding and landslides are apparently nothing unusual here, although everyone is getting a little tired of it by now. The upside is that it affords one an opportunity to take pictures of my favorite subject – water. Lots of it. Here is a quiet little stream in the Green River Gamelands. I shot this with my Sony RX100, cropped in Photo Toaster with the Vanity Fair filter.

Since I have such a strong investment in tiny house living, my husband and I made the trip to Morrisville Tennessee for the Memorial Day Weekend tiny house jamboree at Incredible Tiny Houses. While the festival itself was mildly interesting – perhaps 15 different tiny houses to walk through – what popped my eyes and dropped my jaw was the location. It took place in a large dilapidated warehouse. Deep puddles had formed from the torrential rain on the leaky roof, requiring one to practically wade from house to house on the cracked concrete floor. All the food trucks had moved inside and the air hung low and heavy, rancid with bacon fat, smoke, and a good dose of carbon monoxide. There was little natural light; all the tiny houses were dim and depressing, their floors caked with mud and grime from people’s wet shoes.

Outside the rain stopped, leaving a stunning sky. The area had once been a thriving area of factories, warehouses, wholesale businesses. An apparently recent fire had devastated almost everything, leaving behind destruction and wrecked businesses. Wrecked lives. The lot itself was paved with a wide variety of tiles: Mexican saltia, black and white bathroom tiling, white subway tiles. I presume that what I could see through the accumulated mud and water was a former showroom.

The smell of burned and scorched wood still hung over the area. Visitors to the Jam had found places to squeeze their vehicles between piles of rebar and cracked concrete.

I wandered around and felt the contrast between the beauty of the day and the wreckage, now ignored and forgotten, something to overlook on the way somewhere else. I was able to use the pictures I took with almost no editing. The colors and textures come through without the necessity of enhancements.

The lightning raged against its imprisonment in the clouds.  It crackled and struggled, coiling in the gathering vapor, swirling faster and faster to antagonize the cloud.  When it finally broke free, it surged deep into the welcoming earth, vowing to never be trapped again by the gods of the sky.

This is based on a true story, told to me by an insensitive colleague about her trip to Yosemite.

A hiker fell to his death off Half Dome, attempting to hold tight to the steel cables.  I don’t want to go up there, he pleaded with his wife, I’m so afraid. We’re going, she said.  Just don’t look down.  But he was compelled by the swirling void beneath him.

As much as I love photography, and find it to be a deeply expressive medium, sometimes I like to get tactile.  I’m working on a wood panel 24 x 26″ which conveys an acquired texture of years of paint flaked off and repainted, handbills on top of handbills.  In Asheville you see many telephone poles with decades of staples where people have shared announcements of their concert, coffeehouse, gallery opening, political rally, and stage appearances of all kinds. it is a rich cultural history layering.  Below is a study for my planned work.  In process as I collect handbills, flyers, the ephemera of a creative town.

Annabelle had an ordinary life but one day her vision became clouded. When a chiropractor adjusted her neck, everything snapped into focus. But, walking home past a graveyard, she now saw the spirits of the dead, some sitting primly on their tombstones, some crouched over in agony. Their sad eyes followed her.