Sketch: Lilacs and Laundry
“Lilacs and Laundry”, pastel, 9″ x 12″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
What got me in trouble today when I should have gotten some work done inside was how cute my laundry looked with the lilac blooming about it. I have a thing for laundry in paintings, so I decided to take some time to do a little sketch. I use my limited set of pastels outdoors so I don’t lose or damage the “good ones”, so I need to touch it up with some other colors and finish off the edges.
The lilac has never bloomed this much—after about 15 years it’s finally come into its prime. The red specks in the back are the first roses on my red climber that swings over the gate, the pink flowers on the chair and on the ground are the first geraniums blooming after I’ve brought them out of their winter home in the basement. The short blue is forget-me-nots, the tall is a flowering bulb called Camassia given to me as a gift years ago, still blooming reliable each spring.
Here’s the uncropped version of the sketch.
“Laundry and Lilacs”, uncropped.
And look—there must have been an artist in my yard!
An artist was in my yard!
Poem for Sunday: Dogwoods
Dogwood Blossoms
I’ve never seen another dogwood like this one except out in the woods here in western Pennsylvania, which is where I found it. With friends, I was exploring an old abandoned farm that had been sold for development. A long row of blooming daffodils lined the driveway, leading us to the spot where the house had been; only an open rectangle of grass was left, but it was surrounded by forsythia and roses and lilacs and Star of Bethlehem spilling around in the grass and many, many more plants which would have bloomed all through the growing season. Someone had loved growing things and so did we, so we took what we could to preserve their memory knowing they’d only be plowed under.
Dogwood Blossom
Off in the woods, irregular clouds of white blossoms lit the shadows along what had been roads or paths to outbuildings, and we found lovely native dogwoods with the largest flowers I’ve ever seen, at least four inches across with creamy ridged petals and the characteristic divot at the end of each. What had been but a twig growing on a hillside in the woods is now a full and fervent tree with white flowers in spring, dense green leaves all summer, bright red fruits in late summer and red-violet leaves in fall. Who could improve on that?
One year as it bloomed I saw it at night, a hazy glowing shape, the light of spring that could not be extinguished even by darkness. Hence, this poem.
Dogwoods
The dogwoods are blooming up and down my street.
The breaking of the cold,
The unusually warm, brilliant spring day
Has brought my neighbors out to wash cars and cut grass.
Like the returning birds
Their conversations drift and circle from yard to yard
And cross the street on capricious breezes;
We have been put away all winter
Like articles of summer clothing
Our potential at rest,
Yet now, even at night,
Pale, airy clouds of blossoms
Hover in the darkness all over the neighborhood.
Dogwoods ©2005 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
I read this poem as part of my very first poetry reading and art exhibit at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, “Paths I Have Walked”.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar; Dogwoods and Road Trip, Late July, Western Pennsylvania were both chosen as two of the first entries and led to my annual poetry readings—more on that below.
Read more poetry here on Today or visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing, and to purchase Paths I Have Walked.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
I’m proud to offer a folio of my poetry
Paths I Have Walked: the poetry and art of Bernadette E. Kazmarski
FROM FOUR ANNUAL POETRY READINGS AT ANDREW CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY & MUSIC HALL IN CARNEGIE, PA
People who attended one or more of my poetry readings encouraged me to publish some of my poetry in a book from the beginning.
Once I completed my 2010 poetry reading, my fourth featuring the final piece of artwork in the “Art of the Watershed” series, I decided it was time to publish something and it should be those four poetry readings.
Poetry books are not best-sellers; it’s difficult to convince a publisher to risk effort on a beginning poet, and while self-publishing is the best option it’s not inexpensive and once you’ve got the book, someone’s got to market it. Plus, I’m a graphic designer and I designed books for years, and I want things my way.
All of this is a recipe for a little bit of trouble, but I decided the book was well worth the effort so I designed the book myself and had a set printed—no ISBN or anything formal, but it’s a start! I’m really excited to offer it.
Books are 4.25″ x 11″, 40 pages of information and poetry, with glossy covers featuring “Dusk in the Woods” and little thumbnails of all four pieces in “Art of the Watershed”.
$8.00 each plus $2.50 shipping (they are oversized for mailing first class).
You can order one on my poetry page, or in my Marketplace.
About the books and the poetry readings
My biggest inspiration for poetry, prose and artwork is the world right around me, and I enjoy the opportunity to share it from the perspective of one who walks and hikes and bikes and carries a camera, art materials and journal everywhere—even around the house—so the inspirations are fresh.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. I’m a long-time listener to PHC and reader of Garrison Keillor’s books as well as a daily listener to The Writer’s Almanac featuring news about writers and writing and of interest to writers as well as a poem, all compiled and read by Keillor himself. I was astonished to find my poems were among the first chosen from apparently thousands, and so happy to be able to share them with a potential audience of so many similarly inclined writers and readers.
My poetry readings and art exhibits were the vision of Maggie Forbes, executive director of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, after learning of my publishing of those two poems. I owe her many thanks for encouraging me to present this combination of my visual and literary art, a first for me. I love that building, every inch of it, and the opportunity to bring people in to visit is an honor.
Spring Patterns
Spring Patterns
Water flows over a poured concrete low-head dam, the pattern of pebbles and sand in the concrete and flowing white water a contrast to each other, yet it almost looks as if the water is magically formed on the top of the dam.
“The Jewel on the Hill” and “Spring Dusk on Main Street”
The Jewel on the Hill, Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall
Walking home through Carnegie on this date in 2005, carrying just my little 2MP digital camera that didn’t even have a zoom and a small lightweight tripod, I managed to photograph two of my favorite photos of all the photos I’ve taken, above, “The Jewel on the Hill” and below “Carnegie at Dusk”. Though I’ve got plenty of photos to share, and even newer ones from Carnegie, today I’ll celebrate these two, two of the photos that convinced me to take another, closer look at my photography.
So we call this treasure in our town so named for its builder, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall. This is actually an older photo but with a story, plus I recently installed an exhibit of photos of this facility at this facility, which is also one of my favorite places to go and which is also one of my regular customers for freelance design work. Quite a lot of connections.
Anyway, this photo is one we’ve used repeatedly as the signature image for the facility, and was a real stroke of luck and timing. I was walking home on a clear, warm spring dusk in late April, 2005, April 24 to be exact, and arrived at the bottom of Library Hill at just this moment. The sky was fading from brilliant turquoise to cobalt, the still-bare trees were etched against it in silhouette, and the grand building itself stood partially lit by the sunset but with all interior and exterior lights on, solid and stately, serving its public in its 104th year. By the time I had snapped a half dozen or so shots the light had changed completely and the moment was gone. That was part of the timing, the other part that they had only temporarily installed the foundation lighting but never used it again, and this was part of what gave the building that lovely definition against the dark hilltop. A few minutes earlier or later, the previous or following week, and this photo would never have existed. And it was taken with my first little point-and-shoot 2MP digital camera—I don’t know how it came out as clearly as it did!
Read about the exhibits and find links to slideshows of the images at “Of Harps and Fig Leaves” and “Carnegie Photographed”.
A little background on the names…in 1894 the leaders of two small communities on either side of Chartiers Creek, Mansfield and Chartiers, decided to merge in order to provide better services as one community instead of two individual administrations. Andrew Carnegie, who had owned a mill in Carnegie, had by then sold off his mills and begun spending off his worldly wealth by building libraries. These town leaders had a proposal, that he build a library and a high school for the new community and they’d name it after him. He did build the library but said they were on their own with the high school; nonetheless our town is named “Carnegie” in his honor.
He also set up the Library itself a little differently from the others he’d had built. Where others are named “(name of town) Carnegie Library” or “Carnegie Library of (name of town)” and were built with his expense but maintained by the community, this Library bears his full name and given an endowment for its maintenance. Also, more than just the Library space, a Music Hall was incorporated into the design along with a gymnasium in the full basement.
You can read all about this unique facility on its website at www.carnegiecarnegie.org. I’ll also mention that the website design is mine, and you’ll see many more of my images in the photo album.
Spring Dusk on Main Street
Pear Blossoms
Pear Blossoms
Finally my pear tree is blooming. the blossoms are actually pure white, but I liked this creamy tone in dappled sun, early.
Blue and Yellow
Blue and Yellow
This time of the year is always about the first bursts of color, especially blooming things. I always have a stem or two or more of forsythia in my kitchen, and in those brief moments of sunshine the yellow is warm and brilliant before the classic Blue Willow dishes.
Enchanted Cardinal
Enchanted Cardinal
It’s just the lilac with leaves opening in bright green, but this cardinal looks as if she is in a tunnel of magic twigs, fading in and out of reality. I love to play with depth of field.
I was also a little concerned, though, on opening the photo on my computer and seeing that she apparently has something wrong with her beak, and she also appeared smaller than other female cardinals. Babies aren’t even hatched yet so she managed to survive the winter, and she had two very bright and enthusiastic males courting her, so the injury or malformation is apparently not life-threatening, and the boys don’t seem to mind.
Morning Song
Morning Song
We had a bit of sun this morning, and these daffodils were singing their song until the storm got to them.
First Harvest
Potatoes, it’s what’s for dinner.
Some very new potatoes dug up in the bed where I’d grown potatoes last year and from which I could swear I had dug up all the potatoes last fall. They are still covered with a little soil, best for keeping them moist, but the sun still shines into the white and yellow flesh as it seems to glow.
These are mostly Red Pontiac and Yukon Gold, and are the ones I missed last year which managed to live and grow in the soil below the frost line. The largest is about two inches at its largest dimension, and they make a wonderful side boiled with butter and olive oil, the first scallions or chives and parsley. Sometimes I have these and the first asparagus together, but this year the asparagus is late.
Old Color and New
Old Colors and New
I was stunned by the volumes of bold texture in every element of this photo including the shadows, and the contrast of the warm weathered tones of the gourds, basket and woven rocker seat with the turquoise of the rocker itself. I look at this all the time, but not until the angled evening light came between the houses and washed over just a part of it, just the tops of everything, that these mysteries were revealed.
This rocker and a few other features starred in another photo from last fall, “Autumn Colors”.
Daffodils, Finally
Daffodils, Finally
At least one clump of daffodils has dared to act as if spring might be here.
Cagey
Cagey
A stack of tomato cages sits in an unused portion of my garden after the weather finally permitted me to turn the soil. The sun was so bright and the sky so blue, and so much to do.
I added a diffuse glow filter, filling the lightest areas with glare, because the sun was so loud and bright that a regular old photo just didn’t get the point across. Happy spring.
Unconcerned
Unconcerned
I forgot to post yesterday’s snow photo! The catkins have finally begun to open, but the catkins do their thing even under the snow.
Memories Return Fresh: 2010
Memories Return Fresh
These two crocuses finally bloomed today, but the sun only came out for a few minutes and it was then dark and overcast and they closed again, as they do on dark days. I was waiting for the sun again, but it didn’t happen. Still, I want to commemorate the first day for these two, some of the oldest plants in my yard.
The first things to bloom in the yard this spring (2010), these two crocuses go forth together. These crocuses are especially tiny with flowers just about a half-inch across. I’ve never seen another like them, as tiny with narrow, grassy foliage. They bloom days before any of the other crocuses in my yard and many yards as well.
I’m not sure after all these years, but I think an older neighbor shared them with me along with several other bulbs. I treasure the plants I’ve been given by older gardening friends, many of whom had no one else to share with. Now they are gone, but what they shared with me, both the living plants and the living memories, remain.
The Catkins Have Arrived
The Catkins Have Arrived
Tiny soft white kittens emerge from the hard brown shells that have been protecting them. Looks like spring to me.
Essay for Saturday: On Planting Peas
Pease Vine
It’s my annual paean to gardening and the cycles of life.
Every year in the month of March I awaken one morning with the knowledge it’s time to plant the peas, another step in the flow of the seasons. Though I have plants growing indoors, this is truly the beginning of the gardening season for me. Whether it’s the sun, moon, weather, schedule or simple urge to get out there and get my hands dirty I don’t know, but I enjoy the simple manual labor without assistance from any electronic device, ears open to the birds, face feeling the breeze, hands and feet feeling the earth. Many a photo, poem, essay and painting has been inspired by the simple acts of growing things.
Today is not the day, yet later this week, I feel, it will be, and then I will be far too busy, and nowhere near my computer, to post this essay, so I want to share it now, and share my excitement for the coming season of growing. I first read this essay for the first New Year Poetry and Prose Reading of the erstwhile Carnegie Writer’s Group which I’d led from 2003 to 2006. In the meantime, I’m soaking my “Early Sweetness” peas so I’m ready when the day comes.
On Planting Peas
It is early March and I am planting peas. The wan spring sun is finding its heat and lays like a warm hand upon my back as I work. Signs of approaching spring fill my senses in the mild air on my skin, the scent of damp soil and the shrieks of children as they run in frenzied circles of freedom, much like the birds swooping and circling above whistling their mix of songs.
We have passed the first intoxicating days of air that does not bite, endless sun warm enough to melt the last snowfall into a composition of dripping and trickling, soften the soil and make one’s blood run with the abandon of a stream overflowing with spring thaw. The dawns have come noticeably earlier and the muted indigo dusks have lost the sharp quickness of winter and softened to a moist lingering evening.
Perhaps it is the phase of the sun or the moon, the proximity to the vernal equinox or some eternal voice that speaks to those who will listen about the time and season of things, or my own impatience to join in with the cycle that has been going on without me for a few months. Whether it is any of these reasons or all of them or none of them, I awaken one day in March every year with the knowledge that this is the day to plant the peas. It is as clear a yearly anniversary for me as any holiday, and can…
Click here to visit my professional and creative writing page to read the rest of On Planting Peas
Ready to Burst
Ready to Burst
The leaf buds on my silver maple trees are just ready to burst open, especially in the brief clear spot we had this morning.
Poem for Sunday: Things I Found in the Woods
A delicate fern frond reaches for the sun from last year’s dried stems.
Every year the winter opens up to a few days of warm intoxicating sun and mud in January or February, and I’ve run outside to celebrate the day. In 2012 it was February 5, two days after my 20-year-old tortoiseshell kitty Cookie died, and as I enjoyed the warm day and remembered this poem, I knew exactly what I wanted to create as a dedication to my faithful heart cat, my best friend.
I originally wrote this poem in 2006 for another senior Kitty, Moses, as I knew her body was failing and she had little time left, and in 2012 was glad to dedicate my first recording of one of my poems to Cookie, leading me to a new means of expression and sharing my creative efforts. I have a link to the recorded poem with slideshow at the end of this article along with a few notes about creating it. You can read and listen to the poem and also more about Cookie, Moses, and the creative inspirations of my feline muses in this post on The Creative Cat; here on Today I have only the poem and the recording.
Things I Found in the Woods
Dedicated to Moses, the most gentle, loving being I have ever encountered.
Tiny rivulets of water released from thawing soil
flowing beneath last year’s debris, trickling and gurgling all around
hurrying down hillsides before the freeze returns.
A cup-shaped fungus holding a tablespoon of snowmelt
for a song sparrow to sip, practicing its vernal melody
for the time when spring arrives in earnest.
Ferns, newly-green, draped on cliffs,
fluttering like garlands in the mild, caressing breeze
gathering a little nourishment to last the rest of the winter.
Fallen trees blanketed with bright green moss,
thick and lush already in the brief January thaw
filling a span of life in but a few days.
Four young white-tailed deer, capricious as the gusts,
feeling the flush of their first spring as adults
cavorting as if winter might not return tomorrow.
An understanding that life and love are cycles,
and that the moment must be taken for what it offers
even if what it offers is not what we expect.
The strength and courage to show as much dignity as you,
and to walk this last precious part of your path with you
and when I can walk no more beside you
to let you go.
“Things I Found in the Woods” © 2006 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
I had never before experienced the spring thaw in such wonderment at the transience of life—still winter but everything that lived was taking advantage of the moment.
So was Moses. So should I.
So I resolved just to let her follow her course and she would let me know what to do.
Listen to the Poem
I have always enjoyed reading my poetry to others, and had always wanted to try a little multi-media project including a slideshow of photos with narration. In February 2012 I lost my 20-year-old kitty Cookie, my best friend from practically the day she joined my household as a rescue and who spent many long days and nights over those years staying by my side as I found my creative life; I created this first recorded presentation in honor of her.
There are no photos of Cookie or any other cats in this; though I wrote it for Moses and dedicate this project to Cookie, it is what I found I feel about love, loss, and letting go. I was led to this knowledge, of course, by my cats. Thank you, my feline muses, as always, for showing me the way.
It’s also not timed quite right as some of the groups of images are shorter or longer than the stanza. Some of the photos I included at the end are from significant moments, for instance, the asters on Cookie’s picnic table bench from a morning Cookie and I were in the yard last October, the “Wolf Moon” in the bare tree and the sunset with the evening stars references to my mother who also passed last year at this time. Coordinating, more or less, with the second verse, the forsythia with the tiny song sparrow in the middle of it is actually from the morning of February 2 as I held Cookie on my lap and knew her process of dying had begun; it was the day of transition from winter to spring and all the birds were singing their spring songs, and a song sparrow landed very near to us and sang for a while.
I could have gotten a better microphone too, but I will stop explaining and making excuses, and I hope you enjoy it. Watch the video below or click here to see the video on YouTube, “Things I Found in the Woods”.
“Things I Found in the Woods” recording © 2012 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
I read this poem as part of my 2008 annual poetry reading and art exhibit, “Winter Twilight”.
Read more poetry here on Today or visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing, and to purchase Paths I Have Walked.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
I’m proud to offer a folio of my poetry
Paths I Have Walked: the poetry and art of Bernadette E. Kazmarski
FROM FOUR ANNUAL POETRY READINGS AT ANDREW CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY & MUSIC HALL IN CARNEGIE, PA
People who attended one or more of my poetry readings encouraged me to publish some of my poetry in a book from the beginning.
Once I completed my 2010 poetry reading, my fourth featuring the final piece of artwork in the “Art of the Watershed” series, I decided it was time to publish something and it should be those four poetry readings.
Poetry books are not best-sellers; it’s difficult to convince a publisher to risk effort on a beginning poet, and while self-publishing is the best option it’s not inexpensive and once you’ve got the book, someone’s got to market it. Plus, I’m a graphic designer and I designed books for years, and I want things my way.
All of this is a recipe for a little bit of trouble, but I decided the book was well worth the effort so I designed the book myself and had a set printed—no ISBN or anything formal, but it’s a start! I’m really excited to offer it.
Books are 4.25″ x 11″, 40 pages of information and poetry, with glossy covers featuring “Dusk in the Woods” and little thumbnails of all four pieces in “Art of the Watershed”.
$8.00 each plus $2.50 shipping (they are oversized for mailing first class).
You can order one on my poetry page, or in my Marketplace.
About the books and the poetry readings
My biggest inspiration for poetry, prose and artwork is the world right around me, and I enjoy the opportunity to share it from the perspective of one who walks and hikes and bikes and carries a camera, art materials and journal everywhere—even around the house—so the inspirations are fresh.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. I’m a long-time listener to PHC and reader of Garrison Keillor’s books as well as a daily listener to The Writer’s Almanac featuring news about writers and writing and of interest to writers as well as a poem, all compiled and read by Keillor himself. I was astonished to find my poems were among the first chosen from apparently thousands, and so happy to be able to share them with a potential audience of so many similarly inclined writers and readers.
My poetry readings and art exhibits were the vision of Maggie Forbes, executive director of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, after learning of my publishing of those two
poems. I owe her many thanks for encouraging me to present this combination of my visual and literary art, a first for me. I love that building, every inch of it, and the opportunity to bring people in to visit is an honor.
Spring Bath
Spring Bath
It was not warm today, but this sparrow couldn’t wait for his bath! His buddies were next, but actually thought better of it after being splashed pretty liberally. Or perhaps they didn’t need to actually get into the birdbath after that.
The birds are truly preparing for spring, singing away, pairing off, looking for nesting sites, and eating anything in sight.
Reaching for Spring
Reaching for Spring
The daffodils sprouted—today! I saw the leaf litter was lifted a bit yesterday, but no trace of green. Today, the sun touched the tips; the crocused, squills and tulips had also pushed aside the leaves but none looked so much like fingers reaching for the light as the new daffodils.
Flocks of Children
sidewalk chalk
After several days below freezing and several snowfalls, the temperature was 65 degrees F on this sunny January day, and indeed it was intoxicating. The kids filled the streets with totally unorganized running around and laughing. The sidewalk chalk photo is from a previous year because snow continued melting and washed away all their work from today.
Here is a poem I wrote in 2009 celebrating the January thaw and its effect on the neighborhood kids.
Flocks of Children
Swirling, swooping clouds of starlings
fill the air
noisy, babbling conversation
flying about the neighborhood
flocks of children
run in circles, laughing
up and down the streets.
poem © 2009 Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Read more poetry here on Today or visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing, and to purchase Paths I Have Walked.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
I’m proud to offer a folio of my poetry
Paths I Have Walked: the poetry and art of Bernadette E. Kazmarski
FROM FOUR ANNUAL POETRY READINGS AT ANDREW CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY & MUSIC HALL IN CARNEGIE, PA
People who attended one or more of my poetry readings encouraged me to publish some of my poetry in a book from the beginning.
Once I completed my 2010 poetry reading, my fourth featuring the final piece of artwork in the “Art of the Watershed” series, I decided it was time to publish something and it should be those four poetry readings.
Poetry books are not best-sellers; it’s difficult to convince a publisher to risk effort on a beginning poet, and while self-publishing is the best option it’s not inexpensive and once you’ve got the book, someone’s got to market it. Plus, I’m a graphic designer and I designed books for years, and I want things my way.
All of this is a recipe for a little bit of trouble, but I decided the book was well worth the effort so I designed the book myself and had a set printed—no ISBN or anything formal, but it’s a start! I’m really excited to offer it.
Books are 4.25″ x 11″, 40 pages of information and poetry, with glossy covers featuring “Dusk in the Woods” and little thumbnails of all four pieces in “Art of the Watershed”.
$8.00 each plus $2.50 shipping (they are oversized for mailing first class).
You can order one on my poetry page, or in my Marketplace.
About the books and the poetry readings
My biggest inspiration for poetry, prose and artwork is the world right around me, and I enjoy the opportunity to share it from the perspective of one who walks and hikes and bikes and carries a camera, art materials and journal everywhere—even around the house—so the inspirations are fresh.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. I’m a long-time listener to PHC and reader of Garrison Keillor’s books as well as a daily listener to The Writer’s Almanac featuring news about writers and writing and of interest to writers as well as a poem, all compiled and read by Keillor himself. I was astonished to find my poems were among the first chosen from apparently thousands, and so happy to be able to share them with a potential audience of so many similarly inclined writers and readers.
My poetry readings and art exhibits were the vision of Maggie Forbes, executive director of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, after learning of my publishing of those two
poems. I owe her many thanks for encouraging me to present this combination of my visual and literary art, a first for me. I love that building, every inch of it, and the opportunity to bring people in to visit is an honor.
The Jewel on the Hill
The Jewel on the Hill, Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall
So we call this treasure in our town so named for its builder, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall. This is actually an older photo but with a story, plus I recently installed an exhibit of photos of this facility at this facility, which is also one of my favorite places to go and which is also one of my regular customers for freelance design work. Quite a lot of connections.
Anyway, this photo is one we’ve used repeatedly as the signature image for the facility, and was a real stroke of luck and timing. I was walking home on a clear, warm spring dusk in late April, 2005, April 24 to be exact, and arrived at the bottom of Library Hill at just this moment. The sky was fading from brilliant turquoise to cobalt, the still-bare trees were etched against it in silhouette, and the grand building itself stood partially lit by the sunset but with all interior and exterior lights on, solid and stately, serving its public in its 104th year. By the time I had snapped a half dozen or so shots the light had changed completely and the moment was gone. That was part of the timing, the other part that they had only temporarily installed the foundation lighting but never used it again, and this was part of what gave the building that lovely definition against the dark hilltop. A few minutes earlier or later, the previous or following week, and this photo would never have existed. And it was taken with my first little point-and-shoot 2MP digital camera—I don’t know how it came out as clearly as it did!
Read about the exhibit and see a brief slideshow of the images at “What’s New in Bernadette’s Studio?” or just visit the slideshow on my website.
A little background on the names…in 1894 the leaders of two small communities on either side of Chartiers Creek, Mansfield and Chartiers, decided to merge in order to provide better services as one community instead of two individual administrations. Andrew Carnegie, who had owned a mill in Carnegie, had by then sold off his mills and begun spending off his worldly wealth by building libraries. These town leaders had a proposal, that he build a library and a high school for the new community and they’d name it after him. He did build the library but said they were on their own with the high school; nonetheless our town is named “Carnegie” in his honor.
He also set up the Library itself a little differently from the others he’d had built. Where others are named “(name of town) Carnegie Library” or “Carnegie Library of (name of town)” and were built with his expense but maintained by the community, this Library bears his full name and given an endowment for its maintenance. Also, more than just the Library space, a Music Hall was incorporated into the design along with a gymnasium in the full basement.
You can read all about this unique facility on its website at www.carnegiecarnegie.org. I’ll also mention that the website design is mine, and you’ll see many more of my images in the photo album.
Wildflowers
Wildflowers.
I can’t help it, wherever I walk I see flowers, and when they are the forgotten one everyone else calls “weeds” and I know they are imperiled by cutting or spraying, I bring a bunch of them home.
Wildflowers can be found anywhere, in an alley, coming up through the cracks in a sidewalk, they are our native species of flora, and feed our native species of fauna, yet we treat them like the enemy. I don’t walk anywhere special most of the time, just from my neighborhood a few blocks to Main Street, but there are railroad tracks, a creek, and an alley or two, always full of willing blossoms. I can cut big bunches to bring home and it hardly looks as if I’ve removed anything.
In this bunch, the yellow starburst is cow parsnip, the clusters of four-petaled flowers are dame’s rocket, the violet flowers are Penn vetch, a type of clover bred for hillsides in Pennsylvania, the oxeye daisies are obvious, and the spikes of yellow flowers are yellow sweet clover; there is also white sweet clover but it must be on the other side.
I wanted the flowers in a vase but didn’t have any place to set it down and actually wanted some color a little higher than the basket on the seat of this chair, so I placed a mayonnaise jar in a blue plastic mesh onion bag and looped a knot of it over the top of the chair. The wildflowers are long-lasting and it’s shady in that spot, so they last a good long time, a week or more, unless, of course, I find another cluster of wildflowers that needs to be saved.
I’ll take a bunch of wildflowers over hothouse flowers any day.
Great Spangled Fritillaries!
Great Spangled Fritillary on Milkweed.
What wildflowers are blooming in in the woods and fields lat spring through mid-summer? In my region, the greater Ohio Valley and a good bit of the northeastern US, we’ve transitioned from a lot of gentle greens with touches of white and yellow to brilliant yellows, oranges and pinks.
I’m documenting walks along local trails to capture the flora you’d see along the trails as you walked. I’m familiar enough with the trails near me to know what blooms when, since it’s been one of my projects for years, even before my digital camera. I’ve got loads of shots on film, but they aren’t in sequence as these are, though I’m catching up in scanning those.
I’ve created several slideshows of local woodland wildflowers which you can find on my regular website, which is where things went before WordPress came up with this wonderful software for blogging. If you hold your mouse over the image you’ll see the common common flower name at the top of each image.
This project is intended to one day become an online and perhaps print reference for the wildflowers of the Lower Chartiers Watershed, so I’ll be keeping them organized by trail. Wildflowers are amazingly predictable, and anyone else would be able to walk the trail around the same time I did in another year and see these wildflowers in about this sequence. So far I’ve visited the Panhandle Trail area, but I’ll also be visiting Kane’s Woods in Scott Township, Wingfield Pines in Upper St. Clair, to name a few.
These images are provided for familiarity rather than strict scientific identification; I am not a scientist, and my goal is first to take good photographs, then to give people a general appreciation of the beauty of their local wildflowers. The names are accurate, but I’ll keep to the most common name to make it easier for you to find these in guidebooks and pursue more information. Just enjoy looking at them.
You can see more flora, fauna and much else on my website under Photography.
