Right, so today Carol and I officially submitted our images for the Morro Bay Art Association’s Orange Crush exhibition; and as I’ve been teasing for the last couple weeks, the big photo at the top of the article is my finished photo collage for Lincoln.
Somewhat more extensive than Under the Vault of Heaven, the collage I submitted for the last show, this one includes fifteen individual images from both the interior and exterior of the church — everything from sweeping views of the nave and crossing to darker and more intimate ones of statuary and details.
In each of my collages I also like to include a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other-ones image that provides a broader scope or context for the subject. Here, that image is the one of an evening street scene from the town of Lincoln; but I have also included easter eggs in some of the images that hint at other ways of looking at the cathedral itself — as a sophisticated architectural blueprint, as a place of medieval musical culture, and as the politically influential seat of one of the original copies of the Magna Carta.
The Orange Crush show runs from May 14 through June 22.
Excavating
Last evening I was piloting the Wayback Machine through a trove of my old photos, and I came across this one, from my first trip to Hawaii, in 2012:
It was a beautiful day on the North Shore of Oahu, which became one of my favorite places in the world.
This is one of the first photos I was particularly proud of taking, and it was a favorite for a long time. I think it still holds up pretty well, don’t you? The up-down, left-right symmetry sneaks up on you, and it’s subtly reinforced by the opposition between the surfers, on the right, and the watchers, on the left. I also love the blue, early morning tonality (I remember it was still kind of chilly that morning), and the general feeling of whimsy.
I’ve been to Hawaii three times, and I love it a little more each time. Carol and I were set to go again for my birthday at the end of 2024, when an untimely virus forced us to change plans. As it turned out, after a return to health, we drove north in California instead, and that led to us buying our current place on the Central Coast. We love it dearly, and we wouldn’t by choice live anywhere else.
But I still miss Hawaii. *sigh*
Ronald Crittenden 