Memories

Memories, Still Life #3160

I invite you to walk in to the picture created specifically for a special man who is one of a kind.  So what better way to remember him than to create a still life fine art photograph that is as unique as he is.

A brown background is warm, loving and masculine surrounding the collection of memorabilia that was borrowed from shelves in his artist's studio.  Do you see the artist's business card that reveals his current talents?  Conversely, several other items take you down the memory lane of his youth, from his military dog tags to bullets and shotgun shells.  The cloissone decorated liquer carafe is empty of fluid but full of memories of a friend, now deceased and a symbol of much younger years.  The tiny little brown bear holding a camera has duo meanings: his bear totem and his life as a photographer.

Pick up the stack of books and skim through the titles so you have a small inkling of what he's passionate about.  The titles reveal his love of travel, road trips, cooking and gardening including raising roses, which is why the roses in the vase are significant.

It's lovely that this has been created now while the giver and the recipient are alive, healthy and happy.

Treasure all of the moments with your loved one when you're together in spirit or in person.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which are wrought
The giver's loving thought.

                                                             Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Still life photograph is available for purchase at

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/memories-wendy-blomseth.html

Pomegranate

Inspiration comes from many sources.  This still life is inspired by a poem I discovered at www.poets.org.  I invite you to read the poem and see which elements I brought into this still life.

"POMEGRANATE by Kevin Pilkington ....
A woman walks by the bench I’m sitting on
with her dog that looks part Lab, part Buick,
stops and asks if I would like to dance.
I smile, tell her of course I do. We decide
on a waltz that she begins to hum.

We spin and sway across the street in between
parked cars and I can tell she realizes
she chose a man who understands the rhythm
of sand, the boundaries of thought. We glide
and Fred and Ginger might come to mind or
a breeze filled with the scent of flowers of your choice.
Coffee stops flowing as a waitress stares out the window
of a diner while I lead my partner back across the street.

When we come to the end of our dance,
we compliment each other and to repay the favor
I tell her to be careful since the world comes to an end
three blocks to the east of where we stand. Then
I remind her as long as there is a ’59 Cadillac parked
somewhere in a backyard between here and Boise
she will dance again.

As she leaves content with her dog, its tail wagging
like gossip, I am convinced now more than ever
that I once held hundreds of roses in my hands
the first time I cut open a pomegranate. "

poem: The Telephone by Robert Frost

Red Lily, July 2016 

The Telephone   

           Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

“When I was just as far as I could walk

From here to-day,

There was an hour

All still

When leaning with my head against a flower

I heard you talk.

Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say—

You spoke from that flower on the window sill—

Do you remember what it was you said?”

“First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”

“Having found the flower and driven a bee away,

I leaned my head,

And holding by the stalk,

I listened and I thought I caught the word—

What was it? Did you call me by my name?

Or did you say—

Someone said ‘Come’—I heard it as I bowed.”

“I may have thought as much, but not aloud.”

“Well, so I came.”

      https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/telephone-0

Backyard Birds with Mary Oliver poem

Poem by Mary Oliver:

“How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”
― Mary Oliver