Beach Magick

 Beaches are magickal places. They're a place of transition between land and sea, between solid and liquid. The slow wearing down of the solid earth by the power of water.

The ocean is vast and powerful, always moving and churning. I love to watch the waves crashing on the rocks. The ever changing colors play across the surface.

I loved the textures in the sand under the water here as this tiny river makes it's short journey to the sea.

Glass Beach

Glass Beach, Fort Bragg, California.

A beach made of glass! For real - all of that is glass and rocks - and shells and seaweed and the usual stuff you see on a beach.

You see, not so long ago people thought it was ok to place dump sites at the ocean. Just dump your trash at the shore and the ocean will wash it away. It was more common than you might think.
This was a dump site as late as 1959.

Everything was dumped in this site - cars, bottles, pottery, etc. The interesting thing about this area is that the position of the rocks along the coastline prevented anything from being washed out to the sea. It just churned up in the tide and was deposited back on the shore.

According to the information I read at the Glass Beach Museum the white (not clear) glass was milk glass - usually dinnerware. Green was bottles. Clear (frosted) was bottles and dinnerware. Red and orange were car tail lights. Brown were bottles. Lavender were actually clear leaded glass exposed to sunlight.

Mostly there are only tiny bits of glass left on the beach now. Locals and visitors have taken away most of the larger pieces (to make into jewelry or to otherwise sell), Because so much glass has been carted off by people the Museum sells "seed glass" for $5/bag. It's recycled glass that has been tumbled enough to knock off the sharp edges. The idea is to throw this into the surf so that it will get tumbled and polished and wash back up onto the beach to "preserve" the Glass Beach.

During my wanderings on the beach I was impress by the tenacity of the plant life. Look at these plants that are growing on the side of a rock. There's no "soil" there. Do the roots of the plant get nourishment from the rock? It must, since there's nothing else there to feed it.

Something I never expected to see at the beach - squirrels. I was actually watching mother seals teaching their pups to swim when this squirrel comes within a foot of me. They must be used to being fed by people. When I didn't offer it any food it went back into the grass to eat the tops of the flowers. It wasn't the least bit afraid of me.

I don't think these crabs were too happy with the bright light that was illuminating their little hidey hole. There were a great many crabs on the beach if one had the patience to sit by tide pools or need crevices and be very still until they came out.

Chasing The Light

This is one of the reasons I love living in California! This is taken from Mt. Pinos in the Los Padres National Forest.

 We have such beautiful mountains and forests here! This was at the end of the day and there was a thin hazy cloud cover that day so it gave a sort of upside down, surreal look to the sky with the blue on the horizon and the pink over it.

Nature's banquet for the squirrels is abundant. Also, a soft, crunchy carpet to nourish and insulate new life under the snow that will come soon.

 Even at the end of the season Nature's patterns and shapes are beautiful.

Lighting is key in capturing interesting photos. This is the same tree just before the sun set below the ridge and again about a half an hour later.

I am awed by the tenacity of nature. Even a tiny seed in an impossible location can aspire to become a great tree.

 I love interesting colors, shapes and patterns. This rock had all of that going for it with it's natural coloring and patterns enhanced by the bright green moss.

I arrived on the mountain pretty late in the afternoon so my time for shooting was limited. I was trying to shoot some small clusters of tiny red flowers that were particularly bright in the setting sun and I could see the light fading as I was trying to focus on them. I never did get the image I wanted of them.

But it was a beautiful day - a little cool, but I fortunately thought to bring a jacket with me and I had on sturdy shoes (lessons learned from previous unprepared trips).

Even if I hadn't gotten any photos it would have been a good day!

I love being in the mountains, probably as much as I like being at the beach, which is why I love Southern California so much.

Conversations With My Navigator

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It does not inspire any sort of confidence in me when I’m driving down the freeway and my GPS navigator says “now turn left”.

I also think I need to wait until I am actually ON the freeway to turn on the navigation because it does not seem to know the best and closest way to the freeway on-ramp based on where I am.

There is a freeway on-ramp about 2 miles from where I live that will connect to pretty much any freeway I actually need to take. My navigator insists on taking me 4 miles of surface streets across the Valley to get on the freeway.

Directions from my home:

GPS: In .2 miles turn right

Me: No. I’m going straight. The entrance is right up here. I’m not driving all the way across the Valley to get to the other freeway.

GPS: Now turn right.

I ignore the direction and keep driving straight.

GPS: In .4 miles turn right.

I ignore the direction. This prompting continues for the entire 2 miles until I actually get ON the freeway.

I’m pretty sure one the day conversation is going to go like this:

GPS: In .2 miles turn right.

Me: No. I’m not getting on that freeway over there when there's a closer entrance up here.

GPS: Now turn right.

I ignore the direction and keep driving straight.

GPS: In .4 miles turn right.

I ignore the direction.

GPS: IF YOU’RE JUST GOING TO IGNORE MY DIRECTIONS WHY IN THE HELL DID YOU TURN ME ON IN THE FIRST PLACE?????

The Lie of "Can't"

I haven’t painted for well over 10 years – mostly because every time I think about doing it that voice in my head says “I can’t paint”. I listen to it and put away the thought of painting for a while.

I got an email recently about a workshop at Continental Art, a local art store. Golden Paints has come out with a new type of acrylic paint that has a very long drying time so that you can blend and work it more like oil paints (even though it’s acrylic). So I signed up for the workshop.

After we did the preliminary work on the first painting (a fruit still life) and set that aside to dry Amy, the instructor says “next you’re going to paint a scene from memory”. Automatically that little voice says “I can’t do that!”. But I was there, it was a hands-on workshop and I didn’t have anything to lose by trying.

About 10 minutes later I had this - a perfectly acceptable representation of a beach I was at last weekend.

 

I made this flower using a printing technique with freezer paper (rather than directly painting on the paper). There is gold and copper paint mixed in with the color so it has a lovely metallic look against the black paper.

 This was another painting technique we learned -

Each of these took about 10 – 20 minutes to make and I think each one is more than acceptable.

By the way, this is something I painted back when I was in school.

So apparently THAT particular voice in my head doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about. You'll have to excuse me now. I’m going to go have a talk with it about some of the other things it’s been telling me I can't do. It’s time to stop listening to the lie of “can’t”!

A Passion Sparked!

My great nephew, Kristopher (11-years-old), took these photos. His family came to visit last year and I took them over to the Sepulveda Wildlife Preserve for a walk. There were lots of ducks around the lake and Kris asked if he could take pictures with my camera. I showed him how it works and he just took off! He loved taking pictures and got some very good shots.

His parents have gotten him his own camera and I think they got him into a photography class as well. Hopefully he'll email me some of his photos.
 

Out For A Walk/Meeting Myself

This photo was taken at the Sepulveda Wildlife Sanctuary. I was playing around with Photoshop filters and this was the result.