A Year and a Word

We woke up yesterday to find our  backyard blanketed in many more inches of snow than we had expected.  It was the thick, heavy snow that bends small trees to the ground and breaks off large limbs from the great white pines.  It also temporarily turns our funny little garden shed into an enchanted fairy tale cottage.  

Earlier in the week we'd walked the icy trails at Gilsland Farm, seeking quiet amidst the chaos of the season.  This year's holidays have felt even more tumultuous than usual.  I think the news of the world after this long, often terrible, year has left many of us exhausted.

In the face of unrest and suffering in the world, I've found myself turning more and more to the wintery landscapes and seascapes of my home state for solace.  It's there in the bone-colored branches of birches, the grey ocean waves laced with white, and the dry tufts of frozen grass in open fields that I look for the escape my heart longs for.

I haven't become a complete hermit, I promise.  I welcome the cries of seagulls as I walk the cobblestoned streets of Portland, the rush of winter robins' wings overhead in the trees, and the laughter of school kids swooping down hillsides on makeshift sleds.

And the companionship of loved ones.  I'm not always up for talking these days, but I am almost always up for a walk, and a shared cup of something warm when we return home.

Choosing my word for 2017 was easy.  I didn't even think about it.  I just knew: peace.  That's all I hope for this year.  Peace for those I love, for myself, and for the world.  Over the summer I taught myself how to play ukulele, and one of the first songs I learned how to play was John Lennon's "Imagine."  As I learned the chords and gradually discovered how to weave the words in as I played, I found myself experiencing the song in a new way.  I've always loved the lyrics, but each time I now come to "Imagine all the people, living life in peace," I feel it so strongly that I often have to stop playing for a few moments.  Peace is what I hope for, for me and for you, my friends.  I will do my best to help make it happen in the tiny ways that I know how.  Wishing you a year of joyful adventures, truly funny moments, inspiration, love, and peace.  xo Gigi

Five on Five

Hello, my friends!  Once again, I'm joining in with some photographer friends to share five of my favorite photographs from the past month.  When I look through the shots I took from the past thirty or so days, I feel a tremendous rush of very mixed emotions.  I can't go on without saying that the world feels like it flipped upside down since the last time I posted, and I can honestly say that November 2016 was one of the most surreal months in my lifetime.  I promised myself that after some truly terrible experiences on Facebook early in the month, I would keep my blog a politics-free zone, so I won't talk about any of it here, but I will say that the photo above is of a place that has become a safe haven for Todd and me.  In October we bought a small, rustic cottage on a lake here in Maine, and I took this shot on the afternoon of election day.  It's part of the view from the little beach in front of our camp.  We've already begun work on the place, and we've got lots more to do, but I can hardly wait until spring, when we can start really using the place.  I promise to share photos and stories of the journey.

When life has been too hectic to make it up the camp, we've taken some great walks.  I took the two shots above and below at one of our favorite birding spots, Gilsland Farm, in Falmouth.  It's the home of Maine Audubon, and I can think of few places I'd rather walk at this time of year as autumn dips into winter.

My sister and I spent a couple of days earlier this month making wreaths.  I hung this berry and rose hip wreath up on my shed one night, only to come out in the morning and discover that it had snowed overnight, making the wreath far more beautiful than my humble imagination ever could have. 

I've been teaching and developing classes quite a bit this fall, and haven't had much time for my still life work, but I bought a couple of absolutely incredible pomegranates a couple of weeks ago, and when I combined them with the berries we'd gathered for wreaths, I just knew I had to find a little time for taking some still life photos.  This one below is one of my favorites from the session.

As we head towards the solstice, I wish you much peace and joy, my friends!  May you spend time with the people you love most, may you be warm and safe from harm, and may you discover inspiration in unexpected places.  

If you'd like to see five of my talented friend Stephanie's beautiful photographs from the past month, click here.

More soon! xo Gigi

October

Always my new year. Always a beginning. Always an answer to an unspoken question. 

When I stray too far from the ways that keep me centered and whole--thinking, listening, sitting quiet and still--October reminds me. 

In my kitchen I watch a ray of sunlight shift to copper at day's end. Apples on the counter wait to be peeled and sliced. Ginger simmers on the stove, its steam curling a golden trail through the room. Outside a cardinal calls to her mate from the oxblood leaves of the ninebark tree. What she sings to him I can never know, but her song keeps time with the beat of my own heart. 

5 on 5

The Standish, Maine, Grange Hall

To live in a place where there are still long stretches of roadsides rimmed with evergreens and lakes where fireflies linger well into the night--this makes me truly blessed.  I want to capture as much of what makes my state precious to me, so this month I snapped shots of grange halls and classic seaside spots as well as some quiet moments of late summer beauty from my garden.

The Mt. Cutler Grange Hall in Hiram, Maine

Zinnias from my garden.  Love.

Evening drinks on the porch at the incredibly beautiful Grey Havens Inn in Georgetown, Maine.

The latest in my Dark Flower Portraits, this one inspired by research I'm doing on Emily Dickinson.

I'm joining in with 5 on 5 again this month.  If you'd like to follow along with the other participants, take a peek here at Jennifer Brake's beautiful blog!

More soon, my wonderful chickadees!  xo Gigi

5 on 5

Hello, my friends!  I have so much I want to share with you.  I'm back participating in 5 on 5 with some very talented photographers this month.  Each month on the 5th we post our 5 favorite photos from the previous month, and then we link to each other's blogs.  I'll post a link at the bottom of this post, and I hope you'll take a peek!

I've been wanting to share with you some wonderful news about my photography.  Last month I showed you some of my recent Dark Flower Portraits, and I just wanted to let you know that some of them are now available at Chelsea Underground Fine Art Gallery in Chelsea, Michigan.  You can find out more here.  It's an honor to have my work in this beautiful gallery.

The photo above is one I worked on this month.  It took a while to complete the process with this one, as I shot over several days as the peonies, catmint, and other flowers were drying.  Once I discovered the moment that I was looking for, I then processed the photo with many layers.  As I've mentioned before, I tend to shoot still lifes in my tiny study up under the eaves in our house.  I have one northern facing window up there that lets me really play with light.  I use lots of different backdrops.  For this one, it was an old chalkboard.

When I'm not working on still lifes, I'm thinking about still lifes.  I take long walks in meadows and along the shore, observing the textures of grasses and flowers.  This shot above was near the end of the day at my old favorite haunt, Maine Audubon at Gilsland Farm.

Another favorite spot is Portland Head Light, where I took the photo above.  As with my still lifes, I sometimes layer many textures over landscapes and seascapes, as I've done with this one.

And then sometimes I just aim the camera, adjust the settings a bit, and shoot.  When the sunset is this glorious, I don't need to do much processing.  I took this shot here in Portland out at our new outdoor music venue, Thompson's Point.  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros were playing that night, and it was pretty much a classic coastal Maine summer evening.

I'm wrapping up my summer teaching this week, which means I'll have about three weeks off before fall semester begins.  I've had some terrific creative writing students this summer--and all year--and now I'm ready for a couple of weeks of my own writing and photography time.  I'm not gonna lie; it's been a wild summer--a wild year--with some challenges that I wasn't sure I could meet.  July included a short but beautiful trip to Rangeley Lake for hiking and birding, and some of the most outrageous fireworks I've ever seen.  It also included tons of work, lots of visits from family and friends, and a bittersweet weekend spent with family as we celebrated the life and mourned the passing of my sweet Aunt Connie.  She was the last of my father's siblings, and now that she is gone, those days of childhood feel far away.  In remembrance, I've been taking Dark Flower portraits at the end of this month of flowers from my childhood, including these Queen Anne's Lace, mixed here with some fennel.

Thank you so much for visiting, my friends!  If you'd like to see some more of 5 on 5, head on over to Jennifer Brake's wonderful blog.

5 on 5

So much has been happening around here this past month!  Lots of interesting things are in the works. I have much news to share and many stories to tell, but first I have the great joy of taking part in 5 on 5, along with some wonderful photographer friends. Each month we share 5 of our own photos from the previous 30 days, and we link to each other's blogs, creating a chain of beautiful photos and stories.  How wonderful is that? Big thanks to my friend, Stephanie, for starting this group back at the beginning of the year.  I've known Stephanie for years now through the blogging/Flickr world, and I've long admired her photography, so I'm just chuffed to be a part of this group.  You can see her 5 on 5 post here.

As some of you know, I've been working on a series of pictures that I'm calling my Dark Flower portraits.  The peonies above are one of the newest in the series.  I'll have news to share about the series in my next post, but for now, I'll just share some writing I did in an Instagram post that was inspired by this photo:

A gardener thinks about life and death always as one. In each flower's race toward blossoming is its race, too, toward decline. I'm saying nothing new, only that when you garden, this thought is always present. In the garden I am surrounded by the new growth of runner bean sprouts, the full flush of a climbing rose, and the last breath of a lush peony all at the same moment. My wheelbarrow is piled high with a day's kill: the weeds I pulled, faded blossoms I plucked, lily beetles I crushed between gloved finger and thumb. The gardener must not be squeamish about death. She must recognize its necessity even as she rejoices at the sight of her first ever iris uncurling itself with a flourish from the spear of its stem.

Not all of my recent photos have been dark.  In fact, some have been quite light and even ethereal. I'm taking nearly all of my stills in a northeast facing window of my little workroom/studio/study.  It provides my favorite light for stills.  I can't imagine taking photos without that northeastern light!

The peonies in the twilight shot above are only a few of the thousands to be seen and smelled at Gilsland Farm in June.  This old farm is home to the Maine Audubon Society, and it is one of my favorite spots anywhere in the world.  Meadows, woods, marshes, and lush gardens all in one magical place on an estuary just a few minutes outside of Portland, but truly a world away.

Clearly, peonies have been inspiring me over the past month, but so have many far less showy flowers right here in my own gardens, including the pelargoniums (geraniums).  In the shot above I tucked some lovely wild pink ones into a busted old crate.

The purple geranium in this final shot is one of Todd's favorite flowers.  It's combined with a wee sprig of lady's mantle in a handblown perfume bottle that a former boss gave me a lifetime ago. The Dark Flower portrait series is helping me to see photography--and thus my life--in a new way, and helping me come to terms with some things about the creative process (and the process of just living in this messy, heartbreaking, beautiful world) that have always frightened me.  I relish this chance to dive deeper and work harder.

Thanks, wonderful friends, for stopping by.  You never cease to inspire me.

5 on 5

I'm happy to be back with my March 5 on 5 post!  Even though I shot and processed a ton of photos this past month, I felt myself drawn to these shots I took during a very unexpected snowstorm here on the coast at the beginning of the month.  Todd and I were headed south to Boston for the day, and the blizzard came on so fast and furious that we decided to cancel our plans and just hang out here in southern Maine instead.  It ended up being a fairy tale snow globe of an afternoon during which we spotted this fox carrying his lunch of a wee mousie across the snowy lawn of a grand old home by the seashore.  

This shot of Nubble Light in York looks peaceful enough, but I cannot tell you how bitterly cold and windy it was!  I was nearly blown into the water getting the shots above and below.  In the lighthouse photo I know that the water looks peaceful, but that's just my crop.  The shot below is literally what was going on just a few yards away.  I stood in the same spot for both of these pictures, just turning my body slightly.  I've actually never come so close to being hurt while taking a photo. 

We had a beautiful thaw immediately after this storm, complete with crocuses blooming in our yard, trees budding, grass greening, and the tulips and daffs beginning to poke through the soil.  Then today, April 4th, we woke to 16 degrees Fahrenheit and another snowstorm.  I took a short, again very chilly, walk through the West End Cemetery here in Portland after lunch, stopping to pay a visit to one of my favorite gravestone, this beautiful willow marker of Dorothy Abbot.  The West End is the most gorgeous neighborhood in Portland, full of late 19th-century homes, many of them built after the Great Fire of July 4, 1866, which destroyed much of the city.  We are fortunate today that much of Victorian Portland still survives.  A stroll through the stunning West End down to the quaint Old Port still gives one a strong sense of what this seaport must have felt like in the 19th century.

If you'd like to see more 5 on 5, head on over to this post by Leanne Godbey Hymes.  I hope you're well, my friends!  I'll be back soon, hopefully with much more spring-like photos and thoughts to share.  xo Gigi

5 on 5

Hi, friends!  I've joined up with a wonderful group of photographers to do a monthly 5 on 5 feature. We're sharing our 5 favorite photographs from the previous month on the 5th day of each month.  For me, this was one of the most beautiful Februaries I can ever remember.  Living in Maine, I'm accustomed to harsh, cold weather, towering snowbanks, and intense cabin fever, but we had just a couple of storms, lots of sunshine, and my crocuses even began to bloom by the end of the month, nearly 3 weeks early!  

I took this shot at Marshall Point Lighthouse on the coldest day of the year.  Even though I froze my fingers to take it, the sunlight was glorious, so I didn't mind one bit.

The snow that did fall was of the dreamy, snow-globe variety.  This incredible barn is at Morse's Sauerkraut in Waldoboro.  If you are ever visiting midcoast Maine, a stop at Morse's is a must. 

I tend to take a lot of flower still lifes at this time of year to tide me over until I can be back out in the garden.  Tulips and sunlight get me through to the end of March.

I had the tremendous joy and honor of taking the photo for the cover of a dear friend's new book.  I took a gazillion shots, including a few of the crinoline I wore beneath my wedding gown over twenty years ago.  I was taking shots of vintage dresses, and I realized that this sweet petticoat pretty much qualifies as vintage now.  Yup, we've been married a long time!  I will share the final book cover as soon as the book is published.

And here's a wee bit of color for the final shot.  I bought some very inexpensive lilies at Trader Joe's, and they've been lovely models for going on two weeks now.  

I'm thrilled to be sharing in 5 on 5.  If you'd like to see more, click on this link to my friend Stephanie's wonderful blog.  Thanks for stopping by, lovelies!

Hard Frost

I knew it was coming.  I felt it before I'd even checked the forecast.  As the sun sank behind the pines last night, I scurried around the garden beds, gathering as many blossoms as I could to bring inside.  

So even though it pained me to look out the back window at the frozen gardens this morning, here in the house I had the small comfort of all my rescued blooms in vases and pots and pitchers.

Really I don't mind this turn to the darker months.  Here in Maine it is the best time to head to the woods or the beach or the mountain trails.  Soon the last of the leaf peepers will climb back in their SUVs and head for warmer states, and we will have all this beauty to ourselves again until next June.

And this turn outside means it's time for the turn inward, too.  Time for fires in the fireplace, candles on the mantle, cups of tea, and thick books to read.  I've piled up the warm blankets and taken my sweaters  out of storage.  And there's still plenty to do in the garden--bulbs to plant and leaves to rake and beds to prepare for the long, cold winter to come.     

Being in the Moment

End of the Day, Town Landing, Falmouth, Maine

Spring in our house always feels jam-packed.  The to-do lists are long, the days fly by, and suddenly, after winter's long semi-hibernation, I wish I only needed about two hours of sleep a night.  There just aren't enough hours in a day for us to do the work that pays the bills plus do the million and one house projects that somehow feel most urgent in spring plus keep up with the classes I'm taking, plus get my own writing projects done, plus see friends and family plus workout daily plus cook meals plus--and most pressing and exciting for me--work in the garden.

Just Before Dusk, Congress Square, Portland, Maine

I'm grateful for my iPhone camera, because it reminds me in the midst of all of these tasks and commitments (so many of which I love) to pause and breathe and just take note of what's around me.  My word for the year is "see," and I live in a part of the world where so much of what there is to see is beautiful.  But I see what's not beautiful, too, and I believe that's just as important.    

Early Morning on Moulton Street, Portland, Maine

So many of us feel rushed and stressed these days more than ever.  I think that as much as we love them, our technologies--our phones and laptops and various other gadgets and devices--play a big part in this stress and in this feeling of never being able to truly shut down, rest, retreat.  It's up to us to take charge and use this incredible technology for our own benefit--to determine how we use it rather than letting it gradually take over.  So, I love to use my phone to take photos of simple, quiet moments.  I share some, but many more I just keep for myself to enjoy.  I also make sure that when I go for walks or out to eat I don't always bring my phone with me.  Sometimes it's best to just be in the moment, no need to record it.  I don't need a photo of every pretty latte I drink or every gorgeous rose I see.  That makes the photos I do take all the more precious to me.

I'd love to know what you do to slow down and relax.  What helps you rest and recharge?

April Rains--A Garden Update

The April rains have come, and with them the green and red buds on the trees.  Out in the garden we've had crocuses--then snow--then then more rain and even more crocuses, sprinkled with some snowdrops.  We have raked and tidied the beds, made way for the grape hyacinths, the buds of which are tinged with purple at their edges.  The tulips are midway up, as are the daffodils and fritillaria.  The lady's mantle are everywhere, pushing up their tiny pleated fans through the soil, and the pulmonaria are showing off their polka-dotted leaves.  I've even caught sight of the first secret frills of red where the bleeding hearts grow at the edge of the woodland border.  Out along the edges, the shrub border is filling with color--the red twig dogwoods and the Hakuroo-Nishiki willow are scarlet red, covered with buds.  I'm thrilled to see that all the hard cutting and pruning I've done on the lilacs these last two years is paying off.  They are looking stronger than ever--and they are loaded with buds.  

Chores for the coming couple of weeks include dividing some of the day lilies and spreading the three yards of compost that we're having delivered this weekend.  No bed will be left out.  Everyone will get a top dressing to start the growing season with a bang.  I'll also be starting many, many flower seedlings for the new cutting garden I'm planning to grow in one of the raised beds this year.  And then there are the dahlias.  They will be emerging from their winter sleep down in the cellar.  I'll chit them out until the soil is warm enough to put them in.  For the past couple of seasons I've mixed them in with other plantings, letting them grow with all the other flowers.  This year I think they may get their own bed.  We shall see.

Spring came late here in the Maine this year, but now that it's here, every plant seems to be rushing to put on a show.  I am relishing these cool days, especially the ones when the sun puts in an appearance.  It's too cool yet for the mosquitos, so we can just be out there in the mud, spreading grass seeds, trimming limbs, and dreaming up new garden plans.  I hope your spring is shaping into a beautiful one. If you garden, I'd love to hear what is blooming right now and what you're up to in your garden.  More soon--plus pictures of the early spring garden!

Still Life and Valentine Inspiration

Seventy inches of snow have fallen so far this winter, and more is on the way.  Outside, the feeders and platforms in our yard are crowded with guests.  Inside, everyone seems ready for a respite from the storms.  I've been shooting still life photos like crazy, getting the most that I can from the stark and evocative winter light.  

In the late afternoon, I'm loving the light coming through the southwest windows of the living room.  In the above shot, I'm looking down on a bouquet of wax flowers (Trader Joe's for $2.99, thank you very much).  In the background is the very chippy, distressed top of my favorite little antique cupboard.  This shot has been processed A LOT, with many layers of textures, etc. 

The walls in our living room are painted in Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, which I know is a trendy color these days, and I think the reason why is because while it is blue, it functions much like a neutral. It has a good bit of green and grey in it, and it shifts all day long, never staying any one color.  It reminds me of sea glass most days, and it also makes a pretty wonderful backdrop for many colors, especially golds, browns, ivories, and burgundy reds.

Another favorite still life spot is beside the window in my study, which is a rather dark, northeast facing room.  This makes the quality of light that streams in perfect for darker, contemplative shots. That's where I took the pear still lifes a few weeks ago, and it's where I got the shots above and below.  The hydrangea above is on my very beat up wooden floor.  I've removed a lot of the saturation out of this shot to let the eye focus more on the light and shadow.  This is the same dried hydrangea that you see in the shot against the Palladian Blue wall, but here, I think it takes on a decidedly more moody quality.

The shot above was also taken in my study.  I've included a picture of the setting below, so you can get a sense of how I work.  I've set up a vintage, handmade boat-shaped box as a kind of makeshift shadow box for creating vignettes to shoot.  If I lean it on a table against the closed bathroom door (don't worry, there's another bathroom downstairs!) I get great light coming in from the side, and I really love side-lit still lifes.  Open, the box gives me a great dark back drop.  Closed, I get a chippy white and dreamy backdrop, complete with cracks and nail holes.  Love.  

I started this blog six years ago this month (I can hardly believe it's been that long), and I named it The Magpie's Fancy because I am an avid collector of bits and pieces of things that shine, either literally or figuratively--or both.  In fact, purely by coincidence (truly--I just realized it as I was typing this), the little map pins that are in the bottle photo above are the very same pins that appear in the very first post I ever published.  Still life photography is one of my favorite ways to put my collecting habit to good use.

I hope you are well, chickadees!  I've got loads to share, including this here little bit of Valentine inspiration from Terrain.  More soon!  xo Gigi