Spring Reflections
Hello, again, on this fifteenth of May.
Life Updates
Yesterday, we said goodbye to Muffin, our furry companion of almost two full years. My daughters cried buckets, and it was really hard. The vets all agreed that she was likely in pain, judging from all her convulsions, and we made the difficult decision to put her down. A Syrian hamster’s lifespan is two to three years.
I don’t think we were able to accomplish much today because we were still mourning.
On a happier note, many flowers have bloomed over the last month, and I was able to photograph some flowers using one of my favorite cameras—the Mamiya 500DTL. As green leaves filled bare branches, robins materialized on front yards, pulling worms from the ground. Every year, this exciting stage of the cycle in my neighborhood invariably cheers me up. Crocuses led the way, followed by periwinkles, daffodils, hyacinths, forsythias, tulips, violets, rhododendrons, cornflowers, and now irises and lupines.
My body feels older than last year’s. My latest physical exam tells me that I have high bad cholesterol—something I never had before. My joints feel achy more often, and my blood shows inflammation. But, all in all, I’m blessed with relatively good health. I’m grateful for that.
It’s a reminder that our time on this earth is limited. Spring always brings to mind Charlotte’s Web, one of my favorite books of all time.
“After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.” Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
And so, we want to make our lives mean something. I don’t want to spend all my precious moments feeling anxious about what may or may not happen, living in fear.
My family recently watched the film “The Village” together. It’s not M. Night Shyamalan’s best rated films (43% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but it resonates with me. You can try to create a perfect world, and you will still find evil; but you can still find kindness in an evil world.
When we’re in despair, often we don’t notice the kindness around us, but it’s there. And when you notice it, you often want to pay it forward.
“By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Art Updates
I have some really exciting announcements.
There are still a few more days to see Selfhood at the Danforth Art Museum. It features nine of my works and will close on June 8th. The May/June issue of Artscope Magazine published a great review of it, written by Madeleine Lord, and I found myself in a bit of spotlight.
Scorched Woods, a work from my collaborative project Alchemy of the Unknowns (with Arizona photographer James David Tabor) has been accepted into the Danforth Art Museum’s 2025 Annual Juried Exhibition, in Framingham, MA. This year’s panel of jurors are Jessica Roscio (Danforth Executive Director & Curator), Yumi Park-Huntington (Professor of Art History at Framingham State University), and Lauren Szumita (Director of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross).
The show will open on Saturday, June 28th, with a reception at 6-8pm, and it will close on August 24th.
The Alchemy of the Unknowns project has also been selected by Crista Dix (Executive Director at the Griffin) as one of the projects to be exhibited in the upcoming Vison(ary), the 6th Annual Summer Public Art Exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. The show will be on view outdoors from June 1st through September 13th.
One final note: I’m venturing into using a 4x5 camera. I hope I can create worthy images with it between now and my next newsletter on June 15th. Until then, be well and spread kindness.