Good Friday

The Chaste Moon by J. Binford-Bell

Artist's Statement: I have always loved colors, shapes, and patterns. I see dragons in the clouds, gnomes in the rocks, sprites dancing in the light, and sea nymphs in watery reflections. Since I was very young I recorded what I saw with crayons, pencils, clay, and paint, but a camera is one of my favorite tools since very young. Digital technology in cameras and dry darkroom has allowed me to show the world I see to others. I love its immediacy; the now of it. Nothing quite equals uploading a day’s images onto the computer screen. It is like opening a box of chocolates. There is always what you think you took and what you really did capture. My camera is my window to the world. Just having it in my hand or beside me in the car seat opens a whole new set of possibilities.

That may explain the photographic image above but it also explains why I collect crosses. both as wall decorations and as jewelry. I just love the shapes of them.
Crosses with house guard by J. Binford-Bell

And I am not above mixing my symbols.  Amid the crosses at the upper right is a house guard made for me upon the occasion of my moving from North Carolina. Yes, Virginia, North Carolina has a few pagans. It has been a while since I made an offering. No chickens or little kids involved. Just dried flowers offered. Suppose to keep my home safe and sound.

I made a mobile for my studio upon its completion. Sail on Solar Winds obviously needs rephotographed because my big computer crash a couple years back lost those images. It takes a tall ladder to reach the rice paper and willow branch outrigger at the peak of my vaulted studio ceiling. So it is also obviously behind in gifts. I need to fold up an origami crane offering.

Crosses and moons by J. Binford-Bell

I also like moons as iconic images. Two moons in this photo and one in the top photo. And the studio mobile features a moon and stars. For those that associate the cross with Christianity it is in reality one of the most ancient of symbols of man and has been used by many religions. It is frequently a representation of the division of the world into four elements or cardinal points. Alternately it represents the union of the concepts of divinity, the vertical line, and the world, the horizontal line. You could, therefore, say that Jesus dying upon a cross was symbolic of the unity of man and the spirit. And maybe that is why it is Good Friday.

 For more on Crosses see Wiki.


Comments

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f
Read more

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip
Read more