Shadow Giant

All snapshots now going to Merz Pictures site, linkable from this site

'Here's Looking at You, Kid'

Winter Window Display, Cambridge

Winter Window Display, Cambridge # 2

Scruton Pond

Slow Children

Portsmouth Laundromat

Upstream, Off Shore

Travel Shot

Cambridge Graffiti # 1

Cambridge Graffiti # 1

Christmas Day

Holiday Shot, New Camera

Avery & Rylan by Tree

Rolls on Rolls Dark

Brother Bill's Response

Toilet Rolls

Photo by Brother Bill, Color Work by Yours Truly

Relieving the Cypress of Their Burden of Snow

Eight inches of perfect snowman snow, wet
and clumped on everything. Our row,
once tall and erect, now bent to the ground
in prayer, thin spines burdened by snow, branches
encased in its crust. When I grab the tops
of their bowed heads and shake each free
of their outer layer, bringing them down
with my weight then letting go, the trunks sway up
a foot, a foot and a half higher, bodies
like great defunct dinosaurs coming back to life.
Each branch I knock rises up like a fan in the wind;
gradually the whole line climbs back on its feet,
still bent and broken in places but no longer defeated
by the tremendous burden. The taller ones need me
to climb inside their bodies to rattle their bones
like a lover, bending the curve of their spine back far
the other way. The sun’s come out now and soon
the trees will forget this weight. But for now
I am happy, beloved among them, bathed in sweat,
looking for just the right place to release the pressure.

Rocio's Grandfather Up in a Tree, 1929

He was a burning bush of a man,
always bursting in flame, an ancient letter
in a unwritten book on the power of joy
in the face of stultifying catastrophe.
Spain was a rock face crumbling;
all the men had to find new ways
to make themselves useful. Women
were left to re-sing the old laws.
The children whited themselves out
with a brush. No one remembers the man
standing under our man in the tree,
hombre arbol. Some say he never existed,
an angel airbrushing itself into a photo.
The date 1929, the caption blank, the sun
either just coming up or one last time
throwing itself across the horizon line.
Rocio’s grandfather keeps his balance
by fingertipping buds, hat threatening
to fly off—the wind an elixir he drinks
openmouthed and shouting.

Photo Abstraction # 1

(Not So) Old Postcard Back

Last Night's Collage

Vandal(ism)

Old Charles Piece

one of his "envelope" cards

Kenneth Noland, Book Cover

from Melvin Lane's, Black Mountain College: Sprouted Seeds, an Anthology of Personal Accounts

Bathing Beauty

Old Collage Found in Pile of Papers

Columnar Abstraction # 1

Solo Ascent

for Bill

Happy

Birthday

Brother

Bill

My Son Avery's Collage, Age 6

Admit it. He's pretty good!

Cement Fence off Beach, Mbau, Senegal

Took this photo in 85; this is a contact sheet image, scanned, photoshopped. I took the slide out of its casing, hence the edges

Bill's Boogie Grid

One of Bill Matthews' cards.
Congajoy.com

Ray Type, Collage Back # 1

My Moticos # 1

My Moticos # 2

My Moticos # 3

Coming Soon to a Gallery Near Me

Collaboration with Charles, From a Few Years Back

On a Pedestal

Another Old Card

Jackson, Mississippi

Old American Crow Card (Reframed)

Jail Break

Equinox Dreams

An old photograph taken from proof sheet and scanned then Photoshopped. Old VT club back in the late 80s, outside of Manchester

Old-Fashioned

Last night's collage, put over an old Charles Collage

Blue Mountain Way

Back piece




THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK ART PIECE IN THE WORLD (EVER)!

Flip Side (Redone)

More saturation, less blur

Flip Side

Fire in the Hole

New Piece, Note Sure It's Any Good

Culture Shock

Work in Progress

Greetings from the Edge(s)

This serves as the frontispiece for a many-paneled collage that uses an old postcard book of the Great Smokey Mountains. The cards fold into an accordian, images on both sides, that then nestles inside an envelope. I have been using images from a 50s era nature book and weaving them into the 60s era colorized images of the Smokeys.

"Golf Landscape" (below) is the back of the envelope.

Golf Landscape

I Know the Whole 50's Thing Has Been Done

But that doesn't mean I can't do my version of it, take my run at the theme, the mode, and see if I can add a twist or give a new spin on the old dance. I am not sure I have. But these old Alps cards from the 50s discovered in someone's old house full of their parents things saved after death work a little magic. The mountains as the container for the drama unfolding. The whole vacation feel of the resort areas allows the 50s characters, taken from old Life magazines of the era, room to act a little. They are meant as advertisements, so their poses are seductive or charming or curious already. I wanted to tell a little story too. A family facing a divorce but pretending everything is okay. Sounds like the 50s to me. Says the mid-60s end of boomer, not quite Gen-Xer.

50 Series, # 2

I forget who I gave no. 1 to! Charles? Anyone?