NEW from Greymoor Walk -

"To Light the Way Back Home"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

"Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking."
- Antonio Mochado

Illustration Friday: Breezy -

"Breezy"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather
- click on image to view full size -

The good folks at Illustration Friday offer up breezy for this week's theme. When I took this photograph it was decidedly a windy day. Storm clouds were scudding across the gray sky like a heavily laden collier hugging the shore for safety while in search of safe haven. It's four bells of the First Dog Watch!

Thursday Challenge: Jewelry -

"Her Heart Shaped Locket"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

I almost literally had a jewelry box full of ideas for this week's Thursday Challenge. After fiddling with a few other images I settled on today's post for the contrasts of light and shadow along with some interesting variation and repetition of form. I also like the idea that the heart-shaped locket is in deep shadow, alluding to mysteries of the heart.

Out for a virtual walk -

"Reach for the Sky"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

I continue my winter project of scanning over a decades worth of photographs taken on more walks than I can remember. There was always something at the back of mind, call it a voice if you will, telling me to "wait for the light, linger a bit longer, look at this from another angle". Until recently I hadn't understood why and now I have this wealth of documentation that is as much fuel for the walks I'll begin taking soon as for the exhibitions I intend to mount or the lectures I intend to present. As usual, there's plenty to do but I'll leave you with the same thought I've had in here a time or two before - I see these fall and winter photographs of trees, bushes and branches as drawings ... so, wait, linger and look from another angle.

A new Land Art project -

"Stitch-Scape Study I"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Can anyone tell that I'm chomping at the bit for better weather? I've had this minimal study in the files since late last fall and it keeps creeping into my consciousness. I have no idea how this is going to be constructed or how it'll turn out, but the basic idea is to employ some fairly thick vines if I can find some in the BIG back yard. Each of the four corners of the individual stitches are holes in the ground where the expected vines are to be sunk. As a study, I've made no reference for color, surface texture or anything else, but the idea appeals to me. Give me a few months.

Nine Mile Walk -

"Warners Field Falls"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

In my travels over the past few weeks I've driven by a number of locations that beckon me to come for a walk. One such spot is a little stretch of Nine Mile Creek that runs past one of the first airfields that serviced Central New York as far back as the 1920's. The creek is actually 26 miles in length beginning it's meander north from Otisco Lake, through the Villages of Marcellus and Camillus, eventually emptying into Onondaga Lake. There are so many wild stretches of this not always so small body of water that I'm not likely to walk it end to end. Even so, lots of interesting access areas exist to make an interesting point-to-point walking art project, including a major feeder system and aqueduct on the old Erie Canal.

It's a beautiful day -

"A Walk in the Park I"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

We're expecting two more days of significant accumulations of snow. That being the case, why am I posting images of spring? I suppose to continue the facade that my favorite of the four seasons is right 'round the corner ... (sigh!), again.

NEW from Greymoor Walk -

"Black, White and Gray"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

Just to remind myself of the promise made the other day, here's another post that comes from one of the many walking art projects I mentioned, Greymoor Walk. Even though the temperature had dropped below freezing I did get a short walk in while my car was in the repair shop. It was accompanied by quite a little flurry of extra-large flakes and a strong wind. It sure makes one feel wide awake and totally alive!

Illustration Friday: Instinct -

"Instinct"
digital collage by Mick Mather

The title of today's post, instinct, is also this week's theme at Illustration Friday. I suppose it's becoming obvious that I'm having major thoughts of spring. As I believe I may have already mentioned recently, I can smell it in the air even in the middle of gale force winds and the spitting and sputtering of blizzard-like flurries ... (sigh!) ... :)

Thursday Challenge: Pink -

"Pink"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather
- click image to see it full size -

This week's Thursday Challenge theme happens to be pink. On one of the many walks taken over the years I happened upon some large, pink flowers. I always thought them handsome, who knew that it would take until now to share them? Stop a few moments ... that's it, inhale!

It took me so long to find out -

"The Day Trippers"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Perhaps today's post will sum up what the last week or more has been about. Admittedly, I've been spending lots of time documenting over a dozen walking art projects. Even though the work is being accomplished in piecemeal fashion, so much time is being spent that I was feeling the early pangs of burnout. So, a retreat to comfortable territory for a little while, almost as if each image has been my own little day trip. Getting away, having at it unstructured, come what may. That said, I really must be getting back to the work at hand again very soon.

Happy Presidents Day -

"Semaphore Metaphor"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Yes, it is Presidents Day - Washington and Lincoln to be specific - both born a few days apart in February, but I digress. I'm still playing about with old themes and old methods of working with a few new twists and the same old filters. I rather enjoy the pastel hues of today's post and I was thinking of the naval flags, called semaphores, while finishing this up. I had hopes of finding a 4-squared pennant to use in this little vignette but, alas, there isn't one.

Boo!

"A Ghostly Procession"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Sometimes when working on a piece, as it steps through the paces in the super secret array, everything goes phooey. Usually that's not such a good thing but in today's post, well, it works for me just fine. Now, let me see, turn the infinity interlocutor up a notch and full throttle on the combobulator dissonance ratio and ... :O

Say "Cheese!" -

"Photo Op With the Guest Speaker"
digital collage by Mick Mather

I've been playing quite a bit this last week. Tossing images around quickly, cutting and pasting with minimal softening, blending or repainting before running it through the super secret array. Todays post has been nagging at me a bit, demanding to be finished ... so, here it is.

HAPPY VALENTINE's DAY -

"Fading Heart Valentine"

digital collage by Mick Mather

On days like today I think more than a few of us take pause to consider affections of the heart. In my short stay within this realm, I've been one of the lucky ones. Equal amounts of heartbeat, heartache, heartbreak and heart song have surely made things interesting. I suppose this lyric line from a popular standard expresses my point of view better than anything that I myself might say :

"To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say I've held the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the girls I've loved before"

Illustration Friday: Celebrate -

"The Celebration Committee"
digital collage by Mick Mather
- click image to see full size -

This time out, Illustration Friday offers celebrate for the theme-of-the-week. I suppose that every good celebration arises from some sort of organization process and, so, I tip my hat to that development activity in today's post. Now, since "celebrate" is at the top of the agenda ... Susu, break open that special bottle of red wine! :D

Thursday Challenge: Clothes -

"The Miniskirt"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

I don't know what it is about Thursday Challenge (this week's theme is clothes by the way) and my penchant for almost always posting manipulated images. I suppose, as a painter and printmaker, it's the joy of turning average photographs into something more palatable and enjoyable to look at. On the other hand, maybe I'm just full of it!

Now you see it, now you don't -

"Mirage"
digital collage by Mick Mather

The set of pieces that I've been working on recently have a common thread in that I've been stretching slivers of background before cutting and pasting them where I think they should go. Since much of that built-up base is done prior to filtering and layering, there's always some sense of impending doom at my elbow. In any event, it's proving to be an interesting way to work and I'm following this path for the time being. Oh! Sorry, I'm actually at a meeting and not really here ... carry on!

Dude, get a room!

"Reluctant Witness to a Tryst"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Sometimes an image comes with a story already written. Today's post is one example even if all of the details are not quite set upon the page. By the way, Susu, his name is Joe! :D

NEW from the Virtual Walk Series -

"Walking Across A Broken Landscape"
digital collage by Mick Mather

Just for fun, I've embarked on a series of virtual walks. These excursions are born of my internet researches and are, mostly, accidental and serendipitous discoveries that have much in common with my real walking art projects. The other thread that connects is the documentation of the evidence, the path, the topography, the steady step and the benefit of a pure experience. Like Jane Doe in today's post, a journal is carried for the purpose of making notes, itemizing thoughts, sensory perceptions, drawings, maps, sketches, writing poetry and gathering interesting things found along the way. Hey! Let's get going!

Another flurry of activity -

"The Writing on the Wall III"
digital collage by Mick Mather

It's been a productive weekend and it's only half over. In about six weeks I'll be on vacation for a week and the plan is to go unplugged for the entire time. I have a few short walking art projects planned and, hopefully, the weather will cooperate enough for me to get to at least two of them. In preparation, I'll need a few dozen images ready to go that can be pre-posted. So, back into the Secret Visual Laboratory I go!

NEW from Janus Park Walk -

"Looking to Rent"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather
- click on the image to see it full size -

Once again I've decided to post a larger image after running it through a new filter that seems to be growing on me. In some sense, a jumbled up collage appearance (although not very evident here) is beginning to become clear in my head as regards some upcoming work. In a lot of ways I have John Mora to thank for a clearer vision of this sort of thing, his work is fabulous and well worth a look see. Especially this piece that incorporates parts of a photograph by the trés cool Lisa Sarsfield.

Illustration Friday: Time -

"Time Bandit I"
digital collage by Mick Mather

It's that time (pun intended) of the week again and here we are at Illustration Friday once more. In some sense, the fashion sense as it were, new styles and trends seem to go back in time for inspiration. Contemporary designers who mine the old claims often as not give us a fresh twist composed of equal parts future and that new way of thinking about the past. Work it, baby! Baby work out!

Thursday Challenge: Clouds -

"Late October Storm"

photograph by Mick Mather

This week's theme at Thursday Challenge is clouds and these charcoal monsters were blowing in from Lake Ontario picking up moist, warm water every inch of the way. Within minutes of getting this photograph, the cold front that moved these boiling monsters along like a freight train dropped the temperature by 30º and caused the falling rain to turn instantly to a spitting flurry of snow. On a day like this, with such impressive and contrasted views, it's great to be alive!

One more experimental piece -

"A Handmade Paper"
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

It was my youngest granddaughter's birthday yesterday - she's 5 now - and I had little time to accomplish a new work for today's post. So, I'm putting up the last image that came about from the January 22nd post to Thursday Challenge for the theme of experimental. Over the years I've made reams of handmade paper with a few sheets here and there that were color composites. They looked a lot like this piece. Well, gotta run, there's still some Birthday Cake left!

Positively 4th Street -

"Kate Visits the Village"
digital collage by Mick Mather

From the blurred and fuzzy background of a found photograph came a flood of memories. One of a trip two years ago, another of a friend who has moved away and yet a third memory of walking the best parts of Bleecker Street on ice cold mornings and afternoons. Happy hour hot dogs and a glass of wine at The Art Bar on 8th Avenue north of Jane come to mind as well as the liquor store and the little bodega clustered along that part of the walk near my room. Judging from the weather, if I were there right now, everything would be the same as it was then.

(listening to: xxlounge-02 mixed by Mr. Dracunspate)

Do you see what I see -

"A Walk in the Fog V (Gorilla in the Mist)"

manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

I've continued to play around with some of the photographs from the Fog Walk 2008 series. As the parenthetical alternate title indicates, I see a gorilla in the background. Okay, part of the head of a gorilla anyway. As always, it'll be a delight to see what The Finnish Sisters see in this piece. Oh! I almost forgot: "Happy Groundhog's Day"! :)

Reality meets virtuality -

"Green Curtain"
manipulated digital photograph & digital drawing by Mick Mather

I have a wonderful digital drawing software program that I don't spend half as much time with as I'd like. In today's post, for example, I've taken a drawing and layered it into something else ... that something else might have been another digital drawing, a fractal flame or, as in this case, a photograph. The curtain always reminded me of that plastic, mesh material that has, indeed, been hung up and used as a shade or curtain. The photograph itself just happened to show a row of buds that appeared to me as hangers when the drawing was layered in. Now that I've completed this piece I seem inspired to do some more drawing today.

(listening to: "G-Day" by The Tapegerm Collective)