#ThursdayDoors: Set Design

June 23, 2016June 23, 2016JT Twissel 13 Comments

These doors are magic in the making. One night soon the Starlight Players will emerge on stage to perform to small but loyal audiences. If you peak through the “windows” you’ll see another door.

Door to the dressing room?

Prop room?

I’m guessing the above pic shows the prop room. I was trespassing as all good ThursdayDoors folk must at some point or another. The Players are in the process of getting ready for their first performances of the summer. On the day we visited no one was working on the set but this is a community theatre group, most of whom probably have day jobs. For obvious reasons they don’t perform in the winter!

View from the stage, the stone stairs on which the audience sits.

I dabbled a bit in theatre in high school but I’m shy and can’t act so I primarily either helped with set design or props and watched the magic from behind the curtains. There’s a lot of flurry backstage during a performance. A lot of excitement. It’s addictive like so many things, for instance, blogging. I tell myself I must stop. The day is beautiful and there are things to see and do. But here I sit.

The Marquee

Check out other ThursdayDoors, the brainchild of Norm Frampton.

The First Day of Summer

June 20, 2016June 21, 2016JT Twissel 12 Comments

Doesn’t look very summery, does it? The sun had gotten itself snagged in a spider’s web of clouds above this tree and looking up I thought it might be too bright to get a decent picture. This scene reminded me of the work of one of my favorite painters, Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe is most famous for painting pictures of flowers which some art critics say represented vaginas, an intention she firmly denied. Or surrealistic desert scenes with cow skulls. However she did do a few upside down paintings.

Yes, this the correct orientation for this painting. One wonders if she painted it laying down.

She also liked to capture the glare and other worldly feeling of a city night.

I used to imagine traveling to New Mexico to meet O’Keeffe who, by the time I discovered her, would have been eighty. I’m glad I didn’t. Successful artists live for their art and all else is irrelevant. In O’Keeffe’s case, she regularly scandalized the art world (not an easy feat), first by having an affair with an older married man, then by allowing him to take “erotic” pictures of her, and finally – many years later – taking a lover fifty years her junior. Her personality was described as “prickly” and it is said she couldn’t stand people who weren’t thin. It would have been like traveling a thousand miles to spend time with my grandmother who also didn’t like fat people and was as prickly as they come.

Ever fantasized about meeting someone famous and then realized it might not be such a good idea?

Happy Summer Solstice!

Hugh’s Photo Challenge Week 29: Open

June 14, 2016June 14, 2016JT Twissel 12 Comments

“Open your mouth please.”

There’s so much grimness in the world that I decided to take Hugh’s delightful weekly photo challenge.

“Good girl. Now try to keep the food in.”

By the way, does anyone know how to change your birth sign? I just learned that Trump’s a gemini like me. I’ll take any of the other eleven signs, please.

#WordlessWednesday: Washed Ashore

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016JT Twissel 7 Comments

Hugh’s Photo Challenge Week 11:Rust

February 3, 2016February 3, 2016JT Twissel 17 Comments

Hugh over at Hugh Views and News is a delightful blogger who, among other things, has a weekly photo challenge which I don’t expect to ever win but a few days ago on my way home from the dentist’s I ran across this scene.

A wheelbarrow which these days is more decorative than utilitarian. It rested outside in the rain against my neighbor’s fence. I’ve often wondered why it hasn’t been stolen like so many decorative yard art pieces in our neighborhood. Maybe it weighs a ton!

Funny thing how rust, which often renders an object useless, can also make it a work of art. If only, as we aged and rusted, we were viewed as a works of art and not useless!

To all my friends of a certain age, I see you as works of art.

Here is Hugh’s challenge.

#WordlessWednesday: Rain through Chimes

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016JT Twissel 9 Comments

Lazy Blogger Day: The Pilgrim

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015JT Twissel 18 Comments

My garden’s a haven to what gardeners call “volunteers.” Some are the children of plants we’ve planted over the years and others are pilgrims to my alien shore that I don’t have the heart to starve, rip to shreds, or send out into a stormy sea.

This sunflower took root in a pot containing another plant and grew and grew and grew until it reached the sun.