Stranger Things

Day 350: The Odd Onion has not made an appearance for quite some time, but I haven't forgotten this "100 Possibilities" photo project. I always select my onions with an eye toward their photographic merits, but as you can see, this one was a little long in the tooth by the time I got around to making its portrait. Many of its predecessors have gone straight into the soup/stew without achieving the slightest fame. This one spoke to me while I was packing up my kayak gear for a fall survey of Lake St. Clair. "Take me with you," it said. I could hardly object. It had been patiently sitting on top of the dryer for over a month without being called to duty. Now I suppose you'll think it rather odd that someone would take an onion kayaking, but I can assure you there are stranger things going on in today's world. The Onion hopes we have made your day a little brighter, if no less surreal.

Bizarro World

Day 103: I love surrealism...unless, of course, I happen to be living it, which at the moment I most certainly feel like I am. Twilight-Zone events are taking place all around me, I've reached the Outer Limits and am tiptoeing at the edge of the abyss. I'm awake nights and asleep days. I've gone through half a dozen light bulbs in the space of 48 hours, a phenomenon which has proven out time and again over the years as being directly related to my mood. I feel as if the planets have all gone retrograde, spinning contrary to their normal course around the sun; as if I had been transported to Bizarro World where everything is backwards or upside-down.

Should it have surprised me to find a chicken-legged Humpty Dumpty on a ledge above the projector screen in the conference room yesterday? All things considered, perhaps not, but at least it made me laugh.

Giving Credit Where It's Due

Day 54: I cannot take full credit for this piece of surrealist art, only for rendering it in three dimensions. The concept originated with my mother, and was executed as a pen-and-ink sketch which she presented to my grandmother with a book of original poetry on Mother's Day 1945. I believe she may have drawn her inspiration from a greater mind, that of Salvador Dali. In any event, the idea has gone through so many permutations that I feel no shame in claiming this as "mine," since it is said that in art, there are no new ideas, only new ways to represent the same old things.

Surrealist art is meant to jolt the mind by presenting things out of context, nonsequiturs to the natural state of their existence. It is often laced with hidden references and meanings, but not always. Sometimes, as here, it is simply a mental meandering down a convoluted path through hyperreality, art for Art's sake, without agenda.

Red Brolly

Makeup Day 11: Inspired by a passion for surrealist art, I particularly enjoy finding unusual features in the landscape which I can incorporate into my photography, particularly when creating a self-portrait such as this. However, today I had a more impressionistic concept in mind for the Red Brolly when I left home, but hunting season left me cut off from the world of Seurat and the quaint little bridge I had intended to use as a stage. Gone were all thoughts of soft-focused autumn colors to set off my centerpiece when I found the placid countryside taken over by orange-garbed, armed males, some shorter and possibly younger than the rifles slung over their shoulders. Thus I turned to a different area, one where innocent animals were not likely to go: a rocky bar at the east end of Riffe Lake.

It must be pointed out that for this shoot, I was perforce in costume, i.e., makeup, wig, a white dress and fashion raincoat, low heels and a newly-purchased, cheap French beret. The rain politely held off until I was done, but that did not prevent spatters of mud from dappling my dress and caking on my shoes, and although I did not break a heel, the end caps disappeared somewhere amid the rocks. The Red Brolly held up as well as could be expected in the wind, but somehow, somewhere, the beret took wing and left no clue to its whereabouts. In later (unused) shots), it is gone from my head, its departure entirely unnoticed until I packed up my gear to leave.

It is my belief that sometimes sacrifices must be made for Art. Today, the beret and my feet were among the vicitms. Heels and rocks do not go well together, nor wind and hats. Perhaps next time, I'll go for limp watches and the Persistence of Memory.