Bounty

Every week, I wander through the farmers market, taking in the riot of colors, shapes and smells. There are piles of onions, stacked-up breads, and jumbles of apples in wooden boxes. Busy as they are, the farmers and bakers feel compelled to bring order to the bounty. They place the yams in neat rows and arrange colors like a set designer. Waiting in square containers, peppers, radishes and potatoes take on the orderliness of quilt blocks. It’s a feast, both for the eyes and the stomach. This is a week to give thanks. I am thankful for the beauty of the food that nourishes both body and soul.

Crabgrass Bush

This bush grows at the edge of a neighbor's property, near the street. In the fall, it tires of its own unremarkable green and transforms itself into a flame-colored beauty. Unfortunately, this is also when the crabgrass turns from green to straw-colored. As one who struggles to keep her own garden weeded, I laughed at this overtaken bush. This must have been a bad year for yard work.

East Village Door

In past times, pools of still water were the most common source of reflections. A mirror was a rare and precious treasure. Our modern world is full of reflective objects: windows, cars, jewelry, polished floors. Reflections are ubiquitous, so we don't really see most of them anymore. I stopped to study this door in New York's East Village. The afternoon sun, bouncing off the buildings across the street, created a technicolor scene in the frame of the door. Curvy clusters of ironwork grapes mingled with the buildings' straight-edged geometry. Some funky, slightly decrepit edges remain in this increasingly scrubbed and gentrified neighborhood. The door reflects it all.

Birds On Wires

This week, I've been in Houston again, teaching at Quilt Festival. I took this photo exactly a year ago. Most mornings, just as dawn broke, I was in a taxi headed down to the Convention Center. The cab driver always turned at a gas station by the expressway. Every morning, at that exact moment, a huge flock of birds rose off their perch on the lighted gas station sign, wheeled around and settled into the trees and onto the network of wires nearby. The massive coordinated takeoff was awe-inspiring but the scene was also unsettling. The fourth morning, I was ready, with the window rolled down and my camera out. This is a beautiful scene, but it still creeps me out.