It was tracking day at the Wehr Nature Center for a group of 24 third graders. They made plaster molds of animal tracks and then went outside in the bright sunshine to find some animal evidence. Those hearty species who stick out the Wisconsin winter without migrating or hibernating include squirrels, weasels & mink, deer, raccoon, opossum, fox, skunk, cottontail rabbit, pheasant, and a bunch of birds (cardinals, chickadees, woodpeckers, doves, nuthatches). Of course, we didn’t see all these, but we did find clues: tracks, scat, and browse marks where they’d eaten branches and bark.
And then, the sunshine creates lines and angles everywhere.
And the water that isn’t frozen ripples and sparkles, creating more textures of light and shadow.
I’m liking the black and white idea today. Steve & I are planning to see “The Artist” this afternoon, a new silent film in black & white. Sometimes, the world seems just too much to comprehend, so we break it down into stylized bits and patterns so that we can wrap our feeble brains around some part of it. What would it be like to walk around open to everything at once, without compartmentalizing or simplifying? Would we explode?
I think our brains may well take in everything at once but it just lets us see as much as it thinks we can cope with 🙂 Love the photos. Enjoy The Artist…let us know what you think of it.
Beautiful photos! I’ll check back here when I need an escape!
a common explanation for schizophrenia is the inability to filter sensory information sufficiently
lovely photos — filtering color right out of the picture does wonders for drawing attention to light and form