PRINTING

On the left, a photograph taken on the back patio of Thai on Two, 180 2nd Avenue—a perfect twilight tree. On the right, an image of that photo created from a photopolymer printing plate.  If you'd like to see how this type of plate is made, you can watch this YouTube video.    

Two-color print created from a single linoleum block
 using a highly simplified reduction block method.

NEW YORK PHOTOS

I took this photo in 2009 on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.  It is one of my favorite photos, and I've worked with it in a number of ways over the months: photo transfer using a variety of transfer media; conversion to a black-and-white image that I then hand-colored; burning the image onto photo-sensitive film and transferring the image onto a metal printing plate, which was then printed using a Vandercook proof press.  Photo transfer using acrylic gel media was not very successful.  The most effective medium, I found, is aerosol fixative.

Here is the image printed in two colors from a photopolymer printing plate using a Vandercook proof press.  I used the image in a chapbook of poetry created for the course Printing II in the University of Alabama Book Arts program.  Below is an experimental image consisting of photo transfers set at different angles, watercolor paint, and overlaid  transparancies. 

Second Avenue Doorway

Photo transfer triptych.

House of Study belonging to the Krasna Hasidim, Williamsburg.

Typical wall in Williamsburg.  It is covered with advertisements and community announcement, in particular, Jewish legal rulings (p'sak halacha, written in white letters on a black background at the top of three posters shown above).

In my imagination, one building is reaching out to touch the other.

Brooklyn Heights. Fire escapes are as alive as vines.

The open arms of a train entrance, Williamsburg

SKINK

This beautiful skink (scientific name scincidae) appeared on my window ledge yesterday, and remained still on two occasions long enough to let me admire him and take photographs. 

                           

MY LITTLE WORLD OF ENTYMOLOGY

This fascinating creature first built the beginnings of a web that reached across my outdoor staircase, forcing me to duck in order to preserve the single strand on which it travelled high-wire style. It then moved up to my second floor terrace, building a fully-formed web, complete with expired prey. It is popularly known as the "smiley face crab spider" on account of its black markings and crab-like legs. Its scientific name is Gasteracantha cancriformis.  The spider then took up residence on a web strung between a tree and the building beside it. In this photo, you can see the remains of its prey.  This photo was taken the day after a heavy rain.  The spider rebuilt its web, and its webs are always a wonder to see.

A couple of days ago I discovered this creature resting among some stones I had placed on an unused camp chair outside my apartment.  Note the impressive antennae.  Its color was also striking; it is obviously very well camouflaged in its proper environment (which a green camp chair is not).  Some friends and I attempted to identify it, and we think it's a type of borer beetle.

Today, I found this Junebug on the mat outside my apartment.  Its wings were a gorgeous shade of green.

FILMS "DHARM" AND "DELHI 6"

I watched two wonderful Indian films recently. The first is titled "Dharm."  It tells the story of a Hindu priest whose orthodox beliefs and adherence to the dictates of the caste system are tested when he develops a paternal bond with an abandoned baby boy whose mother, unbeknownst to him, is Muslim.

The second is titled "Delhi 6," which (title) references a neighborhood in Old Delhi. A young man, raised in the United States, accompanies his ailing grandmother to Delhi 6, the area in which she grew up and in which she wishes to spend her last days. There, he becomes immersed in the pleasures of extended family and the richness of Indian culture, and is forced to confront the bitterness of deeply-rooted superstitions and religious violence.

RECENT READING

I've been reading and re-reading the following:

There are Things I Want You to Know about Stieg Larsson and Me  by Eva Gabrielsson

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb.

Let the Great World Spin by Collum McCann

FILM "THREE IDIOTS"

Don't let the title fool you.  This is not an Indian version of "Dumb and Dumber."  It's a moving, humane, and frequently humorous depiction of the intense academic and familial pressures endured by three students attending a prestigious but draconian engineering college in Delhi.


The film is based on the novel Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat.