home on the range

Welcome back to The Department of Homeland Inspiration!
Remember when labor day week-end carried that back-to-school poignancy.  New yellow pencil smell in the bedroom shag from sorting the materials and filling the soft vinyl pencilcase,  new without all the graphite dust and spilled shavings yet. Not sleeping due to all the anticipation, looking forward yet slightly dreading the first day.

Parked at a Greek restaurant in the hot hot desert

 Here at The Department of Homeland Inspiration, we collect and sort images reflecting moments of visual epiphany or interest. 

What follows is The Art Ranger's photo essay: whatididonmysummervacation

gleaned from travels home home on the range, California to Colorado and back.  As we each move about our patches of earth, we are ever vigilant for the image,  yet able to be surprised. We cultivate our inclination to tell a stories spawned by images or sets of images. With or without a camera.

Beetlemap #1, North trail. She wore toerunners so had to choose every single step.

 Beetle Picasso: Self Portrait with thought bubble.  Sore tendons.

Opposing sides of circuit box by the icecream store:

Once by car and once by plane, we traversed the vast landscape of western states. Punctuated by eight lanes of shiny Vegas with an awesome 3G signal. 

Pitstop an hour outside Barstow:

During the twenty hour  drive, it was our fate and education to listen to a great portion of the novel, Jane Eyre, with a fifteen year-old boymanchild.  Here are storm pictures he grabbed @ 70 mph while Jane was at the orphan school being disciplined by Mr. Brocklehurst.

Fifteen minutes later, her dear friend Helen Burns perished of "consumption". (From the character description, we noticed that she was totally A.D.D. in 1843)

As Jane Eyre narrativized the "rugged points of her character", her brightly precise language yet wordy words, interwove with text messages, truckstop skittles and burritos in an exit called Beaver, short naps behind Wal-Mart sunglasses, country music songs about other stormy loves, and an Indian Reservation/ fireworks stand.  Just outside "Loves" truckstop, where the gas is always cheap, we pass the sign for "Brown Materials Road" and it's there we find out that the old gypsywoman fortuneteller was really Mr. Rochester.  In Spreckles, along a tree-lined lane, he proposed to her.  For the Art Ranger, the listening experience was anchored by images we passed through.
Favorite Joke heard over the summer: "Americans are afraid that if they raise the debt ceiling, they won't be able to reach to paint over it again." npr, waitwaitdon't tell me

oki doki, THIS FRIDAY: September 9th, The Department of Homeland Inspiration is officially open for business, actively seeing , seeking and sorting images.  Friday, we host the first Found Art Friday since July. 

Did you have any sightings or recitings this summer? Submit images to FAF@homelandinspiration.org and we will collect and lightly curate the contents for your watching and wonderment. Thank you for your continued following or your new arrival.

Sincerely,

The Art Ranger Returned to her desk at school of life.