Dear ones,
We waited until the coast was clear (of offspring on vacation) in order to let the chicken cross the road. Today, we salute and welcome you to the seventh year of this endeavor, the
Department of Homeland Inspiration. Here, we scratch the earth's crust for evidence of "art", even the smallest representatives of it, due to the serendipity of daily existence. In The Art Ranger's daily practice, we collect and reflect on the visuals encountered by happenstance, moments a bit more carefully observed, and shareable: we relish the spots where image and narrative do a Tango.
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| "jump through the hoop", noted by Bonnie Hotz |
Art Ranger's slightly late and worn,
Year in Review:
It will be distilled but not quite Haiku.
We humans have arrived yet again at the Age of Insanity, rather than the Age of Aquareous or peace,
and the planet is definitely more blue, yet hot than it was when we started.
Where
do we start? Where do we end? that is the question
.....for persons, washcloths, chocolate confections, or phone calls with
your increasingly analog mother.
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| to her, the phone is still a voice carrying utensil somewhere having a cord, a physical umbilical. The invisible database in which her phone messages are now stored, has no visual anchor, no toehold in her world. |
At least our current president can think and write and speak well.
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| Claire Dane's Trump: Pictionary with Fallon |
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| How could the Sooper Dick clan find a better blow-up toy? |
Okay, let's quickly change the subject from our nation as an entertainment-addled juggernaut-cluster, and be astounded instead by the amount of chia seeds - shall we? Suddenly, they are everywhere, perhaps even inbetween your teeth. Here in America, we go whole hog, even on seeds.
You learn on Facebook/crack, that you could never get enough of looking at baby elephants, and you should really get rid of that bra and that t-shirt while we're at it. Because talking about menopause seems to make people so uncomfortable, we are fascinated by it and think that it needs its own stand-up comedienne.
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| flannel shirt arrives in cardboard box |
We find that going to the gym is where you see the tragi-comedy of humanity best lay itself bare (albeit an economically able person-slice). You see someone conquer the drab pavement of themselves, another one grunts in front of a mirror while making its deltoids pop out. You see how different people manage pain alone and in a group. You find out how strong you aren't and are. You see that you spend a great deal of time untangling earbuds before moving any muscles. You see how all foreheads really are humble once they are moistened by sweat. And the small smell of magazine body emissions left in a corner. How many many styles are possible for maintaining our flesh over bone over time, in concert with gravity and decay? You try to hold your chin at a better angle in the mirror, while imagining energy entering the suture of your skull while nudging the intent to send breath straight into your bone marrow like extra nostrils, all, while pivoting leg around hip socket in an infinity sign, realizing that this could take you the rest of your life to not ever master.
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| blogging: a thought
dispatch system |
Art Ranger would like to thank you for visiting this blog and still looking at this post, a portal in which we aspire to
spread some visual-narrative nourishment, as you would enjoy butter
on bread. We know that time is no longer present in our lives (eaten by machines) or laundry; which is why we've embraced the
sentence fragment.
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| there there there - |
Since embarking on this blogger voyage six or seven years ago, the phone-camera complex has grown to gobble dominance, as both witness and participant in our lives, so hypnotic to eye socket pockets with its omniscient absorption. Previous camera named Cam, and fullblown Nikon named Nic, they may achieve more rigorous and variegated beauties, but they are rarely present or truly necessary for the art-of-the- moment moment. The big old camera so deliberate, self-conscious, exacting, while alerting itself to be artful. But
Framing and timing are still paramount.
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| It is how we see. We pause for it to breathe. |
Here, at
The Department of Homeland Inspiration, we sift thoughts one stitch at a time, with our voice threads. For many, it's all about "Insty". Should the Art Ranger go on Instagram? She thinks not; as what we do here is not instant, but gathered more like a salad or flower arrangement. We like Twitter as headlines-cereal, but that hashtagging thing has got caught in our krall, a bit like splinters in your soup with all its mitosis like split seconds of gag like noise, like kindling.
Please join the Art Ranger as she watches out for Art, as a profession and a passion. While going about living with image-consciousness wonder, send us
your found flowers, surprise fungus, or natural prayer flags and we will fold them in to our muse. We wish you a grateful week: FAF@homelandinspiration.org.
