All posts by laurahinnj

Ghost signs

I’m happy to finally have a name for these faded advertisements that I like to photograph. I find them painted on falling-down buildings along rural roads and in the old parts of sleepy Southern towns.

Wikipedia, my source for everything that I didn’t know had a name, says they were most common before the Great Depression and that the artists who painted them were known as “wall dogs.”

In some places, there’s an effort to preserve or restore them. Oftentimes, they just fade away like so much history.

I’m not even sure, myself, where I took these couple photos, but for the last one. On the way to somewhere else is all I remember.

This one is a favorite, simply because I get to see it most often. It’s on the way to Tallahassee and, despite many tries, I’ve yet to get a photo that I like.

Apparently, other people like to photograph these old signs, too. And if you’re so inclined and have some favorites, you might consider adding them to the Ghost Sign Project so other people can find them, too.

Art Seen (Erased)

“Each person can take it the way they want to, because it is for everyone …and at the end, if it gets painted over, know that the gray paint will not hide the fears of no one, but if anything, it will make those fears more visible” – Hyuro

Photo from Creative Loafing

“Paint on this wall made for a beautiful mural, people talking about it made for a beautiful conversation. A public space was created and all of a sudden this dead intersection became more human. The mural belonged to all of us, to the ones that liked it and to the ones that didn’t, it was our dialogue, it was our challenge, but now it’s gone. Now we are back to ignoring that space again, now we are back at thinking that erasing the evidence will make us think this never happened… – Monica Campana, Founder and Executive Director of Living Walls

I never had the chance to see Hyuro’s mural before it was buffed over. The neighborhood didn’t understand its message or was threatened by the nudity it depicted. In its 37 “frames”, a woman grew fur and shed her coat; she then morphed into a wolf and walked off. I’m not sure that I understand its message either, but I can see clearly the value of such art, if only in its assault on the blight that is most of Atlanta.  I’m not sure of what anyone could find so terribly offensive in the almost cartoon-like images of this mural, especially considering what we’re all exposed to on tv and in print media, every day.

I’m not sure, either, that you have to like a particular piece of art in order for it to improve your quality of life. What say you?

Sunday in the Park

A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows they’re being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.

– Richard Avedon

 

 

 

 

A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richardave531391.html#m1zZipxLsc3qOGGX.99

A couple weeks ago I went to Sunday in the Park at Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta. It’s billed as a Victorian street festival and includes music, food, and an artist’s market. I went mainly for the picture-taking opportunities, expecting to want to photograph inside some of the spectacular mausoleums (opened up just for this event), but instead and as usual, got sidetracked with people photos. The folks in “period garb” were fun, but I especially liked the steampunk couple!

Mid-week bunny fix

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
― The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

– – – – – – – – – – –

At something over 7 years old, Peeper is slowly becoming Real. Much of the hair around one eye has been loved off (thanks to chronic lop-eared wetness there) and she’s looking a little shabby all over. She has a ways to go, still, of course. She can run and dance like a youngster when given the chance.

Yep, I set off the smoke detector again

But it was so worth it!

I love this dish from “Jerusalem” as featured in the NY Times a couple months ago. It “feels” very complicated to make, but really it’s not. That feeling comes mostly from having to buy a bunch of strange spices that look like something I’d find on a walk in the woods…

Next on my list of meals to conquer is Indian Butter Chicken. Anyone have a good recipe?

The way to do it

As the bus slowed down at the crowded bus stop, the Pakistani bus conductor leaned from the platform and called out, “Six only!” The bus stopped. He counted on six passengers, rang the bell, and then, as the bus moved off, called to those left behind: “So sorry, plenty of room in my heart – but the bus is full.” He left behind a row of smiling faces. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

~The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, 1977