derelicts, decay, & abandonment

George & I have a joke about 'the Real Maui'. It happens in the presence of back alleys, back roads, & places that haven't been gussied up for tourism.

I realize I have quite a few photos of derelict & decayed & abandoned things. It's one of my themes, for sure.

Two days ago, on an outing with Sabina & Rosamar & George I saw some things that were so definitely in this category. I have no idea what OOCL is, but I'll bet it's a Japanese company.

I guess what partly 'gets' me is how many questions flood into my mind: who built this structure? what was it's original/&later purpose? how old is it? who owns it/owned it?  And once these questions start many more come.  A collection of old bicycle seats? Why? Why here? How forlorn is that?

But this window in Paia beats all. This strained paper has been there for at least 2 years, and I finally got a picture of it.

I suppose you could say this is accidental art. No one set out to make these amazing water-stain effects. I also see that this sort of thing is the stuff of some modern abstract art. You see something unusual & you flag it & celebrate it.

That's it for today.

Maui Swap Meet

On Saturdays on Maui there is a swap meet. The swap is money for goods. I haven't seen any old-fashioned bartering=swapping!

I went with Sabina & Rosamar today and we did a systematic sweep of the whole site, though after a while things start to look the same. You can buy orchids, fruit & vegetables, fast food snacks, bazillion rayon dresses & Hawaiian shirts for men. There is jewelry, wood work, chatchkas, bags & hats. A big cross section of Maui is there: tourists and residents.

Let's see... Sabina got new earrings. Very fetching I thought, especially with the shirt she bought the last time she was on Maui.

Rosamar & Sabina also gathered food for tomorrow. And I found the biggest avocado ever which I bought for George. It cost me $4. I got another buyer to hold it so I could show you it's size.

I found some wonderful koa salad servers. They give off the most terrific clacking sound.  In the end I bought at least 8 pairs. And a new straw hat, the brim of which started to sag after a a rather short time making seeing difficult. Of course it got abandoned as a bum purchase! And I got Maui onion mustard.

But most of all I came home with photos of food: multiples & textures. I think these look like lotus leaves, but I didn't ask.

Squash family, for sure & edible blossoms.

Finally there was a XXL shirt for $60 that I coveted. It was so rich!

OH my!! It would have swum on me & on George!! But classic!!

And I came home with good memories of fun with Sabina & Rosamar.

Christmas eve is almost here. Sundown is happening.

That's it for now.

Outing to Lahina

Maybe that was the last time I'll consent to going to Lahina. It is the worst tourist trap on Maui. Thank goodness no cruise ships were out there, so things were not crowded, but the art galleries my two friends, Sabina & Rosamar& I, thought:  Every store carried the same as every other store... you know the feeling. Lowest common denominator springs to mind.

There were a few exceptions. Thanks goodness. We wound up walking a back road to our car. Sabina & Rosamar & I whipped out our cameras.

  

Shadow delights:  Patterns! Multiples!!

The day was overshadowed by Sal & Jobst loosing their passports, not going to Manilla, but back to Seattle to wend their way back to Vancouver by bus. We gathered to provide them with a shower, good food, and lots of sympathy. Oh my!!

That's it for now.

Hoary bat surprise

The shift to Maui happened Monday evening. 

Crossing the water was for me better than usual. I worked on my writing, read a bunch from my new favorite book, Justice Older than Law, about the life of Dovey Roundtree, an important black civil-rights lawyer, slept and did a couple of Sudokus.

The first evening we were here I saw my first ever Maui bat, called the hoary bat because the tips of its fur are frost white.  This bat is one of two, only two, mammals indigenous to Maui. The other is the monk seal. That is something to think about! They think the bats were blown here a long time ago.

I was blown away that I has never seen this bat before, after all these years of coming here. I wondered about what might have shifted that I see them now.

We are most of the way settled in, George more than I. I haven't walked the beach yet, waiting for a good low tide with hard sand for my knee's welfare!

Meanwhile I am enjoying again the coconut palms. I LOVE the Moire effects that the palm spikes make with each other. I have many photos like this.

 Then there are the sunsets....SUBLIME colors.

                                                                That's it for now.

LINES

I've taken many photos of lines in my day. Today's the day to share two.

First from our new stadium that cost us $500 million (& leaks)!! But watching this go up was a constant visual & linear treat.

 

Telephone wires anywhere in the world...& the same with crows.

                 That's it for now.

Silhouettes

I was looking at my photos yesterday and decided it was time to have some fun with silhouettes. You know there was a M. Silhouette? He was a French profile portraitist, I think.

These are from a shop in Albequerque. 

                                                                Pensive Erica.

Timmo exiting.

That's it for now.

Cloth Love

Now that I can think of something aside from hurting I can start to move on.

I realized this morning that I haven't done any sewing for 3.5 weeks. Or touched cloth either, except to help Leslie put her Arcs of Love & thank-you quilt up over her bed. I stumbled upon my photos from the Nancy Crow workshop from April 2010.

Nancy often wears an apron & kerchief. Her first exercise for us was to sort all our cloth from light to dark.

 

hmmmmm......

This doesn't look right....
because it doesn't go from dark to light.
Still, yummy colors!

These look a bit paler, softer.
Still not too bad.








Another zone of my effort.

 

The task is a little different when the cloth is not a solid color.

My mind gets itchy when I revisit these ambient shots. 

So a couple of projects from the workshop.  The first was developing a composition with lines & shapes, one that we would build on later.

Two color exercise

This was another early assignment-- with two colors & a few rules to lean on.... 

Here we had to do LOTS of prep to get this far. I love working with wavy cutting lines.

I managed to wreck this one as I was trying to make it better. That happens sometimes. I still have the pieces, you just never know! 

That's it for now.

spoke too soon

Getting better is very gradually happening. Being better is illusive. It comes & goes.

I decided not to go to Boulder for Thanksgiving. George is going though. That's good. I get to regroup before Maui.

                                                    ***

While I was looking for cocooning photos last time I came across some terrific reflection photos. So today, for diversion, I thought I'd post some of them.

These were all taken at the Olympia waterfront on a walk with the Trivenways.

I love these for their abstract qualities. That's it for today.