My Artsy Side – An Image & A Story
Having Art In My Heart
I don’t know why I haven’t included this photo in my CLA portfolio. But then again, I don’t know why I put anything in my CLA portfolio. It was taken in Louisville, KY in2010. That’s me and my wife trapped in the prism.
Now that I have decided to continue my “Mosaic of Life” posts, I need to fill in some blanks. The Basset Hound on the leach is Beulah. She had a fenced in yard that she roamed unleashed, but she did also love to explore other territories. She was my last pet, and my second favorite. (Sam, who was a dachshund, was my first personal pet was my first.)
When Beulah and I were having our “outside the yard” adventure, Rocky would frequently show up. Rocky was a Pitbull and one of the sweetest of all Beulah’s friends. He lived about three doors down, which was a quarter of a mile down the road. I don’t know how he knew we were doing our thing, but he frequently showed up to say hi.
Since I have decided that my “Mosaic of Life” is more than a one-year project, it’s time to fill in some missing pieces. Let’s start with the first one.
I know this is post #153 in my Mosaic directory, but it is the first picture I have of my existence on this earth. The other person in the picture is my big brother, Ronnie. For the first nine years of my life, I constantly looked up to him for the lessons he could teach me. Then, he was abruptly taken from me when my mother took him and abandoned the rest of us.
Ronnie was later named Jim from an adoption by mom’s 3rd husband. My dear brother passed away in 2022, two months after my last visit to him. Since he lived 1500 miles away, that visit was only the third one I had had with him over the years. I always wonder what my life would have been like if he had been around more to help me with my ever-present adversities.
“My Mind’s Eye” is one of the most descriptive phrases I have ever come across. To me, it is more than just a visual element—it’s packed with symbolism. Typically, the eye represents perception, consciousness, and awareness. In this context, it can also be seen as a metaphor for seeing deeper than just the surface. But, in other contexts, it is our inner eye that sees, thinks, imagines, dreams, feels, and senses things about your inner and the outer world.
To me, I see my Mind’s Eye as my creative soul.
It drives our childlike compassion to see things differently than the rest of the world.
Getting to the physical side of mental imagery, I found it fascinating the about 1% of people have no ability to form visual images in their minds, while almost 3% can vividly see images. Most of us are stuck somewhere in between.
I was a weird kid in unimaginable ways. So my first real thoughts about “My Mind’s Eye” came from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Anyway, the picture above is what my mind’s eye saw as what my cluttered mind looks like on a typical day. The glass sculpture was in the lobby of the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2007. It is about 12 ft tall and probably 5 ft wide. When I walked in the door, I saw nothing else for in unimaginable period of time.
We were about halfway through our 2011 Canadian adventure when we happened upon an Acadian village in New Brunswick, Canada. It was a very interesting place, but in my mind the star of it all was the old greeter above who welcomed us to his home.
He must have heard us rustling about and thought he would take a peek. I wished him well, and congratulated him for all the obvious winters he had survived there. He didn’t have much to say, but was still there when we left the building next to his home. Every time I view the photos from this visit, I joyfully remember my forever Canadian friend
I am still enjoying all the photos I took from my March trip to an Indiana University greenhouse. There was such a variety of plants there. Even though I have seriously been taking photos of flowers and such, I haven’t really done much studying to know the names and varieties. I think I kinda just enjoy the artsy side of this new hobby. They do make some interesting mosaics, don’t they?
I don’t know if the above plant is some sort of Medusa or if it is just dead? Either way is just fine with me. BTW… I purposely took the pic with all the infrastructure in the background. That shows that it is a working greenhouse. I like that.
I am coming to believe that sometimes the most beautiful things are the simplest and smallest things. The subtle colors above draw me in
For this mosaic, I want to talk a little about AI (artificial intelligence) and how it relates to “My Mind’s Eye”. I am a techie, but even I am getting a little disturbed about the constant presence of AI in my life. Maybe the most disturbing thing is AI is that it is becoming more and more dominant as the days and months go by. I realize that this is new stuff that will eventually settle down to some established state, but right now it just seems too pervasive.
Some say that AI will replace artists, but, I kind of have a different view of the matter.
Yes, there are now apps that can mimic those of past artists. I used one of those apps on the mosaic above to give my photograph of a Galena Illinois street a Van Gogh-ish type flavor. I had an image in my mind’s eye of what I wanted it to look like. The morphing app did a pretty good job of meeting my expectations.
That got me to thinking, is AI just another tool in the artist’s palette? In the old days, meaning 600 years ago, the only way to produce what was in the artist mind’s eye was pigmented oils of various hues. It turns out that many of those pigments proved to be very toxic, and I imagine, caused premature death for the artist. Then about 150 years ago someone invented photographs. That technology was adamantly resisted by the artists of the day, but now is considered an art form of its own. Will AI enhancement of photos eventually prove to be the same. I kinda think so.
To me, art is something that simply fulfills what the mind’s eye sees.
Does it matter if that is done with messy toxic paint of AI based apps? But, getting to the crux of the matter, AI is not a creative process, but instead it just mimics other’s creativity. So, I don’t think the analog artist is threatened that much.
Here is another post of a huge plant I found at the Indiana University Biology Dept greenhouse. This guy was crowding the 12 ft ceiling. The “Elkhorn” label was for a plant in the foreground, not this one. I’m going to have to go back and find this guy’s name
I think this is one of my most artsy photographs I have taken. It is kinda in the vain of my many reflection pictures. But, this one was taken through a large window in the Terminal Tower building lobby in Cleveland, Ohio.
Below is the exterior view of the building.
Just when I think I have photographed the most complex “Into The Depth” flower, another one come to take the “Most” title. If I were to make an abstract painting that described the complexity of my mind, it would probably closely resemble this picture.
Just so you know, this picture was not modified in the least from when it was taken.
I have found out that Lego is not just a bunch of blocks, but instead it is a creation yet to be discovered. It took about 4 hours to build this 771 piece LEGO Icon Succulents. It was a very peaceful 4 hours. Yes, I know this is a “kit” that has probably been sold to thousands of different people. But this is just what I needed almost a year ago to finally push me in a different direction. It was the beginning of the process, and I’m certainly glad it happened.
These flowers remind me of something entirely different. What makes this bouquet so beautiful is the variety of individual plants that make it up. Yes, a dozen roses tell a story usually involving love, but a beautiful variety of flowers such as above shows us that diversity of life is where all the beauty resides.
Going off on a related tangent, streaming video makes it possible to go back in time to revisit all the great TV shows of the past. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am currently watching Northern Exposure, which ran from 1990 to 1995. With all these old classics now available again, I have discovered that the TV shows I rate as the best usually have a very diverse cast, and they all seem to get along so well. That is so different from what I see in my daily life.
Being a deaf Aspie, I have two strikes against me, at least as described by the “normal” world (of which there is no such thing). I am stuck between two worlds, and neither seem to be able to see me as I am. There is the deaf world and the hearing world, and there is the neurodiverse world and the neurotypical world. Since being a deaf Aspie makes me a 1 in 160,000 sort of thing is just a normal occurrence now. But that’s OK. I am finally comfortable with who I am and no longer feel obliged to fit into the mold of those who see me as a “strange bird”.
This mosaic was taken on the shores of the Great Lakes. Indiana only has a minute segment of shoreline, but what it has is beautiful indeed. It is at the very southern end of a 317-mile Lake Michigan. Most of the weather in this part of the country comes from Canada, so I suppose that is the reason that many of the rocks and pebbles accumulate at the southern end. To me, this mosaic kinda looks like organized chaos. I especially love the blue rocks scattered among the others.
Whenever I think of the word Chaos I am reminded of one of my favorite SciFi movies called Tron. It is about an inventor who got transported onto the Grid (otherwise known as the Internet today). Everything there was digital in the movie and many of the scenes were impressive, at least considering the movie was made in 1982. “Chaos, Good News” was one of the most remembered quotes from the movie.
Of course, this is not the only SciFi movie I have watched. In fact, I am a junkie when it comes to this genre of entertainment. More on that later.
One of my favorite things to look for when I visited local or regional museums were containers. Back in the day before TV commercials, magazines, and such, the primary way to get attention to their products was by creative packaging.
This picture was taken in the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. I will give you more details about the park in a future mosaic. For this mosaic, I just what to focus on the containers I found there. Each one tells a story of it’s own.
The last time I was at the Grand Canyon was when this picture was taken in 2005. I have been there on two other occasions. What was special this time was that we stayed in the lodge on the south end of the canyon. We could lie in our bed at the national park lodge as see the canyon about 50 feet away. It was like the other two times I had visited there in that it just didn’t seem real. The grandeur of it was just beyond imagination. One of the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” things I regret not doing was to take a trip to the bottom of the canyon and look up, instead of down. If you ever get a chance to do that, you absolutely should, or you, like me, will regret it.
This picture was taken in January 2014
This picture was taken at our 21-year homestead that I left almost 3 years ago. Due to my deafness and resulting loss of balance, snow was always a hazard for me. Over my life I have taken a half-dozen serious falls while attempting to navigate these conditions. Despite the broken ribs and back compression fractures, this is one of my favorite posts looking out our living room picture window.
Most of us go through life dreaming of the big things, but in reality, life is mostly made up of the little things that happen every day. RJsMosaic is about celebrating those small things as well as the big ones.
It is also about celebrating the things that make us the unique people we are. It is about our special talents, achievements, and stories of our lives. It is about appreciating each day the Lord gives us. If this appeals to you, I invite you to tag along with me during this journey celebrating our time on this earth. I also invite you to share your stories via comments.
Eventually, I dream that this site will have many like-minded subscribers/members who are linked together in our celebration of the Mosaic of Life. We will share stories and experiences and support each other. I know that sounds like a pipe dream, but after you get to know me, you will realize pipe-dreams are what I am made of.
I realize that this dream of friends getting together is called social networking, and has long since been replaced by social media. If you are like me, your Facebook page is nothing like it used to be. I used to be able to see what friends were up to and share my stories with them. Now, most Internet stuff has become social media sites that are primarily interested in selling you something. Facebook has become more like a commercial television network of yesteryear that is full of advertisements than a networking site it once was.
I don’t know how successful this site might eventually become, but one thing is certain that as long as I manage it
