Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Taking Time Out

Consciousness - c Lynda Lehmann

Burning the Midnight Oil - c Lynda Lehmann


Right now I'm burning the midnight oil, trying to print, mat and frame dozens of prints to hang in a local shop and a gallery in Maine, and I'm over my head with a bunch of other projects and goals. I won't enumerate because I don't like to post a lot of details about my personal life on the web, and because I don't want to bore you with long lists. I will not likely be posting for the next several weeks but as always, I want you to know that I'll miss every one of you with whom I've shared the blogging journey.

Be well, count your blessings and enjoy your days. I'll come back to posting and visiting you, as soon as I can!


All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

More Views of Nature at the Shore...

Alone in the Surf - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Piping Plover - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Chums - Image c Lynda Lehmann

True Grit - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Stranded - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Sea Wreath - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Rock of Ages - Image c Lynda Lehmann

Here are some of the sights that have given me peace in the past few weeks. I hope they do the same for you.

The photo "Stranded," which I know I've posted before, was taken at a very picturesque and interesting spot on the beach, where the remnants of a rotting wharf of years past, has taken on a life of its own. My husband thinks huge boats must have pulled in to the Long Island shore here, to haul out sand from local sand mines. I'll have to research that and let you know. At any rate, the "ruins" of all these wood pilings offer many interesting views and create a Stonehenge type environment. I'll be working up my other shots to show you soon.

On another note, please bear with me while I re-design my page! I hope you get out into the sparkling sunshine today. I had intended to do just that, but at this rate, fiddling with my template and settings, I'm not likely to make it past my desk!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art, please visit
Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography

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Monday, April 12, 2010

Creating False Value: The Mark of Emptiness?

Mad Dogs and Solipsisms
Acrylic on Canvas, c 2009 Lynda Lehmann


This is not a "feel good" post. So if you are depressed today, wait to read it until you're feeling better, or skip it. I don't want to bring anybody down.

I have to say that in all the fascinating options for meeting people, communicating and interacting that are available to us on the web, we've maybe come to an impasse. When everybody is trying desperately to be seen, or heard, or branded, and to sell themselves as a CEO, SEO or expert in multiple facets of every kind of business, the frenzy overpowers any potential for quality or meaning. We're hearing too much about actions and reactions to and from our social networking sites on mainstream newscasts these days, leaving less time to report critical news from around the world. We proudly report numbers, in our love for having amassed vast quantities of essentially anonymous and dis-interested "followers." What does this prove? Are we in kindergarten? Enough is enough, already. Let's talk.

This is only my opinion. Just as we have too many TV channels to choose from, and nine out of ten of them offer trash: the cheapest, basest forms of titillation and over-stimulation in the name of entertainment--however violent or wanton and forever dwelling on the darkest depths of the human soul--we are inundated with sites promising us the best exposure and experience for this and that. I've been drawn to them as much as anybody else, I'm ashamed to admit. Where is our intellectual perspective?

Well, aside from becoming virtual Cyborgs (no pun intended) in our over-reliance on artificial intelligence, we are becoming even more distant from the ability to maintain internalized systems of moral values, taking it by rote instead, in heaping doses, from our respective churches, synagogues and morality gurus. You can't claim to be "religious" if you're a hater (of all who differ from you in their choices) or if you've forgotten the sounds of the human voice, or the cues of lowered eyes, a chuckle, or a facial tic. Or the aroma of blossoms in spring....

Come forward, people, and let's share our humanity instead of our projected, pre-packaged slick personas, fashioned in the need to point people toward our product or creed. Let's communicate honestly and openly about real issues, instead of using social media for their opiate value. Let's be real and forget about presenting ourselves as gurus and experts and financial whizzes, and just talk....

I had to vent tonight. These questions have been on my mind for awhile, and I think they might be questions worth pursuing. Is it because we are jaded by a cultural mindset that proclaims in so many various ways that "More is better?" Are we becoming more neurotic and compulsive in our need to connect, yet somehow defeating our need by being spread so thin? How do you feel about the effect social networking has had on you and the people you know? Do you think our need to create "false value" to sell ourselves, reflects personal insecurity and cultural and economic decline?

As with everything, balance and judgment are requisite. Any behavior, unchecked, can become pathological. For both individuals and societies. If you and your life are not really being enhanced by the quality of your interactions on the web, don't be afraid to back off! Sit down and have a good talk with yourself, for starters. And don't forget that YOU are your best friend!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography
or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Earth's Ever-Present Voice

Broken Conch - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Peculiar Mix - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Stranded - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Shell Heap - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Basking on the Boulders - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Surf - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Flap and Flutter - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Alone in the Surf - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann



Earth's Ever-Present Voice

Nature speaks
and I must listen.

In inklings and intimations
She speaks to me,
diffuse and subtle
yet powerful and sure.

Her Voice comes in the
crunch of gravel and seashells underfoot,
in the hissing of sand
blowing sideways across the beach
in a gale
that stings my ankles

and whirls away.

Her Voice is in the
rakish angle of an emerging fin:
a diver following his own Muse,
deep underwater in
ironic search for treasure.


Her Voice is in the arc and call
of seagulls circling shoals
for late-day food
and even in the roaring engine of a lobster boat
making headway towards the shore.

Her Voice is in the sparkle of
quartz-laden pebbles
strewn on the beach,
each etched with its own
pattern of experience,

smoothed but striated,
glistening with minerals
while soaking in Eons,
the wear of centuries

and in the tumult
of children playing on the beach,
their laughter ringing
on the teasing wind.

Her Voice rises on the foaming tide
as it sweeps the shore,
engulfing seaweed, shards of glass and
millions of grains of sand.

Her Voice rises on the
scream of the gull
diving at the jetty,
extending its claws to claim a place
on the crusted rocks,

and in the flickering of sunlight
on all the detritus and
natural objects of the shore.

Her Voice is in
the singing of my heart
as I absorb
infinite dimensions of splendor

and in the stirring of my soul,
reveling in the
wildness and the freedom.

It is the Voice of Earth
calling to me
in intimations and inklings,
subtle and tentative
but always sure.

I must stop and listen.



Questions for My Blogging Friends: Is this poem too long? Should I cut a verse or two? Do you find the repetition of the phrase "Her Voice" to be boring or cumbersome? Your advice would be deeply appreciated! I look forward to any constructive comments, both positive and negative. Thanks for your visit!


All images and poem c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Big Purple Pansy

Big Purple - Lynda Lehmann c 2010

Now that we're having some nice weather here in the Northeast, I would like to wish everyone some time to enjoy the sunshine and the fresh and fragrant spring air (with allergies under control, of course!)

On another note, I'm pleased to announce that "Peripheral Vision" is on the "Guide to Art Schools" list of the Best 47 Photo Blogs on the Web. My thanks to them for including my blog and congratulations to Lana Gramlich at The Dreaming Tree for being chosen for the list, as well. Lana is feeling ill this week so my thoughts are with her, and my wishes for a speedy recovery. Feel better, Lana!


Photo and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

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