The Monastery Within

The Monastery Within

Fading into the distance, the arches of the monastery at Imperia Vecchia seem to connote the passage of time. The tiny figure staring out at the far end might symbolize the smallness (or perhaps the significance) of the individual, in the stream of human history.

How do you think about your life?  Do you regard each human life as significant or as just a grain of sand blowing in the wind of the cosmos?  How do you reconcile your own smallness and subjectivity with the vastness and competing interests in the universe? 

My particular accommodation is to look for beauty every day, in nature and in the people I know.  What works for you?  What activities, goals, or values do you turn to when you get the existential "blues"?

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission (email is okay) by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site at http://www.lehmann.myexpose.com/gallery if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art!

November Flame: The Hope of a Golden Rose

November Flame - Image c Lynda Lehmann

This afternoon I was fortunate to get out for a walk.  The day was brilliant.  Golden with sunshine, mild and dry.  
I came upon this yellow rose and had to photograph it.  I thought it was outstanding for its beauty, still intact and golden in the third week of November.  Although its prime is past, it endures.  The beauty of its soft petals and brilliant color in the gleaming afternoon light made me think about the nature of the life cycle, and loss.  
We're born.  We live.  We die.  But what's in between can shine for us in joy and beauty as we choose our priorities, act out of love, and move through our days.  We all endure misfortune, sadness and loss, but infinite beauty remains to offer comfort and inspire us to move on. 
May your life be bright with the power of creative passions, the solace of natural beauty, lasting love for those present and past, and hope for our individual and collective futures.  This holiday season and always.

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission (email is okay) by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site at http://www.lehmann.myexpose.com/gallery if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art!

Sea Lace and Sadness

Rimmed in Foam

This has been a sad month for my husband and me.  We have lost three friends in the past four weeks or so.  Three people full of life and wonder and vitality.  Where their energy has gone, no one can comprehend.

  

 I am reminded of the preciousness of life.  We are all buffeted by the tide, often surrounded by circumstances beyond our understanding or control.

Sea Lace

Yet life remains beautiful, offering us moments of beauty and contemplation at unexpected times and in unexpected places.  Thank goodness for those times when visions of natural beauty quiet the mind and heart and give solace.

Steadfast in the Tide

Like the boulder half submerged and pounded by endless waves both large and small, we endure through pain and adversity.

The Jetty Points West

We take comfort in the love we feel for those who have passed.  We know that the love they showed and our love for them, endures in our hearts.  The sun will set, but we know with some certainty, it will rise again. 
To the families of those who have passed, I wish a sense of comfort and peace in knowing that the pain of their loved one has ceased.  They are part of something larger than we.  Even as our hearts swell to bursting with pain we know we are part of the Stream of Humanity in a larger, incomprehensible Eternity. 

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission (email is okay) by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site at http://www.lehmann.myexpose.com/gallery if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art!

"Magic Lamp" Silk Scarf Designs

I'm excited to report that my "Magic Lamp" images will be among the designs made from my digital paintings, that will become available in the coming weeks for purchase at Designer Scarves by Marlena!


Many thanks to Marlena and Bob Burger for inviting me to add my designs to their catalog of fine wearable silk art!  I love color, so I can't wait to purchase one for myself and wear it.  I'll post the link when my designs go online, so you can see them and give me your opinion.  


These damp, gloomy autumn days can sure use some color, especially after the foliage has turned brown and no longer creates its seasonal magic! 

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site www.lehmann.myexpose.com/ if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art.

Bold Pattern

Bold Pattern - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

I love pattern and texture.  All around us, a feast of visual material awaits our gaze, intake and processing.  When I keep my eyes and mind open my world is rich with interesting topographies in the most unexpected places, like this grating on the sidewalk in a small Maine town.  I don't know why it's there--whether it was designed for adornment or for a non-slip surface by the roadway--but it captured my eye.  It reminds me very much of African design. It's strong and compelling to look at, and the surface variations make the geometry even more interesting, a street-side iconography both pleasurable and surprising.

Have you noticed any graphic patterns around your neighborhood lately, in building materials or natural objects, that made you stop and stare or run for your camera?

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site www.lehmann.myexpose.com/ if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art.

The Weave of Life

"Grounded"  -  Image by Lynda Lehmann c 2010

An expression of love for texture as the underpinning of all the Form(s) on Earth.

Observing the details of nature makes us mindful of the wonder and cycles of life, and our own mortality.

THE WEAVE OF LIFE

I move in firmaments of texture

concavities minute as

bumps of binary code

strung like lights in my mind.

I am visual, viewing the universe

in hieroglyphics:

scratches on glass

grass waving in the breeze

silver bangles in lake water.

In and out,

Consciousness swells

before the place

where streams of words

meet Comprehension.

I will die

dissociated from wisdom and certainty

as do all others,

alone on a Rock

where tides flow to Eternity.

Yet still alive,

I choose the arbor path,

a tactile path imbued with inklings of

water, bark, moss, lichen

and wisps of tattered clouds

dancing among treetops,

to savor the likeness of all things

and their interaction:

the Splendid Shining Weave of Life.

******

All comments and constructive criticism gratefully accepted! I don't know anything about poetry--have not studied it since high school--but still I have the compulsion to write it from time to time.

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site at  Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography if you would like to see my paintings and more of my nature photography and digital art.