at the silkscreen cinema

2012-01-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

hello and happy 2012!

i've been living and studying in small-town ontario,

and have sorely neglected this blog for the past few months.

it's been more difficult finding moments to photograph familiar things

than i do when i'm travelling. but watch this space.

and in the meantime, if you'd like, to you can follow me on instagram (@apennyplain).

2011-07-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

peterborough, ontario

19.07.11

2011-07-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

2011-07-15T01:23:00.000-07:00

2011-07-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

moret-sur-loing, france

12.07.11

2011-07-03T15:11:00.001-07:00

2011-07-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

yesterday afternoon, while waiting

for the avocado popsicles to set

h. and i went exploring here:

secousse au comptoir generale

80, quai de jemmapes - 75010 paris

2011-07-03T01:09:00.001-07:00

paris, france

02.07.2011

2011-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

cappadocia, turkey

2011-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

2011-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

istanbul, turkey

21.06.11

2011-06-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

2011-06-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

the sergei parajanov museum

28.05.11

2011-06-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

2011-05-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

sometimes in the yerevan mornings, mount ararat

seems more like a cloud than a mountain. it hangs over the city;

like memory or the ghost of longing - just a shape in the blue,

right over there in the distance.

2011-05-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

photograph for andréa

2011-05-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

i spent the last few days in armenia,

travelling by bus, train & taxi across the caucasus:

the mountains arteries and into the heart of the city

(with its extravagant currency: popcorn, cognac & roses)

i find it so easy to accept the discovery of landscape,

blank language, strange maps.

everything hints at the vastness of this summer.

2011-05-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

2011-05-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

we take the bus to the end of the line and hike up through the orange groves,

to the church on the mountain overlooking this city, the sea.

ii.

he catches up with me walking home from school,

heading down the lane to the villages, navigating puddles and dust

and he tells me all the names of the trees.

2011-05-12T01:25:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T05:21:00.000-07:00

it's tuesday morning,

and the air is damp with melting and acrid garbage fires

the smoke crawls into your throat and stays all day.

old women with bright scarves and bottle-cap glasses

shopping for their unsalted greens and propane,

schoolchildren snapped into the gilded framework of the city,

collections of bad canvases, soviet medals, dry samovars

yes, we're all of us waiting by roadsides.

2011-05-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

2011-05-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

2011-05-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

apologies for the quiet -

the past few weeks have been like that

ingesting books, movies, ideas

and putting 'x's on the calendar.

these photographs are from easter weekend.

2011-04-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

from one end of the boulevard and back in an afternoon

blue into blue into blue

and everywhere,

the thing about today is sky.

2011-04-05T23:27:00.001-07:00

abandoned bakery on the way downtown.

2011-04-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

it's taken me almost three months

to find the upper floor of the bazari (the smell of green & good earth),

all these lessons in absence and plenty.

snow white apples & towered rounds of cheese

what i wouldn't give for a handful of ginger, a kitchen of my own

and a conversation with you.

2011-03-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

2011-03-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

a weekend trip to gonio

and the first

true days of summer.

when you get to the

border into turkey,

past ten identical shops selling oranges and sunflower seeds,

the sign overhead wishes you good luck.

2011-03-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

2011-03-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

sometimes, everything reminds me of 'grey gardens'

in an unendurable way.

i remind myself that the black sea is blue,

that springtime will come; those are birds in the

broken windows of the train station.

when i came here i was thirsty for rust.

2011-03-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

2011-03-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

2011-03-07T04:43:00.000-08:00

2011-03-07T04:38:00.000-08:00

2011-03-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

2011-03-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

2011-02-27T03:02:00.000-08:00

2011-02-24T03:33:00.000-08:00

2011-02-23T03:34:00.000-08:00

more street scenes from kutaisi,

everything turning to stone.

2011-02-22T02:36:00.000-08:00

i've been hesitant to bring my camera to school

but when one of the georgian co-teachers started snapping pictures,

so did i. monday afternoon with the grade eights.

this is the best classroom: south facing windows, across the orange orchards

you can see my house and in the distance, eucalyptus trees, snow & mountains.

2011-02-21T03:38:00.000-08:00

one: up in the cobbled hills of kutaisi, above the river and all the corrugated roofs and woodsmoke. the darmp roads run out here and turn to waterfalls with the rain. walking in the rain, walking in the rain, the rain inside my shoes. these colours are cut deep into the metal doors and fences.

two: (studies in grey i) walls of the bagrati palace-citadel, 6th century

three: (studies in grey ii) soviet-era apartments

four: (studies in grey iii) sunday morning at school one

2011-02-21T01:47:00.000-08:00

one:

a paperback copy of murakami's 'underground', deciphered from the bricollage collection of books and alphabets at vinyl cafe. we measure our hours in cigarette smoke and beer, this is the here and there of just another friday afternoon.

two:

a weekend trip to kutaisi leads to here - the skeletal grey stone, the scaffolding of the bagrati cathedral (ბაგრატის ტაძარი) on the top of uk'imerioni hill.

three + four:

we're on the cusp of the bazari in kutaisi (spices catalogued by colour, the raw hearts of animals, we know it's winter by dried fruit and bitter honey, by the rain.) the clusters hanging like garlands from the stall opposite are my favourite: strings of hazelnuts dipped in a fruit candy made from grapes. the first time i saw them, i was convinced they were candles. (the oranges, oranges, the oranges.)

2011-02-17T02:33:00.001-08:00

2011-02-13T21:50:00.000-08:00

preparing to tear down the last cinema in batumi

took weeks until, all of a sudden, it was gone.

and in the background, all the gilded towers of the city -

wreckage and artificial rust

that statue of medea is centuries younger than it looks.

2011-02-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

twelve hours in tbilisi: i took the night train there and back again.

long-distance errands, wine and blinis for luncheon,

hannah talking with the statues.

2011-02-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

2011-02-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

2011-01-31T04:15:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T13:13:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T12:56:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T11:35:00.001-08:00

2011-01-26T05:07:00.000-08:00

2011-01-26T04:48:00.000-08:00

2011-01-26T04:30:00.000-08:00

2011-01-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

2011-01-17T11:45:00.001-08:00

2011-01-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

2011-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

tbilisi, georgia
first day, first light

01.16.11

2011-01-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

warsaw

2011-01-09T23:09:00.001-08:00

2010-12-28T06:58:00.000-08:00

2010-12-25T09:01:00.001-08:00

2010-12-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

on my last day in montreal,

my friend n. and i explored an abandoned factory

in the city's west end.

we had to climb under a highway to get there but

it was an amazing place to see: beautiful, derelict, perfect.

2010-12-25T07:54:00.001-08:00

2010-12-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

i just got home

from what's been a busy month of travel:

living in all the places where the train stops

(montreal, kingston, toronto).

lots of photographs

in the days to follow!

these three were taken in ontario, on or around

the shortest day of the year.

2010-12-14T07:48:00.000-08:00

2010-11-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

(andréa de keijzer + julia grummitt)

2010-11-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

2010-11-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

2010-11-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

(andréa de keijzer + julia grummitt)

2010-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

(andréa de keijzer + julia grummitt)

2010-11-13T11:30:00.000-08:00

(andréa de keijzer + julia grummitt)

2010-11-12T20:04:00.000-08:00

(andréa de keijzer + julia grummitt)

i spent most of today at cherry beach, collaborating
on a set of photographs with my dear & very talented friend, andréa.
strange november: we're brushing off sunlit feathers instead of snow.

2010-11-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

2010-11-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

2010-11-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

2010-11-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

2010-11-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

(photograph via timetales)

hello!

i've been more or less absent for the past month,

which has been quietly busy with thanksgiving, birthdays,

and lots of train travel.

the nights are cold here now, and when i wake

there is frost on the branches, on the leaves, in the morning light.

i promise more photographs soon.

for now,
these are from last spring:

2010-10-03T20:13:00.000-07:00

2010-10-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

2010-09-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

2010-09-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

2010-09-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

2010-09-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

2010-09-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

2010-09-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

photograph via look at me

classic strudel involves hours of hands-on preparation,

rolling and pulling the dough until it is so thin

you can read a newspaper through it.
-the new best recipe cookbook, p 938

there's a stillness (sunlight and unripe leaves)
that comes of loneliness
and the yawning, constant
noise of solitude as something
unnoticed, until the moment

(the rooms in the house are peaceful
and dark with the scent of orchids.)

apples,

dropping from branches, bury in the
untame grass below.

when i wake, wild turkeys are
under the nearest trees
or down the gravel road
eating a blanket of acorn and stone.
they run from us, but at night,
i hear them roosting in the forest cliffs.

i find this extraordinary and comforting. i catch my breath
when i see them, i get tangled in the hems of their quiet.

2010-09-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

2010-09-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

2010-09-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

2010-09-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

2010-09-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

photograph via time tales

no, the human heart

is unknowable.

but in my birthplace

the flowers still smell

the same as always.
-tsurayuki

i moved halfway across the country, this continent,

(we are wild and expansive, distance is a geological formation)

last week and spent the end of summer with my family in the countryside

just north of kingston, ontario.

i have been reading novels & non-fiction, already more

grounded and focused. summer-finished, september-ready.

is this how it feels to miss the atlantic?

who wouldn't like to wake up on the isle of innisfree
to muck about that bee-loud glade like he?

there is a great deal of goodness here. i am searching for

words adequate to the beauty of a place so much

like home. i had forgotten the feeling of family,

i had forgotten the heady afternoons in sunlit orchards,

fish in the water, stillness in the lake.

two nights ago, my father and i made applesauce

(pink like the inside of seashells) and later, above the barn,

a harvest moon lit up the landlubbing sky like an ocean.

you're never far away from me
i've had this lock of your hair now for a half a century or more
i keep it in a matchbox in the pocket of my coat.

-christine fellows

2010-08-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

2010-08-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

2010-08-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

2010-08-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

2010-08-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

photographs from 'camera obscura' by graham ward
viewpoint gallery, 1272 barrington street, halifax ns, through august 29

i finally went to that photography exhibit

i've been wondering about all week

was entranced by graham ward's cyanotype prints.

i like the equal sense of time and timelessness about his glass-plate negatives,

"Self-taught in the art of these old processes, I've learned that producing these images cannot be rushed and that the production of a print takes time."

ward makes his own light-sensitive emulsion, builds his own cameras and his artwork feels like a

lesson in history and the innovation of nostalgia.

i want summer camp and apple orchards at twilight.

they remind me of joseph cornell's subconscious, of a secret life in image,

all the places you & i will never meet.

the here and now is becoming impossible,

but our meandering tethers us magnificently in

this moment.

dreamed of

quaint toy like bird

wings

opening like clamshell

joseph cornell's dreams

the most beautiful bodies are like transparent glass.

the most powerful flames like water washing the tired feet of travelers.

the greenest trees like lead blooming in the thick of the night.

czeslaw milosz, hymn

2010-08-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

2010-08-12T20:46:00.000-07:00