I have been sanding through an enhydro agate geode for over a year, slowly wearing away its surface toward the crystal-lined pool inside. It is part of a larger project exploring geodes through hand-sanding to examine things that usually go unseen.
As I’ve approached the center of the geode, friends have been asking what I plan to do with the water. Let it spill? Save Continue reading
To get close enough to a wild scorpion to take its photo is scary: the Arizona bark scorpion isn’t deadly, but it’s the most venomous scorpion in the United States, with a sting that causes severe pain.
It’s more terrifying for the scorpion, I’m guessing. It’s Halloween weekend in Phoenix, and I’m less than an inch away from its body, a 4x micro lens on my camera phone in one hand and a Scorpion Master black light flashlight in the other. I don’t kick or turn over any rocks, and I periodically sweep the light around my feet. Continue reading
It’s hard not to notice crushed snails on sidewalks. But I usually didn’t notice the subtle slime trails that emerged out of front yard gardens, where and slugs and snails glided along glittering lines of slime crisscrossing the sidewalk. These lines mapping where the little creatures have traveled are visible only for a moment, when the sun happens to light them up at just the right angle.
One trail in particular reminded me of the people who use the Map My Run app to leave trails in the shapes of a body part or to spell words, and after I saw it, I was suddenly tuned in to slug and snail drawings like never before. Continue reading
To see things differently doesn’t always mean seeing more. Limiting the senses– a candlelight dinner, a silent cathedral–enhances sensory experience.
One way to limit color vision is to wear colored lenses. I have been wearing purple lenses as sunglasses, and occasionally indoors, for several weeks weeks. They came in a pack of 12 assorted colored sunglasses from a company called Glo-X. Continue reading
Nighttime isn’t colorful, and was even less so in the days before artificial lighting. Human color vision decreases the darker it gets, eventually reaching true black and white.
However, with a spectroscope in hand, there are rainbows Continue reading
As part of my continuing experiments in visual perception, I set out to create a series of simple linocut prints that use an “after image” optical illusion to create an image literally completed only in the viewer’s head.
No matter what happens during the night, the sun always returns. Pretty much every human who has ever lived has seen it burst over the horizon.
It’s a strange combination of being common enough to ignore and so incredible there is nothing else like it: the perfect recipe for a cliche. Continue reading
I wore blue-blocker sunglasses to see what the world looked like without blue. For exactly one month.
What would it be like to see blue again for the first time?
I was excited to find out. With little fanfare, I removed the sunglasses Continue reading
I recently re-discovered classic BluBlocker sunglasses, and wondered what would happen if I wore them around the clock. I’ve been wearing them for nearly three weeks.
As the sun sets each summer evening, it sends a shimmering pig up the side of a tall storage building down the street. At first, the pig looks like it’s standing on the sidewalk, then it ascends the wall and fades as the sun disappears.
Brian noticed and identified it a few years ago. I still remember him standing at the window of our apartment, repeating the phrase Continue reading
