It asks: what if we, too, chose to bloom unapologetically, even when the world tries to box us in? #ContemporaryChineseArt #FemaleOilPainter #StillLife #FlowerPainting #ArtAndResilience #WomenInArt #GlobalConversations #BeautyAsResistance #ChineseContemporaryArt #BloomUnapologetically

Shadows fall across footprints in new snow. At the top of the photo there are snow-covered trees on both sides of the trail. In the foreground there's a large shadow running diagonally from the bottom up to the left (from a large sycamore tree, IIRC), and there are smaller shadows that fall from right to left across the trail. Plus, all the footprints make their own, much smaller, shadows.

I love winter shadows. Even better when the afternoon sun flirts with the clouds and dances on the snow.

#winterjoy #beautyinwinter #winterbeauty #beautyasresistance

Snow covered trail heading into the woods. Golden rays of the sun pick out some of the trees, and a patch of trail up ahead.

Frozen pond surrounded by trees, 3-4 kids (smoking weed, if you want to know) on a spit of land straight ahead. Trees outline the far shore, and continue around to our right. The sky is beginning to color as the sun gets close to setting.

A side trail makes a loop around a stand of evergreens. Sun is beginning to set, visible on through the deciduous trees on the left of hte trail.

Red of sunset, snow covered trail and field, bordered to right and left by woods. The sunset is hazy because a thick fog is rising off the snow in the near distance.

We got 2" snow out of a "up to a coating" event! Argyll & I started our walk at the moment of golden light. We ended in sunset fog.

#winterjoy #beautyinwinter #beautyasresistance

St Thomas' Episcopal, Whitemarsh PA. Snow-covered red sandstone church seen through tree branches. Behind it, light is beginning to slip through bands of clouds. In the right lower third, part of the churchyard.

Rows of mostly 18th & 19th century gravestones under a holly. All in the snow.

The edge of the west end of the church is visible in the left edge of the photo. In the center, several rows of graves. Tree branches overhead. And through them the light is beginning to slip through the clouds as the storm begins to clear. There's even a tiny bit of blue sky visible just above the sloping roof of the church.

"God involves us in his history, in his dreams. To dream, then, is to participate." --Leo XIV

Waiting. Dreaming. Yearning for light, mourning the shadows. Participating.

#beautyinwinter
#advent
#beautyasresistance

Looking east at sunset. Blueberry blue sky, then a band of rose, then the blue of earth’s shadow. Foreground is the sports field around which the walking track winds. Tall light poles scatter across the athletic field.

Sunset. Deep blue shading to purple at the top. Bright mandarin orange at the horizon, interrupted by sprays of tree branches. The foreground is already shadow-dark.

The evening walk. I love December skies. The blue under the rose is our shadow reaching forward into space

#Beautyinwinter
#Beautyasresistance
#Beautyisresistamce

A single large tree, foreground is high grass & weeds with fallen autumn leaves. In the center of the lower third are a series of bright pinkish red stems; these are the plant that caught my eye. In the background, more brush, more distant trees. Behind that is a band of hazy medium blue that is the trees on a ridge across a shallow wide valley; above that is the sky, which here looks a little yellowish because that part of the photo is overexposed from looking almost directly into the early morning sun.

A row of bare trees; the recently fallen reddish leaves (many red oaks among them) cover much of the ground. The early morning sun shines through in the upper right, making strong diagonal shadows. The edge of a macadam drive (partly covered in moss) runs at a slight angle up part of the left margin.

From the morning walk. The sun picked out the red arc of a small Rubus phoenicolasius. Grew up calling these wild raspberry; locals nowadays mostly call them wineberry.
It was merely the brightest of the reds =/- 90 min after sunup.

#beautyinwinter
#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance.

Large clump of reddish brown ornamental grass. Argyll’s head and shoulders appear at lower left. Trees in the upper background, grass in the middle, and various bright green weeds populate the ground at the lower edge.

Detail of the same clump of grass with the seed heads more visibleo.

From the morning walk. Ornamental grasses don’t generally wow me, but overnight soaking rain made this planting shine.

#beautyinwinter
#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

From the morning walk. Turn the sound up and listen to the birds. The Merlin app ID'd cedar waxwing along with the tufted titmouse, cardinal, and robin that I could pick out.

#beautyinwinter
#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

Vivid orange sunset. A single tree is silhouetted by the color on the left side, and some branches on a tree reach in from the upper right edge. The color fades into periwinkle toward the top.

Winter color

#beautyinwinter
#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

A sky of sulky clouds: a giant prehistoric bird pecks an orca while a bluebird turns into a crocodile. On the lip of the horizon, a patch of dried
Betadyne.
Sunrise in 40 minutes

#beautyinwinter
#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

Glowing embers lie shallow on horizon’s newly bared limbs. They emit no warmth, yet the copper moon floats above them, all but done and feather light.

#beautyinwinter
#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

An early winter landscape: cloudy sky in blue, grey, and white, with hints of purple. A line of dark brown and deep grey bare trees extends through the middle of the shot. Tan grasses and standing dried field corn take up the middle, just below and to the right of the trees. And in the lower left, the surprisingly bright green of grass that doesn't die back in winter. Lower left corner has some kind of reddish brown which seems to be a pile of leaves that have collected in a dip in the ground.

Winter colors have arrived.
From our walk last Wednesday afternoon. (I like walking in the early morning, but on cold & windy mornings I wait till it warms up a bit.)

#beautyinwinter
#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

Paved walking trail bifurcates the shot. A whole field of dried field corn on the right. A row of trees just to the left of the paved path--nearer ones are short and scrubby, and there's a magnificent sycamore shortly before the trail reaches the vanishing point. To the left of this line of trees, another field of dried corn. Blue sky with patchy clouds.

No photos from the morning walk because it was COLD and overcast. Argyll & I kept our heads down. But the sun flirted with us in the afternoon, so we walked more.

Somehow this vista makes me think of undergraduate walks to the east of Grand Rapids MI.

#beautyasresistance
#beautiyisresistance

A large sycamore. The bark peels in late summer & early fall, leaving many of its limbs with smooth white skin that reflects the sun. It’s doing that here. There is cloud cover behind its upper half, and blue sky across the middle, then streaky clouds lower down. Beneath the last large limb on the right side of the tree is a line of more distant trees with bare branches.

The sycamore’s glory is its winter bark.

#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

A pole with 3 old RR signal lights. The top 2 are round; the bottom one is oval and has vines hanging from it. Behind them is an overpass for a major local road.

Yesterday Argyll & I used a trail converted from a RR line.

I call these “The Watchers by the Way”, and have observed them over many years. Currently bearded by vines & sometimes defaced by graffiti, they stand and watch no matter what.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Three very dark brown, nearly black acorns from a chestnut oak. The one on the left still has the hull on the stem end. The background is textured because IIRC I found the acorns on a section of cement sidewalk.

No walk today because a dear friend I've not seen in a dozen years was in town. Here's a photo from 2021 of acorns from a chestnut oak. I adore chestnut oaks for their alligator-like bark and these dark, dark acorns.

#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

Lichen covered tree root. Tree trunk is at the left of the shot, and thre root emerges to the right, ending in a large knot that resemble the bulge of eyebrows on a mythical creature. There are mauve oak leaves covering the ground, and some green grass showing through. A scrim of trees in the back edge of the field of view are half denuded of their leaves.

Another view of the same tree root, this time a few feet away from its end, looking up its length. The root has a sort of snub "nose" to go with its prominent "eyebrows". The ground makes a small hillock around the base of the trunk, which rises in the middle of the shot. The ground is thick with fallen oak leaves, in shades of pink and purple

I love this oak tree root from my church's grounds. Like a growing gargoyle, eying the labyrinth. Photo is from last Thursday, after the deluge but before the wind.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Tall oak tree on the left turning a color halfway between maroon and chocolate. A macadam walk leads straight ahead, then branches to the left in front of the oak, while the main part goes straight for a bit then bends left around the church carillon tower. The tower is visible in the center of the photo, behind the branches of the oak tree. To the right of the tower the peaked roof of the main church is visible, and below and to the right of that is the choir room, partly hidden by the leaves and branches of another oak.

No walk this morning owing to a coastal low bringing sideways rain. When it began to clear, we happened to be at my church, so wandered the grounds.

The trees have dressed up to match the building.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

A fallen tree's roots, seen from the bottom. Not sure what kind of tree--the stand is mostly oak and beech. The lighter wedge at roughly the 5 o'clock position is embedded stone. It's a very rocky area.

Yesterday's walk.

Deep roots.

Deep roots persist, even when they break and fail.
Even as they decay, they support other life.

Persist.
#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Old hand operated water pump in the woods.

Closeup of the handle: "The F.E. Myers & Bro. Co."

Found this on today's walk, just past the edge of the current camping area in my local state park. Handle says "The F. E. Myers & Bro Co". Well-designed machinery--humans working together with nature to improve life--is its own beauty

#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

Autumn scene. The grass has turned golden brown, partly because of the light of the newly risen sun. There's a large tree on the horizon that is orange gold at the top, and still green at the bottom. To its left & right are smaller trees that are already gold, and a few trunks without leaves. The ground slopes substantially from the left to the right. there was frost, and I think it's visible on the grass in the shadow at the foreground.

Today was a very short walk, thanks to a car crash blocking the tiny (±130 yr old) RR underpass on the road I needed. So here's a view from Saturday.
It was visioning day at my church. Beauty is here for those who seek. So is clarity.

#beautyasresistance
#beautyisresistance

The first beams of morning sun catch a row of trees in autumn orange and red

On the way to the morning walk, 20 min after sunrise, and about 90 seconds after the sun cleared the tips of the trees on the ridge behind me.

Finding beauty is a combo of looking and luck.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Weathered rock exposed by an old RR cut. There are small bits of disintegrating rock caught in pockets, a few leaves lying on the surface, some moss growing diagonally in the center right. The folds of rock run from upper left toward lower right.

From the morning walk. Rock is everywhere in my state, and I never tire of looking at it. I love this formation--visible because it lies along what was once a RR line--for its tree-bark-like texture.

We stand on rock.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Argyll to the left, with her ears up and back, listening. And her shadow cast by the morning sun.

The morning walk. It’s that beautiful season when the shadows get long.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Striking red of a dogwood tree with a bigger, different and still green (tinged a little with gold) behind it.

I'm pretty sure this is a native dogwood. Natives are under stress because of disease, so lots of people plant Kousa, but they aren't what evolved to live here.

Which makes me think about how America evolved to live in democracy.

#Beautyasresistance
#Beautyisresistance

Bright red leaves on a black gum tree. If I expand the image I can see clusters of blue fruits amid the red. The tree trunk angles in from the right edge of the photo toward the far right of the photo's top

From the morning walk. I love black gum trees' waxy leaves and bright red Octobers. Somehow I'd never noticed the blueberry like fruit before. I plead the fact that I usually saw them in marshes or on t'other side of the bayou.

Shine bright where you are.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Cascading flowers of a 5' tall New England aster.

From yesterday morning's walk, because today was blustery and overcast.

I adore New England aster. This one was more than 5' tall, and leaning over the fence to say hello. Amazing, for a plant that dies back each winter.

Keep growing where we are.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance.

Moss covered base of a tree.

From the morning walk. I love looking at tree bark and tree roots.
Endurance!

Moss on the north east side reminds me of the Underground railroad.
#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

Reddish purple fall asters. Not sure what kind—they aren’t right for New England asters. The flower stems have fallen over, so many blossoms are facing downward. The backs are as lovely as the fronts.

A few flowers still on the sunflower beside the commuter rail line whose blossoms and visiting bees have appeared in other posts. No bees visible this morning. Maybe 52° is a little cool for them?9

From the morning walk. Summer is a-goin’ out, and I, for one, am glad.
I love autumn, and rejoice in its flowers and clouds. 30 minutes earlier, the clouds were electric coral, the sky cyan.
#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance

October 6 supermoon sandwiched between a pale pink cloud above and a line of trees below. Theres a parking lot in the foreground, with large yellow trailers used for autumn leaf collection to the right, and a light pole (the light itself is not shining yet) to the left of center.

This morning's walk was still affected by the departing nor'easter, so no photos. Here's last week's super moon instead.

#beautyisresistance
#beautyasresistance