Fog (2) I have been walking my dog, often with family and friends, around Lexington’s Old Reservoir for, well – my third Labrador is now in her middle age, and her immediate predecessor had a very long life – it has been years. Circumambulating the pond at least once and sometimes two or three times a day across the seasons has given me the opportunity to experience the Reservoir’s changing light and mood with the depth and intimacy of long acquaintance. It is a pensive place for me, especially in the quiet beauty of off-season, filled with sometimes quirky reminders of summer – a forgotten snack jar, a misplaced picnic table – and unexpected playful moments. The Old Reservoir has given me quite a gift:  a deepened appreciation for the importance of the small, day-to-day places where people and nature (and even dogs) connect. For the transitions that mark the passage of time.

Strings 1

The genesis of the Bass series was an assignment in an early class I took with Robert Moll at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. We were asked to photograph one object in as many ways as possible. The string bass's history in my family begins with my husband dancing with my young sons to Charles Mingus' Ysabel's Table Dance. None of us were surprised when my oldest decided to play string bass in fifth grade. The bass is an unwieldy, but also surprisingly fragile and elegant instrument. At its lowest pitches, it is dark and rich, but its upper tones can mimic a cello, or even the lower range of a viola. Single lengths of wood are carved and shaped and polished to provide resonance for a mere four strings. There is nothing wasted. Every part of the instrument, (made with more or less refinement depending on the craftsman/artist) has its purpose.

Olmsted

World's End is a small peninsula, a series of low hills and salt marshes, that projects out into Boston Harbor. It has been and almost been many things. It was a farm, then a never-developed subdivision, with its roads and lawns laid out by landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. By some quirk, it was shortlisted for the UN headquarters, then briefly considered a potential location for a nuclear power plant. The farm is gone and the UN is in New York City, but Olmsted's landscape, simultaneously wild and tamed, remains. Perhaps that is why this series channels something of the aesthetic of 19th century American landscape paintings; where humans, nature and light intertwine into something, if not sublime (see the somewhat overwrought Hudson River School!) - then autumnal and contemplative.