(Note–We begin a new week of fresh looks at life by our own DWB with a study in blue–LA)
This little photo series attempts to illustrate William Blake’s justly famous phrase “to see a world in a grand of sand.”
It is like when Horton hears a Who!
Inside a clover.
Thank you Dr. Seuss!
With Picasso and Dali, you make a third as the greatest artist of the Western World in the twentieth century (say I, or says me).
It takes decades of patient and periodic study (including years away) in order to tell who’s better and one still doesn’t know: and will never know; but will never stop returning to the question (for a million different reasons)…
I do not have a favorite color because I heart all colors, but whenever someone has forced me to choose (yes, these are the things we used to discuss) my immediate answer has always been BLUE.
That answer has sprang (or sprung) so often to my lips that I think it must be coming from the depths of my being, a place so mysterious to me that I consider it more mysterious than the rest of the universe.
By far.
I don’t have much (including my pride) any more but that is mine.
I associate Blue with water, the sky, baptism, the word dale and all it implies, Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Easter (the crucifixion), melancholy, sex (blue movies), and my (if forced to choose) favorite music: The Blues.
(Weirdly, some of us avoid sex for a decade or more because the aftereffects are always a drained melancholy; and we are too busy putting our energy into something else, like art; God knows why!)
I live not far away from the graves of both Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.
McKinley Morganfield and Chester Arthur Burnett.
RIP.
And: in my mind, you are still alive.
I do not know all the reasons why that fact is so comforting (quite) to me.
This picture series has three (3) titles, which is key: Blue; Blue Bucket; and Blue or Blue Bucket.
Signed,
The Photographer Because Everyone Does
DWB
Saragun Springs 
I do wonder why blue is the colour associated with melancholy and yet it is a summer sky, a peaceful sea and the iridescence of a peacocks breast. Interesting post. Thank you – dd
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Thank you, Diane!
That’s a great question.
Maybe blue became the sadness color by default, since green was too springlike, red was too fiery, yellow is too inspiring, etc.
It’s weird how many colors there are in the world and how little time most of us spend thinking about them. We inhabit a wild, glowing world most of us ignore most of the time. And that goes for whether one is out in nature, in a human-made environment or in some combo of the two. It’s also wild how many blind people can still see a few colors (aside from their highly increased internal seeing).
Colors are ideas and ideas are colors!
Thanks again for a great question!
Dale
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DWB
The sense of the color blue is enormous here. Sky blue, baby blue, the color of a raspberry slurpee for some reason.
I look forward to the mind opening articles you have for us this week. I do not read them until they come up because it heightens the senses when you look at something you have not seen before.
Who would have thought that a bucket could hold a universe unto itself!
Leila
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Leila
I don’t know why raspberry Slurpees are blue. Maybe because they don’t have blueberry Slurpees?
Will have to ask Pedro next time I’m in 7-Eleven.
Haven’t been in 7-Eleven in a long time. Since yesterday, that is (no joke) – when I purchased two Japanese egg salad sandwiches, one bag of corn chips, and one gigantic candy bar. My Sunday dinner. (And the only meal I ate all day, except for coffee, tea, and magic mushes).
Dale
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LA
Please see what I said to Bill whenever ya get a chance.
DB
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Your prose was more subdued this time than last. Which doesn’t mean it’s any less from the heart. I particularly liked the blue cylinder, empty but for a lonely leaf.
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Thanks, Bill!
Leila is the master of writing in more than one mode.
She can write fantastical tales and realist tales with equal convincingness (see “My Fair Wiccan” and “The Designated Shepherd” or “Norah in Five Acts” as examples).
She can also write something that might be called the fantastical-realist tale, again with equal convincingness (see her “Feeble Fables of the Fantasmagorical”).
And she can also write essays with equal convincingness: autobiographical essays, book essays, music essays, etc. And she is a DAILY commentator on not one but TWO sites.
She is a poet who can reinvent Persian (i.e. Iranian) Literature through her Rubaiyat. And she writes fantastic lyrics as well.
She’s also an Editor (two sites, both of which publish daily).
And a photographer (brilliant pictures of the Northwest, plants, places from cemeteries to porn shops, animals, etc.).
All in all, a staggering and intimidating talent who should, by rights, be far more famous than Stephen King. And one day will be, once the world has a chance to catch up with her.
She’s also an experimentalist in other modes, like chemical substances (see her knowledge of William S. Burroughs).
And she understands science, like physics and astronomy.
And she understands philosophy – and religion.
And is an expert in Shakespeare and James Joyce. And Salvador Dali. And Picasso! And in American television; and films…
I’m starting to scare myself!
Dale
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Hi DWB
I’ve wondered what my favorite color is too, and like you, my friend, I always claim blue. But I’ve wondered if that was true? Did I say it because the schoolteacher told me boys are blue and girls are pink. Do I know anything on my own–I hope so.
Good point of why blue might be a favorite color. The sky and water are truly great reasons. Candy Samples too, lol. I think I relate to color as well and sometimes none. The little girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List was very bold and terrible in that anonymous sea of gray.
I like your abstract photos. Sometimes I take pictures like these and stare at them. Abstract photos are a lot of fun. You are with your camera creating something, unusual from the ordinary.
Great topic, photos, and excellent writing!
CJA
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CJA
From now on, my favorite color is PINK! I just won’t tell anyone. There is a crisis of masculinity in this country and I want to do my part. Or maybe I’m just chicken!
I can confess to liking purple, as used in Leila’s “dreampurple light” especially.
The dogs got mad at me when I didn’t choose black and white! But like Michael Jackson said, it don’t matter if you’re black or white (except with Boo, Bandit, and The Colonel because they look so cool).
I’ve got some really cool (and surreal) Chicago street scenes coming out tomorrow.
Thank you as always!
DWB
PS
When I said there’s a crisis of masculinity, I meant that it’s all either toxic masculinity or no masculinity at all. There has to be a solid middle ground! Stand up for yourselves, fellas, but don’t be a jerk about it!
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Seuss
I really did mean that you are one of the Big Three.
And when it comes to having a mass audience, you make Stephen King look like a pip squeak!
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Good contemporary photography art. Blue bucket has Red Wheelbarrow vibes for me.
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