Why do we do this?

We humans are great at creating handy ways of dividing things. This practice most certainly started at the beginning. For instance, we have more than a dozen names for apples of different colors, yet as we know, they are all still apples and not grapes. Our current dog Lily is a Jack Russell Terrier. She is white with a few brown freckles on her ears and a brown spot around one eye. Before she came along our prior dog, Tucker was also a Jack Russell Terrier. He was a mixture of three coat colors, white, brown, and black. Both Lily and Tucker are great examples of typical Jack Russell personality. They are energetic, playful, mischievous, protective, devoted and loving of their human family. Although different in markings and color we can easily see that both are canines and not birds or frogs. This sort of dividing is all more or less based on and justified by science. Then of course you have other sorts of human invented divisions based more on opinion than science. You can divide up highways based oh which ones provide the most scenic drives or other factors such as amounts of traffic, distance from point A to point B and a million other unique ways to think about highways and their differences. Many of those ways rely on practical factors and some differences are opinion or choice. In more ways than we can count we humans have tried to carve our world, and our lives into as many little pieces as we can. Sometimes that has been useful, sometimes it has not. Sometimes it is even harmful. This practice is ancient and has evolved along with us humans. We humans have gone so far with this dividing of everything into categories that we have even done it to ourselves. We are Americans or we are Mexicans, Republicans or Democrats, gay or straight, Christian or Jew, rural or urban, law abiding or criminal, rich or poor, black or white and probably dozens of other ways we have figured out how to make everyone else seem different than we are. Perhaps to make ourselves feel superior to all others. In the beginning this categorizing of humans, by other humans probably served a useful purpose. Safety and survivability depended in part on belonging to a group and in working as a group they received help in food gathering, shelter building, and safety from other human groups that were competing for resources. Groups grew into tribes and tribes into nations. Obviously, this story is much more detailed and complicated that what I’ve summarized here. I was only attempting to lay a bit of groundwork for what I really wanted to talk about. You might have already figured out the direction this piece is heading but for those that have not I invite you to look at the illustration above. It is a scale of brown from darkest to lightest and bracketed on the left by a strip of white and on the right by a strip of black. Here in America, we talk about black people and white people. Look at that color swath again…. Do you actually know anyone who is white or black? I don’t and I’m 100 percent certain you don’t either. We are all BROWN, no exceptions that I know of. Let me say it again. We are all brown human beings. Granted, we come in a wide range of brown. So why not do away with those divisive terms and just say we are humans. Calling us black or white is just another way to keep the human tribe broken into pieces that some of us love to hate. It isn’t helpful. Most of the ways humans have been divided into categories serve no valuable purpose today other than giving us a convenient way to hate without a guilty conscious. That my friends is sad and it makes life so much harder for all of us brown humans. As long as the topic is “why do we do that” there is just one more thing I’d like to know. Why do we continue to use the term “African American”? Most of the people I know who are referred to in that way are not African. They did not come from there. The majority have had ancestors in America for generations. What is wrong with simply calling them Americans. My ancestors came from England, Scottland, Holland and Germany yet I am regularly referred to as an American. Not British American, not German American, just American. Can’t we just stop with all of these devisive descriptions that have no practical or useful value. They only continue to keep us all separated and give us reasons to fear and hate others.

IT TAKES A WHILE TO FIGURE THINGS OUT

I've been thinking. Yes, I know that can be dangerous but sometimes it can also be enlightening. I've never been able to put into words what I do with a camera. Why do I take the kind of pictures that I take. What draws my attention toward a subject or scene? Why haven't I thought deeply about those questions? Maybe I lack the ability for introspection. Simply said, I have always done what I do, and I am either happy or sad with the result. I usually didn't give a lot of thought to why I was happy or unhappy with the results. I've not always given much thought about the way I approach photography. I do know that my feelings about the kinds of subjects I like to shoot and the way I approach those subjects have evolved and my photographs have taken on a different flavor over the last 20 years. The other day I was reading an article about photography, and it addressed some of these very same questions. One section of the article stood out. It said, "a photograph becomes a self-portrait, a reflection of our emotions, thoughts, interests, and moods at that particular moment". I guess what I had been missing was just that description of what and why I take the pictures that I take and What my photographs say about me. Of course, on one level I knew that, but my true understanding had been shallow. Maybe I hadn't really connected with that idea because I didn't think much about it. That may be the reason I had trouble describing my feelings about my relationship to my art. Had I simply looked I would have seen the connections. The article clearly described that relationship. Perhaps what I found most striking was the idea that each photo, regardless of the obvious subject is also a self-portrait, a reflection of my emotions, thoughts, interests, and moods. American photographer Richard Avedon said this about his relationship to his work. “I speak through my photographs more intricately, more deeply than with words.” Photography allows me to express myself, and to be myself. I love being able to look at something and then to create an image that looks nothing like what others saw, or sometimes don't see at all. It can have more focus or less focus, I can shoot it from different angles and in different light. I can create images with more color or less color or maybe no color which removes the distractions that color can cause. Black and white can make a scene more dramatic, more mysterious and it can also make an image less "in your face". All those options, and more allow me to alter the emotions that the image can create. I can better make the image a reflection of what I am feeling. If nothing else, photography satisfies my need to create. So, what are the things I like to photograph? Things that interest my eye and drawn to are things like the interplay between light and shadow, the texture and shape of an object or scene, and surprising or interesting elements on otherwise mundane surfaces or are parts of an ordinary scene. I often say that if I am walking down the street with a friend, he may be admiring a beautiful building but what I am seeing are the "parts" of that scene, the shadows, the color, texture, shapes, and details or maybe even the flaws. When I can capture those things, either individually or as part of the whole and present them in an interesting way then the viewer will begin to get a sense of what's going on in my head. I have heard it said that your style is your invisible signature. Done right and done with truth you give a viewer a peek inside your head and your heart. It’s a glimpse of the way we view the world through our eyes. How do you come to have "a style" of your own. Is it something you are born with or is it something you discover and if it is something you discover is that just accidental or did you work to discover it? While "style" has some elements that are innate I believe there is also an element of discovery but that takes work and time to see. So, what's involved in that discovery process. It is simple. You shoot, shoot and shoot some more. You take thousands of pictures over a period of time. Sometimes you figure out quickly what interests, inspires, or gives you joy to create, sometimes, like me, it takes longer. The more I shot the more often I shot the more I discovered the results I could feel in my heart. I've experimented a lot, I've looked at the things others have created and I’ve talked to other photographers. Those things made me feel comfortable with my results. When I have allowed myself to feel a scene, or an object rather than just seeing it I believe that is when I most often allow a peek of my thoughts, my emotions, and my heart. There was a time when I wasn't sure that such a connection existed between my mind and the lens. In some ways I was a little afraid that there is, knowing that such a connection would leave me emotionally exposed. I think that is probably true of most people. With art you can't fake that connection between the image and the mind that creates that image. Some emotional involvement is necessary to create an image that conveys enough emotion to be worth something. Emotion in, emotion out. That's how you connect with your viewers. You must allow yourself to fail.... failure is an important part of learning. You experiment and if it doesn't work you try something different but don't beat yourself up because it didn't work. Photographs not only hold information, but they hold memories, and they tell stories. I have built a huge library of memories and stories that I hold close to my heart. Photos are my way of telling my story. What has 25 years of photography taught me? It taught me to notice color, texture, shapes, and light in a way most people don't. It taught me that an ordinary object can become beautiful if photographed in a creative way. It taught me that it is ok to put a little of myself into each photo. An fun but unrelated bit of trivia The origin of the word photography: photo is related to light. graph is to draw Thus, to photograph means to draw with light.

                               In the dark shadows of my mind

                         Caution: Side Effects

Side effects.  You hear those two words often.  They are almost always described in relation to an unexpected or adverse effect caused by medication.  It is also used on occasion to describe any action that results in an adverse and surprising way even when the action was done for totally unrelated reasons and a totally different result had been expected.  

Let me provide an example of the use of the words when not related to medicine.  One  example might go something like this.  If we elect Donald Trump  to a second term as President and a few months later he declares himself as "president for life" and then he bombs SanFrancisco because it is "too liberal" to suit him.  That would be an unexpected event of electing someone who is an ego maniac after we had believed him to be the best thing since sliced bread.    

Now back to the medical definition because the prior example is too frightening to dwell on. 

The usual way in which those two words are described is this:  "Side effects", also sometimes called adverse reactions. Those reaction are unwanted and undesirable effects that are related to use of a drug. Side effects can vary from minor problems like a runny nose to life-threatening events, such as a heart attack, dangerous allergic reaction, liver damage, or other serious results after taking the drug.   You might wonder why I bring up side effects now.  The reason is quite personal but a great example of adverse effects from a drug. It is a drug that I am taking so my personal experience with "side effects are good examples of just what can happen.   In the beginning the drug did exactly what it was created for.  It improved my life in the exact way that the drug was created for.  I admit that even then there were side effects but they were actually very good but unexpected and from the doctor "Yes, that is a possible but a rare side effect."   As time wore on those positive effects turned into something else, in fact almost the opposite of how I reacted to the drug in the beginning.  It is possible that the change was due to the fact that my dose of the drug increased gradually over a several month period.   

I should probably explain the reason I was given the drug in the first place.  In 2020 I was diagnosed with Epilepsy, much to my surprise.  The seizures I had are called Complex Partial Seizures.  At first I was given one of the standard drugs used to treat epilepsy and while it reduced the number of seizures it did not eliminate them all and it caused me to suffer mild depression.  Back to the doctor I went.  She and I had a conversation about the results I was getting and she then provided a prescription for a new drug and that one hit the jackpot.  It eliminated the seizures and at the same time it made me more energetic, enthusiastic, alert and upbeat.  I felt like I could concur the world. Suddenly I could sleep less and still not feel tired.  I became an early riser, something I had not been for a long time.  I didn't feel as if I needed a nap every afternoon.  

The drug came with a big warning, it had been identified as one that could come with some very dangerous side effects, the most serious being a deadly allergic reaction.  For that reason they start everyone with small doses while you remain on the first prescribed medicine and then the dose of the new drug is gradually increased over a six month period and once you are at the full dose you start decreasing the amount of the first drug. The reason for that step ladder type approach is to  make sure you don't show any allergy symptoms. 

So that brings us to today and the side effects I'm having now.  The very positive side effects I had 4, 5, and 6 months ago gradually went away at each of those minor increases in the dose.  Still I'm so happy that it has worked perfectly at preventing seizures.  When I went to the final step of the dose increase I quickly started feeling a rapid lessening of those good effects that I had felt in the beginning and then those effects turned around and went in the opposite direction.  

My moods changed.  I'm no expert on depression since I never really experienced it in the past other than as something very mild.  I honestly don't know if these feelings and some other  issues I have now would be classified as depression or something else entirely.  Some of the feelings are so new to me that I can't even describe them adequately.   One thing is that my emotions have changed in a big way. A very new feeling for me.  I can go from feeling quite "normal" to being in tears quite quickly at even a little bit of something that makes me sad.  

In my life before epilepsy there were, of course, things that would make me feel sad.  I'm  certain that's true for everyone and the reaction to such things or events comes on a sort of broad scale, in other words it was along way from happy to sad and then another long way from simply sad to tears. Now it seems the length of that scale is much shorter for me.  Nearly everything in the middle that was holding those two extremes apart is gone, I fear it's much like our politics today.  My dear wife has had to deal with depression several times in her life and I sure understand what she was going through much more clearly now than I did before.  I was certainly not as sympathetic as I needed to be.      

I believe this "thing" is caused in some way by the new medicine and not a direct result of only the epilepsy.  I believe that if it is simply a side effect of the drug then certainly the doctor can make adjustments in strength and fix this...whatever "this" is.  If if it is something that goes along with the condition I guess that might be much more difficult to fix. I hope to find answers to these and other questions at my next appointment in about 2 weeks.  

I know humans can actually benefit from some adversity and change.  We are good at adapting, otherwise our species would never have lasted as long as it has.  For me personally this side effect caused change is one that I'm fond of.  But I will adapt and carry on. 

 

I won't bore you with a long list of my personal health problems, suffice to say my physical condition and mental condition have not been in good shape for quite a long time. The same applies to my wife of 53 years.  I knew we had to do something, to get a handle on all of these issues.  I started at a local gym. That might sound like an odd place to start for medical and mental issues but so far it is doing what I hoped it might do.  We joined said gym in Mid December.  I knew that if it was going to do us any good we had to make it a regular part of our routines and so far we have done that.  

I have gotten to the point in my life that I don't really enjoy getting outside during cold damp weather so I had gotten into the habit of staying inside, sitting on my butt in front of the computer for most of the day.  In short, that's not a good thing and will eventually lead to bad things, and it has.  

I think everyone understands that exercise has some very important physical benefits for your overall health.  Most often, if asked,  people will identify the following benefits to staying active.  Maybe the most obvious would be an increase in muscular, heart, and breathing fitness. Others that are often mentioned  would be that it will help maintain a healthy body weight.   

Equally important benefits are that exercise will reduce the risk of hypertension, stroke, diabetes and even some types of cancer also  It will help reduce the risk of falls and improve bone strength and prevents further loss of bone density and that  reduces the risk of fractures.  

Those are all great reasons to stay active throughout life.  As a quick side note to those readers who are not seniors....it is probably a lot easier to stay active through life rather than trying to "catch up" at age 70.  Another important benefit of staying active often mentioned are the improvements in both mental and emotional health.  Physical exercise/activity has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and improve sleep quality.  For myself one of the most surprising benefits of exercise is that it can preserve cognitive function and has been identified as lowering the risk of dementia and can even slow the progression of Alzheimer's .  Now I ask, who wouldn't want that sort of protection.  

When you roll all of those benefits together you have given yourself a much better chance to lengthen your ability to maintain an independent lifestyle. More good news.  

As for me during the past month I know it has improved my self-esteem and I have been able to improve my activity a little bit each visit.  It has taken me a lot of years to get into the condition I find myself in now and I know it will take a while to work myself back to better health, both physical and mental. I realize I won't feel like I'm 18 ever again, but I'd happily settle for the above mentioned benefits.  I'm not certain if this is true for everyone but the feeling you get from a workout actually make you want to go back again.  

His Death Started a Bloody War

 

When you begin researching your family history you never know what interesting people and stories you might uncover.  This is one such story from my own family history. 

Reverend Benjamin Franklin Tolby photo provided by the author

 

Benjamin Franklin Tolby was born 26 Sept 1841 in Hendricks County, Indiana. He was the son of Thomas and Nancy Tolby who were natives of North Carolina and Kentucky respectively. Thomas Tolby brought his family from Kentucky to Hendricks County about 1828 along with his parents and several of his siblings.

 

B. Franklin Tolby appeared on the Hendricks County census with his family in 1850 but after that his name appears as James Frankin Tolby or Franklin J Tolby. The name change is not explained in any family documents or biographical material. 

Soon after 1850 Thomas Tolby settled in Tippecanoe County, north and west of Battle Ground in Tippecanoe Township. By 1860 J. Franklin Tolby is teaching school in Tippecanoe Township while the rest of his brothers were engaged in farming.

On the 6th of August 1862 James F Tolby enlisted at Lafayette into company G of the 72nd Indiana Infantry Regiment for service in the Civil War. He was discharged 26 June 1865. The Regiment served as mounted infantry during most of 1863 and 1864. They served in campaigns throughout the south including the capture of Chattanooga, the Battle of Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain, Siege of Atlanta and many other operations throughout the south. One of their last operations was the pursuit of Jefferson Davis at the end of the war.
By the time the 1870 Census was taken Tolby had married earlier that year to Mary Russell and they had purchased a small farm west of Brookston. As fate would have it, farming apparently did not suit Franklin J Tolby.

He had joined the Methodist Church during a camp meeting near Battle Ground in 1857 and what he wanted to do was to become a preacher. In 1871 he was admitted on trial to the Methodist ministry and thereafter served churches in White, Benton and Newton Counties. In 1874 Tolby volunteered and was sent as a missionary to New Mexico where he was stationed at Cimarron but also served the Methodists in Elizabethtown which at the time had become a gold mining boom town.
Based on the recollections of those who knew him, Frank Tolby was personable and well regarded in the communities he served. He was described as bold and fearless both in the pulpit and out and was a naturally talented and compelling speaker.

 

Reverend Tolby, his wife Mary and their two young daughters, Rachel and Grace, had arrived in Cimarron at a particularly troubled time. You might say he landed right in the middle of a nest of mad hornets. Trouble had been brewing for a couple of years but there had not been any violence, at least not the kind that resulted in death.

 

Library of Congress photo

 

In 1841 when New Mexico was still a part of old Mexico a man by the name of Charles Beaubien, a French Canadian fur trapper who had settled in that part of Mexico some years earlier was able to get a large land grant from Governor Armijo. It contained nearly two million acres. At the time there was Mexican law that limited such grants to no more than 92,000 acres and that fact became important later. The Governor hoped that the area would be developed and filled up by Mexican settlers which would act as a buffer to Americans coming from the east.
In the 1850’s, Lucien Maxwell, a son-in-law of Beaubien, took on the active management of the land grant and after Beaubien’s death in 1864 Maxwell and his wife bought out the other heirs at a cost of about $36,000. Under Maxwell’s management settlers had arrived, but they were mostly Americans. Maxwell did not have formal arrangements with most of those who settled on his land, he was running several businesses that profited off the settlers in other ways and that made collecting rents less important. In 1870, Maxwell sold the grant to financiers representing British investors for the sum of $1,375,000 and afterwards retired comfortably to Fort Sumner, New Mexico where he died in 1875.

 Lucien B. Maxwell (legendsofamerica.com

The investors hired managers to look after the grant. Several well-connected Santa Fe politicians became local members of the board of the company. The foreign owners hoped to earn income from their investment. 

What they found was that records of sales and agreements were mostly nonexistent. Prior to the sale Maxwell had maintained a complex and fluid set of individual property relationships with those who lived on the grant land. Maxwell had sold some parcels, and some of those who lived and worked on the grant were squatters who had paid little or no rent for years. Some had lived on and worked their farms on that land for 30 or more years. Maxwell had operated one of the most tangled and ambiguous labor systems of the century. When the outsiders had arrived in New Mexico and tried to organize the estate and the enterprise along the lines of established U. S. business and legal practices it was an ill fit for those who were used to the Maxwell system. 

 

When the new company demanded rents from the squatters they were mostly ignored, the land grant managers tried legal processes and when those attempts failed they started evicting families. Several well-connected Santa Fe politicians had become board members of the company so in many ways the “company” and the government were one. What the company needed was what the politicians provided.
If the families refused to vacate, threats of violence were used and in some cases buildings, pastures or crops were burned, and livestock either driven off or killed. There was widespread belief that the Grant owners and managers had paid off judges and other officials so that every legal challenge the settlers made was defeated. There were accusations of corruption, many of which were later proven to be true.
There was a strong feeling among the Americans who had settled on the grant that the land should be converted to public domain land and put on the market by the Federal Government. They believed that the original grant had not complied with Mexican Law and should be vacated or at least sized down by about half. Others argued that any grants that had been made by Mexico should be null and void simply because the United States had won the Mexican war.
It did not take Reverend Tolby long to take sides and he was firmly on the side of the settlers against the Foreign owned land company and the local politicians (known as the Santa Fe Ring) who enabled the bully tactics being used by the company. Tolby not only preached against the company and their enablers from the pulpit in both Cimarron and Elizabethtown, but he soon started writing long detailed letters describing the situation to newspapers back east. One of his “editorials” published in the New York Sun in which he named names associated the group known as the Santa Fe Ring and described their corrupt political methods. That one apparently caught the attention of the wrong folks in New Mexico.

Sunday, September 13, 1875 was Tolby’s day to preach in Elizabethtown, around 25 miles from his home in Cimarron. His wife Mary and their two daughters had stayed home. Mary expected his return on Monday, probably no later than late afternoon. He didn’t return Monday and early on Tuesday Mary had become worried and requested a search party. Rev Tolby was found dead, shot twice in the back and hidden behind some brush. His horse, saddle, and other personal items had not been touched so it had clearly not been a robbery. Tolby’s many friends throughout Colfax County were furious. Even Clay Allison a local rancher and a noted gun fighter who had fought for the Confederats during the Civil War was furious. The two men were unlikely friends, but Tolby had the sort of personality that drew people to him. Allison has been described as a man with a temper and the personality of a Honey Badger. Once asked what he did for a living he replied, “I’m a shootist.” Lots of people were afraid of him, and with good reason. Clay was a man who went to extreme lengths to extract retribution when he felt he had been slighted or wronged. His Bible Belt upbringing demanded a settling of scores for the death of a Methodist minister who was also his friend.

 

 

The “cold war” that had been going on since Maxwell sold the grant to the foreign investors had entered a new, and much more dangerous phase.

Besides Clay Allison, who did not need much of an excuse to settle a score, Reverend Oscar P McMains took up the mantel of leading a “holy war” to break the backs of the Maxwell Grant owners. He was quoted as saying “The war is on..no quarter will be given for the foreign land thieves and their hired assassins”. 

Within two weeks rumors began to circulate that Cruz Vega the man who hauled mail from Elizabethtown to Cimarron and was the new Cimarron constable, was involved in the murder. On the evening of October 30, 1875 a masked mob who were said to have been led by McMains and Allison confronted Vega. He denied having had anything to do with the murder and pointed the mob toward Manuel Cardenas. The mob didn’t believe Vega. He was pummeled and then hung from a telegraph pole. Ten days later Cardenas was arrested in Elizabethtown and questioned. He said Vega had shot the minister and in addition he pointed the finger at two men who were members of the Santa Fe Ring named Mills and Longwell and said they were behind the killing.
Mills barely escaped a furious mob in Cimarron but was later arrested. Longwell had escaped to Fort Union just ahead of the Allison brothers. In the meantime Cardenas was still being held in Elizabethtown and transported from the jail to the office where he was being questioned. One night as he was being returned to the jail he was shot by person(s) unknown. Violence was out of control around Cimarron and for weeks the town was in the hands of a mob. In the months after Tolby was killed it has been estimated that as many as 200 others lost their lives in Colfax county in the aftermath of Tolby’s murder.

 

 

Lew Wallace (William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indianapolis)

 

Finally, in 1878 President Hayes fired the corrupt and inept Governor Samuel Axtell and appointed a Hoosier by the name of Lew Wallace as governor. Hayes wanted the mess in New Mexico cleaned up, it was being well reported in papers around the country. Although the worst of the violence in Colfax County had ended by 1878 there were still sporadic outbreaks of violence until 1887 involving the land grant company and those who were against the company.

Wallace had his hands full, just as the Colfax County war was beginning to cool down another range war was heating up in Lincoln County which at that time was the largest county in the country, consisting of nearly the entire southeast quarter of the state. Billy the Kid was actively involved in that mess.

 

As reported by the Daily New Mexican, Mary Russell Tolby buried her husband on Saturday Sept. 18, 1875 (newspapers.com)

After Mary  buried her husband in the Cimarron cemetery she  wasted no time getting back to Indiana. In 1884 she married Erastus H Smith in White County. They moved back to Tippecanoe County and lived near Battle Ground where they raised two sons. Some sources indicate Mary had given birth to a son named Frank Tolby soon after Reverend Tolby’s murder. That son died before 1880.
                                       

                                           AFTERWARD:
Although a substantial reward was posted by New Mexico in addition to a second reward posted by the Masonic Lodge and other friends in Cimarron the murder remains unsolved to this day. 

                      Reproduction of early reward poster for the “Shootist” Clay Allison

Clay Allison who had been directly involved in much of the violence following Tolby’s death as well as other incidents not related to that period married and settled down a bit. He left Cimarron and moved to the Texas panhandle. Ironically Allison’s death July 1, 1887 was the result of a wagon accident.

Governor Wallace finished his novel Ben Hur in 1880 during his time in New Mexico. He resigned as governor in March 1881. In May of 1881 he was appointed Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, a diplomatic post he remained through 1885 after which he returned to his home in Crawfordsville.    

The ghosts of Cimarron may have followed Mary Tolby and her children back to Indiana. In 1911 Grace Tolby, the youngest Tolby daughter was committed to Central State Hospital. She had been seeing and hearing spirits or angles who had come to disturb her and she had frequent conversations with said spirits, sometimes becoming violent, screaming and throwing things at the spirits. One must wonder if her early girlhood experiences in New Mexico were contributed to her later mental health.   

In 1913 the Cimarron Masonic Lodge dedicated a large new monument over the grave of Rev. Tolby. Mary Russell Tolby Smith was an older sister of my great grandmother.  I took this photo several years ago on a trip through Cimarron.  

Art or Not? That is the question.

ART OR NOT

Not about details...but shapes, color, and light

Is an image that is created with paint or pencil superior to an image created with an electronic device or computer program? I have always referred to myself as a photographer. For along time I thought of Artist and Photographer as two different beasts. More recently I have started to think of myself as more of an artist.  What was that evolution about?  Am I simply trying to satisfy my own ego? 

When my passion for photography first began and I took all the "usual" photos.  I took loads of people pictures, weddings, senior pictures, family events and other "ordinary" stuff.  Since my retirement we have traveled a great deal and I took loads of landscape pictures, some that could best be described as "experimental".  I was trying to see things from a different perspective, new angles, different light.  I was often quite happy with the results if that experimenting.  Most of that was done simply through camera settings, some with a little help from Photo Shop.  There is a lot of really beautiful scenery between here and California and I usually had pretty good luck getting an accurate representation of that beauty but what excited me was that sometimes I was even able to capture something more, best described as more like the essence of the place.  That was exciting and intriguing.  I wanted to do more of that and so the experimenting continued.  

Sundown in my dream.  

I have come to believe that an image or a piece of physical art such as sculpture or architecture that captures the imagination and the awe of the person looking at it and makes them want to ponder what they see, makes them feel as if they are there, or that they want to be.   If it does those things then I believe it is art.   I don't believe that the manner in which the image or thing was created matters. Too often we get hung up on technical definitions and descriptions. We do that in many areas, not only art.  We too often miss the message because we are arguing about definitions. Not all art needs to be absolute visual reality, sometimes it is OK to be something that leaves you wondering and in awe.  

I would really love to know what your thoughts are  about the question: What is Art?  Comments welcome, and encouraged?  

shadow and light

Building tomorrow

shape and color

Body Language: Created from 12 individual shots.  Thank you Photoshop for the help.

  

I Feel Lucky

For all of my life, except for 5 years, I have lived in or near Lafayette/West Lafayette.  I took many things about my community for granted. The appearance did not change much through the first twenty years of my life.  In 1973 a large enclosed shopping mall was built at the south edge of town.  New housing additions were being built in both towns. Those additions were all being built at the far edges away from the centers of town.  

At first the changes where not noticeable.  In most ways the town continued to have the same feel and look. When the Mall opened it took J.C.Penny from a downtown location.  It also took Sears from near downtown.  By the mid 70's many of our old downtown buildings were beginning to look tired and worn, a lot of them were a hundred years or older.  Gradually other businesses began closing, many of them having been long time downtown businesses.   Loebs Department store which had been a downtown institution for almost a century closed.  Reifers Furniture, another long time downtown business closed. The whole downtown from Ferry street to Main Street to Columbia Street and South Street was beginning to look tired, sad, and worn out.  Downtown was well past its prime.  

So what makes me feel lucky?  It sounds like a sad story, and it would be a sad story had it ended in 1990 after 20, and more years of decline.  Instead, like a human who beats cancer, or someone who gets a heart transplant...the downtown began to grow healthier following a series of changes and it continues to improve in health every year.  

A large part of the credit for downtown's comeback goes to the Lafayette Railroad Relocation project.  Removing the trains that bisected town was a huge benefit for both traffic and safety through downtown and into West Lafayette. The first railroad was relocated in 1994, ending 142 years of train traffic down the middle of 14 blocks of Fifth St. The second Railroad was relocated in 2001. It was a project that had taken about 30 years from developing and talking about the idea through funding and construction.  Two new bridges were built, the old Main Street bridge was turned into a pedestrian bridge between Lafayette and sister city West Lafayette. A third bridge also saw improvements also.  Two underpasses were installed under the new corridor at Wabash Avenue and North 9th.  and finally the old brick railroad depot was moved to a new plaza that anchors the west end of Main street next to the new corridor which now runs next to the Wabash. 

 Almost immediately you started to see that change was happening.  Empty store fronts were no longer empty. Outdoor art appeared in many locations around downtown.  New buildings, including nice condos were added along 2nd street and along Main street filling up space that had become parking lots 50 years ago.  People were living downtown again. Today on a walk along Main street from 11th down to 2nd street you see almost no empty buildings. 

Perhaps one of the most positive results of all this new excitement about downtown is that a lot of interest has been created in support of historic preservation. Much of that excitement has been created by one talented and dedicated young man who has a passion for preservation.  Because of that new interest, many of the old buildings have had facelifts that not only preserves them but does so in a manner that is sensitive to the style of the buildings.  

One of the fun changers downtown that I love is the appearance of what I call "alley art" which are murals painted on available wall space by some very talented young artists.  Each mural is different but they could be described as enchanting, dazzling,  intriguing, ironic,  or silly but every one of them is fun to look at and they add both color and excitement to our downtown.  Once again downtown a fun place to go shopping, to eat out, or to simply walk along and enjoy the views.  As I said, I feel lucky to live in a town that was able to pull itself up by the bootstraps, even it it has taken the better part of 50 years. I'm excited to see what's next.  

At Riehle Plaza the anchor of Main street

As we pass through the doors of 200 years of history for Lafayette

A little playful humor

More alley art.  

Honoring the Wabash

One of my favorite pieces of sculpture with courthouse dome in background
 

Refurbished. This was once a fires station
during the days of horse drawn equipment.

 

A little excitment at night. 

Midway down Main, the old Lafayette theater brought back by the City. 
Appropriate words on the Marquee, Eat - Drink - Explore