a small bright cloud

I do wish I had a more interesting photo to offer up - but the truth of the matter is that all I've really looked at today is my screen, a fellow-fellow giving a public talk, and the car park sky at the end of the day - and the roads in front of me, and now, the Rachel Maddow show, to be sure.  So before it went out of the rapidly fading sky, before the day disappeared, I caught it.

more felt

I told you there'd be some more of Sharron Parker's work ... this is one of my very favorites, and in its square form, it looks flatter and less like an escaped dressing gown than this ... Called Copper Traces II, it's one of a set of eight and it looks like the copper carbonate that forms on top of copper as it oxidises, thus turning it an inimitable blue-green that, yes, is the patina-color of the heading at the top of this blog.  To turn copper green quicker than naturally happens?  Well, you could paint it with dilute sulphuric acid if you had some to hand, but if not, Miracle Grow and water works transformational wonders.  That way, you can get your copper to look just like deeply dyed felt ...

capturing the light

There's usually an exhibition hanging on the walls of the NHC.  We've just had some peculiarly unremarkable still lifes - fruit, vases, mugs, table tops - you know the stuff.  Very mid C20th.  But now some wonderful fabric art has appeared, by Sharron Parker - deep dyed felt pieces that aren't quite flat, but aren't quite sculpted, either.  This is a close up of a diptych, Capturing the Light II, that - apt name - is hanging outside my office, and I'm greatly looking forward to its company - and that of many of the other pieces - for the rest of my time here.  For more of Sharron's stuff, see her website: http://sharronparker.com/home.html - but I doubt that this is the last time I post an example of her work here ...

Duke Gardens

There was a strange ping and hiss on my iPhone this afternoon, and it was a weather alert arriving - for possible frost tonight.  Actually, it looks more likely tomorrow night, but I thought that it made good sense to go and see Duke Gardens, before something very bad happened to all the blossoms (and yes - because I'd met my self-imposed writing quota for the day, and it seemed like a good reward).  So - meet some tulips, rhododendrons, and daffodils ...

photographing weeds

The last ten days or so, my drive to work has been made unbelievably beautiful by festoons of wisteria everywhere, climbing up trees and through undergrowth.  Everything's draped in pale purple (although when I pass my favorite bank of flowers, there is, unfortunately, nowhere safe to stop). There was one particular wisteria arbor that I'd seen pictures of and wanted to find - of course, it's at the Biltmore, and I'm not going back to see it.  But in searching for this location, I came across what was, for me, shocking news - this wisteria - wisteria sinensis, Chinese wisteria, to be exact - is an alien species, invasive, unbeloved by many, like kudzu or water hyacinths.  It weighs down trees, and so causes them to snap in ice storms; it provides lots of little climbing ropes for black snakes or raccoons to raid the nests of native songbirds.  We shouldn't, in other words, like wisteria.  OK, I get it.  But I've always loved it in its domesticated form, and it's hard for me to relinquish this ...

cardinal red

I went over the UNC campus in the first instance to hear a lecture by Andrew Hemingway about Turner and (to a lesser degree) Byron, but also to go to the University's small but perfectly formed arboretum, where every shrub, tree and wildflower that could be in blossom was in blossom - even if it was still faintly raining, it was still a terrific sight.

Even more vivid, however, was the little cardinal, who posed - I swear deliberately - for me as I was walking through the campus (a campus that never ceases to impress me for its architectural seriousness and coherence).

April Fool

One of the National Humanities Center's most endearing features is that at the outset of the year, you're given your own mug, with your name on it, which (providing that you've remembered to bring it into the kitchen the night before, so that it can be washed) is hanging on a hook, waiting for you to put coffee in it in the morning.  This morning ... when we turned up, all the mugs were facing the other way - logo outwards; our names towards the wall ...

I'm always very suspicious of April Fools' Day, expecting someone or something to trip up my gullible self.  But this was a brilliant manoeuvre on someone's part - it worked on us all equally - although it was amusing enough observing the less suspicious, who didn't know the date, and couldn't work out what was going on.  They obviously didn't wake up to read the Guardian on how the Royal Family had decided to intervene on the Brexit issue, putting forward Prince Philip, with all his Greek connections, as their most plausible European diplomatic voice.