Best of October Blogs

Here are some of the best October blogs from My Fairy-Tale Life, dating back to 2006:

The Smallest Grain Of Sand, October 31, 2010

What Poets Write About, October 4, 2009

My Astonished Eyes, October 16, 2008

Molting, October 27, 2007

What a day!  October 7, 2006

No Middle

Recently, a married couple came into my gallery and I noticed, as is almost always the case, a sense of wonder and also, hesitation. Artwork is personal and subjective, and invites a reaction. Sometimes, the work does not impress and it is dismissed, and then again, occasionally a work of art can cause a light to go inside the viewer. Sometimes, people fall in love with art.

In my front room are my landscape paintings but the couple strolled into my alcove area and the husband was the first to stop in his tracks. My alcove is where I show my paintings I call Hangups. It is a series that I made of faces hanging from clothespins, suspended on a clothesline. Usually, the initial response is bewilderment, and then it quickly goes to either like or dislike. There is no middle. Stopping in front of a painting called “Pecking Order”, of a face hanging from a clothesline and being pecked at by two crows, the man went from being startled, to bewilderment, to amusement and confirmation. I could almost hear him say to himself, “I know what that is like . . . I tried to tell someone but nobody understood. Now I am vindicated.”

The couple walked through the rest of my gallery, speaking with Bill, my gallery director, and I. They were from Texas, where it has been very hot, and they enjoyed the change of climate in Santa Fe. We learned that they had not been married long, each coming from a previous marriage. We arrived back to the alcove and the gentleman spoke with Bill while I talked with his wife. They had both suffered loss, but were trying to get back to happiness. She told me she was eighteen years older than her husband, which surprised me greatly, and I said, “You don’t look it.” I could hear bits of Bill’s conversation and heard the man speak of his fight with depression in the past. Later, Bill told me it was because of divorce.
Finally, they both agreed they liked “Pecking Order” but could not afford it. I offered to make a pigmented inkjet print on canvas, the same size as the original at 1/6 th the price. The husband still hesitated, but the woman chirped in with a smile, “I will buy it for you as a Christmas present!”
I have made the copy and will send it off to Texas this week.

To see more hangups, go to: either Steven Boone Fine Art or The Steven Boone Gallery

Soul Mates

Life is change, and a big change is coming for me soon. After four years of being single and footloose, I am now engaged to Heidi Of The Mountains, and we will be married on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, November 4. Over the past two years, we have grown steadily closer, so that this is a natural evolution and culmination of our relationship.

I have enjoyed my four years of singleness and done things that I was only able to do alone. I have many experiences, and memories of adventures that will serve me the rest of my life. After we marry, Heidi Of The Mountains will most often be by my side, and I can be a trail guide for an enthusiastic explorer.

In our relationship, she has been bolder and more of the trailblazer. She has been the one to proclaim the supremacy of love, and press the bonds of affection. As if under a spell, my castle walls made of sand have steadily crumbled into the sea of love.

We are a team now. Heidi Of The Mountains quit her job of fifteen years to manage my art gallery. We make daily decisions together and plan our future. She does not stand for negativity and constantly affirms positive results. Getting married is a result of both of us thinking positive together. We have both been married twice before . . . so I feel slight trepidation, but Heidi Of The Mountains confirms that we are “soul mates” that have found one another.

Raspberries

Heidi Of The Mountains is an outdoors type, and this week amidst the whirlwind activity at my gallery, she said, “I have to go to the mountains . . . and soon.”  I agreed to stop work, and today, we drove together to a ranch outside of Santa Fe that is renowned for raspberries.

When we arrived around noon, I was surprised to see a dirt parking lot crammed with cars, and looking out to the raspberry field, about 100 people ambling through the rows, buckets in hand, picking berries. We gathered our baskets and set out io the raspberry patch. A field manager took us to a row, and said, “The field has been picked over, especially since so many people were out on Saturday, but look under the leaves along the way here, and you will find berries.” I asked him about the growing season, and he told me the plants would continue replenishing berries for a few more weeks. “By Tuesday, they will all be back” he said. We stepped into the field, and soon, found ourselves each alone in our own meditative space, looking down, concentrated on spotting the ripe, ruby red berries amidst the green leaves and prickly stems.

While picking the berries, it is impossible not to sample the juicy fruit. To taste a freshly plucked raspberry is wonderful. The soft flesh almost melts in the mouth, oozing sweet and slightly tart flavors. The tiny seeds are all that are left to crunch upon before swallowing. In forty-five minutes, the two of us had gathered about 2 ½ pounds, for which we paid $12.00.

After our picking, we went to the quaint ranch café and ordered a slice of raspberry pie, then sat in the shade and shared.

As the sun moved slowly across the afternoon sky, I took my paints and easel out, and while Heidi Of The Mountains stood next to me making a watercolor painting, I captured a scene of an old adobe warehouse standing along the road. Its weathered tin roof pitched at an angle and reflected the bright sky, while the faded stuccoed whitewashed walls stood accented by deep green shrubs, sunflowers, and a few decrepit windows. A grand old tree grew at the end of the building, almost like an exclamation point.

On our way home, Heidi Of The Mountains massaged my head and neck while I drove, saying, “Oh thank-you . . . I had a wonderful day!”

Perplexed At War

There are events that happen in life that have a way of embedding themselves so deeply and suddenly into the psyche that they seemingly cause time to stand still. The news is such that when it is delivered, a person stops as if frozen, then takes account of his surroundings, as if checking to see if life will pick up and start again.

On November 22, 1963, I was playing with my best friend at his house when the maid entered his bedroom and announced in a sad and incredulous voice that President John F. Kennedy had been shot to death. That was 48 years ago, and I still remember the moment like it was yesterday. Our happy play stopped and all three of us shared a bewildered silence, not particularly knowing how to carry on.

On September 11, 2001, I was in my home when a repairman came to work, and when he entered the house, announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I turned on the television and the news was unfolding, with pictures of the airliners hitting the towers, played again and again. It seemed unreal, and also unreal that life could continue normally.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the attack on America that killed 3000 innocent people.

The event will never be forgotten . . . and yet life continues as it has since the beginning; toward an uncertain future.

I have traveled around the world and seen our beautiful planet in its glorious diversity and splendor. It is such pleasure to be friends with strangers and overcome outward differences. The human heart has a deep yearning toward unity. This is why I am constantly perplexed at war.

An Emotional Link

Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910) thought that art must create an emotional link between the artist and audience. Usually, an artist creates his art, then it goes forth into the world to be appreciated—or not. Most often, connoisseurs act as middlemen, promoting the creation to the public, and if they sell the art, they make a profit. Usually, the artist works alone and never meets the purchaser of his work.

Now that I own The Steven Boone Gallery, I have the pleasure of meeting the people that appreciate and buy my art. It is mutual happiness. The collector is choosing my work to include in the intimacy of their home surroundings, so they are glad to meet me and become friends, and I am pleased to get know those who value my work and are willing to purchase it.

Previously, I made paintings, and then delivered them to galleries for exhibition. Most often, when a work sold, I only heard about it and later received payment. I could only imagine the collector and their prompting. Now, I shake hands and look into the smiling faces of people, and then take time to converse and become intimate with them. It is a fuller experience, so that we can enjoy and remember each other. When the buyers take my art into their home they have a richer association and knowledge of it’s origin after having met the creator. The value for me is that when I make my art, I put all my self into the creation, and letting go of it is bittersweet. Knowing firsthand where it is going to be cared for, and seeing the depth of feeling and intellectual satisfaction that it gives is rewarding for me.

Best of September

September is a few days away, so here is a collection of my best blogs from September:

Places Unimagined    September 5, 2010

Visual Vocabulary   September 13, 2009

How Awesome Is The World     September 14, 2008

Finishing One Part Of Life   September 29, 2007

Passion and Inspiration

 

Your time is limited; so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition—they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.   Steve Jobs (born February 24, 1955)

Starting my own gallery without forethought during these troubled economic times might seem to many as unwise. Yet I have never been averse to taking risk. Just being an artist is risky, since there is so much uncertainty regarding money. But artists live by passion and inspiration—that is their food, not materiality.

My gallery is like a newborn horse that is able to stand, but wobbly on its feet. I have a full-time staff and we are working to put our hopes and dreams together as a team. We will progress and not give up. For me, the emotions might be a little higher because the “product” is me, . . . my creations.

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.   Ray Bradbury   (born August 22, 1920)

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. 
- Debbi Fields (born September 18, 1956), founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies

This week I managed to build a website for the Steven Boone Gallery, so take a look!

To Live Fully

VAN GOGH, ALL HUNGUP, 24 x 26 inches, oil on linen, in the collection of the
Van Gogh Foundation, Arles, France

We hope that our life will be as we dream it to be, but to live fully, we must allow uncertainty and risk. Risk is when something valued is subjected to a situation where it could be partly, or entirely lost. The reward is that the valued thing could become greater, and of even more value. If no risk is taken, entropy and stagnation might ensue and true value might never be established. There are different types of risk. A woman takes a risk to become a mother. Explorers might risk their lives adventuring into unknown parts of the universe, encountering unexpected hardships, in order to chart discoveries and become conquerors. Investors take risks with their money, investing in new enterprises that hold promise of success and great financial returns. Athletes take risk by devoting their lives to training to be the best in their field and come out on top, though the competition is great.

When I opened my gallery recently, I jumped in suddenly and decided to take the risk. I have signed a two-year lease and must earn over $100,000.00 per year just to break even. In essence, I am testing my strength as an artist and entrepreneur, and there are many risks. The challenge for me is to stay calm and positive, and enjoy the unfolding DREAM.

A Leap Of Faith

I have taken a leap of faith and opened my own art gallery. I like surprises and sometimes, surprise myself. Only one week ago, Heidi of the Mountains and I were making the rounds of gallery openings as we do on Friday evenings. We passed a storefront where a gallery has existed for years, and I noticed it empty, with a “for rent” sign on the window. Intrigued, I jotted down the phone number. After visiting a couple more gallery openings, out of curiosity, I called the number and heard a recorded message, then left my phone number with my inquiry. By the next evening, I had met the owner, visited the space, meditated on the possibility, and confirmed my intention to sign a lease to rent. All by way of surprise.

Everyone around me has been surprised as well. The owner of the gallery where I formerly showed my work was shocked when I told him. At first he offered me wishes of success, but by the time I had taken all my art out, he was seething mad. He owes me money too, and plans not to give it to me.

I have been a gallery owner in the past, so I already had a sign to hang outside. I have a credit card terminal, and nice oriental rugs that I bought in Kashmir. In one day, I hung the gallery, and the lights were already in place. Heidi of the Mountains has quit her job of fifteen years, and has come to work for me. I have hired an expert salesman I have known for years. The first day open we sold a painting—and I did not have a receipt book! The stock market had dropped 250 points and on the third day dropped another 500. That was the day we sold another painting, and despite my concern of economic woes, the clients were happily oblivious.

I am relieved to be out of my former gallery and now able to hang the full range of my work. People that visit can see a broad spectrum of my creative impulse, including paintings, drawings, photography, mixed media, and even publishing.


I do not have a gallery website yet, but click to view the Steven Boone art website.

Best August Blogs

This weekend I am posting some of my best blogs from the month of August since 2007. Here they are:

Eternity In An Hour, 
August 19, 2007

Ducking,  
August 17, 2008

THE DREAM Unfolds, 
August 24, 2008

Woven Together Into Eternity,   
August 02, 2009

Monsters, 
August 30, 2009

Gifts, 
August 08, 2010

A Marvel,
August 21, 2010

Primordial Essence

“A man’s house is his castle.” ~ James Otis, Jr. (February 5, 1725 – May 23, 1783)
This famous saying seems to mean that every man is king of his own home, and therefore rich indeed. In his own home, he can live according to his taste and be satisfied knowing that he has arranged his surroundings for his comfort, safety, and pleasure.

I once owned a home. My former wife Jean and I built it on six acres of land in the rolling hills just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. We thought about the design, and then made a beautiful passive solar house. Over the years, we added on to it until it came to be almost 5000 square feet, with beautiful landscaping. The views are breathtaking, especially from the upstairs deck where the vista sweeps unobstructed to the horizon in every direction. My artwork adorned the walls and our children and pets grew up in the house.

Our daughter Sarah eventually went to college, and my first child, Naomi, from a previous marriage died. My wife and I had comfort in our home, but not in our marriage, and we divorced. Jean said she loved the house and could not imagine being without it. She bought my half, and since then, I have traveled the world and lived happily without a home.

I have come to treasure independence and liberty more than possessions and property. When I first set out upon the path of adventure, I told friends that I would disappear into the matrix of the earth. As I traveled around the globe for over a year, indeed, the matrix was my home. I use the term matrix to mean the primordial essence of creation; where life emerges into form and also disintegrates to become born again. It is always in flux and eternal, because it is creation. If we believe in a Creator that is eternal, then so too must creation be eternal for the two must be together and inseparable.

I have come to love the matrix and the Creator above all else and only long to be flowing easily, a deep swimmer in the ocean of life, open to change, flexible and free. My curiosity about the world and universe is immense and because I learn viscerally, I love to flow over creation like the wind, caressing it, being one with it.

When I enter a home, I pray for blessings to come to it, but I also relish my freedom from it. I do not want the responsibility that comes with ownership. No pets, mortgages, debts to pay, contracts, et al. I rent houses that are furnished, move in with a suitcase and move out when I please. In five years, I have not lived in one place for more than one year. I am nomadic and unconstrained. After all, I feel like I am just visiting the planet, and it is temporary anyway.

Three Hands

Voices of the Ancestors, oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches

Two hands are natural and emblematic of human beings—one hand is tragic—but what about three? I have a series of paintings using the theme of three hands. For most people, the images are perplexing, and that is okay with me, because I like mysterious pictures.

My first painting with three hands was made while I lived in Granada, Spain. My apartment was high on a hill in the Albayzín neighborhood, near the flamenco caves where dancers and musicians performed every night. I could paint, and walk around shooting photos during the day, and go to the caves at night. The house was great. I entered from a small street that had no cars, and passing through a narrow kitchen and living room, a couple stairs led to a spacious patio that overlooked housetops and the tree-lined river that flowed from Sacromonte into town. Directly opposite on a hill stood the walls and towers of Alhambra, the World Heritage Site. Another door on the patio led to a cozy bedroom.

Artist models are sometimes hard to come by, but with a mirror, a self-portrait can be made. I started a self-portrait, but wanted expression, so I included hands reaching to my face. Maybe because I was alone, and desired company, I added a hand coming from the top of the painting.

Soon, a French woman I met in Venice, Italy arrived to visit. We had become great friends in Venice, especially since she is a professor of art in a University in Nimes, France. I had visited her where she lived in Provence, and now she visited me. I did a portrait of her, and again, added an extra hand reaching down from the top of the painting, as if to touch her head. She liked the result, and also the self-portrait I had done. “You must do a series”, she suggested. I liked her idea, and in the next several months made more paintings with three hands.

Anne, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

When I went to Berlin, I made a painting of my young German friend Anne, and used my own hand as the third one. Another time, I painted an abandoned house, high on a hill, in Andalusia, Spain. I put in three hands, as if gesturing. I call the piece “Voices Of The Ancestors”, as if spirits were re-visiting a place on earth they were familiar with.

Sometimes, while artists work, their unconscious is emerging in the process.   “Great art is as irrational as great music.  It is mad with its own loveliness.”  ~George Jean Nathan

I cannot entirely explain the meaning of having three hands in these paintings. It is to offer an element of mystery and surprise, and also my belief is that I have a muse, and I surmise I am including one hand of my muse in the paintings.

Self-Portrait With a Rose, (made while in Berlin), oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”  ~André Gide


Spontaneity

I love spontaneity because in essence, it is honest expression—proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external constraint. A person being spontaneous is not being devious at the same time, because they are not manipulating or contriving a result. Other animals always act with spontaneity, but we humans, because of our conscience cannot. In the human realm, civil society has rules of engagement, and therefore, moral consciousness over-rules spontaneous action. For instance, we might feel trapped in our car in traffic and have a spontaneous desire to leave our rightful lane and jump ahead of the jam, or maybe we see someone trip and fall in an unusual way and feel like laughing out loud, and of course bathrooms exist so that we have a private place to be relieved, although a spontaneous reaction might be to go anywhere.

In art, spontaneity can produce the finest results. It is because the artist is “letting go” to the creative muse inside. Jazz is a great example. There may be a loose theme to follow, but spontaneous improvisation can take the drama to new heights and uncharted territories. Actors must follow scripts, but occasionally we get glimpses of spontaneous moments that transcend theatrics and bring us in touch with the soul of the performer. Japanese Butoh theater is famous for spontaneous acting. For artists like Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and many others, spontaneity is at the essence of their work, for they are immersed in it so fully that external constraints do not figure into the result. As Picasso’s contemporary, Georges Braque said, “It is the act of painting, not the finished painting.”

Mysterious Sea

My dear daughter Naomi, who I regard as an elevated teacher, even now that she has abandoned the physical form, said, “Everything is important and nothing is important; everything is illusion back to God.” Albert Einstein, an acknowledged genius of the highest rank, said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

In my life, I believe in THE DREAM, where definitions are mysterious, because, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus ( Greek, c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) said, “Everything flows, nothing stands still.” And he also said, “Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to the child”.
THE DREAM is always in motion and resists boundaries, and everything is changing. I am aware of reality/illusion, a tiny consciousness adrift in a limitless, mysterious sea.

Here are some selected July blog posts from previous years:

Circle In The Water,  Sunday, July 29, 2007

Astonishing Artwork, Sunday, July 13, 2008

Mister, What Are You Looking For?   Sunday, July 26, 2009

Live Life Fully, Sunday, July 04, 2010

Deep Into Love

“Go deep into love, and forget everything else”. This is the sentence that came to my mind when I could not sleep the other night. I got up and wrote it down, and since then, have come back to it often. I like the power in this simple string of words.
The love I speak of is profound affection; something akin to what Paulo Coelho (born August 24, 1947) describes as, "the love that consumes." Here are examples: The soldier on a battlefield goes deeply into love; for home, country and his comrades . . . and then faces imminent peril and death. Many examples have been seen when a soldier sacrifices his comfort and safety to ensure that his comrades survive. Recently, in Libya where a civil war is raging, the ruler Muammar Gaddafi, ordered some of his air force pilots to bomb their fellow citizens. But Gaddafi miscalculated the love of his soldiers, for the three pilots felt, “deep love” for the Libyan people, and they chose to forget their insane commander and ditched their planes in mid flight, ejecting to parachute safely to land. Deep love is greater, more compelling than the superficial, and can produce more significant results. Artists also find that they are in the deep stream of love while they are in the creative flow. Imagine Michelangelo, high above the floor of the Sistine Chapel, working painfully on his back on scaffolding for what must have seemed endless hours, day after day, accomplishing his masterpiece. He suffered from heat and cold, thirst and hunger, as well as body cramps and soreness that would make a normal person cry. At night he arrived home, bone tired, eyes blurry, and slept with his shoes and clothes on, only to get up the next morning to arrive back at work. His being in the flow of deep love consumed everything else, and after he finished his masterpiece it became one of the most revered artworks on earth—a place of pilgrimage by millions over the centuries.

If we do not live in deep love, we will feel something lacking and try and fill the hole. It might be drugs or alcohol, sex, money, or the pursuit of security in another form. In the end, only deep love will satisfy the core craving in a human soul. It is best to let the fire of love consume and purify everything else.

"In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love."  Baha'u'llah  (12 November 1817 – 29 May 1892)

A Grand Play

 

When I was a young man, I had an aversion to wearing a tie. My father would have to stand behind me and while facing a mirror, help me put one on, and tie the loop. I did not like the feeling of a knot around my throat. I could not even wear a turtleneck sweater—it felt tight around my neck. Perhaps this discomfort had to do with a terrible dream I had when I was a child. In the dream, I was in a bed, resting peacefully at the top of a house, under a pitched roof in an attic. An open window with lace curtains was by my bed, and as I lay on my back, I could feel a soft breeze. Then, a woman appeared beside me and gently leaned over to stroke my head. She was soft, and her dress fluttered slightly from the breeze coming through the window. As I rested, peaceful and still, observing the woman, she leaned closer and with utter calmness, began choking me with her hands. I awoke terrified, and my body was paralyzed so that I could not move a finger. My throat would not utter a cry. After what seemed an eternity, I screamed and ran to my parent’s bedroom, where my mother calmed me from my nightmare.

Now, decades later, I can wear a tie, and sometimes I wear a scarf. I have come to see that all of life is a dream. I do not react negatively to this dreaming, but rather, embrace it. I am an actor in THE DREAM. The script is written, and as my lion-hearted daughter Naomi said before she died, I must, “show up and be lovingly present, no matter what it looks like out there or inside yourself.”

We all play a part in THE DREAM, acting our part in a grand play, written by the genius Creator. He has given us ability to make the script into an improvisation, and in some ways, choose our own endings. We are all adding our lines and performing our unique roles to create the grandest drama.
When a person enters the stage, I do not judge, but rather concentrate on my part, which is to be loving and full of life, to add vigor and grace to the scene. Everybody’s part is important. If the stage held only one or two grand actors, it would be boring indeed.

Villains are a part of any great drama . . . and if mankind advances sufficiently that there are no longer human villains, then there will be other darkness to face. It will always be this way. This is how the show goes on.

Worth A Thousand Words

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture contains far more than a thousand. In this capture of a moment in time, we are left to marvel at the ragamuffin group of children, standing in a row, holding hands and gazing at us with wonderment. They are mostly dressed in tattered, dirty, used clothes that sometimes do not fit. They are unaware of how they look to a foreigner, and seem happy. In the background, a group of fathers are turned away, looking off in the distance. Some dilapidated homes are behind the children at the foot of tall mountains. The light is clean and fresh, untainted by pollution. The setting is rugged and pristine.

I was living on a houseboat on Dal Lake, near Srinagar in Kashmir, and this day I was with a guide and we drove two hours into the mountains so that I could ride on horseback into magnificent scenery amid snow-capped peaks and verdant valleys of the Himalaya Mountains—where the peaks are the highest in the world. In Sanskrit, the name means, “abode of snow”. The world’s second tallest peak is K2, and is administered by Kashmir. I brought along my paints and canvas, for I am an artist by profession, and on the way, I studied the landscape, looking for a place to make a painting. A small village nestled below the winding road caught my attention and the guide said we could stop there on the way back. After the trek, we arrived, and as we made our way down the dirt track from the highway, I fell in love with the place, especially as I met the people. They were curious of me and did not mind that I set up my easel in the middle of their community to begin painting.

THE DREAM seemed so incredible. Only a week earlier, I had arrived in New Delhi from Africa. Within two days, unexpected events had whisked me away to the far north of India, into Kashmir, and to a houseboat on a lake, where I had a personal servant and complete freedom amid a breathtaking landscape. I could not have planned it any better.

Soon, a group gathered around me to watch. It seemed that I was great entertainment. I decided to paint the houses with their pitched tin roofs and the mountains towering behind them. In the foreground were a wood corral for animals, and an open area where I painted. The children came close, while a few older folk stood respectfully aside, watching as I sketched in the composition and then began laying in color.

My painting gave the villagers a fresh look at their surroundings, and maybe they felt a bit honored that I liked where they lived. At my side I had my camera, and every so often, I turned from my painting and looked into the faces of children gathered around me. I felt blessed to be “a stranger in a strange land”, and yet feel at home in the matrix of existence where every mortal being has its beginning and end.  I made my painting, and also snapped pictures. I could not finish the artwork because the day grew late, but took a photo for reference later.

The children are part of an inter-dependant community. The villagers work with their animals and the countryside, scraping a livelihood. I was there in mid-October and learned that they would soon migrate south to lower elevations for the winter. So the lifestyle is nomadic.

The people speak a Kashmiri dialect, not English. But so much can be said through gestures and a loving attitude. When I motioned that I wanted to take a picture of the kids, they assembled without a word, spontaneously forming a cohesive group to look directly at me. The group of youngsters lined up and held hands instinctively, all of them linked by an unspoken bond of familiarity and love. I did not tell them how to pose. They acted naturally and with perfect ease.

The photo shows some grimy faces, chapped from wind and cold. Obviously, their mothers, using only scissors, do their haircuts. They probably wear the same clothes every day. The village has no electricity, none of the “modern amenities” of the west, and I did not see taps for running water. Instead of material things being important, relationships are key. I imagine that responsibilities are shared, so that even the children feel responsible for one another. They sleep together in small dwellings, rise with the sun, adapt to daunting conditions of nature, are witness to births and deaths, see beloved animals butchered for food and hides, and get little schooling. They are mostly unaware of the world outside their borders.

The earth is close to these people and they show it. I liked the directness that made for some great pictures. The youngsters I call, “Star Children”, because their eyes are unclouded and shine like the bright evening stars.

Kashmir is 97% Muslim, so females cover their heads with a scarf. Many centuries ago, Kashmir was home to the Hindu religion, then Buddhism, but eventually became ruled by adherents of Islam.
Kashmiri cuisine includes boiled potatoes with heavy amounts of spice, cottage cheese, lamb cooked in heavy spices, lamb cooked in curd with mild spices, spinach, minced meat balls in tomato and curd curry, and the traditional feast involves cooking meat or vegetables, usually mutton, in several different ways. It is the first time I had tea with salt, a popular drink.

When we packed my paints and left the village, the air was cooling rapidly and the sun had disappeared behind the mountain walls. We drove the narrow rode toward Srinagar, and I felt happy. I leaned far out the passenger window and took pictures of the landscape flashing by. The blur adds a soft effect that can be romantic . . . losing details and indicating how elements meld together in simple shapes and colors. Later, I downloaded my pictures onto my computer, and now I marvel that THE DREAM had provided me such an unexpected and fulfilling experience in Kashmir.

This article is "one thousand words".

Here are a couple more pictures from the same day:

See more artistic photography from Steven Boone, including photos from around the world and Kashmir at Graphixshoot.com

Promises

I have two daughters; one is ahead of me and the other behind. My oldest daughter Naomi died when she was nineteen, and she is ahead of me, an angel lighting my way in this world and waiting for me in the next. My youngest daughter Sarah is twenty-four, seven years behind Naomi. She is my joy and deep companion, and is behind me. Her development holds great promise and I am privileged to be part of it as her father. Both my children inform and broaden my life and we are bonded throughout time and space.

A few years ago I traveled to Africa, and I met Masai people in Kenya and Tanzania. They attracted me so that I had to approach them when I could. They are calm and have inner presence that is strong and in balance with the earth. When I came near, they were not shy, but rather curious of me. More than once, the men asked me about my wife, and I had to say I did not have a wife. This was incredible to them and they showed great pity toward me. If I had said I have had two wives and lost them both, it would have been even worse.

For a few years now, I have been active with a group called New Mexico Men’s Wellness. Men gather several times a year in special outdoor locations to bond and provide support for each other, often using rituals and group activity to enhance the experiences. When I heard that the group would be holding a father-daughter gathering, I contacted Sarah and asked her to join me there and she replied from Chicago that she would like to come.

This weekend the conference took place at the serene and picturesque Ghost Ranch, near Abique, New Mexico, where the famous artist Georgia O’keefe lived for much of her life. The theme set for the group was The Yellow Brick Road; A Journey Of Discovery. The Wizard Of Oz story deals with how strangers can come together to help each other overcome obstacles and by doing so discover powers within themselves that they did not know they had. During the course of the weekend, the father’s bunked together near their daughter’s and the group engaged regularly from dawn to night. The sharing was poignant, honest and deep, so that crying occurred frequently. When Sarah and I departed to return home, we had many new friends and felt something special occurred. Moreover, we had taken big steps toward one another and made promises to each other to take care of our special relationship.

For more about my experiences with Masai, visit these posts: Cradle of Civilization, The Dark Continent

A Complex Labyrinth

Now that I have returned to the United States, I feel as if I am emerging from one month of wandering through a complex labyrinth. I seldom felt as though I walked in a straight line, but rather meandered, lost in wonderment, through a maze of experiences that curved, twisted and bent through cities, fields, mountains, deserts and oceans, among people who spoke languages I could not understand, sleeping in many different beds in various exotic abodes, eating unusual foods and learning to live where the sunrise is eight hours earlier.

While in the labyrinth, I did not feel particularly lost, even when I was sometimes traveling in the “wrong” direction, because I believe in THE DREAM, where everything has a purpose, even being lost. In Paris, the maze of tunnels under the city that carry the millions of subway passengers can be daunting, especially if one does not speak French, but being lost can have it’s pleasures. On the streets, I walked miles over the cobblestone avenues amid row after row of shops, café’s and hotels. An air of sophistication permeated everywhere, as if Paris was the seat of refinement for the world. In the Louvre Museum, I walked for hours over the marble floors, admiring some of the best artwork in the world . . . and also found myself in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, wandering amid the tombs of some the same great artists whose work is in the Louvre.

Morocco held many firsts for me: Drinking fresh squeezed orange juice every day for three weeks, seeing a snake charmer handling a live cobra, riding a camel and sleeping in a Bedouin tent under a full moon, being in a sandstorm, using a toilet and rinsing my butt with my hand dipped in a bucket of water used for that purpose, hearing the Muslim call to prayer blasted from loudspeakers at mosques every day for three weeks, eating olives at every meal, wearing a caftan and eye liner, seeing a woman go bathing in the ocean while fully dressed, including head scarf, (a wave knocked her down and she smiled at me with the same look of wonderment and glee as anyone would), pouring rose water in my eyes and also drinking it, seeing a herd of goats grazing in a tree while balanced on its branches, walking through a tannery, among the hides of animals being treated in smelly vats of pigeon excrement, looking west over the Atlantic ocean to see the sun set, drinking mint tea five times a day, being in a country where marijuana and hashish is legal but guns and alcohol are not. The medina’s, the souks and mosques, endless flocks of sheep and goats over the countryside, sometimes tended by children, fields plowed with horses, women covered from top to bottom with clothing to show Islamic modesty and discretion even while working in fields, fresh fruit and vegetables in every market, the call to prayer broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day, even in the smallest of villages. . . all the myriad sounds, sights, smells and sensations contributed to make me astonished and surprised at every turn.

In Spain, when I visited Antonio Gaudi’s (1852–1926) Sagrada Familia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, I was sure the cranes would be gone from my previous visit, three years earlier, but they are not . . . it has been a work in progress since 1882 and is not expected to be finished until 2041.