I’m always wary when in a parking garage. Women are trained to see them as places where rapists and muggers lurk, and even when they are well-lit they have a creepy ambience because of the slope and the narrow lanes. Today I felt marginally safer because it was a crisp spring day, and the parking garage had plenty of daylight openings. I worried, though,… Read more: Heads up

We all carry in our heads a video clip of the librarian hushing us for talking. But during my sojourn into the Decatur public library, the loudest voices I heard were two staff members at the checkout desk. Not that they were loud at all. It’s just that the entire building was so silent. A lovely sound. The sound of knowledge. All the patrons… Read more: Quiet thoughts

Beauty doesn’t always leap out at you. There’s a dance where it can be seen just by moving in more closely. Zooming in physically shows us details that we otherwise would miss. On the grounds of a commercial building, you might at first see only an old semi trailer. But when you move in and study it, paintings emerge. You have to get very… Read more: Body zoom

I didn’t expect trash to be this pretty. Live Thrive’s Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) DeKalb is new, to be sure, and exceedingly well-organized. The staff is helpful and friendly as they go about their work. Exploring, I was amazed at how many things can be recycled or reclaimed, and it made me realize just how limited our neighborhood recycling pickup is.… Read more: A rich resource

Our eyes get a special rest at nighttime: the absence of color. And the presence of simple shapes. All that overstimulation of a hyper-colored video world on our phones and monitors ends. Now we can focus on the lines of shadows. We can see ourselves in a clearer context. The moon reminds us of how deeply we can bathe in darkness. The violets sparkle… Read more: A drink of darkness

One of my favorite themes is dissolution. When I’m in despair, I find it comforting. We tend to be nostalgic for the good old days, but it’s faded glory that is the great equalizer. Nature’s erosive force has a great deal to do with this, of course – not only weather, but the push and pull of plants and animals wanting their share. At… Read more: Nothing beside remains

It was so soft. Like a mattress or even a pillow. I was shocked to discover the flexible surface of my neighborhood playground. They use some kind of rubber padding and wood mulch now, instead of the knee-scraping asphalt that used to cover playgrounds. It felt wonderfully squishy to walk on. And colors. No gun-metal gray, only upbeat red, yellow, blue, green and simple… Read more: Kid-sized

This guest post was written by glass artist Licha Ochoa Nicholson of Marietta, GA. I welcome others to contribute the beauty they’ve seen! — I’ve always believed that the Universe provides us with a path to follow, and I’ve embraced whatever path has come my way. I’ve always looked forward to what the future holds, ready to approach the unknown with an open mind.… Read more: Last Impressions

I’ve always liked cemeteries. I am more comfortable with death than most people I know, and I find cemeteries comforting in the way that ruins of great empires are comforting: All things pass. In my walk through East View Cemetery, the oldest grave I saw was someone who’d died in 1907, and the newest was 2023. More than a century of people who lived… Read more: Among the dead

When I was in Catholic middle school, I wrote a lot of anti-war poems. Sister Patrine, one of my teachers, despaired at my negativity. “I want you to write a poem about the beauty of a mud puddle!” she ordered me. I rolled my eyes. Instead, I wrote a poem from the perspective of the blind man healed by Jesus. That, at least, was… Read more: Muddy thinking

East Lake has the usual city park fixtures – tennis courts, basketball court, playground, picnic shelter, grassy areas. It’s well-maintained, but it’s probably too ordinary for anyone to call it “beautiful.” I picked a warm February Friday to explore this Atlanta park. I was struggling that day because of some troubles with my landlord. When I first arrived, the park was nearly empty. I… Read more: ‘We make our own troubles’

Large-scale construction isn’t pretty. There’s ripping apart that has to happen in order to build up. In that destruction of construction, we see subterranean realities emerge. We see mud become clarified through agitation. We find the weathered remnants of previous construction. We discover the patterns that have been concealed. And we see the relationship between the earth and the building.

Possibly the best-known quote about beauty: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” It’s the conclusion of the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats, and the lines have been interpreted in as many ways as beauty itself has been. Keats was describing imagery on an ancient clay object painted with… Read more: What Keats said

We bury things, we leave things behind. Yet they remain below the surface, exerting their presence. If we sit in the shadow side, we discover its strength and beauty.  “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung, The Philosophical Tree I love to explore the effect of light on materials and spaces, and… Read more: Available Light

I used to have a gallery space in North Georgia where I displayed my photography. Many of the people who came in were not typical gallery-goers – they were ordinary folks from a small rural town, and some seemed intimidated to come in and just look at art. I tried to make them feel welcome. One of my favorite things was seeing them respond… Read more: Welcome to Seeing Beauty