A New Look for the New Year

White Phalaenopsis bud opens.

The company I work for "refreshed" our corporate graphics for the New Year. The presenters explained the concept of "refreshing" as opposed to "re-branding" thus: when a well-known brand such as the Holiday Inn decides to change the corporate logo and all of its associated graphics, it's known as "re-branding" in corporate-speak. If a corporation maintains its historic logo but updates the design a bit to make it look more contemporary, it's called "refreshing" the brand.

The Maza Studio Blog has been refreshed for the New Year with new colors and a new header background that I think suits the new botanical direction my adventures in art have been taking. I'm curious to know what my readers think of it, so please feel free to comment.

The orchids in my bathroom continue to bloom during the winter; above is the white Phal that is just opening a new spike. Below the Brassidium is repeating its performance of December, but with a  much smaller flowering spike.

This Brassidium flower just opened today.

My latest acquisition for the bath was this delicate fern pictured below, Selaginella  krausiana variegatus seems to be a very popular houseplant innovation--I've seen it at several greenhouses in the area. I picked this one up at half-price. It's a gorgeous plant, though it requires very high humidity and watering every other day (in my house at least).

Frosty Fern (Selaginella krausiana variegatus)

This is a small fern of northern forests; in fact I remember seeing it growing at Dolly Sods last summer when we visited. The amazing complexity of its fronds can only be appreciated under magnification. Here are two shots using the macro setting of my camera, and they give some idea of the structure of leaflets, but to really appreciate its singular beauty you need the 10X that my hand loupe can give. I wish I had a camera that could photograph at microscope-type scale!

Close-up of Selaginella fronds.

Closer macro shot of Selaginella

New Look for a New Year

On a New Year's Eve walk with my friends.

I've never liked those end-of-the-year/new-year's lists; in fact, I find them unutterably depressing! To most of us over a certain age, the turning of the year ends up being just another day we struggle to make memorable just because it IS a New Year, and after all, we need some milestones to mark the passage of time.

We start off each January full of hope and resolutions which gradually lose momentum until they are tossed aside with a twinge of guilt--the flesh is weak, we rationalize, or the time wasn't right--somehow nature conspired against the change. If we're lucky, on rare years, we manage to keep one or two of those resolutions that end up changing our lives irrevocably, and look back at those with wonder and gratitude.

The past year has been an eventful one, though not always in the ways one had envisioned--rightly so--what would life be without some surprises? Sometimes one small change starts a chain reaction that sets a number of things in motion, like a loose stone setting off an avalanche. A car accident in September forced me to replace my twelve-year old car with a newer one, which in turn encouraged me to replace my ancient cell phone; the breaking down of an old TV prodded us into upgrading to a new flat-screen and Blu-Ray. A new job offer much closer to home was a daunting but welcome change in the last three weeks of the year. I'll miss having my Fridays off, as well as the week between Christmas and New Year's, but it's still a good trade-off for the 75-mile-a-day commute.

To ring out the old year, yesterday I went down to southern Maryland to visit my friends in Accokeek. I'd hoped that perhaps it might be possible to paint outdoors, since the temperature has been rising to the mid-forties in the past few days. I really wanted a new painting to post. But the wan winter sun was not warm enough for comfort, so instead we settled for taking a walk along the Potomac River by Colonial Farm.

The ice was still fairly solid over the beaver pond along the road, and there were big chunks at the river's edge. The grasses in the swamp below the boardwalk were studded with lovely pools of snow and ice. Watching the ice floes in the middle of the river floating upstream lent the scene a surreal air--it took a few seconds to realize the effect was caused by the incoming tide. Mount Vernon was clearly visible on the opposite bank. Walking back toward the farm, it was feeding time for the animals. Colonial Farm raises what they call heirloom breeds, and I managed to take a couple of shots of their enormous Red Devon bull and one of the Ossabaw pigs before my camera battery ran down.

I learn a lot from my friends (and try to share what I know). Back at the house we talked about our art projects, blogs, photos and plans while enjoying some wine by the fire, and I realized I had never made use of Flickr to share photos with friends or readers of my blog. So today, to follow my resolution to try to become more tech-savvy and better integrate all the tech toys at our disposal, I have uploaded my photos from our walk onto Flickr in this set: New Year's Eve Walk. While I was at it, I gave the Maza Studio blog a new look for the new year. Hope you like them both. Your comments would be appreciated--please feel free.

Happy New Year!