# 6984-89 / landscape • roadside • (un)common thing ~ Spring sweetness

On the boil in the sugar house ~ It takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. all photos (embiggenable)

“I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative.” ~ Richard Avedon

THE THING ABOUT SPRING HERE IN THE ADIRONDACKS is mist, fog, and raging water.

Of added Spring time interest is the very short weather window for maple syrup making. There are quite a number of so-called sugar houses doting the landscape. FYI, a sugar house is a small shack-like structure where maple sap is boiled down to produce the correct density for maple syrup. Standing in a sugar house during the boil feels / smells like you have coated the inside of your nose with, well… maple syrup. And, tasting the syrup straight out of the boil is a taste sensation that is simply amazing.

ASIDE Don’t know what will happen with the price of maple syrup this year cuz, thanks t-RUMP, most of the maple syrup in the US of A that originates in Canada will be hit with tariffs. The current price for pure maple syrup here in our neck of the maple tree woods is $34.95 / quart (32oz.) END SIDE

# 6053-56 / landscape (roadside springtime) ~ purpose and technique

“The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important.“ ~ Viktor Shklovsky

Viktor Shkiovsky packs a lot of insight about art in 3 sentences. One could write lengthy essays about many of the insights to be found in those sentences. And, to be honest, I gave thought to doing just that using the pictures in this entry to illustrate / illuminate his insightful ideas. However…

…it occurred to me that using my pictures to expound on his ideas would come perilously close to telling viewers of my pictures how to perceive my perceptions. Don’t wanna do that. So, it’s up to you, the viewer, to perceive away as “difficult and lengthy” as that perception might be.

# 6029-33 / roadside springtime ~ invisible to the naked eye

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“We walk by wonders every day and don't see them. We only stop at what shouts the loudest. “ ~ Barbara Bordnick

I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON CREATING A NEW BODY OF WORK, roadside springtime.

Unlike, as Barbara Bordnick wrote, a referent that “shouts the loudest”, the referents in these pictures do not shout at all. If they utter a sound, it is most likely a whisper. And cuz they whisper, most people just drive by-not walk by-them along the roadside.

One of my intents in the making of these pictures is to make visible some things that most people do not see.