Sidewalk Jazz

 

 

Small Town: Behind the Scenes

 

 

 

Sticker Art: Crazy Cats & Headbangers' Balls

"Crazy Cat!',  coming at you from the back bumper, baby.

The Headbangers Ball with some politics, religion, and $$$ thrown in.

Small Town America: Pilgrims and Rays of Light

Pilgrim's Deli, in morning light.

Garbage can, and rays of light.

Street Art: Turkeys and Misfits

$PoliticsNReligion$

"Meet me at the skate park on Saturday."

Street Signs: Below Poverty Levels

On the other side of the tracks.

Streetscapes

Building in afternoon light.

I've always enjoyed photographing industrial elements like piping and building ducts, so much so that one fellow art student remarked to me on a road trip, "Look, Marie! Trucks! Quick! Take a picture!", pointing derisively out the car window when I raised my lens to photograph a carrier loaded with cars the next lane over. But I love craftsmanship wherever I see it, in any form, and that point of view forms the basis of my design intellectualism to this day. I come from a working class background as many New Yorkers do, and I can't imagine our lives today without the massive industrial projects and undertakings of our forefathers. It's everywhere we look. After all, my great grandfather not only made metal work for bridges and buildings, he was skilled enough to render The Last Supper entirely out of copper, in a framed piece of art that still hangs in my mother's house. 

Fuse box.

You can't manufacture that kind of history and continuity on demand without passion and heart, not even at the best art school in the world; a place where craft still counts, even back when I attended it as a tower made almost entirely out of ivory. Snobbery is always out of date, no matter the era, because the future will always belong to those of us still willing to get our hands dirty, which includes the mistaken idea that using our hands is somehow a base affair. I hope my former classmate, where ever he wound up, somehow managed to rise above his class-based leanings. It couldn't have been easy to be a Van Zandt, no matter how old and privileged his family name is (was).

Stay classy, people 
 

Toys: Having a Ball

The pink ball.

The ubiquitous toy for almost every kid on the planet is some kind 
of ball, of various makes and models. But like an empty playground, there's something sad, lonely, and forlorn about a discarded ball 
that's been tossed away. It's only as good as the child who plays 
with it. Or maybe I was just melancholy that day.  
What takes you back to childhood?

Out of this world.

Around Town: Bryant Park

I was in town on business recently (and early, as usual), so I took a walk, choosing to go once around Bryant Park, killing time before my appointment, catching the cheerful site of gardeners doing some early springtime gardening. It's such a great time of year. Enjoy the sites!

The First Day of Spring

Springtime in Stuyvesant Square Park.

Stuyvesant Square Park.

Flowers in bloom, Stuyvesant Square Park.

Clusters of buds like barnacles.

Hello! Welcome to the new season. In celebration, I've put up a series of photos I took in 2013, when I lived (for a brief time) in Stuyvesant Town, a neighborhood in lower Manhattan. It was the first time I'd ever lived in the borough that is officially New York, New York, and as a native New Yorker, I had other surprising (and rare) "firsts", too: I discovered parks, foliage, trees, flowers, plants, and people I hadn't encountered before, as the glorious, gorgeous Spring of last year unfolded before my eyes. Here's to the newness, and yet timelessness, that marks the first signs of Spring. Enjoy!

Around the Way: The Dessert Carousel

After Wayne Thiebaud

On one wearying and windy freezing day in downtown Brooklyn, when I was in town on some business I'd rather avoid (forever), I took comfort in the cheery pleasure that this diner's dessert carousel promised me after lunch. I didn't have the stomach to partake in it at the time, but part of me wanted order a slice of each beautiful, friendly, puffy pastry that swirled by, for me to enjoy at some later date during happier times, preferably while warm and safe at home over a nice cup of tea.

Sticker Art: Dead Head

every day is a holiday for 'los muertos'

Happy Christmas

"Merry Christmas, Marie! Shake hands?"

A row of tiny Charlie Brown trees. 

Merry Christmas, from the town of friendly people. 

Street Art: The Sewer Monster

It crawled out, from within.

I found this particular nightmare walking back from a real estate excursion around town. Whoever thought to pair a Cthulhu-type octopus creature with the faceless body of a businessman in suit and tie is one twisted monkey, and my type of freak. We know monsters lurk in more places than the dank depths of a city's bowels. Sometimes, they even live and walk among us, perhaps secure in their anonymity, but no less evil because of their every day banality.  
Who is it that walks among you?

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/street-art-sacred-spaces/ 

Hudson Valley: Store Signs

....unless you're a Mixed Martial Artist.

I love store signs, especially the antiques, the more retro, the better: neon ones, hand drawn ones, and those tall peeling paint signs from the last century. There's an abundance of great store fronts in my town. Have a look for yourself.

Peckman's Wines & Liquors.

Sneaking down the alley...

A small town sign: the homegrown militia.

Type, glorious, type, of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/type/

Small Town America: Halloweentown

A total home reno. Oh, the horror. Hi, Pete!

I live in an Irish town, and let me clarify once again: not "Irish-American", but an actual hamlet that's predominantly 1st generation "off the boat", as they used to say, though now it's straight off the flight at JFK to Pearl River to the massive supermarket, with an Irish Foods section that's mostly tea, canned beans, and biscuits. I know, because I've seen the jet lagged Paddy wandering the massive store aisles with the same look of shell shock that I have when confronted with American excess. I also get it when I travel, though it's going across the pond in the other direction, with more crystal and wool sweater shopping involved. We have a shop for that here in town, too.

Wonder Woman!

There's been a recent interest in the spooky and supernatural in pop culture, what with teenage vampires and Sleepy Hollows that go bump in the night. Truthfully, the Hudson Valley has always been perfect for Halloween, because this is where the very traditions we celebrate as Americans began. Happy Samhain, Celts.

Yeah! I'm Batman, and you're SuperGirl!

Welcome to Halloweentown:

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/halloweentown/.

Birdhouses: Mystery Chair

Going to the birds.

I found the juxtaposition of an empty folding chair and a tall birdhouse sitting next to each other in a front yard rather odd, and a little unsettling. There was a stillness about the scene that made it eerie, like some crime had been committed. I guess we'll never know how it came to be. It'll remain one of life's little mysteries, a charming and eccentric part of life in the Hudson Valley. 

What's strange and surreal where you live?

A quirky bit of local color that's for the birds:

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/birdhouses-and-treehouses/.

Street Art: Vinny on Fire

From the street to someones wall.

I walked by this sign at the local CVS a few weeks ago, looking all nicely decorated. This week? It's gone. Man, that's some hot street art. Either that, or the fellas I saw doing work to the front of the building had it removed. I hope it's hanging on a local wall somewhere, because it's too cool to be destroyed. That's the power of art.

Git some:  

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/street-art-sacred-spaces/

Tunnel of Light in the Darkness

Tunnel of Vines.

Walkway to heaven (or hell).

Revisiting old sites, and taking in some new ones. The top photo comes from a tangle of overgrown bushes I pass most every day. I've seen three different types of road kill by the side of the road (groundhog, beaver, and most horribly, a kitten) next to this stand of woods. Heartbreaking, and still some of the untamed wild. I wish I could build an elevated walkway for critters, like they do for koalas and kangaroos that migrate across highways in Australia.

The bottom pic is total nostalgia. I went to a school called Chestnut Grove that doesn't exist anymore, because the kids grew up and moved away. Now it's the seat for a county board, so it still gets some use, but there's nothing eerier than empty, silent playgrounds. 
It started out as one really cool looking old stone building (more on that later), then grew to an addition that's a rather standard box. Many years of my childhood were spent not knowing how my days would go: good or bad, I would never be able to determine if I would be running in fear from violence, or breathing a sigh of relief walking down this walkway to and from school. Isnt' that just like life?

Children's Books: This Girl Isn't Just a Girl

A girl, but not just any girl.

I often find interesting things on the street, mostly because I'm always looking at the world around me, and so I make great finds. I passed by a church that has an elementary school, and I noticed that one young student must have had one heck of a good time with this book. 

BOO! Did I scare you?

Well-loved books, like beloved children's toys, come apart with heavy use, and this darling book about a little girl witch was no exception. As much as I make books to last (as part of my job), I also recognize them for what they are; precious objects that are also made for human use, especially by our littlest ones, who need them the most to learn. Besides, this girl loved finding it among the autumn leaves. 

It just seemed right.

No problem! I got it covered.

Mad about books?

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/reading-writing-books/

Fall, and school reading.