Birthday's, Old Photos & Randomness

I recently had a significant birthday and leading up to it, I spent some time amongst my old photos and certain ones evoked memories that felt just right to capture in collage.

The 'me' in this photo captured a very free feeling and I decided an altered me from a Then, along with my totems and symbols, was  also perfect for being in this Now.

Spiraled collage

The original photo in this collage is of me fishing with my Dad; one of my favorite photos of us. The background is the Kiddieland on the boardwalk in Wildwood, N.J., our family's summer vacation place.  I've always loved to be renewed by that feisty girl's vibe.  I know she's still in here with me all these decades later.

I collect images all the time.  Wandering through Pinterest is a great bazaar of options and you can save them to your "Boards' and never worry about space or cost.  And there are days I just wander through my image files and see what 'pops' for me that day.  I've done a series of collages I call Anonymous Content, because they don't express an internal theme, but rather, emerge just from images I have on hand.  This collage began that way with the image of the drawing of a face, but once I came upon the Broken Crayons text, that started to orient the piece and so Anonymous became Broken Crayons. And some days I need to remember Broken Crayons Still Color.

Broken Crayons Collage

Sarasota!

Sarasota is famous for it's beaches and upscale shopping out on the Keys, but being in search of the urban walking experience, we are exploring from our base in the historic, and a bit more funky, neighborhood of Laurel Park and close to downtown.  The area is replete with homes built in the 1920:s.  Cottages, Mediterranean Revival - all the styles that grab my attention. 

Nearby Burns Court is another great area and it sports a block of homes that were among the first built to draw travelers to Sarasota, most built between 1925-26.

In any event, from the elegant to the funky, something about cottages by the sea really floats my boat [corny pun absolutely intended!].  And although I've only done a few collages here, as the weather has been nice with no rainy-stay-inside-days, I have many photos on hand to keep me happily collage-ing

How could one not photograph this wonderful mural!

Cameras 

Mid-century modern in beachy colors!

Murray Homes

The mosaic shoe as planter was sitting on a porch railing, but not of this great red doored cottage. It was an actual shoe embellished and was on the porch of a tile shop. Warning- shoe is not true to size!

Shoe House

In thinking of my love of "beachy, I recalled the first beach cottage my family stayed in that I actually remember, not just from photographs. It was a white cottage with sea blue trim and a white picket fence - a Mrs. Treft's.  We rented her upstairs apartment.  I was so fortunate to spend at least two weeks every summer of my childhood 'down the shore', at Wildwood, N.J.  There is a photo of me at just 3 months old on the beach.  This fisher-girl-with-Dad photo is one of my favorites and one most evocative of being, as we said,  "down the Shore".  I send appreciation to my parents out in the Cosmos,

At the shore

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