Seeded Earth - Bo Mackison » wabi-sabi

Tubac Festival of the Arts

Bo Mackison — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:23:34 +0000

If I’ve been quiet lately on the blog front, it is because I have been busy on the art festival circuit. I set up my booth on Tuesday – a noon to nine experience! – and the Tubac Festival of the Arts show started yesterday. My booth – Seeded Earth Photography – takes on more of a Southwestern theme when I do the shows in Arizona, but I also display my trademark macro-botanicals. I think I have a split photography personality – half Midwest and half Southwest! But then, I am fortunate to photograph two regions of the United States that I love and call home.

My booth is in a lovely spot at the corner of Tubac and Hesselbarth. (Booth number C 26.) I can look out the front and watch the crowd and the horse-drawn trolley shuttling visitors though the town. I can look to the back and I am on the edge of a fascinating outdoor sculpture garden and the Tumacacori Mountain range in the distance. A tiny slice of heaven!

The Tubac Festival of the Arts, located on the main streets in Tubac, continues today through Sunday. Hours are 10:00 am to 5 pm every day. The event is free, although there is a $6 parking fee which supports various local non-profits.

Tubac is surrounded by engaging (to the senses) high desert vistas and mountain ranges in every direction. It is a beautiful location for an art festival, in a village well-known for its art community, art galleries, and dozens of working studios in both newer complexes and in century-old buildings. Located 50 miles from Tucson, it is convenient yet I feel like I am in a totally different, mystical environment.

Truly, a place to see. And it’s a great time to visit when the Art Festival fills the streets with white tents, artists from across the country, and amazing art.

Tubac’s slogan is “Where History and Art Meet” – it is a charming village and a scenic art festival venue.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. If you are looking for Bo this weekend, come to Tubac!

Hanging Around

Bo Mackison — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:35:14 +0000

Sometimes it is the simplest things that can bring joy. I was watching several acacia seedpods dangling from a young tree at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum a few days ago. My camera, set on a tripod, was set up next to me. Two boys, maybe 8 and 5, came bounding towards me. They stopped at my side and looked at the tree.

“What are you looking at?” the older boy asked me. He had a small camera dangling from his wrist and began twirling it in circles. Perhaps it was his pre-photograph warm-up exercise.

“Oh, I’m watching these acacia seeds. They are moving in the breeze. I was thinking about the photograph I want to take.”

The older boy stared at the seeds a moment, obviously confused. But the younger boy appeared to understand. He pulled at his brother’s shirt, dragging him towards the women waiting for them. “C’mon, Jay,” he said, giving me a backwards glance. “She’s just hanging around.”

Yep. Me and the acacia seedpods. We’re just hanging around.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Sometimes Bo hangs around, and sometimes she takes photographs, too.

Nature’s Abstract

Bo Mackison — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:41:59 +0000

A photographer sees the world through a filter. Not the interchangeable filters for lenses, but the filter in the photographer’s mind through which an unfolding scene is seen as a photograph. ~ Bo Mackison

Pincushion cacti are rather small cacti. Globular, lots of protruding, sharply hewn spines. Almost easy to pass by in the search for the giant saguaro, the prickly pear with its oval sculptural pads, the ocotillo waving green branches with the tips turning red with flowers.

Then I saw these little groups of pincushions. I liked how they were bunched together in little pods of three or five, and since my camera was ready on my tripod, I took a few photos.

Later in the studio, I enlarged the photo — and wow, it was no longer a simple little cactus. I’m studying the desert, letting in the immensity of the place while still focusing on and absorbing the tiny spaces. There were sure some tiny spaces in between the spines of this not-a-friend-of seamstresses pincushion. I sure loved it, though.

Spaces — this is an entangled pattern of tiny spaces, tiny bits of shadow and light from the cactus spines.

How do I look at these spaces? Seeking? Searching?

Turn the spaces into words through metaphor? Struggle with the concept of spaces with danger or limitations? Give thanks for the infinite variety of spaces and places? Celebrate life and the wholeness of the world, place by place, and tiny space by tiny space?

Do you examine spaces? What thoughts come to mind when you observe the many complexities of tiny spaces such as these cacti?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring the Sonoran Desert and examining the smallest of spaces while allowing in big thoughts.

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Let the Sun Shine In

Bo Mackison — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:23:59 +0000

Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sun shine in…

~ lyrics from the 5th Dimension’s song Let the Sunshine In, 1969

This is another photo from a series of photographs of a small adobe room, the granary, part of the ruins of the mission at the Tumacacori National Historic Site in southern Arizona.

I am finding much to think about as I work with images from this ancient storage room. There are pots to fill, small windows to let the sun shine in, even a quiet exercise I employed using my imagination to change seemingly drab surroundings into a scene (and sense) of vibrancy.

More to come. Amazing how many metaphors for living one can find in a centuries-old adobe ruins.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She frequently visits Tumacacori where she finds herself deep in thought.

Pottery at Tumacacori

Bo Mackison — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:53:01 +0000

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not,
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.

~Amelia Earhardt

Fill one pot with courage, one pot with loving kindness, one pot with contentedness, one pot with a store of the sun’s healing rays…

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Bo Mackison loves visiting Tumacacori where she often think deep thoughts.

Digital Dahlia

Bo Mackison — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:05:42 +0000

Art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life. ~ Picasso

I took a break from packing and organizing to use Nik Pro Efex and transform a photo of a dahlia I took two springs ago into a softer, more subtle version. Since it looks like Narnia outside I went through my older photos to find something cheerful. I needed a cheerful photograph to appreciate on my get-ready-to-go day.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Tomorrow. A car ride to the airport + flight from Madison to Dallas + second flight from Dallas to Tucson + a drive to Quail Condo = the beginning of Bo’s Desert Explore II.