Happy New Year!

May we remember to look as closely as we do when we are in foreign lands, and maybe bring a little of the amazing colors back home with us.

mumbai fishing village, low tide

"Iqbal, that great poet, was so right. The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave. To hell with the Naxals and their guns shipped from China. If you taught every poor boy how to paint, that would be the end of the rich in India."

from The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

"If I could have one super power, I would choose the ability to change the colors of things."

Porter Tierney, age 4

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen

photo taken on way to elephanta in india

"I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth."

Henry Miller

"Cast Asea", 20x16"
collection of John Chandler & family, Maryland

"Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, but to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."

Henry Miller

"Joy", 24x14"

from the collection of Wendy & Emily, Washington DC

"This was the year, at five or six, that I learned the meaning of "reverence," which, as I understand it, is the natural attitude to take toward magical, unverifiable, phenomena, the same way that "respect" and "obedience" describe the attitude one takes toward observable physical phenomena, such as gravity or money."

from 'All That' by David Foster Wallace

Mumbai Apartment Building at Night

from the sketchbook December 2, 2009