CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  Bringing back interest to our cities is a hot topic. Too often overlooked are the value of small unique places. Ones that set the place apart from others. Katarina Mall in her article “Capitalism in the Cracks” for Reason Magazine addresses this challenge well. She describes how Japan works with districts to promote all types of enterprise, especially in the small places including alleys often not possible with city planning in this country. Think back on a recent visit to another city, what do you remember about it. Was it the giant development that squashed a neighborhood just for another strip mall or ditto market. Maybe, but more likely it is for a unique place you found. Often, these are small places.  It mighr be Sun May Co. a tiny asian gift shop at 5 Canton Alley S in Seattle, or Commonwealth Used Books at 9 Spring Lane in Boston, or Daiso a Japanese variety store in the basement under an escalator of the old Woolworth building in Vancouver, or Collectors Nook a stam...

  Sometimes you have to take an image, even though it doesn't fit anywhere. Await it does for the right time to belong to a passing thought or theme.... Factory Wall, Great Falls SC LA Under the Bridge, Portland OR Hidden Downtown Mall, Charlotte NC

  I stood outside the dollar store with my bag full of treasures. Then I thought about my image, what would people think. Still there were plenty of advantages to going to the dollar store in these blurry uncertain times. First, with inflation, your likely to meet your friends there, all hiding between the aisles. Secondly, you feel like a zillionaire, one capable of buying out the whole place for $1. The disorganized clutter of the place speaks hidden treasures in every aisle. Perhaps most importantly, you can find art there if you look. Small things that with a little creativity become wonderful art works. The gold rimmed picture frame, the little plastic box, the art board and multitude of filler beads and bobbles.  So I drag them home, play with them throwing away most, the cost is nothing you know. Still once in awhiles something of note appears. What to do this those artful works? After all you don’t want to explain where they came from. So you establish a gallery of Dol...

  I filled up the tank of my hybrid and started out of the gas station. A look at the dash stopped me. It read 629 miles to empty. To the East was the ocean, to the North the giant east coast cities, to the South the low country and the grade B movie that is Florida. To the West, was the rest of the country where I had lived most of my life. It had been too long since I had been on the road. They say with age that your world becomes smaller. It’s true in some ways. You don’t walk as far or as well as you used to. A few medical detours take their toll. Your just not as sure about things as you used to be, maybe life has shown you too much. But I remembered when I did live out west and was young. How you thought nothing of driving eight hours from Seattle into the high desert to find peace and dreams. Where had those years gone? All these things weighed on my mind, still there were new places to go in the East. Maybe a story or two to write. I looked at the dash 629 miles to empty…

  "PAPER NOTES" - Great Falls SC (collage of old bank notes and found wall in vacant lot)

  Sometimes you see things that grab you. Your not sure why. The camera clicks though, but they just don’t fit anywhere. Lingering in the back recesses of your mind, they haunt you. Finally, you sit and review each image. Still theres no real fit with anything. They just are what they are. Just like the other no fits of your life. Ones you will always ponder, but are somehow you.