January photographs

Return to Sopchoppy

Asa was typical of the pathos found scattered up and down the old Seaboard Coast Line these days of unemployed poets sitting home, spending their waking hours glued to some Facebook chat or Blog, doing nothing beside what whey really should be doing at fifty seven.
The ober-child never having or wanting to set aside that adolescent age where mommy provides and they blithely consume.
All Asa's life choices were directed toward this inevitable outcome, from the formative years when he manipulated the old colored maid to buy him toys, feigning screaming tantrums if she demurred.
It continued with the art lessons the desperate mother signed him on for to see if she may channel this little church doodler into a direction to his bend. It was of little profit, he painted for a time the dog Bobo, the alps, the still life, the old fisherman after Vincent and shipped them off to relatives in Mississippi and Georgia, never to be hung, found in closets and behind couches when he came for visits.
We know not when Asa took up the pen. Sometime after Arturo entered Wilmore Elementary and all his friends said Arturo draws much better than you. Surmising it must be so based on the Mountain Lions behind the sofa and such, it was about then Asa turned with vigor to sports. Again mother obliged and the hoops were raised, the punt, pass and kicks entered, the little leagues pursued. With ardor unknown, Asa rose to the level of outrunning Jimmy Haines down to the rail and back, crowning him the fastest boy in any grade as far as he was concerned.
He never saw them coming, but they did. It was through the side entrance East they came, Wilson James and his colored boys of above the rim men. First they stormed the gym then headed out to the cinder track and dashed Asa off the hundred, consigning him to the bench and middle distances.
What was left for Asa, the hollow boy before his time, but to revert back to the innocent bottle fed times, the days of ole Sopchoppy, sitting with his best friends Robert and Sam on the river bank, rife with brim, swimming to the far side to watch from the raised dock the day that was never in a hurry to pass.
And so he stayed.
There were perfunctory attempts to return to adulthood, but he found Walden and his civil obedience was there to stay.
"Sopchoppy! Next stop Sopchoppy!"

Christina's world record

by john clare

The day Christina went beyond Twenty-nine feet two and one half inches

The three story fall
That Christina took
Just broke the record
That Beamer set
Finally to fall
Twenty-three years
Hence
You crawled
Less than fourteen
Down the runway
to the raked sand pit
From the thin air
Like Beamer
You landed
Not even a cow saw
The fall
You made
Not even a referee
Was present to
Disqualify the
Scratch you made
Your big toe just
Touching the
The loft's threshold
takeoff plate
On your crawl up.
Christina
Not all leapers
Were loved
Andrew
Not all lovers
Leaped.

Bob

One of my favorite photographs I took of Robert Jones

He had a Nikon Camera

Bob Jones with his vintage Nikon F

Bob Jones

Treasured Hunters

Robert Jones for years was my canoe partner upon the waters of Suwannee, Santa Fe, Itchetucknee and others of memory. We drove down to Longwood to pick out the first of several canoes, a fourteen foot Mohawk he dubbed Dougon after the ancient Manatee. We soon outgrew that one and journeyed back to the factory to purchase a seventeen foot white Kevlar fiberglass version of the Blazer. Robert and I first met in the early eighties via the Lake City Runners Club, where in his fifties, he was one of the fastest in his age group. A retired Air Force Photographer, with his vintage Nikon F, we would go on many photographic ventures. A very studied, deliberate style in contrast to my speedy way, we were an odd couple. Our favorite time of year when not paddling, was to take his yellow and white VW camper bus to North Georgia and the Carolina's in the fall to camp and photograph. Again, fastidious and deliberate in getting ready each morning, I was always jumping at the bit to go.
Never marrying and me single up until 1986, we had plenty of time to pursue the photography, biking, canoeing, camping and running.
In addition, as a fellow artist, he in oils, me in pen and ink, we used the photography as subject matter for our works.
Robert is still with us as I write this. He is in his upper eighties, spends most of his time at his home and at his sisters son's home. I stop by whenever I can and we talk of the old days. Of how he found this treasure in the Suwannee while Scuba diving, of how there were no shadows under his feet as he crossed the finish line of the Jacksonville Marathon in the photo finish. Of how we should get the old runners together. How he wants to start painting. Get the bike down and air it up. Take the solo Mad River canoe out from the shed. Much talk, little action these days. While he called himself a treasure hunter, I will always treasure the friendship I had with Bob Jones.

Welcome aboard Nathaniel Manoa

by papa john clare

we are getting mighty close little Manoa
to the time you take your paddle in hand
in about another month on your own you will stand
and to that spot in the swamp I've told you of we shall go.

no one expects you to carry the bow alone
there is plenty of room between the gunwales for you
Your dad can take the stern in the Mohawk canoe
He once took your spot when ole Bob was along.

now ole Bob is gone and I must fill his place
you keep an eye out for stumps and rocks amidship
it's ok if the little paddle rests and into sleep you slip
your dad takes my spot and he understands a boy's sleepy face.

when we make it to the sill we will wake you
there the gators aren't as thick and we can wade
the chain pickerel are thick so supper should be made
little Manoa
it's going to be grand having you along in the canoe.

Cold Fronts

By now the Christmas of 2011 is almost a wrap. The snowmen collection sit upon the porch tonight, happy in the twenty degree freeze.
The tree remains in the living room, stripped of its snowmen. Tomorrow, or when it warms, I shall transport them to the shed until next year, or, if they do not magically transport themselves away to the Northern latitudes.
If you look closely in this photograph, you can see the angels in a waltz, the female on the left with her flowing gown, her right arm holding her Gabriel. These cloud formations I take quite seriously, while others would just write them off as superstition bordering upon heresy.
I do not care. If I believe in the manifestation of angels in the heavens, and they choosing to reveal themselves to me in this manner, so be it.
As my favorite etcher James Abbot McNeil Whistler said, "I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five."
Two plus two equal two snowmen, two Angels. So be it with me.

Some Bulls Run

by john clare

There are those who chose their battles well,
Faced the onslaught and braved the stave's,
No retreat! Those Stonewalls stood with Rebel yell!
Such are those who live to golden days.

Others have not been given such eyes for choosing,
They die upon the little Bull Runs,
The skirmishes winning, the battle losing,
Never realizing, those were no stave's, but guns.

After Turner

As a Turner painting, morning fog upon Alligator Lake, the ever present Coots in a thin line. The kayak is being repainted with a camouflage pattern that perhaps will allow some closer approaches this year. I took the kayak out New Years Eve for a final trip of 11. 11, like the year before and the year before, has been difficult. There has been some momentary respite from the trials of life by losing myself upon the waters. Perhaps this year, as I return to these waters, the joy shall return as well. It has been a long time seeing.

16October1888

My dear Theo,
I'm sending you a little sketch at long last to give you at least some idea of the direction my work is taking. Because I feel quite well again today. My eyes are still tired, but I had a new idea all the same and here is the sketch of it.
As always a size 30 canvas.
This time it's simply my bedroom. Only here everything depends on the colour, and by simplifying it I am lending it more style, creating an overall impression of rest or sleep. In fact, a look at the picture ought to rest the mind, or rather the imagination.
The walls are pale violet. The floor-is red tiles.
The wood of the bed and the chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheet and the pillows very light lime green.
The blanket scarlet.
The window green.
The washstand orange, the basin blue.
The doors lilac.
And that's all-nothing of any consequence in this shuttered room.
The sturdy lines of the furniture should also express undisturbed rest.
Portraits on the wall, and a mirror, and a hand towel, and some clothes. The frame-because there is no white in the picture-will be white.
This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I have had to take.
I shall work on it again all day tomorrow, but you can see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are left out and it is painted in bright flat tints like the Japanese prints.
It will form a contrast to, for example, the Tarascon diligence at the Night Cafe.
I am not writing you a long letter because I intend starting very early tomorrow in the cool morning light so as to finish my canvas.
How are your aches and pains? Don't forget to let me know.
I hope you'll write one of these days.
One day I'll do some sketches for you of the other rooms too.
With a good handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.