The Hound of Love in the snow

There is no better thing to do on a Monday that to look at this photo of the Hound of Love. You will smile, take a deep breath, and gain strength for another week of news, change, texting, social media, special reports, government indicators, talking heads, customer service, angry politicians, grumpy banks,  phone trees and the other trappings of life in modern-day America.

Use Lenore as your screensaver, print out her photo, but any way you look at her, you will smile. It is Lenore’s gift and grace.

New every day: The Daily Meeting

Okay, so this will be a notecard pack for sure. Just got the idea today for a new photo feature, the Daily Meeting, featuring all four of my dogs together. This is possible now that Frieda is turning into a bit of a spoiled ham, like my other dogs. For years, Frieda avoided people, and she is beginning to see them as the source of good things. Like her owner, she isn’t all that crazy about most men, but she and I are hitting it off. I’ve never gotten along with that many men either. And who does?

Today when I let them out of the fence, they all took different spots in the stone wall, and sat there looking around. So I am beginning to bring out some treats and call “Photoshoot,” a term they all know well. I imagine the topic of the meeting. Rose is looking for work. Frieda is looking for things to hunt. Izzy is looking for a lap to crawl into. Lenore is looking for love. Maybe food.

I figure Rose is getting tips from the other dogs. If you’re nice to him, offers Lenore, you’ll get treats. Or go to bookstores, suggests Izzy.  When do we get to work? asks Rose. I will use different spots for these photos and try and take one a day.

Two things. It’s good for my animal photography to get the animals used to this, but it is also a part of my continuing search for good calming training opportunities. All of these dogs love to work, get approval, be rewarded. I love taking photos and offer treats sometimes, so they get reinforced for being together, being responsive, being calm. You are never done with training a dog, and you never give a dog anything for free. So the Daily Meeting can combine several elements: training, photography, and love of dogs. Writing too, maybe.

Winter barn, Hebron, N.Y.

January 10, 2010 – I’ve learned a lot from my first art show. People who consider themselves artists need to be flexible, creative, aggressive and keenly aware of the need to sell their work in different ways.

People do want art, and they do appreciate it. But they can’t afford much of it right now, as the recession has cut deeper into people’s confidence and options than any of the others in recent memory. There is a market for art sold in conventional ways, but it is shallow and fragile. Learning how to listen to people is difficult for anyone with their own sense of independence and fixed notions of art and creativity. Nobody wants to downgrade or undervalue their work. But the function of art at the moment is not, I think to offer $10,000 photographs and paintings to people, but inexpensive, functional and mobile representations of work – potholders, notecards, smaller simply presented prints. I am loving the notecard idea. I want to do a “Dogs Of Bedlam Farm” series, a “Lot America series,” on on flowers, farmscapes, farm trucks, barn cats, and about 100 more I thought of last night. I’m going to add text and story lines to the notecards as well. Make them into a series.

There is not a lot of money in that, but there is some, and it is a great use of the photography.

My motto in the past two years has been this: when things get difficult, creative people get creative. Or not. We can’t do business the same old way. I was nearly in tears at the messages from people – heartfelt and piercing – thanking me for the opportunity they now had to buy my photos as notecards. They don’t have to feel excluded from art, or from my work. Art touches them, and they need it, and like any writer or artist, I need to have my work out there, touching people, telling my story.

From my perspective books are already inexpensive, relatively speaking. I do not have much sympathy for people who say they can’t afford a $25 hardcover book or a cheaper paperback. That’s their choice, but I don’t feel it’s the same issue as with an expensive painting or photograph. So I am committed to continuing on this course and offering my photos in cheaper, more portable ways. I’m excited about it. Took me awhile to get here, but I’m here.