Coming Home to the Beauty of the Mundane

It would be easy to get melancholy about leaving behind the mosses and vistas and streams of the Smoky Mountains. It was Technicolor and Giant Screen, and the beauty is in your face gorgeous. Back home in the familiar, in the city, it is easier to forget. But it is here too. Walking home from the gym (3 miles on the treadmill, not the mountain trail!) I noticed some of the unique nature that occurs only in the presence of concrete, metal, drains and man-made structures. Nature doesn't allow us to shut her out.

My sewing is on pause while I wait to move into my new studio, so I headed out with my camera to remind myself of these natural compositions and echoes right here on 4th St.

The sidewalks are tannin dyed
from the falling leaves. What I ,and others, struggled to do with cloth and formulas at Arrowmont, the rain and sun had done effortlessly.

Other leaves left their mark in the sand. The fallen pine needles curved  into a mat of beautiful texture, like a richly stitched tapestry. The geometric sidewalk seams and railroad tracks play nicely with the organic shapes of the moss and leaves. The drainage ditch collected a bouquet of Gingko leaves.

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