Fruit leaves

I love Tangerines and I couldn't walk by a box of them in Chinatown, still with leaves intact without buying some. There's something that cognitively suggests freshness and ramps up the desirability for me when I see leaves on fruit- I want them more. I grew up climbing fruit trees as a kid and remember the smell of the leaves that sometimes had a faint suggestion of the fruit itself. When I see them now, it somehow refreshes this memory and I'm investing in more than just the fruit. They don't last too long either. They get dry and brittle fairly quickly so having them still green and supple is a good measure of how fresh the fruit is.

Fleeting Green

After it's abundance all summer, green in the fall garden, as it retreats becomes an interesting color accent. Not the blue cast of evergreens that start to become more apparent now as things around them die down, but the chlorophyll pigment of leaf greens that won't quite let go and insist on being part of an array of autumn hues. I love this palette of greens and browns, and all the colors in between, as you can probably tell from this site. It's a palette I want to bring indoors to sustain me through the winter months until it re emerges next spring. I just updated the about section with some new videos about the Arts and Craft movement- see how predominant this palette is in their work.

Persimmons

At this time of year, Persimmons are easily found on the streets of Chinatown, I always buy a few, not for their flavor so much as their looks. Such a beautiful color and shape- and that dried calyx on top- like a fine carving. I love to have a bowl of them just to look at. One reason the flavor is an issue is I often mistake the two kinds- Hachiya and Fuyu. The former you can't eat until they are completely ripe and the other you eat while its still fairly firm. I never remember which is which and bite into the acorn shaped hachiya and spit out its bitter tanin that lingers for hours. The photos above are fuyu. The tree is also beautiful- there's one at the Brooklyn Botanic.

+ OGMedia:Plot

Autumn Palettes

Autumn is a great time to go foraging for color palettes. I find color juxtapositions, pairings, and contrasts that surprise and inspire. Here are two good examples, a few remaining fiery orange leaves set against a dusty blue background, cris cossed with neutral branches and a dusty pink hydrangea separated from a vibrant blur of oranges by a range of leaf hues from green to yellow. Both of these have information for textile designs but I rarely use them that directly. Mostly its subconscious, the information composts and feeds something down the pike.

Upside Down Tomatoes

No, not the growing kind. I tried this last year with good results, so this year there was a serious display of all the tomato plants still with fruits attached cut and hung upside down in the window to ripen. Added to this was also some basil plants and some chili plants. It was really pretty and since this picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, we've had quite a few ripened tomatoes and chillies that were pretty good.

Suburban Foliage

I've been to Mamaroneck the last 2 weekends, the first weekend my camera had issues and I ended up borrowing Jim's camera. I was only able to download the images the following weekend when my own camera became issue free and I took more photos. That's my excuse for a lull in posting.

Here's one image from each weekend that captures the much more spectacular foliage color changes that occur outside the city. The range of color is also terrfic and I have a series of autumn palettes that I will post but this first one is in the classic yellow red vein. Remember the pinks and purples from last fall?

+ OGMedia:Dancing trees Singing birds

+ OccasionalOasis:Building With Whole Trees