Pound for Pound: a culinary tour of the Pacific Northwest

I recently spent just over a week in Portland and Seattle, ostensibly for work. When I travel for work I lug a massive pelican case – picture something you’d put an AK47 in - full of solid brass sconces to show my clients. It generally weighs in at about 56 pounds. This is perfect, because lugging all that hardware around helps offset the pleasure of the spike in caloric intake from eating out every day.

Portland can’t outdo Bay Area culinary culture, but it has a distinct identity and a rain-drenched palette of local ingredients to pull from. Hearty dishes, lots of meat, rich craft brews. Food trucks populate every vacant lot, perfect for a city on two wheels. Rather than mobile munching, I hit brick and mortar eateries this time. I started with Besaw’s.

Saturday: Bunches of brunches

Besaw’s is a venerable institution in Portland: a saloon that weathered the prohibition era, it draws a massive crowd on weekends, especially when the weather is fine. Coffee urns flow on a sidewalk table perking up tousle-haired diners while they wait for a table.

We were seated in the quickest twenty minutes a dark walnut table. Massive plates heaped with all shades of autumn floated by and dropped beside bloody marys. A subtle palette of flour, cheese, egg, and meats. Creamy hollandaise sauce, caramelly home fries, ruddy bacon, toast tanned to perfection.

I rarely eat brunch – to me one massive meal is a lost opportunity for another wholly different meal somewhere else. Plus traditional breakfasts seem to me to be at cross-purposes, their soporific effect fighting any effort to be bright eyed and bushy tailed, or at least present. But Portlanders love their brunches.

I passed the omelettes, short stacks and miscellany of pork product, but feeling indulgent, constructed my own breakfast sandwich: scrambled egg and cheese on scratch biscuit. The biscuit was the quintessential Besaw’s moment: buttery, crumbly, rich and satisfying. I spiked my sandwich with a bit of Aardvark’s hot sauce and fresh pico de gallo - I’m a California girl after all. The fresh red tomato and bright green cilantro were a burst color and taste, the perfect pallet for my palate. Now that’s what I call home-cooking.

http://www.besaws.com/

Sunday: Backyard BBQ

Some of my favorite people live in Portland, and it just so happened they were hosting a BBQ to celebrate their dog’s 14^th birthday when I was in town. I ate more animal in my week in the Pacific NW than I normally do in a month, and this is where it started. (No, not the dog). We stopped by the local posh hippie market and picked up fresh ground beef patties from the deli mixed with cheddar cheese, bacon and herbs. I cocked my head quizzically as I passed the rack full of gluten-free baked goods (I understand allergies, but I can’t help but notice how allergies seem so trendy these days) and grabbed some honey-sweetened buns, and a bag of salt and pepper chips.

Buzz the wonder dog

Our smiling host was flanked by a hot grill and a fresh keg of his healing herb-infused home-brewed cream ale. The backyard garden was lush with hothas and well-drenched grass. The table overflowed with green salad, fresh cut watermelon, grilled roasted asparagus and mushrooms.. We caught up with old friends and new while everything sizzled to perfection. The dog of the hour did not have any of the German chocolate birthday cake, but we all made a wish as we blew out the candle. The grass was green, the night was warm, and everything was delicious.

Monday: The wild, wild Northwest

I happened to be in town for my oldest, dearest friend’s birthday. He recently moved to the Pacific NW after a lifetime in LA, so I’d asked around for restaurant recommendations. Wildwood, billed as typical northwest cuisine sounded perfect, a way to explore the things that made my friend’s new home unique.

The late light still blazed sparking the maple leafs outside the window as we took our table. A wave of cedar swooped over the main dining room tables, and pierced ceramic vessels glazed with muted blue and soft black dropped warm light over each table. The menu looked wonderful: we played my favorite game while awaiting our local craft brew and sparkling water: wiki-searching the unfamiliar ingredients on the menu. I verified the origin of grana padano, and my companion clarified the nature of a coulis. I asked the waiter about boudin blanc and ascertained that scapes and shoots denote the same green tendrils of the garlic plant.

Ceramic lighting by Los Angeles artist Heather Levine

We started with a green salad and turnip greens soup. The soup was delectable to eye and tongue, a vibrant color with Morrocan pepper sprinkled over a swirl of crème fraiche. The salad has slivers of castelvetrano olive, a favorite smoky fruity flavor.

I did not find that the food was typically northwestern. But then one might argue that wildwood was ahead of the curve that is now the norm: local ingredients from small farms and seasonal changes to the menu. It was good. The fish was perfectly grilled, set over scapes and turnips. I scrape the persimmon colored sauce off the top of the fish intuitively. The kimchee mayonnaise did nothing for the fish (why add fat to a light fish, simply grilled?) but it did something interesting with the turnips and scapes the fish propped atop. The table bread, and olive oil I requested, were served a tad too cold, and I was disappointed in the shaker of plain salt.

We finished our meal with a cup of tea, and chocolate chip cookies. An impressive sight, their burnt edges recollecting childhood Tollhouse moments.

http://wildwoodrestaurant.com/

Tuesday: Tip to tail

Painted bright saffron, the Olympic provision company sits on the ground floor of the old converted building west of the river. I generally eat vegetarian and my animal of choice is fish, but I make no claims to be anything other than an omnivore. But I left it to my client’s choice, so here we were at a charcuterie. I scanned the salads and the single vegetarian sandwich on the menu. A smear of cream cheese just didn’t sound appealing, so I dove in head first and ordered the bratwurst.

We started with an appetizer of fried almonds. I had county fair visions of fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, fried butter (I’m not making that one up, either). When that pile arrived I knew it didn’t matter was my sandwich was like. Nuts make me crazy, and I am a connoisseur of salt. The almonds were sautéed in olive oil and fat grains of salt clung to them like they were in love.

My client ordered the Italian sausage over polenta, and my bratwurst was served with a side of house made potato chips and red cabbage slaw. The thick-crusted bread perfectly held the sliced sausage, and the whole grain mustard floated on its surface. It was here that I was primed for the future epiphany that every food is bettered either by mustard or by red pepper sauce. I asked for more mustard and had another bite.

http://www.olympicprovisions.com/

Wednesday: Sleepless in Seattle

I drove to Seattle on the solstice, the relentless sunshine beaming in the driver’s side window the whole three-hour drive. Clouds are amazing in the northwest: they are so high, but contained, like a soft barrier of ceiling holds them in. Expansive but finite, unlike the Big Sky clouds in Montana that stretch on forever, or the whisps of the Southwest desert.

I arrived at my generic but well-appointed downtown hotel room and Yelped. It was time for a lighter meal, and some serious veggies. Meet my road go-to: Vietnamese. It was almost nine (and still light out) when I sat down to peruse the massive menu, and I was famished. The restaurant had gotten great reviews and the dishes, not just your typical pho and bun, sounded wonderful.

Elephant's ear - Saigon, not Seattle

I ordered spring rolls with grilled tofu and coconut to start, and a pineapple seafood stir-fry that included Vietnamese celery. When I was in Vietnam I cooked with an ingredient called elephants ear, a local vegetable much like celery but with more porous cross sections. I wondered if it could be the same here. I scanned the dining room: there were three other tables, all of which were Vietnamese. That was a good sign.

Granted I was ravenous, but those were the best spring rolls I’d ever had: the crisp curls of fresh coconut made it. The stir-fry was light and simple. I used copious amounts of sambal to spice it up. Pineapple stir-fry was one of the outstanding dishes I had while I was in Vietnam. I had never cared for sweet and sour in Chinese cookery, but the pineapples here were different: small - the perfect size to split with a friend - and pale yellow with a tart sweetness, rather than the deep syrupy gold of Hawaiian or Dole. They were the perfect compliment to peppers, greens, cashews. At Longs the pineapple was sweet, but beautifully complemented with cooked tomatoes and warm cucumber.

I was meeting a friend for dinner the following night, and seriously considered inviting him here to try: lily blossom halibut, turmeric coconut rice cake, cognac scallop pomelo salad. Next time. And the time after that.

http://longprovincial.com/

Thursday: Storming the Bastille

My good friend in Seattle has the same culinary adventurousness as I. A new place is always better than somewhere we’ve been before, and anything is fair game (fare game?) He suggested Japanese near my hotel downtown, but I was keen to explore the edgier neighborhoods of Seattle. He countered with the proposal that we meet in Capitol Hill near his place and wander to find a hole in the wall café. Behind our text conversation though, he must have been canvassing his workmates, because he pinged me back with two options in Ballard. I dismissed Tex Mex – which I almost always do the farther I am from that particular border – and made a reservation at Bastille.

It was typical bistro inside – white subway tiles that amplify conversation to an ear splitting level, moody vintage lighting fixtures, a sweeping wooden bar. The menu standards were there, too. Moules frites, check. Croque Monsieur, check. But there were other piquant dishes on the menu and while I’m no expert in French cuisine, there were ingredients that I never would have pegged for typical French.

I was sure I was overdoing it, and ordered a carrot salad with coriander and exotic spices, and the socca galette, a chickpea pancake with frisee, radishes and olives. The veggies come from the restaurant’s rooftop garden. We sat on the patio, the scent of the ocean drifting towards us on the evening breeze. The light lingered through our entire meal, lulling us with summery promise. My friend entertained me with his always bright conversation, and we noticed that the family dining beside us on the terrace was French. This was a good trend I was riding in Seattle.

Before I knew it I had two petits plats before me, which I was sure would be the death of me. The carrot salad had a round slice of soft white cheese atop it, the color deeper at the irregular edge where the rind held it together. The shreds of carrot were liberally coated in oil, which was spiked to a bright red with warming spices. Smoldery bits of dark dried olives flecked the dish. It was delightful. The galette was something else entirely. About the size and texture of a dense crumpet, the galette propped up a mountain of light curly lettuce, and olives and anchovies hid in the midst of it. It was luscious.

I asked our waitress about the provenance of the dishes, since I really had no idea where such a lovely combination would come from. She mentioned the galette was Parisian street food, but said she’d ask the chef. A few minutes later a tanned young man in his mid thirties in a double breasted white coat stood before our table and with an “uh” said he thought we had some questions. I felt like I should have some well articulated ponderings steeped in knowledge of traditional and contemporary French cookery, but that is probably just the byproduct of watching Julie and Julia recently. 

I wondered where the dishes were from, if they were, say Norman (wrong) or Breton (no), and completely misplaced the relationship of Nice and Marseille in my mental map as he talked about the combination of ingredients of the galette, and the Moroccan influence on the salad. He mentioned you would get a simple shredded carrot dressed in vinegar in most Parisian restaurants, but that he took it a step further. I don’t know that he was any more well-versed in the spice trade’s influence on his menu that I was, but it was a totally unpretentious exchange of information and a chance to commend the man responsible for a delightful meal. My friend’s croque, by the way, was served in a miniature cast iron dish, bubbling wickedly and oozing cheese. I demurred a bite of his croque, sticking to my pescatarian pretensions only as a means to stuff myself on every last morsel of carrot and frisee.

http://bastilleseattle.com/

Friday: Return to Eden

Photo: Thomas J. Story

I have two fallbacks on the road: Vietnamese food and the venerable Whole Foods market. When the heft of my portions outstrips the heft of my sample bag, I go for simple, nourishing and predictable. The Whole Foods deli is my version of home cooking: give me some quinoa with edamame, broccoli crunch, herbed tofu, Indian style cauliflower.

And give me some fresh fruit. I can’t say no to Cripps pinks apples, even when they are flown all the way from Chile. (One day I will visit Chile if for no other reason than just to eat them locally). Taylor gold pears. Rainier cherries. The tiny deep red points of local strawberries, so small they could be the tips someone’s sliced off the bland overgrown mega-berries from a conventional market. Blackberries, which can be one of life’s biggest disappointments, but are divine revelation when they’re good. The nectarines and black velvet plums, mostly from California, were just coming to season and were golden and amazing. I picked up a basket of figs bought from a tiny market on MLK.

I did not make it to a single farmers market, which are legendary in the Pacific Northwest. But I ate a harvest’s worth.

Saturday: I want to move here

It was my last day in Portland. So much to do – so what to do? I hit Camamu Soap in their new location in Sellwood, and then stopped in on the local cabal of my the Dharma Punx. And then I ate pizza.

I kept noticing the pizza places in Portland. The baking crust smell wafted out storefront windows beginning early in the day. I don’t go much for pizza. I'm an Angeleno. Who craves cheese-slathered bread in the semi-desert? But up here it was looking good. Maybe it’s the climate, maybe it’s the obvious pairing with beer.

I’d heard a few places mentioned by locals during the week, but wandering outside the blocks around the Laurelthirst pub waiting for the band to start I was drawn by a simple heart shaped sign. I looked in and discovered Dove Vivi, which translates as "where I live." I scanned the menu and knew I was home: vegan options, kale salad, castelvetrano olives.

We put our name in around 7.15. It's rare that I wait for a table, but it gave my friend and I a good chance to talk. It turned out that this was the fantastic place he was trying to remember.  The waitresses, unintentionally but uniformly clad in heathered tshirts in sorbet shades paired with gray or black jeans cuffed above a luminous stretch of ankle terminating in clogs or Chucks, hollered the names of to go orders at the bar, some with tumblers full of wine. We caught up on our days, and then I begged my friend to check on the wait, and to request some olives to munch on.

We were seated some time later, oliveless, by the plate glass front window. I reminded the waitress to bring us some olives as good naturedly as I could – I was seriously hungry – and we perused the menu while sipping water decanted from a large mason jar. Older couples, families with young kids, girls who looked destined for a night out sat at the other tables - the place only seats about ten parties. I shortlisted the vegan with herbed tofu ricotta, and the veggie, a classic which we decided on as a baseline on which to assess the pizza.

Our kale salad and herbed olives were delivered with a sincere smile from the waitress. We munched the sweet green flesh of the olives between bites of thin dark strips of kale flecked with ricotta cheese. Both were richly dressed in good olive oil. My appetite whetted, I wondered aloud if the thick crust pizza would take forever. I was optimistic since they didn’t call it Chicago style and there were no warnings on the menu that you should expect a 45 minutes wait for your pizza. Then again, no one warned me I’d wait 45 minutes for a table.

When the waitress asked if I was feeling better I answered "yes!" wholeheartedly, mentioning that I might lick the plate. She suggested I hang on to it and dip my crust in the dressing. I was really starting to like this place. A heavy cast iron dish touched down moments later. Thick with tomatoes and veggies, thick with cheese, all resting on a deep pillow of crust. Perhaps it was Portland’s distinctive twist on the cornmeal crust. Chicago style never impressed me. This was divine.

I dipped my crust in the sheen of herbed oil on my salad plate. A single slice filled me perfectly, though I wanted to stuff down one more slice for the road. Instead I wrapped the rest to take with me on the plane the next morning. It was back to LA after a wonderful week, but I got to live one more day in the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.dovevivipizza.com/

What's in your cup?

This morning I walked into my local Starbucks for a triple shot of decaf espresso before work. It’s my usual drink when I’ve fallen off the no coffee wagon, and since the wagon’s wheels left me in the dust some time ago, I had my nifty spillproof Contigo travel cup with me.

Conservation is a no-brainer to me. It takes building a new habit, but humans are great at that (when did you last glance at your smartphone?) The way I figure it, I would not want 365 used coffee cups in my bedroom, so I do my best not to live with a mystical belief about where things go when I throw them “Away.”

My Starbucks is full of locals (you can tell, because it’s right in the heart of boy’s town and the bicep quality is well above par) but it also gets some tourists from the hotel just down the block. The mother with her two adolescent daughters before me in line was clearly of the second variety. She was fitting three drinks into a cardboard carry tray as I screwed the lid onto my travel cup, when I heard her say “Now, that’s a great idea!”

Um. “Yeah,” I said, with no detectable sarcasm. “It is. I save a few hundred cups a year, I figure.”

The usual barrage of judgmental thought was staunched along with the sarcasm, with just a tiny bit of effort. As I stood there and saw her regarding my cup with a smile, I realized, in a way that was completely unrelated to her charming Midwestern accent, that on this Friday morning in the year 2012, it occurred to this woman for the very first time in her life that she had an option not to use a disposable cup. She had the option to conserve. She had the option to save trees and plastic and space in the landfill, as well as all the unaccounted pollutants generated behind the scenes for anything that’s mass manufactured and distributed world wide to deliver a hot cup of creature comfort to us in the morning in whatever city we may find ourselves waking up.

That was what really woke me up this morning. I realized how I sleepwalk through my worldview, which presumes that everyone, everywhere knows what they can do to help our planet get a little healthier.

When I set aside my assumptions for a second, I had the opportunity to share a great idea with someone else. This woman didn’t deserve scorn for flaunting what I consider one of the simplest measures of personal environmental responsibility. Quite the contrary: she gave me the gift of being inspired by an action that I take almost without thinking about it. I paraphrase George Bernard Shaw:

If you have caramel frappucino and I have a triple decaf and we exchange cups then you and I will still each have one tasty beverage. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

And that idea tastes much, much better.

A Month of Metta

There is a wave in our culture that values practice over achievement. A cadre of tie dyed hearts who encourage us to play, observe, soften, and experiment instead of hammer down an unbending path towards a clearly defined goal. The space of practice, of disciplined playfulness and gentle committedness to return and return and return to a task that at best may feel meaningless but occasionally is downright painful, paradoxically generates a deep sense of accomplishment. 

Perhaps it's just masochism. Wheee!

But it is very clear to me that love, kindness and soft-relating need practice in my world. In particular softening to my own experience, observing rather than judging my reactions, playing at my life rather than performing it like every day is a doctoral dissertation, is often not easy. 

So in characteristic goal-oriented fashion I declared July the month of metta*. I expressly dedicated my time on the cushion to lovingkindness toward myself. Every day. As they say, charity begins at home.

Below are some reflections from the month - an offering to anyone looking for love.

O, what a tangled head we weave.

I.

I commit to sitting every day and sending myself lovingkindness. I invite friends in my spiritual community to join me and sit daily for one minute or more and wish love to themselves in whatever words ring true. I seek to be comfortable where I sit. I strain to recognize my own inner voice of compassion. I feel for my heart and relax into it when I can.

II.

I conjure a mental image of myself and when I find one that moves my heart I recite to that woman in my mind:

may you be happy

may you be at ease with suffering

may you be safe

may you be healthy

may you be peaceful

may you be free of suffering

III.

I start out sitting 20-30 minutes a day. I average 18 minutes. I sit on my own 27 out of 31 days. I know this because there’s an app for it. God I love technology.

IV.

I spend a good amount of time finding my favorite bell on the meditation timer on my iPhone. It's better than the marimba, or the cricket. I'd like something clean and clear. Some of the sounds are tinny and cheap, like some Indian import I bought at Cost Plus. One bowl is too high pitched, a shrew, a nag. The gong warbles like a drunk in danger of falling over. I find my favorite. I hear it for about 5 seconds a day. I smile and sigh.

V:

When I sit in vipassana my mind wanders, most often to plans, calls, connections to make. These relations, explanations and interpretations all seem to shore up an identity. Medieval buttresses. Mind building mind.

I:

Monday: I set the intention to really relax with my thoughts in vipassana, which I will follow with metta. So often I react to the drifting. It feels like a tightening in my chest, a condemnation that wordlessly constricts my throat. How counterproductive judgment and frustration at mind's natural wandering are to metta practice. “Real-time non-judgmental awareness” as Noah Levine calls it. My minutes in metta glow.

VII:

I envision a woman kneeling behind me, her hands smoothing my hair, calming the storming mind. It feels like a saint's mantle streaming from my crown.

VIII:

All the day's frustrations rush back to me: when I was passive/aggressive, when I was impatient, when I rigidly clung to my plan. I feel my being tighten as I sit. Then I think: these are what need compassion. These are what I will hold in my embrace. I hug my own tight spots.

IX:

My heart opens in the calm of meditation. I have been looking at shelters for months. I met a tortoiseshell kitten last week. I am so clear that I want to adopt that kitty. 

X:

I cannot feel the warmth of my heart. The other day sitting with my hands crossed over my heart I felt softness, warmth, a compassionate seed growing, pulsing. Now there's only tension, and my mind wanders to the restrictions in my life, to the areas I feel tight. My heart beats tight in its bands.

XI:

My body feels too much, too big. I place my hands on my belly just below the navel, the point in Chinese medicine called the dan tien. It is so uncomfortable, too uncomfortable. I raise one hand to my heart. With this connection, I find more ease in my belly.

XII: 

A four month old kitten named Kriya lands in my life on July 13. The sleeplessness is mostly blissful, and revelatory. How challenging for me to root into self-compassion when something else, someone else, presses in on me. All of a sudden, my mind has a project.

I get caught in a whirlpool of ego and purpose. Worry presses in on me. My self care slips. Sitting for any length of time is a struggle.

XIII: 

I chant metta phrases at the shelter, surrounded by caged animals. Dozens of lives. May you be healthy. May you be safe. I stand there with eyes closed wishing them well.

XIV:

There are great moments when I am aware of my kitten’s experience. She is Present. Utterly in the moment. Inclusive. Unapologetically rooted in her life. She is always in walking meditation on four paws.

XV: 

I spend a weekend in movement and stillness at Against the Stream with Kate Shela and Matthew Brensilver. I dance my compassionate experiment. As if in aftershock, I find myself gesturing when I express myself later that week, moving the emotional energy through my hands like I'm in tai chi practice.

XVI:

Coming to crosslegged after an ecstatic wave of dance, I feel like I’m slotting myself into a cinderblock bunker with no roof. How much rigidity I bring to my sitting practice. How joyless this makes it. Listening to Pema later that night I hear: there is nothing harsh about it. We joyfully return to the breath.

XVII:

Having watched the sky lightening from 4am, I get up and go to 7am yoga. I am sure the restless tension and toxic exhaustion that plagued my rest will keep me from rooting in to the class. Half of the sludge flows out of me in the first forward fold.

XVIII:

I am struck by the value of community. I need not force myself out of quiet or solitude, even when I crave company. Other hearts beat and warm the space below my palms whenever I sit in metta.

XVIX:

Ananda asked "Is it true what has been said, that good spiritual friends are fully half of the holy life?"

The Buddha replied, "No, Ananda, good spiritual friends are the whole of the holy life. Find refuge in the Sangha community."

XX:

Mindfulness is the safe space inside us between suppression and entanglement. I sit at the apex. I breathe love.

XXI:

I cannot sit when I’m exhausted. Thirty minutes of dream drift. Or can I? The bell sounds, three spacious chimes.

XXII:

I fear I’m metta-washing my experience. Some nebulous anxiety rumbles, refusing to be suppressed. It cries and worries just below the surface of the metta phrases I repeat.

XXIII:

Caffeine is not helping my sitting practice. But I crave that buzz. My heart beats, but it’s fuzzed over by the static of the drug. Caffeine is not helping any of my life practices.

The shit and the bliss.

XXIV:

I hear the kitten on the kitchen counter and my eyes fly open. I lose my seat to shoo her. I take my seat again nine hours later after work. I hear the kitten on the kitchen counter. Something in me sighs. Maybe she’ll get bored. A moment later I hear her jump down. Or maybe I will.

XXV:

After nearly a month of practice I discover I recite phrases of compassionate self-love like a military cadence. Boots on blacktop. It hits the empty bowl of my heart like a wood tocsin.

XXVI:

I sit with my back supported. I slip into the comfort of breathing. This simple space of breath is the most compassionate space I can be in. Nothing needs to change.

XXVII:

It will be over in the blink of an eye. Love yourself.

XXVIII: 

For a few unmarked minutes after the bell sounds, I hold my heart. I change my mantra. May you be compassionate. May you be curious about your own experience. May you be healthy. May you be safe. I am.

*Wikipedia defines metta or maitri as loving-kindness, friendliness, benevolence, amity, friendship, good will, kindness, close mental union (on same mental wavelength), and active interest in others. It is one of the ten paramis of the Theravada school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states (Bramaviharas). This is love without clinging.

Pema Chodron on metta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-rRMUl04I

5 Rhythms, a moving meditation

http://www.kateshela.com/rhythms.htm

Insight Timer

(Wheee!)

https://insighttimer.com/

The shape of the Earth as we know it.

This morning I woke up with a ravenous soul. The weekend promised a much-needed respite from both the excitement and the drain of spring's rambunctious pace.


I knew exactly what I craved to replenish my inner well: the rich deliciousness of photography. I hungered for texture. For the rhythm of a substance, the flow and dance that all the materials in this world hold when we take the time to stop and look.


After this outward, social, breakneck week I was ready stop and look, and let art's vision fill the hollows in my heart, the welcoming warm space throbbing in my chest.


I looked over gallery listings as I took care of my empty tummy. I'd read about an exhibit of Ansel Adams' work in conjunction with Sierra Club at G2 Gallery months ago, and though I have a date with my dad for a Venice art adventure on the closing weekend of the show, I headed over to Venice.


Ansel's bespectacled face peers up at me from the cover of time magazine (September 3, 1979) in a case in the center of the warm upstairs gallery space that also holds his first Kodak Brownie.

The photos are mostly from the National Parks, and the original 1950 Portfolio Two stands like a monolith in a shadowbox in a corner of the gallery. That goofy smiling image seemed somehow at odds with the resonant black and white forms, the silent landmasses and snowdrifts and leaf prints ringing the room, as well as the exuberant holiness of Walt Whitman's poem* on the folio frontispiece.


You have seen these images. They are as megalithic a cultural phenomenon as the synergy of earth, air, water and light Ansel shot. And they are so humble, too. Just the play of the camera, just the result of light on coated paper, just snapshots. Just.

A picture of Schoodie Point in Maine opens to a great flat stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, articulated in the foreground by rocks below the water's surface. The water cascades from high to low, arcing over the rock, made gentle by the break in the surface level.

Were I there to study photographic technique I'd linger at the forest at Mount Rainier, a perfect composition as far as I can tell.

The texture of a jagged stump where a moth alights for a moment looks like ice floes were caught in the wood long before it split apart, cleaved maybe by the yearly sequence of freeze and thaw in Glacier Bay.

The streaked cliffs of Canyon de Chelly dwarf the millenia old dwellings niched in a pocket in the cliff face, dwarf the trees massed in the foreground. The image is called White House ruins.

One shot of a rock pile in Joshua Tree struck me less for the image than the caption. Joshua Tree was made a National Park in 1994. I went out there for the first time with my high school buddies in 1991. At that time it was still Joshua Tree National Monument. We enjoyed the great outdoors in that way that young folks do, irreverently and lightly and easily, in full joy of the absence of any authority other than the landscape itself, in awe of the desert's stillness and the revelation of an uninterrupted dome of stars from one horizon to the other which commanded our hearts at night. It inspired no undue religiosity and we understood the word "awesome."


Though I've become used to framing spaces like these in geologic time - a slow eroding that eludes the sense of one human's lifetime - yet what a transformation happened in my time when it became Joshua Tree National Park. This brought a ringing awareness of how conservation absolutely happens in the present tense. The whole expanse of it is there for us, for inspiration, education, and recreation.


Ansel's black and white image of the forest at dawn in the Great Smoky Mountains drains the rainbow foliage but replaces color with kinetic energy. The eye ricochets from shape to shape, alighting on one tree top after another. The tree's shapes seem sculpted by sparks, caught fire, as the sun ignites each tiny leaf. They look like bright ashes that, stilled by the camera, promise to dance down when we stop holding our breath.

Ansel talks about the genre of landscape photography in a way that preferences the individual's artistic engagement with what she sees: "a creative experience, in which the fact that it is a landscape, is incidental, perhaps accidental, and secondary in importance to the fact that...a subjective experience was created and expressed."


How lucky I am to have engaged so many of the places Ansel photographed: Sonoma County, Glacier National Park, the Snake River in the shadow of the Grand Tetons. And how proud I am to be part of the Sierra Club. There is probably not a single bone in my body that could be called political, but about the world around me and its beauty I am passionate, and that reverence for nature stirs me to action. On the most basic level, my journey has been self serving, because I love these spaces and how they nourish me. A quote at the entrance to the exhibit said much the same about Ansel: regardless of what he did for us, he did it all for himself.


I knew that today was Earth Day, but I did not realize that Earth Day is the anniversary of Ansel Adam's death, April 22, 1984**. What a beautiful memorial.

G2 Gallery
http://www.theg2gallery.com/


Sierra Club
http://www.sierraclub.org/


*Excerpted from "Starting from Paumanok" by Walt Whitman:


Each is not for its own sake,
I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake.


I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,
None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough,
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is.


**A bit about Ansel Adams:


Born in San Francisco in 1902, Ansel chose experiential education over formal schooling, and first visited Yosemite at age 12. His amazing images served to inspire and awe with their beauty, and to gently raise awareness about conservation. His association with the Sierra Club began in 1919, and he later served 34 years on their Board of Directors. He mounted an exhibition in 1955 in collaboration with the Club, and his book Sierra Nevada: the John Muir Trail, was instrumental in moving President Roosevelt to designate King's Canyon National Park in California.

Points of Departure

what

are you leaving

are you leaving behind

what is

the point 

of departure

ask yourself

when

you arrive

The Shape of Things

Spring starts with late hours of sunlight that chafe the inward spirit. Then rain. Then heat. Do, more, out, see, world. It is the curse of a temperate, insistent, envied city.









I keep reading the message on today's calendar and it slips from my mind. No focus, no commitment. I wash from one to another project, craving the transcendence of art - strong swathes of color, the rhythm of texture, image, sound. A play of light. A shift of emotion. I crave wordless space. The wordless admixture of faith, aggression, ambition, and love that is the alchemy of a resting heart.

I do not know what this season will bring. I fell asleep this afternoon with palm fronds ripping eastward against the soft gray sky. I woke to a layer of blue slicing through the southward view: holding a space between rooftops and cloud as I stood listless before my kitchen window.








I do not know the shape of things.