Reflection

I reflect on my past and what I have created.

As I move forward, I bring with me the best of what was,

and I create the best from what is.

Thoughtfully, prayerfully and purposefully,

I am ready for a new beginning. 

See, the former things have come to pass,

and new things I now declare.

~Isaiah 42:9

On The Fourth Day of Christmas

My true love gave to me

Four calling birds

My Great Niece

Lauren;

Christmas Eve.

Love Is Born Anew Today

Good Tidings!

"The angel said unto them,

Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of joy,

which shall be to all people."

~Luke 2:10 (KJV)

The Gift

The gift of possibility

is given every morning

Me and Our Christmas Tree

Another Day in Paradise

 Especially during the Christmas season,

I am recognizing all the blessings all around--

my friends and family, home-cooked food, gifts under the tree and gifts of Nature.

And the gifts of Spirit, of love, wisdom and peace

are awaiting my embrace of them every moment of every day.

Centered in this awareness,

I am complete and I am open to prosperity that materializes as abundant blessings of every kind. 

Always. May Peace and Love be with you.

When I Left The House This Morning

This is what I saw

at the end of the driveway:

Joy to the World

Many years ago

counting down the days

to Christmas

in Times Square

I am blessed.

I bless others through my art

and my art blesses me.

Miracles are taking place

in my life everyday;

I look at my life and acknowledge

the blessing that are there 

for me right now.

And you?

Where's The Line To See Jesus

I heard this song on the radio

a few days ago;

with Christmas one week away

from today

I am sharing it with you:

You can read more about the singer Becky Kelley

at her website.

Vintage Christmas Decorations

Susan found them online.

We bought, well, she bought

a boxful, 30 or so

from

 

VINTAGE HOME DECOR HANDMADE PRIMITIVES by KeepsakeDesigns on Etsy

 

I like this one alot.

All, I might add, made in the USA.

A Box of Vintage Christmas Decorations

A box arrived in yesterday's mail.

A box filled with Vintage Christmas Decorations.

Here is one:

The Quintessential #JingleTweet

Twas twelve days before Christmas

When all through the office of the AUDIOCOMGROUP

The movie "It's a Wonderful Life"

Played on a continuous loop.

The #JingleTweet gifts were all wrapped with care

In hopes that the guests would soon be there.

Stacey Bewkes was certainly not nestled in bed

While visions of so many friends danced in her head.

And Susan McCarthy in her Unique Vintage Red Satin Dress,

And I in my dark Ralph Lauren suit, green Izod shirt, and colorful Contess Mara Tie;

When at the bar there arose such a clatter,

Susan and I walked over together to see what was the matter;

Away to the bar we flew like a flash--

Two Cabs I said and the bartender answered "Please, no cash."

The movie on the surface of the newly painted wall

Gave the lustre of lovely light  to all,

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

What looked like an angel; my she was dear

With curly blond hair and a beautiful smile, an author

I knew in a moment she must be Dec-a-Porter.

More rapid than lovers' heart beats they came

And we smiled and hugged and called them by name:

Now, Jonas Everets!

Now, Mally Skok!

Katie Coleman

And Conor Coleman!

On, Marcy Michaud!

On, Larry Ruhl!

On, Tamara Stephenson!

And Laura Newman!

To the beautiful bar to drink, to the buffet table to eat;

Now Tweet! Now Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

As artists these all before this #JingleTweet

There was no design challenge they could not meet.

And again to the food and wine they flew

With a roomful of gifts and St. Stacey, too.

And then, in a twinkle, I closed my eyes to rest

And clearly I heard the voices of the wondrous guests.

As I opened my eyes and turned around

Stacey Bewkes and Ridgely Brode appeared without making a sound.

They were the quintessence of style and beauty, from head to toe,

They, too, were like angels, all glorious aglow.

A pile of gifts these two angels had to give out

When they pulled a card from an urn and came out a shout;

"A gift from Bruce Barone,  this December

For one lucky person, a gift to remember."

Their eyes, how twinkled, their dimples how merry

Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like cherries.

They intensely focused on each gift they gave this night

With her glasses pulled down on her nose

Stacey conferred with her party partner, Ridgely, and from #Jingletweet arose

Cheers and laughter so sweet

Making new friends here was such a treat;

But I knew I would awake in the morning light

Sorry I did not meet 

All at this #JingleTweet

A quintessential #JingleTweet

We left by ten

If you want to know more more, read this poem again.

~~~

Many Thanks to Quintessenceblog and RidgelysRadar!

~~~

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me

An Angel Watches Over Me

Angels are like good friends;

you do not have to see them

to know that they are there.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me

The Sardinian Donkey

At Van Saun Park

Paramus, New Jersey

"The Sardinian Donkey, as a species, is the forefather of the popular American Miniature Mediterranean  donkey.  It is from its early imports into North America that these much loved pets mostly descend from.

"However, the Sardinian Donkey  faces a dim future as it is a species recognised as in “Critically Endangered” by the Monitoring Institute for Rare Breeds and Seeds in Europe, the SAVE foundation and FAO’s WORLD WATCH LIST for domestic animal diversity.  Despite the urgency of its status the specimen numbers of this rare breed are still dwindling.

"The Sardinian Donkey makes a truly marvellous companion for children and adults alike.  It just requires love and adequate care.  In return you will get a truly loyal friend, much joy, happiness and wonderfully comic moments.

"The Jesuit Priest Francesto Cetti in 1774 wrote the most passionate and accurate description of the Sardinian Donkey and we owe him much of what we know about the species today, he wrote:

“...Its smallness takes nothing away from its merit and does not impede its service to its master.  On the contrary, its merit grows because of its small stature that has been ignored in its homeland, but it has been sought after as a great marvel and taken to other seas (overseas) to be shown in courts in bridle and saddle...”

from here:

~~~

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

When I Worked at Hearst Magazines

Her name

Candie

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Vintage Christmas Santa Wrapping Paper

Susan found a few sheets of Vintage Christmas Santa Wrapping Paper at her Mom's house.

We put one sheet on an end table, under glass in our sitting room:

 

I cut four Santas out from the wrapping paper and put into small frames.

One Santa sits in our living room:

Another Santa sits in our office:

A third Santa keeps us company in our bedroom:

And the last Santa brightens our bathroom:

Do you have any Vintage Christmas Decorations or Family Heirlooms?

I would love to hear from you!

~~~

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

The Last Day of November

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

A November Photograph

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

William Blake

Today is William Blake's birthday.

I am thinking about Blake today and I have in front of me the catalog from my college senior thesis/art exhibition, "William Blake, The Apocalyptic Vision."

And I am reading:

From the introduction:

"For Blake, the apocalyptic moment was personal and could happen at any time evil is recognized. Revelation and Judgment are internal affairs of the spirit, arising from a clearing of the senses which the artist, by virtue of his imaginative genius, can promote. The true artist then has a social role bordering on the religious. Blake took this very seriously. He sought prophecies of a particular visionary nature, and found them in the Books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Job, and Solomon......Apocalypse was not the only myth with which Blake was concerned. It was part of a general sequence, a cycle beginning with Creation and Fall and culminating with Apocalypse and Redemption. Apocalypse becomes the correction of the Fall, and Redemption, a reversal of the process by which the spirit was contracted into human form......This constrictd state Blake called Experience; its opposite was Innocence. Blake's cycle from Creation to Judgment or Redemption is paralleled on a personal level as a progress from Innocence to Experience. The tension between the two states is essential: "Without Contraries there is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence." This progress of opposites is man's learning to develop his spiritual aspects, to reject selfhood and learn true foregivness. Final Revelation will be "seen by the Imaginative Eye of Every one according to the Situation he holds" and the Last Judgment will happen "whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth."

 

Often considered one of Blake's most striking visual images, the frontispiece to "Europe, a Prophecy" (1794) and usually called "The Ancient of Day's."

 

 

 

Again, from the catalog:

 

(It) represents the Creator striking the limits of the fallen world with his brazen compass. From the midst of a brilliant heavenly sphere, the old man leans forward and down, his flowing hair and beard blown to the side, his left hand firmly holding the compass down over the black depths he studies from above. The pictorial tradition connecting the compass to the Creation goes back to the Middle Ages and derives from Proverbs 8:27: "When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth." It first occurs in Blake's work in connection with Milton's "He took the golden Compasses...to circumscribe this universe, and all created things" (Paradise Lost VII: 225-227). Blake's source for the striking pose of Urizen was ultimately Christ in Michelangelo's Conversion of Saint Paul. The powerful deity, who orders the unformed world, is Urizen, who by this terrible act limits the universe and inflicts woe upon the world by reducing the infinite to the finite. As his name suggests, he is "your reason," the faculty which defines and delimits. In Urizen 12:4, he opens the awful Book of Brass, the code of rational laws copied by kings and priests for the purpose of organizing and suppressing society. Once revealed, the code spreads through the ages: it is this terrible propagation that Blake follows in the cycle from Adam to Resurrection.

 

And:

 

Blake's friends often made much of his seeing visions and receiving divine guidance. But Blake himself knew well the nature of his visions. In "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" Blake describes a dinnertable conversation with Isaiah and Ezekiel:

 

"I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition. Isaiah answer'd: "I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discovr'd the infinite in everything, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm'd, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences, but wrote."

And, here, me and my mentor and teacher and friend Harvey Stahl :

Let me end with this quote

 reminded of Thel's Motto from William Blake's "The Book of Thel."

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl? 

 

And you dear reader and friend?

First Sunday of Advent Meditation

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
  ~Jeremiah

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

at our home

Photo by Bruce Barone.

~

What I Did on Black Friday

Thanksgiving

May your Thanksgiving be blessed with love and gratitude.

Photo by Bruce Barone.

~

The Mists of Avalon

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Sunday in the Park

Sunday

in the park

down the street

from where

we live

Mittineague Park. West Springfield, Massachusetts. Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Sunday Bible Study

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

God's Whisper

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

A Cool Cat

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

The Color is Red and Autumn Ends Soon

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

Nadine. The Cat.

Not as innocent

as she looks

but loved

always.

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

Cold November Rain

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

The Glorious Gifts

 

"The glorious gifts of the gods are not to be cast aside."

~ Homer, The Iliad

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me. 

Hold On To Your Dreams

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Katie Himes, Miss Teen America

Just found out I will be photographing

Katie Himes,

Miss Teen America,

again--this time 

in Boston,

portrait session.

Photo by Bruce Barone.

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

The Cat Nadine

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Prayer

If the only prayer you say in your life
is thank you, that would suffice.

~Meister Eckhart

Photo by Bruce Barone.

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.

Self Portrait After Cezanne

I saw a Cezanne painting in today's New York Times.

Self Portrait. Friday, November 4, 2011.

The Good People at High Point

After fours days our heat is back on here at home. Others, however, still suffer in the cold; some take refuge in a local shelter.

Today, now that electricity is restored at our home, I will begin editing the photos I took for Pandora de Balthazar European Luxury Bedding in High Point: pillows, bedding, linens, textiles.

For example:

Photo by Bruce Barone.

The contest I created to encourage traffic to her Facebook page was a great success and it was fun to photograph people in bed:

Danielle Hatfield, Chief Dirt Digger at Experience Farm. Photo by Bruce Barone.

Olivia Millwood, GotoGirls. Photo by Bruce Barone.

Donna Hazzard, Greenpieced. Photo by Bruce Barone.

There are dozens more photographs of people in bed; men, too. But let's move on to "The Good People at High Point."

It was thrilling and rewarding to meet so many kind, friendly, generous, inspiring people.

Each name, each person, a poem, a song. Let's listen. Let's read aloud:

Julia Bova

Arthur Bailey

Maria Bailey Benson

Jennifer Brouwer
Bunny Williams

Katie Reeder

Jubin Tavakol

Lisa Ferguson

Carmen Natschke

 William W Stubbs
Tobi Fairley

Elaine Williamson

Ansley Nguyen
John Strauss

Susan Rapp

Stacy Naquin

Jennifer Reynolds
Wanda Horton

Ivan Saul Cutler

Susan Jasiak

Mary Knackstedt
Martha Daley
Kate Van Byssum
Jennifer Eakins
Patsy P Anderson
Jennifer Duchene
Barry Darr Dixon
Mary McDonald
Brandon Pierce
Margaret Russell
Kathryn Greeley
Lauren Saul
Amanda Lane
Lisa Kahn
Maybelline Te
Julie Hoover
Tamara Leicester
Leslie Carothers
Charmaine Wynter

I hear a song. I sing a song. To these good people.

I may have forgotten to list a few people and to them I apologize. Here is one last photograph:

A beautiful antique textile from Pandora.

~

If you want distinctive nature, documentary or portrait photography--photography with soul that inspires you to live a more artful and beautiful life, please contact me.