Alternative reality seems to be a fairly hot topic these days isn't it? So, when I came to choose the next photo to be hung in my gallery here online it didn't immediately smack me upside the head as its known until I began to roll around the premise of writing a story about my choice. Here I am, immediately presented with the opportunity to dive into... my reality. This would most likely be different from your reality, right?

I shot "Flipped" on a road trip through Oregon. At the time, I was contracted to deliver 60 nautical photos a month to an organization for their social media and web needs. So, I thought, "Lets go see all the marinas on the west coast." and basically did that over the course of about six weeks. I was always up early so it was me and the live-aboards with their pets wandering around. That's when I got this shot; before the sun rose. The water was glass! Then this photo sat around for quite some time. A few years later I was playing with it when, zip, I flipped it upside down. All of a sudden it transformed from a photo of a marina to a dream of being in a marina, For all those who hate this sort of play on reality, go ahead and buy one and you can just flip it the other way! Ok? I tell you the story of providing a client with 60 images a month only to explain why, today, I have a very diverse catalog of images, only a tiny sliver of which gain entrance to my gallery walls here. In my humble opinion, Flipped is very deserving because the chances of it ever being "offered" like this anywhere else (including me) is nearly impossible. It was just a chance. It's very rare for the water to be so still. Usually a duck or fish breaks it up at the very least! Taken in the framed context of this story, wouldn't this make a great photo in an office, library, doctors office, or? It's so sublime, it's meditative. It would be striking in metal!

I'm going to definitely create a version of Flipped as encaustic photography art. I think it has great possibilities in that media with many velvety layers of wax applied! I'm spending 3-4 hours each day of the weekend in my studio. I wish it were more. But I'm learning a variety of techniques and lapping up a lot of youtube. I'm feeling more and more confident at how I may be able to express myself through this medium mashup. Some pieces take longer as I realize I don't have the skill to proceed... but will!

So here i am at this crossroads of flipped again... it boggles the mind that 50% think/feel one way about America/World and 50% think/feel about it in another way. How is it so perfect like that? It's not. Many choose one tribe or the other for a specific reason and hold their nose over the rest of the "party platform." You have to ask, though, what is the root reason to "ban books." Or make it more difficult instead of insanely easy to vote? In a nation where personal freedom is so important, why does a woman not get the right to make her own decisions about her health? I understand the "flip" side to that argument and whole-heartedly approve of people who think they personally should not do this or that. They shouldn't. It's their right! Here's my shortest version of my take on what has transpired. The Fox "news" channel began in late 1996. So we are a few years shy of 30 years ago now; an entire generation of people have been handed ideology instead of news and it shows, For instance, there was a time when you could count on women to weigh in to the hard right tribe with a level of reason. No more. Heroes of ignorance, like Boebert or Palin, have legions of women lapping up that slant of crazy. And its not just one generation. It's actually three that have become infected by the disease of propaganda.

I'm not a fan of either side of government these days. Never really have been. However, it's important to me that we have a progressive, well-functioning one. I prefer one who tries to make life better for more people. Frank Zappa says it best about what we have become. Here's the thing about that; "I'm the Slime" was released 50 years ago! 20 years before Fox. In fact, of course, he died much too young (53 yrs old) and even before the pariah of the airwaves went on the cable. He introduced me to a new way of listening to music at a fairly early age, steering me into jazz fusion, funk and more discoveries. Each studio album was eagerly anticipated, purchased and played over and over. For the first 10 years of the internet his family did not allow much of his art to be shown. But of course, plenty of people had bits ond pieces of footage and bootleg music tapes. After his wife died more official footage and music seemed to be released. Dweezil went out on tour to honor his father beginning in 2007 until 2015. Then there seems to have been some sort of family squabble about his use of the name Zappa Plays Zappa, ironic as it may sound... They obviously had different realities!

So, I guess I will leave it at that! There's no reason to beat a dead horse! It's time to exercise our right to vote again! Even though it's a "mid term," don't let that fool you. The opposite of your reality is organized and infiltrating school boards and more. So, there is only one thing to do. Flip it!