Designs in Nature

"Three Graces" - Jeri Burzin

“'Designs in Nature' are what often capture my attention," says art photographer Jeri Burzin of Visalia,California. She writes in to update us on her latest exhibits.

"My photograph of Vernal Falls is in a traveling exhibit with the Yosemite Renaissance organization. It started at the Yosemite Museum in February, and has traveled to Hanford CA, and is currently in Redwood City, CA. It will also be on display at the Business of Art Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. My Jellyfish photo is now on exhibit with Digital Diversity, at the Artists’ Union Gallery in Ventura, CA.

The Three Graces photograph will be on display at the Tulare City Historical Museum, in Tulare, CA, until the end of the year.

A desire to bring back memories of a Caribbean sailing trip sparked Burzin's interest in photography a number of years ago. She began to enlarge and display her images. She subsequently attended photography workshops in Yosemite, the White Mountains, Sequoia National Park, and Pt. Reyes.

“Literacy through Photography” workshops at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University taught Burzin how to use photography as a medium of communication that is exciting to children, and influenced her work as an educational therapist.

In addition to her current exhibits, Burzin's work has been shown at Arts Visalia, First Arts Market, the Tulare County Historical Museum, the Visalia Convention Center, the Brandon-Mitchell Gallery, Café 225, Gallery 25, the Visalia Art Studio Tour, the Tulare County Fair, and the Yosemite Museum. "My images are an attempt to share experiences which I hope you enjoy," the artist says.

What do you Collect?

!st Movement - Alberto D’Assumpção

It sounds as much fun as Frank Warren's PostSecret website created January 1, 2005. Since then PostSecret has collected and displayed around 2,500 original pieces of art from people around the world, and is billed as the most popular advertising free blog in the world.

The plea starts out like this: "Do you collect anything? Are you willing to share something of yourself? Help me to create an art work which will be showing worldwide. I am undertaking a new and exciting art piece for an exhibition taking place in Dublin which needs the input of many people to make it a successful and worthwhile piece of work."

So writes Emily Souter Johnson archived_identities@hotmail.co.uk. Her website is:
http://www.gumtree.com/london/34/9304834.html

"I am creating a museum or archive of people’s obsessions and collections and need you to be a part of it. If we think of the museum as ‘a bourgeois instrument of power and self preservation’ and look at contemporary examples, such as ‘myspace,’ to see how today’s society has a need to represent something of themselves, in some concrete form, within a wider community. Then, I am expanding upon this concept by creating a museum of people’s obsessions, archiving them in a permanent form which will catalogue them for prosperity.’

I for one have already written her, hoping that I was witty enough to be selected to contribute. What fun is this?

According to the website, all you do is fill a box, which will be provided, with a selection of whatever you feel is your obsession, i.e. what you like to surround yourself with in your life, what you obsessively collect, what you put on your walls, keep in your wallet or what you feels helps to identify you as a personality.

What fun is this?

The directions continue: Fill the provided box with as little or as much as you like and answer the questions that will be in the box when you receive it. Your box will then become part of the exhibition and displayed along side many others to form an archive of people’s obsessions and collections. They will also form the catalogue of this museum in a book format to be continued as a part of the archival process.

" Your collection will be well cared for and you will get it back if you so wish."

How can we not participate? It certainly beats watching reruns on the tube. I told her in my email that in addition to art, I collect businesses; things I think are a bargain, but might be or become valuable; and half read books on my bedside table. And of course puppies, but because I am allergic to them and because vet bills are high, I only have three.

What do you collect? Shown above is a work of art by Alberto D’Assumpção that is truly worth collecting--Ruth Mitchell

Eco Tip for the day: If you live in a cold climate, paint your house a dark color, and if you live in a warm color, paint it a light color. And, duh, don't cut down all the trees in your yard. They help shade your house from the heat of the sun, and stave off the winds.