CatRutgers4Art

And, Now, a Bit of Green

Posted on July 9, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

Let us harken back to the early days of the 2013 growing season, long before the riotous appearance of purple and orange and pink and yellow and red that currently, i.e., early July, festoons the gardens at Buckingham Road. Presented here, one newly emerging hosta, a plant that has many, many varieties, all named after the Austrian botanist Nicolaus Host and described as “any of a genus (Hosta) of Asian perennial herbaceous plants of the lily family with densely growing basal leaves and tall racemes of white or violet flowers – called also funkia, plantain lily.” Funkia, I didn’t know that! What a wonderful name. Thank you, as always, Merriam-Webster’s.

The hosta definition is from the 11th edition of
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary © 2005.
The photo is by Catherine Rutgers © 2013.

Posted in Snapped | Tagged gardening, green, hostas | 6 Comments

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Posted on June 28, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

Think Sly and the Family Stone. Think warm and rainy and sunny at the same time. But don’t think too much. Love, Cat

P.S. Just one pic here. Clouds from the sunset on June 26, 2009. See you in July!

Posted in Snapped | Tagged favorite photos, sunset, urban sky | 4 Comments

Ova (Part One)

Posted on May 23, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

In the beginning, there is an egg. You, me, and a bajillion other fascinating creatures start with this. Wonderfully weird. These two are from neighborhood chickens and were refrigerated in a ruby-red bowl for more than a year because I loved their shape and color. Companion items—tiny pinecones, a red-plastic game chip, a peach-pink light bulb, coal-black styrofoam—were nestled in a bowl on my kitchen table. Tenderly balanced for their scanning session, and boldly transmuted in their close-ups, I now present an even dozen on the mysteries of origins and outcomes.

Posted in Revelations | Tagged digital art, eggs, high-resolution scans | 4 Comments

Perennial Love Light: The Very Cherry Edition

Posted on May 1, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

“Some day when we’re dreaming, deep in love, not a lot to say, then we will remember things we said today.” The Beatles. Things We Said Today. It took me three days to remember the tune and the lyrics. I kept thinking of “don’t have much to say”—which kept sliding into “I see my Marianne walking away.” Wrong song. Wrong band.

But I knew there was something tasty hovering at the edges of my memory, and early yesterday evening, and oh what a lovely feeling, the bit that had been pestering, pestering me was resolved. I sang it to myself, I sat down and typed the line up, then searched, and found that I hadn’t misremembered a thing. Such a beautiful song. Kind of like gently placing crabapple, cherry blossoms, fresh pine over my entire face, until everything is caressed away but the leaves, the petals, the soft, soft fruit-to-be.

The first image shown here was the last one created for the very cherry series and the only photo taken indoors; yet it seems to fit in this floral procession. The crabapples and cherries live close to my home and do, in fact, bend down near the sidewalks so I can reach up and hold them gently. The pine trees, too, are low enough to touch, and their portrait was taken from that slightly dizzying angle.

Gratitude to all for gracing my life and a fierce wish that my transformations do them justice, even communicate similar impressions of delicious, delightful immersion. If you’re viewing this on a tiny screen, and somewhere you still have a desktop, flatscreen, big-screen connected to the net: take a minute to switch. Then open up each image in a new window and let it fill the screen. This way, you may come closer to their full potential. They won’t have any scent, but they still may be sensational.

01 Sometimes Just Pink, 02 Sprig of Blue, 03 Baroque Perspective,
04 Cherry Oh Cherry Oh, 05 Soul of the Fruit, 06 Solar Flair, 07 Central Curve,
08 Splendid Decay, 09 Whispering Sphere, 10 Tender Attitude
Images and text by Catherine Rutgers © 2013

Posted in Snapped | Tagged apple, cherries, crabapples, favorite photos, flowers, Spring | 8 Comments

Elastic Bridge

Posted on April 14, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

The Elastic Bridge begins with solidity, real things, captured and transformed in artistic experiments with technology. Translating our physical territory to a space made of light, these images were created from my original artwork: mixed-media construction, photography, collage, painting, and high-resolution scans.

A cicada’s body, found on 21st-century grass, becomes a prehistoric fossil or futuristic hieroglyph. A profusion of violets, once growing in a lush spring lawn, drip and drench in an abstract apparition. An installation built to be photographed – amberlith, masking tape, paper, and glass – enters the camera, allowing neighborhood trees to peek through the wall.

One beauty of the digital medium is that it’s elastic, eminently adaptable to the platform of presentation. Each with its own revelations to savor. These images were created for the SGDA digital-display specifications (1360 x 768 pixels/96 ppi). And they can be good-quality smaller-size prints.

This is the link between future and past. A time-traveling interface (inner face) that transports a three-dimensional world to the universe behind the glass. I am the bridge, and these are my paving stones, inviting the viewer to journey into fresh discoveries.

Proposal for the Soho Gallery for Digital Art, April 2013. Here are eight of the ten images, as Will of the Wisp was just posted, and I think there might be a full post about Rock the House (aka The Fabulous Underachievers).

P.S. One day, I came across a comment from one of the (generally truly helpful) WordPress people who said something like “don’t post on the weekends because we have better things to do.” Actually, this blog (and, oh, how I wish there were another word for it) is always among the very best things I do, and the timing is what it is. Love, Cat