I was supposed to be in Boston today.  I’m doing a workshop there on Monday (when you will see this)  and was going to go early and do some shooting on the coast north of Boston.  Winter Storm Nemo had other ideas that prevented me from going early, though I will, happily, make the workshop on Monday.

Nemo did make an appearance here in central NY, but not to any great effect.  We had about 8 inches of light, fluffy snow which is hardly a record breaker.  And the sun is shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky today making everything sparkle.  But, remember, I’m not a fan of winter so the thought of going out into the 20 degree breezy day  to take pictures still wasn’t enticing.  While I was debating with myself about whether I should, in fact, go out, I walked into my kitchen and noticed the sun streaming in and lighting up all the rocks that are lined up along my windowsill.  You may also remember that I collect rocks. I’ve done this since I was a child.  My rocks are from all over the US as well as from several  other countries.  They are all over my garden as well as inside my house.  They are lined up on the windowsills, laid out on a platter on the table, poured into jars, set out on book shelves…there are rocks everywhere.  I’d been thinking for some time that I should photograph some of these fascinating rocks close up and use the images for mandalas. (I had seen mandalas created by another artist, Sue O’Kieffe, who uses a lot of crystals in her images and creates some quite interesting mandalas.  Her process is fascinating though  different from mine but I was inspired by her work to see what would result from using images of my rocks.)  There was my perfect excuse to not go outside. 🙂

I got some great images of several of the rocks  and will use them in other weeks. This week I decided to focus  on one specific rock. I’m not sure of the entire composition of this particular rock, but it has a good amount of rose quartz which gives a beautiful rose to salmon color which has a bit of translucence.  As always I am interested in the intricate patterns present  in the stone and was intrigued with those that were revealed through the mandalas.