What's in a Name?...The Local Color of Maine

The River Runs

Rustic Mystique

The General Store

At the Edge of the Wood

Late Bloomers

Old Workhorse

Kale With Pine Needle

Farm in Autumn

General Store

We drove the back roads yesterday, for an hour, at least. It was a beautiful, vibrant fall morning, which has given itself up today to a dark cloud cover and heavy rain.

Still faced with much work on our house and knowing the weather is changing, we needed the outing. With the aid of our new GPS, whom we have named "Jessie" for the Jessie's Mill Road she led us to, we felt free to wander without the burden of trying to read maps whose print is just too darned small for our old eyes to read!

We stumbled first on the tiny town of Bolster's Mills. I enjoyed the peace and quiet and the feeling of nostalgia it evokes. Were it not for our perception of the passing of time and the preciousness of fleeting Life, we could not experience nostalgia. But that's another story...

More than anything, I LOVED the general store, all set up with those rockers inviting one to sit awhile. Their presence only reinforced my perception of the fleetingness of our lives and our trappings on this Earth.

In the state of Maine, the appellations they come up with are as colorful as the autumn foliage or the sights along the road. From Puckerbrush to Cat-Moussem Road, to Menotomy Road and Hank's Hog Hill, one can only speculate as to what the inspiration was, for the names of these local byways. The local color here is fascinating.

I've got lots of new photos and I can't wait to do it again. There are whole worlds out there, nestled in every hollow and at every turn of the (paved or unpaved) road...

NOTE TO MY READERS: I usually make every effort to respond to comments and to make the rounds on a regular basis. This past summer, however, I had little item for blogging or my other passions, and have literally done NO painting! I just want you to know that I think of you and hope to be responding to comments more frequently, now that our huge project is a lot further along than it was in May when we again donned our hardhats for work on our house.

All video and text copyright Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved.

If you would like to view my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

WAITING

A long line of slatted wooden porch chairs in an abstract pattern, seems to be waiting for sitters, or perhaps something else!

A large part of our lives is spent waiting for one thing or another. How much time we spend waiting is probably due to our expectations of life: do we believe in predestination or waiting for the hand of a higher power to intervene in our behalf, or do we take responsibility for our fates in spite of our varying beliefs in Deity?

Many of the world's cultures have, I believe, a myth of a sort of Cosmic Jester embedded somewhere in their mythology. According to books I have read, whose titles escape me at the moment, this notion is so prevalent, almost universal, that we have to question why this is so. It seems the Jester is seen as a sort of intermediary between the physical and spiritual worlds, i.e. between man and God. The Jester is the force responsible for synchronicity, or what I would call "meaningful coincidence." When one's life takes ironic turns and "special" or remarkable events seem to coincide with personal milestones or rites of passage, this becomes a tantalizing notion.

Most of us have at least a few recollections of events in our lives that seemed to present us with some unique personal meaning, especially "fitting" for us as individuals living in the greater cosmic soup.Which moves me into thoughts of energy, the eloquence and organized chaos of the universe, etc.

No matter where each of us stands on these issues, it's fun to speculate. No one knows the answers, and I suspect that truth is as fluid as the ocean. If only we could see the whole picture....

Which activities and passions we choose to pursue during our short lifetimes, determines who we are and shall further become, while we wait for answers.

Text and image c Lynda Lehmann. "Waiting" won a Special Recognition Award at a Period Gallery juried exhibition. A matted archival digital print of "Waiting" is available at www.lyndalehmann.com, on the last page of the site.

Urban Wallpaper

I'm interested in how street scenes (including local architecture) reflect and reveal trends in a particular culture, as well as some larger truths about the human condition. These girls are waiting for the Long Island Railroad. The person standing on the other side of the tracks could represent a parallel reality, or vis a vis the schoolgirls, a subjective/objective dichotomy or personal/impersonal paradox.

If you would like to see more of my "Urban Wallpaper" series, please visit my personal blog at http://www.innersights.blogspot.com/ or check out my site at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/ .