Non-cat photo

Clowning Around

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I purchased these photos on Instagram quite a long time ago. One night after dinner they showed up by a seller I follow but rarely buy from – a guy who had a store here in Manhattan on the Lower Eastside and then packed up and relocated, I think, to Florida. (A couple of posts of the joys of his store can be found here and here.)

These sat unopened for a long time and then they went to New Jersey. I photographed them for this purpose while I was there. They are not yet hanging and I am not sure of a spot for them, clearly the need to remain together.

I was shocked to discover that the frames are plastic and incredibly light. I had assumed they were painted wood, all the better for hanging but potentially a bit fragile.

I peg this one for the older kid. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Sometimes I wonder how or why a particular photo makes it through time and being sold while others clearly whittle away. It is easy to see why these hung together somewhere and the appeal of these kids and these clown costumes is self-evident.

These were either commercially purchased costumes or made by a fine seamstress. The one with the stars is showier and catches your eye better, but really they are equal in their greatness. The hats are especially nice and seem to be made as part of the costume, the tie on ruffs around the neck. The button closures seem to be some sort of passementerie or Soutache. The sleeves on the one hang a bit long.

Giving you a better look at this one too – Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Each photo is taken in the same spot in front of this older garden apartment which could have been anywhere – I haven’t a clue where these came from originally. The walkway does a nice job of zipping up the composition and taking our eye right to the back. Each figure is placed visually between the lanterns at the front entrance.

I have gone back and forth on this, but my current thinking is that both are girls. The one in the star decorated costume definitely is, and I would say she is the younger. She is sort of bubbling over with enthusiasm. The other is a bit more studied, arms folded, but a big grin nonetheless. Both are very charming.

While I assume these are for Halloween, but it could have been another costume or fancy dress opportunity. Lucky kids – if the costumes were any indication a good time was had by all!

Trucking

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This photo came to me via the antiques mall in New Jersey, purchased shortly before Christmas this year, among my minor holiday decoration purchases. It is a bit faded and the mat it is attached to is a bit stained and tatty. It caught my eye however and overall it is sort of wonderful.

I brought the photo back to New York where I have been looking at it under a loupe and I have managed to read the very faded and overexposed writing on the side of the truck. I have deduced that this truck was decorated for a company picnic and outing. After cleaning I can just about read the writing on the side of the truck despite it being very over-exposed and faded, Annual Outing and Picnic for Employees Pulaski Trucking Corporation. Sadly, if there was a date I can no longer decode it. (These days I can find a Pulaski Heavy Hauling company in New York – hard to know if this is this company is the ancestor or not.)

This fits neatly into my collection of yard long photos of outings and employee picnics which decorate the walls of the house in New Jersey. (Posts about those can be found here and here.) I will most likely bring it back there to live, although if I could find a spot for it here in New York I would enjoy that too. There is something endlessly appealing about people in their best bib and tucker posing on a special outing. It is in some ways the essence and premise of much of my collection.

These yard long photos are hard to film (but worth it) so you’ll have to go to the post above to really see it!

It is a deeply male enterprise and picnic or not, these fellows mostly dressed for the occasion. (I’ll assume the wives and girlfriends and children are nearby but elsewhere.) Understanding that it is a picnic it is surprising that so many are in suits or wearing ties. Some wear hats and others took their off for the photo. There are two men in dark suits on the end, one holds a newspaper in his hands while the other has a black mourning band on his arm and smokes a cigarette.

The fellow on the very end is the jauntiest, leaning on one arm, straw hat and all attitude. Next to him, almost ghost-like due to movement during the exposure, being over-exposed and fading, is a small child in shorts, lumpy high socks (bad idea!) bunching down his legs. He is the only kid to sneak into this otherwise all adult photo.

The Tydol sign, hanging off the side of the garage, indicates that this photo was probably taken in front of the garage. There’s no way to know where this was taken. The three and four story buildings in the background make the setting at least a bit urban, but could easily be small town urban. Although found in NJ there is of course no guarantee that this was taken there and as these were truckers, we assume the fellows in the photo roamed a bit afield.

The photo is evidently glued into a pressed paper decorative mat. It was super grimy and it appears to have become one with the pressed paper mat. The back is cardboard and some torn brown paper, but with a wire that seems serviceable and ready to hang so I will be looking for exactly the right spot to install it.

The Lake in Fair Haven Near Red Bank

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I stumbled on today’s find although I do search for local photos of my New Jersey area which I will ultimately decorate the house. (See my post on one of my family’s favorite restaurants, Bahr’s Landing here!) However, this one was served up by eBay’s master brain as something I might like and for once they were right.

When I checked it out it also served up several options and I ultimately went for this one which was never used. The one I didn’t purchase was mailed in September of 1904 to 532 West 51st Street here in New York City. That helps us place it in time; its an early photo postcard.

This is the (unnamed?) pond I think is pictured in the postcard.

Those of you who followed my photographic running journal may recognize this. It is a lovely little lake not far from my house. In the way that water does, this one travels around quite a bit and one end is a series of small estuaries that pop up around my neighborhood. One has a terminus (or a beginning?) at the grammar school at the foot of my street where a large pipe issues and takes in a small stream of water. It grows larger as it gets toward River Road, but with fingers that create a series of creeks running through backyards in a few directions. Presumably it flows to and from the river, the Navesank, on the far side of River Road.

When purchasing our house my mother was seeking to get away from the troubles of life on the water. Having endured a lifetime of battling floods while living on the Shrewsbury river, she was done with that. I would say mom managed it as there is no evidence that this wandering water body runs under our house, but it is much closer than I would have thought without the on the ground inspection my runs granted me. (I am grateful for this as I seem to have enough trouble with water incursion which has included but is not limited to needing a new roof and endless tweaking of the pump system in the basement there.)

Another view of it as it creeps further back passed some houses not seen from the main street.

During significant flooding events I would guess that some of these creeks could rise to notable levels. Gratefully this has not happened during my heretofore brief tenor of home ownership.

The pond we call McCarter’s Pond, a few more blocks in the other direction, heading away from Red Bank and on the Rumson border.

They have labeled this Lake on Fair Haven Road near Red Bank, NJ. That would make it a pond we call McCarter’s Pond today. However, I would argue that this is actually the water body where Fair Haven connects to Red Bank on River Road. I offer contemporary photos of both for consideration.

McCarter’s pond was part of an eponymous estate. Mr. McCarter, Thomas, a prominent attorney, lived from 1867-1955 and owned a swath of land which is now developed with pricey homes doting the whole area. It is man made and quite shallow, not exceeding an average 3.5 ft deep. It is used for an annual fishing derby. An article almost a decade old talks about lighting it for ice skating in the winter which I have never seen. I used to skate on a pond near our house in Rumson but never remember going over to McCarter’s pond to skate. Having said that, a shallow pond like that must freeze fairly quickly and solidly.

Looking at these photos gives me a bit of a yen to run again. I fell while running, too tired, early one morning and have shelved it for now. I think with the new job and other things going on it was too much but I would like to get back to it. I miss the outdoor time, although I log a little more than 3 miles walking to and from work daily.

This is a somewhat poorly made card and an image depicting the pond on a wintery, leafless day. The image trails off with a sort of chewed off look at the bottom and has a sort of twig frame at the top. It looks as if a tatty found image was applied to this postcard. In addition to the writing mentioned above there is a photo credit, Photo by C.R.D. Foxwell etched into the corner. Lastly, there is the odd addition of a little campfire drawn in next to the location writing.

Odd little detail from the bottom left corner.

Nonetheless, I am pleased to have stumbled on this very local early image of Fair Haven and it will find a nice spot, framed on the wall, in the house there.

Let the Season Begin

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: A friend and colleague who began her life in Finland (she lives in Ohio today and works remotely for me a few hours a week), told me the other day that when she was little parents were so invested in the idea of the Christmas holiday that it was common to hire a Santa to come to the house. She said that when she realized that Santa wasn’t real, she felt she could not say anything because it would hurt her parents.

I love that story, and I have great affection for this card I just bought which shows the other side of Nordic holiday spirit. I am unsure what country this originally hailed from, although I purchased it from someone in the Netherlands who also did not know the origin of the card. There is a tiny NTG in the lower left corner and writing in another language and incredibly small that I cannot decipher. The internet was not much help on this front although another seller of postcards thought NTG was German. I have not found evidence of other cards like it, but perhaps a series of them lurks somewhere yet.

Gnomes are evidently thought to deliver Christmas presents in Scandinavia in the 18th and 19th centuries, helpers to Father Christmas. (Families left bowls of porridge for them – perhaps a bit less appealing than our cookies and milk!) I would suspect this is where the idea of our elves as Santa’s helpers come from.

I will say that I purchased this card on eBay for very little and utterly uncontested! I gather that I am the only one who was looking who saw its charm, but I am pleased to add it to the Pictorama collection.

Of course it turned up for me because of the weird tabby cat. If you look very closely he appears to have a tiny antler, possibly drawn on. Puss seems to be pouncing on him while this gnome protects Santa with this long stick. Santa and the gnome are small children in costume and the cat is, well a cat, probably one that hung around the photo studio catching mice and playing bit parts. His tail is curled upward and we can see his nice white tummy and white feet. I think we can assume if left to his own devices he would have liked to knead biscuits on the Santa suit and take a cat nap.

Santa plays his role with some drama – oh no, the antlered cat attack – his cottony beard, brows and hair contributing to his look. The gnome goes at it with great gusto as well. Also beard and with curling hair coming out of his pointy cap (his own?) he grins with gnome-ish fervor as he saves Santa. I like his pointy shoes.

One can imagine that the day shooting this was pretty much a good time for all. The set certainly is stark with a few large stones to the left and in front and this sort of nest of twigs behind the gnome. In addition to that odd little antler being drawn in, a very careful examination shows a very small smattering of white dots down the middle of the card which I assume are meant to be snowflakes. Otherwise this is a rather barren set making it feel a bit like Santa on the Moon.

Back of the card – no evidence of being mailed despite being addressed.

I share the back of this card which I cannot decipher although omitie appears to be Romanian and means to omit – I assume that this was meant to say – I didn’t forget Edmund! While fully addressed there is no evidence of it being mailed with a stamp or cancellation. The writing in pencil seems to be earlier seller’s marks. So was it just dropped by a mailbox perhaps?

So here we go, kicking off this holiday season here at Pictorama. This photo postcard embodies both some humor, but also a tiny bit of historic grit and well, a pleasant sort of meanness. Just what we need as we sally forth into the season ahead.

Teddy Bear

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s photo was a photo postcard and it was cut down at some point into this more or less perfect square. Man, the mind boggles a bit at what the rest of it looked like and why it was ultimately cropped – to fit in a frame perhaps?

It comes to me via @marsh.and.meadow on Instagram. While my usual gig with them is jewelry (see one of those posts here), I find that Heather (Hagens) has expanded over time and other tidbits come over the transom. Of course some of them catch the interest of Pictorama. She has expanded her footprint to @marsh.and.meadow.overflow for most of these non-jewelry items. Even for what I don’t buy, I admit to enjoying the passing parade of eyeball kicks.

There is writing on the back and it was mailed. The cancellation survives and it was mailed from Detroit on July 28, 1912 at 8:00 PM. It was mailed to, Hildie Cullen (the name cuts off here), in Nellie, Ohio. A few words exist down the side but not enough to string together, it was a dense note of sorts.

Back of the card. Looks as if there was a whole story being told on the left side.

It wasn’t for the man in drag I purchased this photo, but for the very large, marvelous teddy bear, who stands on his haunches and bears arms! He comes up to the man’s elbow.

If teddies came into being in 1902 (famously Roosevelt declined to shoot a small cornered black bear and the toy was invent and dubbed in his honor) this is how Teddy has grown in a decade. He could be a Steiff made bear and they had plenty of time to grow them this large. He reminds me of my beloved enormous Felix toys which people will pose with across the ocean in another decade or so.

(I can’t say much for the visuals on this, but I thought I’d share Bing singing The Teddy Bear’s picnic for the heck of it below.)

Meanwhile, I wonder if the gun the bear holds is a sort of salute to the Roosevelt story which certainly was likely still in popular memory at that time. It appears that somehow Teddy has an empty Coke bottle balanced on his head as well. Could he be both shooter and target practice here?

The man, carrying a parasol, is in a long flowered print skirt which would have been an old one even for the time. (I’m saying he is not fashionably attired!) He maintains his man’s shirt and a tie, but sports, upon very close inspection, some greenery (leaves) stuffed in his shirt and some sort of ribbon pinned to it. His basket is loaded with some posies and more of the same leafy greens.

I thought he was an older man, but the same close inspection shows that he is young. (Perhaps that shouldn’t surprise me.) His man’s boots just about make it into the photo of the cropped edge, peaking out under the long skirt.

Behind him we see a barnyard scene of doors open and closed. It may have been sent in July, but it looks as if the ground is littered in leaves making me wonder if it wasn’t take in the fall and maybe for Halloween. The quality of the photo isn’t great, a bit over-exposed so it is hard to say. Whoever cut it down had a good eye for composition and it works well in this square format.

It is of course the teddy that earned this photo a place in the Pictorama archive, but it is a well cared for picture and I am glad that it has come to rest in a place where we can enjoy it.

Ducks, Geese and Chickens

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This photo postcard makes me think about my mother who loved ducks, geese and swans. Frankly she was less romantic about chickens which she grew up around although she bore them no ill will and being a vegan did not eat them nor their eggs. Mom did tell stories about her childhood and how they roosted in the neighbors trees and would occasionally torment her on her way to or from school.

It’s a pity this photo was poorly made, overexposed and with an odd sloppy line of poor printing at the bottom. (I have improved it some before sharing with you.) However my mom would have liked this card.

Those things notwithstanding, it is a compelling image and caught my eye online a week or so back and I purchased it for the house here in New Jersey. It is a photo postcard and was never used.

Photo of a photo of the house I grew up in.

As some readers know, I grew up in a house on an inlet of a river here, the Shrewsbury River. It was within walking distance of the ocean and as a result my childhood was full of time on the water – swimming in the ocean and walking the beach or crabbing off our dock or taking a rowboat out in the backyard. Mom’s nascent passion for animals first took the form of cats and dogs, strays and kittens that needed home.

However, later in life mom started feeding a flock of swans inhabiting the secluded inlet near our house. Then, slowly, she started helping out with an injured swan, goose or duck. Before long she was traveling to fetch a stranded pinioned one here or one that swallowed fishing line there. Betty became the go to for injured waterfowl for not just the surrounding counties but even in the surrounding states. Swans and geese that could not be released back into the wild were placed in areas in New York and New Jersey with appropriately large water bodies where food would be available and people would care for them.

A dahlia also on the hummingbird path of nectar.

Betty fought for these birds as well as other animals – helping to shut down puppy mills, purveyors of sick dogs. So many rescued bunnies found a home in our backyard that they were all so tame they would come right up to you if you sat out in the yard. I would come to New Jersey for a visit and the guest bathroom would be commandeered by a swan. Even at the same time, a rescued cat might be healing in an upstairs room. Somehow it all seemed quite natural at the time. Or at least it was our normal.

Strawberry plant currently on the deck which seems to be a happy stop for hummingbirds.

In her last years mom had a commanding view of the deck and the yard from the chair she spent virtually all her time in. It was planted for the explicit pleasure of birds, bees and butterflies. However, it wasn’t until after her death that I started spending time outside here and on the deck and began to realize how successful she was. Furry bees buzz busily everywhere, but especially early in the morning and evening. Hawks fly overhead, but sparrows, robins and a host of other birds amass. Bunnies of the more shy variety nibble greens in the yard – I think they and the chipmunks eat more heartily when unobserved, or so it seems from the consumption of my berries and veg.

Front of the NJ house earlier this week.

Most notably I never knew about the hummingbirds. I have loved the idea of them from the first I learned about them in sixth grade, but it was years before I saw one in person. I used to try to temp them to feeders with syrup water concoctions. It turns out that they love this yard! They appear to have a path from my dahlias, to a strawberry plant with bright red flowers and then to two Rose of Sharon trees (one white and one purple) that technically belong to my neighbor but hang heavily over my side of the fence. and amazingly enough, if I sit quietly on the porch long enough, one will pause en route, pausing, suspended in front of me in greeting.

Uncle Zack

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As I start writing this post I am in New Jersey on Saturday evening with Beauregard, the huge all black cat, who is the master of this NJ Butler house. It is the end of several sunny days of stay here and I will head home tomorrow – potentially completing this on the train if I cannot before.

This photo postcard came to me via eBay and is an odd choice for me. This little girl with her chicken on a leash charmed me. Small children with pet chickens seems to be popular on the internet these days so poultry pets remain popular. Working for a veterinary hospital with an active Exotics service, we see a fair number of chickens. (Presumably chickens that are for eating go to a different sort of vet than us although obviously we’d care for one in need if presented!)

The little girl is nicely dressed in trousers and boots with a somewhat sporty coat with a design of the buttons across her shoulder and chest. She looks quite happy as does the (large) chicken on a string leash. There’s one or two other chickens, behind a fence in the distance who look on and the soil looks dusty. The nearest vegetation we can see are trees way off in the distance and the sun is casting long shadows. Given her attire, it was chilly.

This card was never sent and looks like it was quite beloved, handled. It is undated, but on the back in a child’s neatest script it says uncle zack.

Many years ago I remember my mother had a video of a woman she knew slightly about her and her pet chicken. I don’t remember the chicken’s name, but it lived in the house, primarily in a sort of all season room at the front of the house. A cared for pet chicken might live to be ten or twelve years old according to the internet, I actually thought it was older. The chicken in the video went everywhere with this woman – today it might have been considered a comfort animal.

Recently in a talk given to staff to celebrate diversity, one of the vet’s pointed out that some clients feel that people belittle their choice of an usual animal and express surprise that they would pay so much for the care of a fish, tiny turtle or perhaps chicken or duck. (I also heard about surgery on a goldfish recently which fascinated me! The surgeon was evidently personally quite fond of goldfish and frustrated by a common cause of death in them he was able to improve but not resolve the fish-y issue.) However, as animal lovers our heart knows no such boundaries and be it pigeon or porcupine we are committed to them and find great happiness with critters in all species, shapes and sizes.

Moon Woman

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A Pictorama part two post with this framed postcard. The frame was purchased first and much earlier than the postcard. I picked that up from @marsh.and.meadow.overflow in a sale of odds and ends. It’s a beaut! I knew I would find a use for it and even though I was on something of a money diet at the moment I jumped at putting it in my electronic cart. It has some age on it and sports a decorative faux wood design. The back is very old, probably more fitted to sitting up on a desk or table than hanging on the wall, although I guess we’ve figured that out too.

After it arrived and perhaps even in my mental machinations, I realized that the right postcard in it would make a dandy gift for Kim. Although I spend a lot of time with cat photos obviously, I was looking for something more Deitchian for him.

I felt truly inspired when I ran across a set of these Art Nouveau postcards, once again on Instagram, from a seller I have followed for a while but never purchased from, @ghost_era. Presented as a group in a series but sold individually I zeroed in on this one immediately – although I admit to being tempted to buy several! (A few remain available at their shop at Ghost Era Antiques.) Hard to explain but this photo postcard seemed to be perfection.

Another Reutlinger photo postcard, not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I’m not sure exactly why I love this photo so much but I really do; the woman, the moon and the radiating light, and then the stars! It epitomizes a certain kind of picture. There is the subtle color, from yellow to blue. I like the way some of the stars have been left bright white though for emphasis. The moon has some mottling (a nod to the man there?) and a deep shadow behind her. The woman is in a sort of nightgown dress – she’s dreaming? We are?

It would appear that this card was produced by the photographer Léopold-Émile Reutlinger (March 17, 1863 – March16, 1937). His uncle founded a Parisian photography studio where his father worked as the photographer. (Léopold’s son Jean became a prominent photographer too although sadly died in WWI.) Both photographed the rich and most importantly famous of the day, but he took the family business to a new height and is the one remembered today. I wonder if this is due to the popularity of photo postcards and I would think in part this Art Nouveau style which he excelled at.

I gave this to Kim last year. And yes! I believe that is the trademark R for Reutlinger at the bottom right!

As I look over his work online I can’ help but wonder if a few of the other postcards in my collection can be attributed to him. I am thinking of a Valentine’s Day gift I gave Kim last year below. (Post can be read here.)

In 1930, Reutlinger suffered an accident with a champagne cork, (weird sort of irony, yes?) which cost him an eye and seriously affected his profession. But he continued to run the studio until his death in Paris in 1937.

Meanwhile, Kim has a good spot on the wall over his desk picked out for it, above a Frank Borzage still from Lucky Star. Some rearranging needs to go on first but I look forward to seeing it there along with a few other Borzage stills we are swapping in for other photos. (A post on those stills can be found here and here.) Maybe a future post on the walls here at Deitch Studio. For now, enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend if you are reading in real time.

Still Life with Nick Carter

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s post is the first of a few highlighting things I gave Kim for his birthday this year, celebrated last week at the time of writing this. Kim doesn’t like a lot of fuss over his birthday, but I try to find something he’s either wanted or failing that, like this year, some original bits. (A past post of a birthday gift can be found here.)

Today’s photo is tiny, only sort of 2.25″x 2.75″ or so. I ran across it on my Instagram feed via @baleighfaucz and it whispered Kim! at me a bit so here we are. In addition to being small (smaller in fact than I anticipated) it has these two deep creases in it. These are of course unfortunate, but they do not rob me of any pleasure in getting a glimpse into a little world of long ago offered up here.

I cannot say I can identify everything in the image. The Nick Carter, Secret Agent Weekly, is from April 20, 1912 and cost 5 cents – seems like a princely sum actually. I think it was this that put me in the mind of Kim as he has passed through a few dime novel stages, although not to say he’s a fan of Nick Carter in particular. According to Wikipedia Detective Nick Carter leapt onto the scene in 1886 (Kim is telling me he and Sherlock Holmes hit the scene at roughly the same time), and had an extraordinary meandering run through more than a century beyond, hitting incarnations in various forms of popular media from dime novels to radio and beyond, with a most recent stop as a series of novels that were produced from 1964-1990.

This tiny image is the only color version I could find on the internet.

A pipe, cigarettes, cigar and a pocket watch are in the foreground although in front of them is some sort of small paper package I can’t identify and in the lower right corner something utterly lost on me. A decorative beer stein is perched on a well used Central Union Cut Plug tobacco tin. One site selling such a tin says they were often used as lunch pails once depleted. This one appears to still host tobacco.

Saw some pricey perfect versions for sale but at the time of writing you could have this one for $20 on eBay.

An odd illustration which is entitled simply Life in script at the top and appears to be of two men at a dinner table with a menu, one in evening cloths and a plumed hat and the other dressed as a woman is at the back. Can’t imagine the importance of it to the photographer although it serves as sort of a title for the image overall.

Looking at a few of these objects in color makes me wonder if he was disappointed with it in black and white. It is a dynamic little photo, but my guess is that the colors were pretty punchy in person.

I love to think of the photographer, maybe a young man back in the spring of 1912, setting up this photo. They were likely a nascent enthusiast as home photography was still just becoming popular. It is sort of sweet to think of a serious young fellow studiously putting this together, (why these particular things? smoking, reading, drinking) showing us a slice of his life that we can consider so many decades later.

Felix in the Nursery

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I pulled this photo off of a small pile on my desk this morning. Purchased several months back, it has awaited its turn up at bat. It is neither professional, nor significantly profound, but delightful in its own way.

It is a 2″x 4″ photo with nothing written and no identifying information on the back, although it appears to have been printed by a skilled hand. The Felix is the only thing really to date the image and I would assume that it was during the zenith of his popularity, most likely the 1920’s, but perhaps as late as the early 1930’s is my guess.

Baby is playing with a baby doll which is always a touch of irony for me – and this doll looks remarkably like the kid. The Felix surveying all around him is a very classic chalkware or composition model. Oddly, I don’t actually own this particular very popular item – in part perhaps because they are fragile and I have a general aversion to large, easily broken items. Still, in considering him here and online this morning, I will say I should wait for a nice example and grab it. He would look splendid surveying the living room or bedroom in New Jersey. Let’s see if I achieve that goal in coming months.

These Felix-es are touted as carnival prizes, but I have never really accepted that as their origin. There are slightly cheaper, more slightly off-model versions which I assume fit this bill, but these always seemed a bit nicer than that. Evidently some have mobile arms and this fellow looks like he might be a candidate for being such a high class item.

The kid, as far as the viewer can tell, wears only shoes (nice sheepskin trimmed ones, perhaps all the better to start to walk in?) and we’ll assume a diaper. He or she is sitting in such a very nice sunny spot it gives me a cat-like yen to locate it and curl up in it – and nap. The curtains are helping the composition of this photo considerably, creating a pattern through out and catching the sun up in front. The shadows play nicely across the baby and around him. These are massive windows (I vaguely assume that the child is on the floor so they go all the way up!), and the sun streams in at the front and is in deep shade in the back of the room.

As I write it is in fact a sunny Sunday morning here in Manhattan, a relief after a week of pouring and sometimes teeming rain, so perhaps I am sun sensitive and craving as I write. I doggedly remind myself of April showers bringing May flowers, but we are soggy here and revel in the relief. Next weekend I will go to Jersey and check out the garden there and try to turn my mind to spring and summer. Time to put the lettuces in I think, or soon anyway. Growing things and time out in the yard will be the best harbingers of the season and the remedy for the blues, not to mention a visit with the New Jersey kitties.