Take a Closer Look

What have you been walking by all year that might just make a prefect image for art?

This is the time of the year for reflection and reconsideration and taking a second look at some of the things you walk by every day should be a part of that rethink.

Have you taken a look at your pets?

They want you to look at them and they do all sorts of things to get you to do just that. They clown and ham and dance and jig and it is all for you. So why aren't you paying attention. Sure there are more exciting, bigger ideas out there, but does every image have to have a big concept?

What about your pals? Have you taken inventory and made sure you are spending enough time with them and their concerns? This year Coos Bay lost two of its most important art folks, Kurt Hitch and John Griffin. Don't you wish you had spent more time, talking, sharing, enjoying them. And now they are gone and you can't do that. But you can make sure that you don't miss out with anyone else. Sure it is dreary and sad to think about losing the people we play and create with every day, but take a look at the news. There are a whole bunch f folks in New England who didn't think their lives were going to change and then something devastating happened and their whole community has been irreversibly changed.

Better take the time while you have it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed by the Constitution.

What about the place where we live and work. Have you taken a minute to slow own and look at the way this area and town are changing? Sure it hurts to see a treasured way of life slipping away but of that's all you focus on you'll miss out n all f the wonderful things which are going on today. Life might have been better a hundred years ago but try to tell that to someone with appendicitis.

When is the last time you really enjoyed the food that Coos Bay has in such variety and abundance?  Back in Texas if I wanted a chicken fried steak I could stop anywhere that wasn't a Seven/Eleven and be sure of getting one that would knock your eye out, but sushi or German, great sea food or fresh game not a chance in hell.

Coffee. Now I don't do coffee, maybe that's a result of too many deep nights working the dispatch board. Maybe  just never learned how to get passed the taste. But great coffee comes on every street corner and you can go from one to the other and dump your old leavings in the ash urn before you get that fresh cup and still never leave your car.

There are so many things we have to enjoy and appreciate that there isn't enough time to do it in. And while you are glossing over all of that stuff maybe your eye is skimming over something which could make for an award winning picture, if you slowed down enough to take a look.