Rosslyn Boathouse, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)
A warm thank you to friend, photographer, and some time Essex neighbor Eve Ticknor for giving me these evocative images of Rosslyn’s boathouse.
You will see in my photographs, ways to see water, not just to look at it. Honing your observation skills will open your eyes to other worlds. ~ Eve Ticknor (Aquavisions)
Rosslyn Hammock, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)
Indeed. Eve’s photographs capture dreamy abstractions that don’t easily reveal their source. Rarely does she share images as literal and representational as these. So I considered myself very fortunate when I received her email recently.
The photos were accompanied with a question: Is that you in the hammock? She had shot the photographs from near the Belden Noble Memoiral Library on the Essex ferry dock. At first, she hadn’t noticed that someone was reading in the hammock. It wasn’t until she saw my flip-flops on the deck that she realized someone was contentedly resting.
She caught me!
Image of Indian Summer
Although we’ve already experienced some chilly days and nights this fall, we’re also enjoying frequent installments of Indian summer. I’ve taken advantage of a few such days to grab my tablet and work lakeside from the comfort of my “corner office”.
Eve explores refracted and reflected images on the surface of water, never using Photoshop or filters to alter her images. What we see is what she saw. And yet she succeeds in capturing all sorts of whimsical illusions on the water surface.
Illusion of Indian Summer
And yet these fun photos are no illusion. I was busted midafternoon playing hooky. Can you blame me?
Rosslyn boathouse at sunrise (Digital doodle: virtualDavis)
“Coffee? You don’t even drink coffee,” Susan said.
“I know. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I’m walking through Rosslyn early in the morning with a steaming cup of coffee…”
I hadn’t drunk coffee since college, and I’d obviously never wandered around Rosslyn at the crack of dawn either. But I kept having this vision.
“It’s just barely sunrise. You’re still sleeping. I’m up, drifting from room-to-room, slowly, haltingly, studying the way the sunlight illuminates each room. And those green walls in the parlor? They vibrate in the morning light, like new maple leaves in the springtime.”
I described the shaft of sunlight stretching across the workshop floor. I described the calm, the quiet except for an occasional creaky floorboard. I described Tasha, our Labrador Retriever, padding along with me, anxious for breakfast.
“Tasha sighs and lies down each time I stop. And I stop a lot… to watch the morning unfolding, to watch the sunlight shimmering on the rippled lake, to watch the boathouse clapboards glowing yellow orange for a few minutes as the sun rises above the Green Mountains.”
“I was imagining the boathouse too,” Susan said. “Not like today, but like it was ours, like we lived at Rosslyn. I was thinking, the boathouse’s just begging for a hammock. Don’t you think? A big, two-person hammock in the open-air part, under the roof. Can you imagine lying in a hammock in the evening, listening to the waves?” Susan paused, lost in the idea. “And think of the dinner parties,” she continued. “A table set for four. White linens and candles and sheer curtains billowing in the breeze…”
Hankering for a hammock huddle this morning, so I’ll I revisit the photograph I shared on June 6 depicting a herd of hammocks near the orchard. Yes, the color is a little over juiced. And the shadows are dark almost to the point of feeling ominous. Or cozy? But this moment beckons this morning given yesterday’s storm damage. (I’ve included another image below capturing just how close one of the fallen trees came to both the icehouse and the hammock huddle.
Hammock Huddle Haiku
Together apart,
plein air cocoons canopied
beneath maple trees.
— Geo Davis
Pandemic Precursor
While quarantining during the early months of the pandemic Susan and I spent time exploring and experimenting with aspects of our property that we’d never considered before. Or not recently, at least.
Sixteen years have lulled us into habits, ways of living and looking at Rosslyn that have possibly become more confining than we’d realized prior to weeks-on-end of quarantine.
We spent many afternoons and early evenings on the lawn of the abandoned clay tennis court (located west, northwest of the icehouse). It started because the early spring sunsets were best visible from here, but it continued because we discovered a fresh and inviting space and perspective that we’d previously overlooked. And this new vantage, this new ritual catalyzed a shift in our thinking. Wondering, really. We’d inadvertently stumbled upon a liminal space. And the longer we spent hammocking together near the glowing Solo stove fire pit gifted to us by our older nephew, bundling up as the evening grew chill, witnessing another pandemic sunset, the more our conversations and questions raced into exciting new places. Our wondering wandered further and further into liminality.
Transitions. Flux. Liminality. Interstices. Inflection. Evolving… We are awash in transitions! (Source: Transitions)
Three years later we’re navigating a tempest of transformation. But I’m tickling a tangent, so best to stick with our hammock huddle for now.
Ensemble Hammocking
Our earliest ensemble hammocking in this location, back in March or April 2020, was nestled up together in this wooden arc stand.
Pandemic Hammocking 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
Needless to say, no side-by-side reveal since we were quarantined, and we weren’t super swift with selfies…
We’ve long loved hammocks, stringing them up throughout our property, so it occured to me that it would be fun to create a group of hammocks hanging together in the hopes that soon we’d be able to be joined by friends once again. Recumbent social distancing!
The hammock huddle shown at the top of this post was born. The same is shown here, minus the giant maple tree that used to tower nearby.
Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)
As it turns out, the hammock roundup has been a hit. For the third season in a row we’ve enjoyed group hammocking among the still adolescent stand of maple trees growing between the tennis court and the orchard.
Yesterday‘s storm damage was distributed throughout our property, and the immense maple that succumbed in the photo stood right next to the hammock huddle. Guided through the forceful blow by some benevolent force, the towering tree exploded onto the ground without damaging the hammocks, the maple trees in which they are suspended, or for that matter any of the adjoining trees save a few branches here and there. It’s remarkable really. Even the gate through which we drive the tractor was unscathed. And, as I pointed out yesterday, if the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the maple would likely have destroyed the icehouse that we are just beginning to rehabilitate. Instead, we have a new aperture of visible sky this morning and a year’s worth of firewood.
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Every once in a while I get lucky. A dramatic sunrise falling on mist. Gluten free, dairy free chocolate desert on a restaurant menu. A quick smile or pleasantries from a stranger. A dogeared but otherwise forgotten poem resurfacing, reconnecting, re-enchanting after many years…
Many of Eve Ticknor’s (aquavisions.me) watery photographs — especially when hinting of Essex, Lake Champlain, and even Rosslyn — belong in my ever burgeoning catalog of lucky experiences. I have shared Ticknor’s photographs before (Hammock Days of Indian Summer on September 18, 2013 and Eve Ticknor’s Boathouse Photos on June 23, 2014)
Eve’s photographs capture dreamy abstractions that don’t easily reveal their source. (Source: Rosslyn Redux)
The photograph above is a perfect example. It moves before your eyes like a mirage. What is it? A second photograph of the same scene helps demystify the subject.
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Still stumped? That hypnotic labyrinth of squiggly lines is the key, but the two vertical, shaded columns are helpful too. If you’re still stumped, here’s a third photograph that will decipher the abstract beauty in the previous two photographs.
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Eve explores refracted and reflected images on the surface of water, never using Photoshop or filters to alter her images. What we see is what she saw. And yet she succeeds in capturing all sorts of whimsical illusions on the water surface. (Rosslyn Redux)
In addition to the mysteries woven into Eve Ticknor’s photographs, I’m also drawn to her “earthy” palette. She often captures rich, nuanced colors in her work, but there’s a muted, organic hue that I find refreshing in today’s super-saturated world of digital photography and pumped up filters. That third image above is especially rich in color and tone, so many putties and heavy contrasts. It strikes me as painterly and meditative in a way that so many crisp, high definition, copies of reality are not.
I’ll conclude with one last hauntingly beautiful images from friend and photographer Eve Ticknor. It is a glimpse over the shoulder of Rosslyn’s boathouse toward the Essex ferry docks pilings, the entire scene veiled in gossamer moodiness. Thank you, Eve!
Rosslyn Boathouse and Essex Ferry Dock Pilings (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
