halo effect

Another day, another mono print.

I can’t seem to stop myself, and wonder if I have perhaps developed some kind of odd fascination with my Speedball brayer? Or have become addicted to paintbrushes?

Either way, here we are.

Monoprint, 5.14.2026

lipstick gal series #4

Well.

This is different.

During the years I’ve been shooting Route 66 I’ve developed weird fascinations with certain of the photos I made along the way. (You may remember Wide Elvis?) (Or the Murder Church?) And now here’s Lipstick Gal, a mannequin I met in Seligman Arizona. I’ve edited the photo quite a few times and made seven or so monoprints of her. This one is my current favorite…she’s printed on a page from a book that I found in a thrift store. The book’s title is How I Raised Myself from FAILURE TO SUCCESS in Selling (c) 1949.

Hey, hello, again. I just wandered away to research some stuff on the page I printed the L. Gal on. The address mentioned – 925 Filbert Street in Philadelphia – appears to now be in a block that’s a shopping mall/transit facility/parking garage. And the Mr. George J. DeArmand that’s referenced lived his whole life in Philadelphia; he had eight siblings, most of whom died while they were in theirs 20s. He made it all the way to age 91, and passed away in 1944. Apparently, his upholstery-and-hardware lifestyle was healthy. And he had no problem killing a whole day gabbing to a couple of salesmen.

What does Mr. DeArmand’s story have to do with the L. Gal? Not one single thing, except that she landed on the page I randomly pulled from a book.

original photograph 6.1.2023
printed 5.9.2026

BONUS:

Lipstick Gal – Seligman, Arizona

Wide Elvis – Braidwood, Illinois

Murder Church – Allenread, Texas

keeper of cosmic and moral balance

Really, out here if you say “We had a windy day.” it’s redundant: every day – every damn one of them! – is windy.

(I reached out to the visitors’ bureau folks to see if they wanted to sponsor this post. They declined, citing my “poor attitude” and “tendency to exaggerate” and a few other things.)

Yellowhouse Canyon, Texas
photographed 5.10.2026

bottom of the barrel

The first time I ever looked into a cemetery trash barrel I felt guilty, like I was intruding on something I didn’t need to know about.

And maybe I was.

But I still do look inside of them. This one that I saw the other day in Oklahoma made me sad: all that’s left of someone’s birthday wishes to their beloved, deceased person was an R and an I. That’s not much, is it?

Mountain View Cemetery
Mountain View, Oklahoma
photographed 4.25.2026

night/terror

No surprise to anyone that’s seen more than, say, four of my photos: I can’t go very long without posting some kind of a reflection. And for some reason, hotel rooms have the best reflections.

So, while the conference I attended may not have been particularly helpful for my real job*, the hotel room views did provide some nice opportunities to make images.

Frisco, Texas
photographed 4.27.2026

*My real job – grants writer. And I SURE ENOUGH went to a session on using AI to write grants. It felt a little bit (or a lot) like spying on my competition.