Jazz --- Day 12/70

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

Yoshida Chizuko (Japanese, 1924-2017), Jazz, 1954, Woodblock print; ink and colors on paper

Many artists have been inspired by jazz, but, to Ciwt, none have done better capturing the immediacy, the energy and unexpected playfulness of jazz than Yoshida Chizuko has in this early woodblock print 

Chizuko (1924-2017) trained as an oil painter and exhibited long before marrying Yoshida Hodaka and into the most renowned fine art family in Japan in 1953.  After meeting her husband, Chizuko began to explore printmaking and quietly became one of the country's leading female abstract printmakers. Overshadowed by the famous Yoshida brothers, she actually produced the most avant-garde artworks of all the Yoshida family members in the mid-twentieth century.  She also cofounded Joryu Hanga Kyokai, or the Women's Print Association, in 1956, pushing the boundaries of the male-dominated printmaking field in Japan.

The Dust Was in the Air --- Day 12/69

Walk: No (Ciwt has a cold from the ongoing cold)

Distance: n/a

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German), Blast Furnace, Youngstown, Ohio, United States, 1983, gelatin print

Driving hurriedly by outdated, technically obsolete buildings can be a  rushed downer for Ciwt.  But when she stands and looks at the photographs of the late German photographers, Bernd and Hilla Becher, she is always moved. The care, the ingenuity, the craftsmanship, the shapes and lines, the people, the times - almost all gone.   

In one of their last books of photographs they wrote: "Once we were in northern France, where we found a wonderful headgear (the top of a blast furnace) - a veritable Eiffel Tower,  When we arrived the weather was hazy and not ideal for our work so we decided to postpose taking the photos for a day.  When we arrived the next day, it had already been torn down, the dust was in the air."

I Heart My Bike --- Day 12/68

Walk: 'Country Home'

Distance: 5 miles

💘 Seeing this obviously treasured bike on her walk from her old to her new home today lifted Ciwt's spirits.

More B and A (See Yesterday's CIWT) --- Day 12/67

Walk: 'Country Home'

Distance: 3.5 miles, yoga

Second place, Behavior - Birds. A red-billed oxpecker rests on a warthog in Zimanga, South Africa. #

© Tamas Aranyossy / World Nature Photography Awards

Beautiful and Arresting --- Day 12/66

Walk: Union Square Women's Day Tulip 🌷 Festival

Distance:  5 miles

First place, Underwater. A couple of Harlequin shrimp perch on a blue sea star in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

© Adriano Morettin / World Nature Photography Awards

Again, how do the Atlantic Magazine judges ever pick a winner with such beautiful and arresting entries?  Please go to the site* where the photos are larger and much more vivid.

* Winners 2022 World Nature Photography Awards

What's That White Stuff? --- Day 12/65

Walk: SFMOMA

Distance: 5 miles, yoga

A very rare sight

She knows, she knows.  You can't really see it, but those hills across San Francisco Bay from Ciwt's window are snow capped.  

Ciwt's sister was visiting Napa during its recent snow and the 25 year old girl who waited on her at a restaurant said she had never seen snow before.  A 35 year old would have said the same thing. 

Winter White --- Day 12/64

Walk: SFMOMA

Distance: 5.5 miles

A Portland friend who is a sort of 'Amaryllis Mom' sent a picture of a white amaryllis that just bloomed.

Six --- Day 12/63

Walk: Orpheum theater, Max Opera Plaza

Distance: 5.5 miles, yoga

So Ciwt is busy researching the lives of Henry the Eighth's six wives after seeing the musical about them today.  Quite clever and high energy.  But it was really more like a concert with each 'wife' taking front stage and singing separately. Most of those loudly mic'd words blurred together for Ciwt.

So...Six, The Rating: Six