Understanding Art

There are icons strewn throughout Juneau (both natural and man-made) that make this area so unique, so foreign-feeling to a recently displaced Tennessean, and just so....Juneau.  I took this picture of a raven  a few minutes from work and was surprised at how close he allowed me to get.  These big heavy birds are strange creatures and each one seems to have his own personality.  They are very obviously used to people, and this particular bird stared me down almost daring me to come closer.  Once I snapped the picture he jumped from one rock to another, but my proximity to him did not spook him enough for him to take flight.

I took this picture of the two eagles downtown, right before the one I included in my last blog entry.  I had aimed my camera to take a picture of the one eagle on the left, and just a split second before I pushed the button the second eagle flew in for a landing.

Stairs are everywhere in the area.  In downtown Juneau hundreds of steps at a time connect one road to another up in the hills in the back of the city.  This particular picture was taken in S Douglas (looking across the channel at the city of Juneau).  Steps again serve a function over on the island - to provide a seamless transition from the road, down to the channel in peoples' yards.

Stairs in Juneau connecting streets and homes and lives

Part of an entrance gate to an apartment building in downtown Juneau

The inside of my favorite coffee shop downtown.  This town reminds me of places like Boulder CO and Asheville NC.  Everyone walks around wearing technical outdoor store clothing, and carrying mugs of steaming coffee purchased at their favorite coffee shop.  Mostly city and state employees, politicians and intellectuals downtown, and the clothing and coffees and characters are all very yuppie, and fun to watch.

On this particular day at the coffee shop sat an older gentleman who was sketching another person in the shop, who in turn was completely engrossed in a newspaper.  I found an excuse to walk by this would-be artist to see what his work looked like, and he is wonderfully talented.  When he was done with his drawing, he walked over to his unsuspecting subject, handed him the sketch without a word and walked away.  This is the second time that I have seen him do this.

Also at this coffee shop on this particular day there was someone else who caught my attention (while I was wearing my technical clothing and buying my coffee - small, black and regular).  I also have seen him before.  This man wears military fatigues, a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut out, a beret, a goatee and sunglasses indoors.  I doubt that he is a military veteran - I know the look of a military vet, and he does not wear it.  Not in his face. I suspect  a flower child simply born a decade or two too late.

I was at the coffee shop on this day to sign my lease for my rustic Alaskan cabin Out the Road.

The outside of the downtown public libary 

A dedication to the military service of native Alaskans

A typically Alaskan icon on the outside of a government office building

A Mt Roberts Tramway Car downtown Juneau (quiet until the first cruise ships begin to arrive in May)

A remnant of Juneau's mining history found just off Basin Rd, close to the Mt Roberts trailhead

Taken during a brief walk outside this afternoon

Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.....John Muir