Artist Coco Capitan’s silver gelatin print, “plants framing plants”, got us thinking about the wonder of the frame, and ways to use it outdoors and in, as photographer Maria Robledo so brilliantly improvised.
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Leaping in Poetry, Art and Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)
Leaping In Poetry, Art And Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)
10.17.16 | 2:38am
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
While we were researching how we often don’t know just how big the leaps we take are, we came across poet Robert Bly’s theory of leaping poetry. He says that leaps are inherent in many works of art
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Maria Robledo: Still-Lifes While Making Soup
Every once in a while, photographer Maria Robledo emails images she has made in-the-moment, in response to whatever was going on around her. They are invariably startling and illuminating; Maria sees like no one we know. Her way has opened our eyes over the years. This time, she showed us the marvels of root vegetables. While she was cutting the vegetables for soup (recipe to follow), she turned them into little still-lives with an unexpected whimsy.
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Maria Robledo’s Uncropped In-the-Moment Instagram’s
When we need a hit of in-the-moment, we-never-would-have-seen-THAT zen, we check out Maria Robledo’s Instagram feed. It’s always full of miracles and beauty, of ordinary things.
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Exploration: Maria Robledo’s Frame Series
In May, we gave photographer Maria Robledo an antique silver picture frame that had no glass or mat; you could see right through it. Hand-wrought, it had a built-in stand of two crossing silver poles. To our surprise, Maria started using it as-is to frame cut flowers from her garden. Over the past weeks, she’s sent us…
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maria robledo: the perfection of everyday imperfections
A quote from our friend Maria Robledo captures the wondrous imperfections in the daily world that make them so completely perfect, as do her photographs…
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art in the everyday: pear core sculpture (maria robledo)
Maria Robledo‘s instagram of a pear core looks like a fab modernist sculpture. Another swell little shift of view via Maria’s instagrams. Related posts: maria robledo’s stunning instagrams will change your view a blue passionflower’s crazy inspiration freehand, no-rule flower arrangements object lessons: some sh*t just doesn’t matter
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artful improvised receipt storage (via maria robledo)
We found this wonderful image on Maria Robledo’s Instagram. Ohhh, what a great method of storing receipts (emptying pockets or bag then-and-there.) Thrown into a space between books —some amazing ones at that— they take on a curious beauty. We have a box in an easily-accessible file cabinet that we throw them into to collate…
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maria robledo’s stunning instagrams will change your view
We’ve just discovered photographer Maria’s Robledo’s crazy-beautiful Instagram, a trove of images that will make you SEE the everyday differently and put you right in the moment. Only Maria could have come up with this simple, curiously moving arrangements of pussy willow blossoms (which people usually just throw away once they’ve been knocked off their stem). The…
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maria robledo’s stealth valentines
Our friend Maria Robledo makes “stealth” valentines for her husband Holton to find. She stitched “BE MINE” onto a curtain, and arranged beaded necklaces into hearts on the carpet.
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happy birthday, maria robledo!
Looking for a way to wish our friend Maria Robledo a belated Happy Birthday, we found this clip of Wynton Marsalis and a friend improvising on that simple tune…building and building on until it became some big joy… (…at the end he says “You see all the many ways we were conversing with each other?“, reminding…
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A Powerful Spring Poem with Robledo’s Wondrous Images
When we stumbled on this powerful little haiku, we thought right away of Maria Robledo’s wondrous flower assemblages…where we found another surprising haiku.
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Picture Frame as Magical Objet
We love this skeleton of a picture frame hung pictureless on a wall. As we gaze into its empty space, we find ourselves imagining all sorts of things while we enjoy its austere shape. It reminded us of the old silver frame we gave to artist Maria Robledo years ago. Picture frame as magical objet.
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An Ad Hoc Indoor Pond for Spring Blossoms (Su Tung Po)
Blossoms knocked off their stems make for free flower arrangements in the form of ad hoc indoor ponds like the one photographer Maria Robledo devised (the perfect accompaniment to this poem written over a thousand years ago)
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Floating Blossoms in a Tiny Indoor Pond (Su Tung Po)
Photographer Maria Robledo inspired us to copy the lovely pond she improvised for fallen blossoms culled from her garden. A perfect accompaniment to this Spring poem by Su Tung Po.
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Happy Holidays from Improvised Life
Years ago, Maria Robledo sent us these photographs of charming graffiti she spotted painted on plywood. They perfectly convey the magic of the season, and its hope…
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Maya Angelou’s Wise Words about Life and Table
On Wednesday, Maria Robledo sent us this image of a quote by writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. The following day, we learned that Angelou had passed away. The women had a WAY with words and with living. So we’ve selected a few as tribute.
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The Unexpected Beauty of a Matless, Glassless Picture Frame
Recently, we gave our friend Maria Robledo a silver picture frame we’d had for many years. It was handmade and so beautifully and simply wrought, we’d never put a glass or mat in it, or even a picture. In Maria’s hands, it became something totally else. We’d never SEEN it that way…
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New York Arbor: The Creative Life of Trees
If we were looking for a stunning gift to give a friend, we would give the book Maria Robledo gave us recently: photographer Mitch Epstein’s incredibly beautiful New York Arbor, images of remarkable trees growing in New York’s parks, gardens, sidewalks, and cemeteries, amidst the life of the city. It is not JUST photographs of trees, but a truly transfixing and transformative work that seems as alive as its subjects.
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Tree Cloud: What Might We See if We Were Really Looking
Our friend Christopher Eldredge emailed us this image on the very morning that we read this passage from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Sun My Heart. And IT reminded us of Maria Robledo’s perfect image.
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