This morning I went to a cafe (my favorite, Fresh Flours) to inhale newsprint and caffeine and find the happiness image of the day. This man’s lovely cup-shaped ears were irresistible. On the other side of my table a gentleman looked up from his laptop and asked what I was doing and why I was photographing the back of a chair. When I told him that I was going out each day to look for an image of transcendent happiness he immediately logged onto Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project website and showed me that somebody else has been busy on this subject for quite some time. Where have I been all of my life? If you haven’t visited, do, she is quite wonderful, and her account of her year studying the theories of happiness has generated huge response and warmth worldwide.
The Happiness Project
Seattle has never seen weather like this. 100 degrees in the shocked garden, 95 in the studio, 91 in the kitchen. The heat melts all resistance. Complete strangers walk up to you and offer to buy you an ice cream cone. It is easy to keep walking until midnight, around and around the lake. Why eat dinner until the moon sets?
I find myself thinking of happiness, and of ice cream. Of Bobby McFerrin and the melodies of ease and satisfaction. This little toy has been my companion for so many years I have lost count. He requested a portrait, and I have obliged. The pieces in this series are created with my own photography, drawing and assemblage, and reproduced as transfer prints from an Epson 2800 on rag paper. Each one is unique, and close up the surface resembles woodblock or letterpress. I have not been able to edition these yet because it is so hot the plates rip the paper. As soon as the weather shifts however prints will be available for sale.