Invitation to Create Winter Digitals

The news flashes across the screen. Winter storms are attracting a great deal of attention but it is not expected that my little corner of the world will turn into a winter wonderland this weekend. I will rely on others to capture the beauty of the season. In the meantime, I imagine the sights and sounds of neighborhood after soft crystals twirl and dance in pixie-like fashion before gently folding into the earth as layered blankets.

Still wondering, I decided to transform original photos, the one above by Abdiel Ibarra from Unsplash and the image of the barren trees below that I that took during a past winter season. While layering and experimenting with digital tools, I created pieces of whimsical digital art that welcome winter into my thoughts.

I invite you to create alongside me for a seasonal gallery of artistic expressions.

Observe nature this winter. Capture the sights and sounds of the season through nature photography, family fun photos, image poems, #InstaPoetry, #haikuforhope poems, inspirational quotes, drawings, musical compositions, or any other creative digital format. 

Reminders:

• All students and adults in and outside the Long Island, New York region are invited to reflect upon the winter season. 
• Sign each digital that should be no larger than 450 pixels with your name and location so you may receive proper accreditation.
• Offerings will be collected at my digital repository, #WinteringFun, on Twitter (@cvarsalona) and at my cvarsalona gmail account. You can also find me on Instagram as cvarsalona and FaceBook as Carol Varsalona.

I invite you to have fun capturing different perspectives of winter with your family and friends for my winter global gallery of artistic expressions.  The deadline for submissions is March 18, 2019.

Embrace the winter challenge! Be creative and expressive!

The title of this year's winter gallery is under consideration. I have looked at many different themes starting with Wintering Fun but the one that keeps spinning in front of me is Winter's Embrace. What do you think? 

Below are the tiles of the previous winter galleries that you can view on my blog site, Beyond LiteracyLink. 

Enjoy being creative and sharing your work globally.

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Are you wondering when the Abundant Autumn Gallery will be unveiled?  I am still in the designing phase because of multiple technical issues, so stay tuned. 

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The Poetry Friday'Roundup is hosted this week by Tricia Stohr-Hunt at her blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect. Tricia is honoring the memory of a great contemporary poet, Mary Oliver who has passed on. 

In tribute to Mary Oliver's amazing talent to weave words together to create a vivid visual and provide a deeper look into nature and life, I offer an excerpt from her poem,  "First Snow".

Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found —

~Mary Oliver~

excerpted from American Primitive

Winter Settles In

Each morning of this week, winter's arms reached out like barren branches hoping for a rush of warmth. The sun, playing hide and seek, poked in between sweeping clouds making its way slowly toward evening. As the indigo sky darkened earth, stillness laid its blanket down. Nature rested, knowing that the next day would follow in a similar pattern. 

Yesterday, as I traveled east, from one end of Long Island to my destination, I noticed that each town we passed had the same barren look. Vast arrays of trees, leafless and still, made me feel that nature was ready to embrace the winter chill. After arriving home from a wake, I started thinking about the cyclical pattern of the seasons. Winter walks in with a chill and settles down. T.S. Elliot describes this in his poem, Prelude, which is divided into four parts.

I

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o’clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
(You can read the rest of the poem here.)

I was struck by Elliot's first line, "The winter evening settles down." Coincidentally, it pairs beautifully with my title, so I decided to try a golden shovel poem to exemplify my thoughts. 

"The winter evening settles down"

As nighttime approaches, the

sun's warmth fades and winter

holds court in the glint of evening.

The house forgets to fire up and settles

into its own pattern of laying down.

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This week, I started joining poet Kat Apel at Instagram for #MoPoetry2019 and some insta-poetry. Today, I decided this would be a great way to share my haikus with her since she is hosting Poetry Friday from Australia where it is summertime. I'm waving to you, Kat, from a cold, wintery day on Long Island, New York. 

While I am designing my Abundant Autumn Gallery for its upcoming unveiling, I am welcoming winter to share its beauty with the world. Please consider sharing your insta-poetry and image poems with me. for showcasing at the gallery.