Prada In The Desert

For over ten years a high fashion nonfunctional Prada clothing store is smack dab in the middle of the West Texas desert between Van Horn and Valentine, but associated with Marfa to the south. Originally built to desintegrate over the years and to become nothing again But it had to be repaired, as vandals broke into the store, stole the luxury purses and shoes (only right ones were on display.) It needed another fix when a Waco artist broke into the building, spray painted the walls and protested against another clothing manufacturer.

But else the building has been there for over ten years and still attracting visitors from all over the world. The fate of the installation wasn't clear for a long time, as the Texas Department of Transportation considered it to be an unlicensed and therefore unpermitted billboard on the side of a state highway. A reclassification of the building into a museum with Prada, Marfa being the only exhibit, safed the fate, so now it can peacefully disintegrate and become nothing again.

Sources: www.powwows.com

Both shots as well as others are available for publication through the photo agency, Dispatch Press Images, DPI. This photo can also be found in my ClickASnap portfolio or in my Niume Blog.

Composition In Blue, Orange And Brown

Close up of a house detail: wall, window, fascia, evoking a Piet Mondrian composition, even though only in geometrical form. I'm actually guilty and have to confess, that I occasionally love to indulge into abstract, abstract urban, minimal abstract or even a combination of all of them. Some of the results probably will never hang on a wall, but sure enrich the process of doing and trying. 

The above "scene" did trigger the Dutch "De Stijl" painter, Piet Mondrian, even though using more than just primary colors, reduce the whole thing more to a geometrical celebration of his "stijl".  Originally painting as an impressionist, playing with fauvism and pointillism, he started to reduce, limit himself to primary colors with his famous  "Evening; Red Tree," which I tried to celebrate in photography only in my Niume blog "Rest Is Not Idleness." Joining the art movement "De Stijl" he began abstracting and minimalizing even more: 

"I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things…"

Here is one of Piet's most famous artworks - Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow

Piet Mondriaan (1930) Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow                                          Public Domain

Sources: Wikipedia

This shot is also featured in my ClickASnap portfolio, and as a blog in Niume

Beauty In Decay

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth. Henry Miller

Couple of years ago, while taking care of yard, I ran across these decaying Canna leaves. The subtlety in color, texture and the state were in, blew my mind. As death is always portrayed as a heavy burden, look at the lightness of being and leaving. Nature taunting us with abstract art.

Some people may not agree with me and that's absolutely fine, but their is beauty in death and decay.

Study In Rust III

Diamond shaped detail of a manhole cover. As mentioned in other posts about Rust, there is the decaying beauty in rust, that keeps fascinating me. Part of it has to do with almost indestructible element of metal, that withers away under the weather and showing us some of the most beautiful colors doing so.

Study In Rust II

I like rust and it's decaying beauty. Often The oxidizing makes for some really beautiful discoloration and delivers an almost abstract sense of morbidity and attractiveness.

This is a detail part of an oil rig. Left and abandoned, weathering away in North Texas.

Study In Rust I

I like rust and it's decaying beauty. Often the oxidizing makes for some really beautiful discoloration and delivers an almost abstract sense of morbidity and attractiveness.

This is part of a construction machine, where oil and the weather formed a sublime structure of beauty.