Mid-Century... Vacation Motor Lodge

 "You were born to do so much more than to pay bills and die."

~Unknown

If photography has taught me anything, it's that there is life beyond the moments of despair that tend to creep into our lives. I can get lost for a little while. I love that a single moment in time, can live in so many different existences around me. In that moment, I can be in my own world photographing a gorgeous Anna's hummingbird, while a few hundred miles away someone could be checking into the Vacation Motor Lodge, in Reno Nevada. Photography is allowing me to step out of this overwhelming pain I am in right now. I need that. I need to see what might be happening today, or even a few days from now, while I am depressed, so I can see beyond it. Time is an issue, as is money to do so. There is yard photography, but I hurt my foot, so there's that. Things are tough right now, but when I can, I can lose myself in a simpler time. I just wish I could do it more often.

 

There will be leaves soon.

 

Right?

 

 

 

 ~Me

Stockton, Ca

September 6th, 2021

 

 

 

 

Use Of Color

 

"The music of the far-away summer flutters

 around the autumn seeking it's former nest."

 

Rabindranath Tagore

 

I love my autumn colors, especially as part of the design of one of my new favorite subjects, Mid-Century signage. That combination of orange and turquoise never gets old. Yet another subject I keep promising to do a lot more research into... the use of certain specific colors in Mid-Century modernist decor. I find it absolutely fascinating, which is funny, because I usually hated some of it's use on TV shows, when I was growing up. The Brady Bunch, for example. The Brady family had the colors of red and gold in their kitchen. I always found it hideous, but now, I see it with a completely different perspective. It feels good to still be growing and evolving in my thinking at my old age, but I do enjoy learning new things, so perhaps I will look into some classes online in decorating. I want to know more.

 

 

~Carly

Stockton, California

December 5th 2020

A Season Of Desperate Hopes

 

"Autumn is a season of desperate hopes.The leaves are souls begging to turn life on pause. Begging to stop, begging to take a break, hiding under smiles and childish words."

~Teodora Savr

Listen To The Leaves

I feel restless. Like a leaf waiting to fall, but never quite finding the time or will. We are all walking around on the schedule of others. I want the election over with, yet I am terrified to think about November 3rd... and what comes next. The last four years have been HELL. It has ruined holidays for people. For others it was sleep, or even just the previously common Monday, or spring. Full seasons. Relationships. You get the idea. Its a little different for everyone I guess. For me it's a little of everything, and so I have to wonder if that's! why I have been sick, every single Christmas since we bought this house! I guess we will never know. Anyway... completely off topic, sorta, here is a brand new mid-century hotel sign, from Lodi, California. Most likely the 50's. The era Trump is stuck in. The hotel appeared haunted to me... I think I know why. We are all ghosts right now, restless, tired and not at all sure of anything, but desperatly hoping that we will find out way out of the darkness.

 

 ~Carly

Stockton, California

October 20th 2020

West Lane Bowl (Mid-Century Beauty)

"An autumn garden has a sadness when the sun is not shining."

~Francis Brett Young

Cold Harbour

 In this case, the autumn garden is all the businesses shuttered, waiting for the Covid-19 to finally move on. Unfortunately, it seems like it will be a long time before San Joaquin County is out of the woods. There are so many places all over Stockton, with sad little notes proclaiming they will be back, and there will be better days, but I am not so sure. Trump is doing nothing to help this ugly time pass, in fact, he's reveling in it. Holding big rallies. Not encouraging any social distancing. It's sad. And the regular flu season is now just a heartbeat away. I feel for the businesses suffering.

 

Sorry, I meant to focus on the fact that this building is another example of magnificent mid-century style and architecture. I haven't been able to find much information about it, but apparently it predates 1963. I will try to do some more research to find out what it's story is. In the mean time, there is that amazing color combo of orange and turquoise again. A combination I noticed was also featured in the fabulous new Ryan Murphy series, Ratched. It's also set in Mid-20th Century, in a fictional psychiatric hospital, somewhere near Monterey. Maybe it will be explained within the series, you never know about these things, and it not, it gives me a nice excuse to visit the Monterey Peninsula in my quest.

Leaf Of The Day

~Carly

September 25th 2020

Stockton, California

Reality Of The Same Intensity

"The object of art is not to reproduce reality

 but to create reality of the same intensity."

-Alberto Giacometti

I had been wanting to photograph this old motel for a long time. The first time I spotted it, was five years ago, when I moved to Stockton. I was on the freeway, on my way to my new house, from the motel I had been living in, in Turlock. Man, it was the longest summer in that Turlock motel, waiting for the condo to built, and then when that situation blew up, it was even longer while house hunting, but we eventually found our home and our community. It was scary, but having a brand new canvas of possibilities was good. New sights and sounds. New things to photograph. New histories to learn.Too bad I just wasn't in the right head space to embrace it, but still, that didn't stop me from taking a visual note of that great sign, so that when I was ready, I would know where to go for inspiration.

I edited two versions, color and black/white. Frankly, I am not sure which I like best. The color shows it's original funky mid-century style of not just the lines, but the overuse of that hideous orange color. Funny how folks felt about color back then. Orange and turquoise? And yet I have seen more than one building, from that era, that had that exact color scheme. Stockton is full of it, and for some inexplicable reason, it's growing on me. The black and white is really great because it's like I had to step into an old movie to accomplish the photo. Both are great. Maybe I will leave it up to Twitter to decide.

 Feel free to leave me your thoughts. 

Carly
August 25th 2020
Nikon

Reliable Drugs

"True alchemy lies in this formula: 'Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse"."

~Arther Rimbaud 

Illuminations

I remember this sign from my childhood, and I always like it. I am not sure why it pleased my child's mind so much, it just did! Maybe it was the lettering. Maybe it was all I had heard about drugs. LOL. Maybe it just seemed that anything reliable, must be good! Maybe even as a child, I saw too much change happening around me. Shrug. I have never been a fan of too much change... too fast. But, unfortunately, change is what brings autumn back around, and so I face down yet another year of the very thing I dislike most in the whole world. 

Change. 

That's as a reliable a drug as is readily available.

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)