Confined by Covid to a narrow barrier island, 15 months in exile, I needed solace. I’d learn to fish. I assayed my prey. A pole and a line would not do. Spears and traps were out. I took out my trusty Kodak.

The harvest was promising, even promiscuous -- hundreds, at times thousands, of very small acrobats swarming, swimming together in circles, then darting off in one direction, then another, then another, a free for all. Sometimes choreography -- beautiful ballet, hydraulic hip-hop -- sometimes chaos. I would press on.
With unstable light, shadows, wind, and water, each image was unpredictable, ephemeral, never to be repeated. The patterns were intoxicating, but the colors were drab, the fabric muted. I would perform metamorphosis.

With digital alchemy the work became a kaleidoscope of tones and textures—and a reflection of my mercurial moods. Bounded by their own reality, like a lucid dream, the lines between real and unreal blurred. Some images were lyrical, others discordant. The child barely acknowledges the parent as recognizable content disappears.
I pressed on. I continued in the alchemist’s laboratory turning more straw into gold. I collaged with textures, abstract patterns, and lines. I paired similar images, then joined the pairs end-to-end creating a single panorama. A friend slighly turns the portfolio 90 degrees. Now I discover scrolls resembling Japanese ukiyo-e.
I had found excitement, even joy, celebration of life, and the wonders of art – rare and wonderful gifts in a period of confusion and fear and random death. And, for a moment at least, I could forget time.