"Life is a painting, and you are the artist. You have on your palette all the colors in the spectrum…” — Paul J. Meyer
While many people, especially educators, enjoy this last, long month of summer, I really do not enjoy August. It is typically hot and humid and buzzing with insects, although this year, was pleasantly cool. Usually, once August comes, I’m ready to skip right to September.
Over the past few years of curated monthly collections, I have struggled to define the colors of August. Some months seem obvious while other require a bit more creativity. I have tried “sunny hues” — yellows, reds, and oranges, yet, having just finished a patriotic July, my reds have been depleted; I used most of the yellows in April aside from the sunflowers; and since it’s my least favorite, I have very few photos that feature the color orange, most of those being reserved for October. In 2020, I scrapped the color theme in August in favor of the alphabet — an image of something that begins with each of the letters followed by the numbers one through five. In 2021, I featured photos of my favorite things — the things for which I am most grateful: nature (especially the birds, bees, butterflies, and flowers in my own garden), being on the water (sailing and rowing), travel (especially to Door County and Paris), creativity (photography and writing), education (books and my time at Marquette), good food and wine and time with friends and family (especially Miss Piper). And as a bonus, the color scheme evolved naturally and reflected my some favorite hues, rendering August 2021 one of my favorite collages.
This year’s collages are softer, more muted versions of their monthly color schemes, but for August, I embraced a bold spectrum. It’s not my favorite collection, but it still features some of my favorite subjects — flowers, water, shapes, textures, and of course, a certain ever-photogenic beagle.
