When you tell your children your truth, the whole business takes place in your eyes.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Sam defines the space in which he will sit still, and the space in which he will not sit still. Every kid knows how to do that.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

This is my son Sam. He doesn't need me to tell him anything really important, because all the cumulative impression of my actions over a life time have already done that. He needs me to tell him little things, like "clean the orange juice off the lens quickly" and "I love you today."
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

The best art teacher I ever knew only wanted to teach two things. The first was: remember the frame. No matter how involved you are in your composition, remember where the limits are. I don't remember what the second thing was.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

You cannot swim to safety if you cannot swim. This sign is simple on the face of it, but look closely and you see the gestural writing of time and weather: what does it say? It is the prose of decay, but as beautiful as any writing can be.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Can a child echo the parent without mockery? Perhaps.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Praise the sun. The son. Sam said today the only thing he trusts these days is the sun.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Lighthouse in Duluth Minnesota, April 3 2006.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Sam swims to safety beside the tug. If he weakens, he will drown in the cold winter grasses, pulled down to where Persephone herself could not breathe in the chambers of her husband's shadow.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

The shadows of the birds seem more menacing than the birds themselves. The birds in the air are natural, and correct. The shadows animate the ground with the velocity of flight, on the canvas of gravity. It is not the proper order of things.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Sam offers the seagulls a reading of Richard Brautigan. They show a preference for the girls' cheetos.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

It is good if you feel that you go all the way out to the end of yourself. That is a fair definition of health.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Look very closely. Look very closely at everything.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Nothing says "good morning" like total decadence.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

The secret of life is to crave those things that heal you and nourish you at the same time.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

If there is any such thing as beauty, it is in this picture somewhere.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

This is my space ship. It is also my time ship. I fly through billionths of a second, like stars. The smallest parts of creation talk in the language of light, to me, as I fly with them.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

I was given this oscilloscope to solve, like a zen koan. What has 78 tubes and sketches microseconds in the dark? What is the sound of time changing its mind a million times a second?
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

This is a sketch of a few microseconds, drawn by electrons. We don't even know if there are electrons, exactly. But we like the pictures they draw for us.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

The framed picture captures movement and blisters with form. I look the other way, into the winter light. Eventually I will see what I am looking at.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Amazing things occur just above my head.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Self portrait with cats.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

I can't explain what it is I disapprove of exactly.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow

Oh kitties. I would give you my soul, if you could give it the same peace you have yourselves.
copyright@2006 Jeff Beddow