Well as you can probably tell by its short-lived nature, I was never very happy with the redesign of plushcreative.com that I unveiled in January. Though, I think each iteration of the site has had its part in my minimalist journey. I think I may have found the sweet-spot for image size: somewhere between overwhelming the screen and too small to make an impact. Aside from that, I missed having the space to write a little something about the images, as this space will normally be devoted to.

The Gates
Standing among the Gates is decidedly less fantastic than I expected. I remember trekking out to California's Tejon Pass in 1991 with a high-school friend to see Christo's Umbrellas. They were breathtaking: hundreds of Umbrellas dotted the hilly landscape as far as the eye could see, it was otherworldly. The Gates, though less pervasive than the Umbrellas were, do provide a fascinating guide to the insights of Olmstead and Vaux as they meticulously designed the seemingly random paths that meander throughout the park.

What I do love about the Gates is how they interact with the community. New Yorkers are fiercely independent; their camaraderie only breaking through when something out of the ordinary — good or bad — happens: a blizzard, a blackout, 9/11, the Gates. Just as with the Umbrellas, the oddity of the art creates a certain equality among those experiencing it. Suddenly New Yorkers and tourists stream into the park as if we're all part of some happy family. People laugh and talk and snap hundreds of pictures of others they'd never even bother to look at a week before. This is indeed the raison d'être of much of Christo's work, and in that respect, it is a success.

I found the Gates difficult to photograph. While the Umbrellas were beautiful in their randomness, the Gates play off each other; teasing one another as they separate and converge along the park's trails. This first picture shows how beautiful the Gates can be when the light is right, but I have yet to grab that perfect shot where the Gates converge at one point from different planes. 10 days left...