A Work Progressing

About twenty years ago, I decided to try my hand at real modeling clay. For decades I’d messed with plasticine—projects that never lasted, always mashed back into new forms, leaving behind only a few bad photos. Some of those pieces I still miss.

This time I wrapped newspaper into a rough core, tied with string, and covered it with half an inch of clay. My plan was simple: once the bust was finished, I’d pull out or burn away the paper core and oven-fire it. I didn’t own a kiln, but I had ambition.

Over several days, the figure emerged. No model, no photograph—just memory, mostly of my wife. I shaved one side flat, imagining it as a bookend. Between sessions the clay reached “leather dry,” firm enough to carve yet still able to take a wash of slip. I worked mostly in reduction, shaving down, smoothing with a damp brush, letting it rest overnight.

Then came firing day. I set the oven, placed the bust in the center, and told myself I’d rotate it now and then. About forty minutes in, a sharp crack pulled me to the door. Dust hung in the air. A shoulder had exploded. I stepped back, half-expecting shrapnel. Then another crack—an earlobe gone. Another—half a nostril vanished. Each burst was my mistake unfolding: the water I’d brushed on that morning had sealed moisture inside. With nowhere to escape, the steam tore the piece apart.

When it finally cooled, the bust looked like a marble relic battered by invaders. Damaged, scarred, but still standing. I placed it on a shelf where it remains, holding up volumes on the history of the barbarians at the gate—some of whom, as it happens, were my ancestors.

An artifact by accident. A failure turned keeper.

We have a dog—a dog that barks. We’ve tried to reason with him, but reason isn’t really his strength. Tyson is always alert, rarely resting. If he’s awake, he’s on guard, ready to respond to any sound. His hearing is remarkable.

Since moving from a free-standing house to a townhome, he’s focused almost entirely on the front of the house, where all the noise comes from. Gates opening, cars passing, neighbors arriving. The back deck is silent, and so is he. Not a single bark from that side.

I’ve noticed a pattern: sometimes there’s a low growl at noises I can’t quite detect. If the noise is distinct enough that even I hear it, Tyson responds with one sharp, explosive bark. I tell him to stop—he doesn’t. It’s not a rolling bark, just a single cannon-shot. If I repeat “stop,” he must have the last word: one more bark, this time at half volume.

A lifetime with dogs has taught me that barks fall into three main kinds:

Alerts—something is here, pay attention. Separation—I’m alone, come back. Play—let’s keep going.

Tyson is 90% alert.

Dogs have lived alongside humans for tens of thousands of years, and we’ve trained them for almost every purpose imaginable. They are intelligent—I see flashes of it in Tyson—but their “language” remains simple.

Prairie dogs, on the other hand, bark with astonishing complexity. Con Slobodchikoff spent decades decoding their calls and showed that they use modifiers and syntax. They can warn their community that a tall man, carrying a gun, in a yellow shirt is approaching. Specific, layered, descriptive. Yet they only talk about the immediate present. No past. No future. No stories.

What I can’t quite reconcile is this: prairie dogs have a sophisticated language but live wild, far from us. Domestic dogs, who often sleep with us, bark in simple ways. Why is that?

Today I bore witness to a friend being placed in the earth. It was a Jewish funeral service. I’ve attended several over the years, but this one included traditions I had never seen before.

Yes, there were prayers in Hebrew and English, and moments of silence and reflection. But right at the start, there were differences.

The pallbearers carried the coffin to the gravesite, stopping meaningfully seven times along the way. Tradition teaches that seven is the number of completion. The pauses embody reluctance—acknowledging that the act must be done, but wishing it were not so. That was exactly how I felt. Her death was sudden, unexpected. Just weeks ago she was well. The pauses became our own hesitation, our unwillingness to accept reality.

At the grave there was the open earth, a mound of dirt, two shovels, and the coffin. After it was lowered, the rabbi explained the next tradition: each mourner would place three shovels of dirt into the grave. I had seen flowers, pebbles, even handfuls of soil offered before—but never this. The rabbi himself went first, flipping his shovel over so only a trace of dirt could fall. The mourners flipped the shovel for full loads. His reluctance was built into the act. And no shovel was handed from one mourner to the next; it was always set down, never passed, so that grief could not be transferred like a burden.

The sound was unforgettable: great clumps of earth striking pine, a timpani in the ground. Later, as the mound settled and softened, the sound muted.

The rabbi’s message was simple but weighty: the soul exists before and after, but only in life can there be mitzvahs. In that framing, existence divides into self, community, and the divine.

I thought immediately of those who elevate one of these above the others, instead of holding them in balance. Like a stool with one leg too long—what should be stable becomes awkward, then unusable. Over time it tips.

The image holds elsewhere too. Even in Christianity’s Trinity, imbalance distorts what was meant to be steady. Well-intended devotion can lengthen a single leg until the whole stool can no longer support us.

Ruth was the source of many mitzvahs in life, and they have often cascaded down through her family, friends and colleagues. A small bit of immortality.

A Practical Guide to Prisma and Sketchbook

Filtering isn’t just about making an image “better.” It’s about exploring possibility—moving sideways, not upward. In this tutorial, I’ll walk through how I use Prisma and Sketchbook together to create layered, painterly tribute works.

1. Starting with Prisma

Prisma takes a photograph and applies pre‑designed filters. At the bottom of the app, you’ll see a row of options, each representing a different style. I cycle through them, not looking for perfection but for potential—textures, colors, and moods that might serve the final piece.

Prisma applies the filter to the entire image. You can’t isolate areas yet, so I save multiple filtered versions of the same photo. These will become building blocks later.

2. Moving into Sketchbook

Next, I open Sketchbook and bring those filtered versions in as separate layers. On the right-hand side, you can see them stacked. Sometimes all layers are identical in size; sometimes certain portrait filters come in smaller. That’s fine—I adjust later.

3. Blending Layers

This is where the art begins. I choose a blending mode—most often “Darken”—to merge filtered layers. But don’t stop there. Experiment with Multiply, Screen, Overlay, and others to see how effects stack and interact. What looks unusable alone can become essential when combined.

If a filtered layer doesn’t align perfectly, I make it semi-transparent, resize it carefully, and zoom in to line up edges exactly—neck, chin, and eyes are the reference points. Clean alignment keeps the image crisp.

4. Selective Erasing

Prisma filters can be dramatic, but I rarely keep them wholesale. Using a soft-edged erase tool, I remove large sections I don’t want—backgrounds, clothing, shadows—leaving the filter only where it matters. Hair, skin, and other focal points usually get the most attention.

5. Restoring Detail

Filters blur fine detail. To bring it back, I create new layers and redraw what’s missing: eyelashes, individual strands of hair, edge highlights. Zoom in, use a fine brush, and work slowly. Each restored detail breathes life back into the piece.

6. Adding Highlights and Texture

Sometimes I add soft highlights manually. I create a new layer, lay down a pale stroke, smudge it gently, and lower the opacity until it integrates naturally. This works beautifully for skin tones and reflective surfaces.

I also use the smudge tool to soften harsh transitions and remove digital artifacts. Smudging blends edges and adds a painterly effect without destroying the underlying layer.

7. Iteration and Patience

The process is iterative. Build color upon color, filter upon filter, layer upon layer. Save working files frequently. Try combinations that seem wrong; they often lead to unexpected results.

The goal isn’t hyper‑realism—it’s to create a clean, textured, and intentional image. Every layer adds depth, every erased line is a choice. Over time, the filters disappear into the work itself.

Closing Thought

Digital filtering isn’t shortcut artistry. It’s a conversation between tools, textures, and intuition. You can’t cross the same river twice—the filters evolve, the tools change, and so do you. Every piece is a one‑off.

That’s The Art of Filtering.

Some roads have thoughts. They remember us. Our choices are pressed into their surface like faint scars —

each corner holding the weight of what could have been. Every return is a negotiation between memory and motion.

I know this stretch too well. Its lip-like curves smile every mile, but there’s bite behind them. Once, on a curve, I chose between control of the wheel and the hunger in my hands. I grazed the guardrail, creasing my steel, walking the edge of the reservoir on two wheels. Empty road, no witnesses — except the road itself.

Sometimes, if I listen closely enough,

beneath the hum of tires I hear it whisper, “I did not take you.”

And later, another bend, a sharper descent,

where I once thought the deer would come…“Not yet.”

Even in daylight, I feel them — the unmarked graves of moments-that-didn’t-happen, stitched into each shoulder, each seam of asphalt. Every ride is a crossing back through chance, a wager made quietly.

And always, beneath wheel and wind, the faintest undertow: “I keep the record.”

Whether witness or judge, I cannot tell. But something waits here, layered beneath the years, beneath the asphalt, holding memory tighter than I ever could.

Why have I never seen his work? I’m not exactly uninformed, I paid attention in Art Appreciation, after all, I taught it for 10 years. I suppose I wasn’t ready to appreciate him in my youth, or even middle age. It’s like he was a hidden snack at the back of the cupboard, safe until I was really hungry.

So I’ve spent a couple of days researching, down loading images, redrawing a few that struck me. I’m very pleased to ha ve met you!

Ha! Soon I will have a procedure to address my Afib, an irregular heartbeat. I will not be conscious, I am told my heartbeat will be stopped, then shocked back into a correct rhythm. Dead then alive. At least one will hope! In case something else happens I thought it might be important to craft one more ponder. I’ve heard the phrase “Legacy Letter”, not exactly sure what that means, but I will take a stab.

A Legacy Letter

To those who will speak of me, and to those who will not— I do not ask to be remembered perfectly. I ask only that the hush be heard.

I was not one thing. I was a roll, not a role. A technician who shaped silence. A father who returned. A teacher who unlearned hierarchy. A performer of thresholds.

My life was not a line—it was a loop. Marked by cairns, not conclusions. I left fragments, not monuments. I trusted error to guide me. I let metaphor do the heavy lifting.

If you tell my story, tell it with overlap. Let the sculptor interrupt the philosopher. Let the technician whisper to the memoirist. Let the hush speak louder than the archive.

I do not fear misremembering. I fear forgetting the hush, the ajar, the ache of return.

So speak of me, if you must— but leave space for silence. Let the door remain open. Let the wind stir the curtain.

And if you find me in your own story, know that I am not gone. I am paused. I am listening.

—John

It’s 2:30 a.m., and the house is quiet. This house is quiet— not like the last one.

The old house always had noise. Subtle, yes, but constant— a language of creaks and sighs, branches tapping glass, timber pressing against timber, plaster cracking like distant footsteps.

It was an older house, always in motion, slowly pulling itself apart as it settled into the hillside.

This newer house is better built. No cracks. No hillside. No thousands of pounds of earth urging it to move.

The quiet is both discerning and disconcerting.

I sit in the shadows, tilting my head toward invisible sounds— but hear nothing.

Their shape, their distance, gone. My reference is lost. And somehow,

I feel less safe in the not-hearing.

I am pondering the bones of an idea.

While watching videos of artists working in graphite, I often see the same beginning: a skull. As if the foundation of every portrait must begin in death. Like forensic experts, the artist builds upon the bone—layering tendon and sinew, then the delicate muscles of expression, and the softening pads of SMAS. Eventually, skin covers it all, hiding the secrets within.

We’ve done the same with dinosaurs—assembled skeletons into towering forms. But we know so little of the quality, color, or texture of their skin. There may be feathers, even when there is no flight.

Yet our graphite artists know the human model. They craft a reasonable likeness in shadow and light, in gesture and restraint.

In the same way, AI can take the bones of an idea and flesh it out with tangential thoughts—full of adjectives, nouns, and even verbs. But will it resemble the creature of the original thought? Or will it come cloaked in a rainbow of fluorescent feathers?

One of my favorite Da Vinci paintings is The Lady with an Ermine. It’s housed in a museum in Kraków, but it’s been widely published and researched for years. Painted around 1490, it depicts Cecilia Gallerani—a young woman of intelligence and beauty, though not of noble birth. She was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Leonardo was the court painter at the time.

Sforza, interestingly, had a nickname: the White Ermine. So Leonardo, ever the clever court player, painted Cecilia cradling just that—a white ermine. It was more than a symbolic flourish; it was a bold, layered connection, likely understood by anyone familiar with the court’s dynamics.

I’ve reworked this image several times—sometimes with AI filters, sometimes by retouching the cracks and color shifts, and occasionally with hand-drawn overlays. Most museum scans are decent, but recently I was stunned to find the largest, highest-resolution version I’ve ever seen—on Wikipedia of all places. So large, only one app on my iPad could even open it. Naturally, I resolved to clean it. Painstakingly. Every scratch, every scar, every stray fleck of digital dust—gone.

The painting carries its own backstory. It was one of the many works looted by the Nazis and hidden in a salt mine. It was marked for destruction, but the local miners, at great risk, sealed the entrance to protect it. The painting survived. The Lady with an Ermine even makes an appearance in the film The Monuments Men, one of the pieces the Allied team recovers.

But back to me—hours in, zoomed to the highest magnification, delicately brushing out each pale speck against the dark background. And I start to laugh.

The tiny white dots I’m erasing—they look like stars in a night sky.

Stars? Constellations?

Is it possible? Did Leonardo embed a cosmic pattern? Was this some celestial code hidden in the background? Was I erasing a secret?

The answer, of course, is yes—he was absolutely that devious.

And no— They were probably just dust.

Probably.