land – scape : scenery, countryside, topography, land, terrain, environment, outlook, vista, panorama, view …..

“Everyone knew him as “Bud the Landscaper.” He was a big man, about six five, maybe two seventy, or more, almost all muscle, except for a prodigious beer belly, which he worked on daily. He would drink eight or more beers when he got off work, and then two or three more with dinner. I only saw him noticeably drunk once. A group of frat boys challenged him to a pitcher drinking contest. He won. New folks in the bar, especially women, always wanted to see Bud the Landscaper’s hands. They were famous. Thirty years of hard labor planting, digging, raking, pruning, wheelbarrowing, and shoveling had created amazingly large, callused, creased, and patinaed five digited works of art. They appeared almost as Raku Japanese ceramic beasts.

One glorious early late Spring morning, after a rain, Bud was pruning azaleas in a magnificent formal garden that followed the natural, gentle fall of the land to a violently running bayou, carrying along branches, dislodged grasses, logs, and various types of colorful trash. Silver and burnt sienna Carp surfacing, their large open mouths working, seeming to ask for help. Bud looked up, scanning the scene for alligators. A tall, skinny legged heron, riding a fast-moving log, made him chuckle.

“Bud, why have you never married?” a thin voice startled him. He turned to see the owner of the property, a waif like octogenarian, yet still armed with an aura of sensuality and guile.

“Oh, Mrs. Broussard, good morning…I don’t really know. Well, I almost got married once but she didn’t want me working late or on weekends. She didn’t understand my beer drinking.”

“Bud, I’ve known you for over thirty years, we could have gotten married way back then.”

“Ha, ha, Mrs. Broussard, I guess we could have. You wouldn’t have really had me. Thing is, if I have to be honest, I’ve been most scared about losing this,” he said, holding up a bunch of freshly cut, decaying azalea flowers, and this, waving his large hand over a nearby bed of wildly blooming magenta Louisiana iris.”

“Yes bud, and that would have been a terrible shame,” said Mrs. Broussard, “I will get us some iced tea”….From “The Landscaper” By Franklin Cincinnatus

JUROR | Wendi Schneider will be the juror for “landscapes”. Wendi is a visual artist renowned for her ethereal photographs that fuse the fragile beauty of the natural world with the luminosity of precious metals. Drawing upon a rich background in painting and art history and inspired by her collection of early 20th-century photographs, Schneider crafts images that evoke a sense of transcendence and ephemeral grace. Using photography as a reference for her paintings in the 1980s, she began layering oils onto her prints, a technique that evolved into the signature digital layering and meticulous hand-applied metal leafing of her celebrated ‘States of Grace’ series. Her internationally exhibited work is held in permanent collections, including the Asheville Art Museum, the Auburn University Library Special Collections, the Center for Creative Photography, the Memphis Brooks Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Schneider is represented by A Gallery For Fine Photography (New Orleans), Arnika Dawkins Gallery (Atlanta), Catherine Couturier Gallery (Houston), Etherton Gallery (Tucson), PhotoGraphic Gallery (San Miguel de Allende), Rick Wester Fine Art (New York), Vision Gallery (Jerusalem), and Wach Gallery (Cleveland).