I began thinking about today’s play on Wednesday night (early Thursday morning by the clock) after seeing Charley’s portrait of the artist and his glass sculpture.  I had a sneaky suspicion that a still-life was in the offing. A day later Jay posted another nude, replete with soft and natural curves, which made me think of Edward Weston’s very sensuous still-lifes of peppers.  Bob mirrored Jay with his driftwood and I began to think that unlike the other times I’d played defense and it never seemed to work out, the game having a propensity to turn on a dime at the whim of the players, this time playing defense seemed to be working for me. I have a very busy kitchen, I like to cook, and in a busy kitchen things can go astray.  While reconfiguring my counter space to accommodate a complicated preparation I found an onion hiding behind my toaster oven.  It had apparently been there for some time as it had grown a green shoot and I photographed it on a white background.  The graceful curve of the shoot, the tanned skin, the white background, it was looking to be the perfect counterpoint to Jay’s and Bob’s images… until late last night when Russ trotted out his pears.  A wonderful series, but now the onion seemed somewhat less attractive.  Once again, despite days of preparation, I found myself scrambling for an image. Falling back to regroup I turned to my favorite creative crutch: eating.  With a good breakfast in me I can think about what to do.  It was still early Sunday morning and I have until midnight to post an image.  I have time to relax and a whole day to create but now I’m thinking about breakfast and upon opening the refrigerator I found that I was out of eggs, so off to the 7-Eleven I went (they’re the only game in town at 6:00 AM).  It’s a short distance to the store and still feeling like I needed to clear my head I decided to walk.  My route brought me to the 7-Eleven from the rear and behind the store, as I passed the trash containers, I spotted a piece of rusty scrap metal leaning against one of the dumpsters. WTF? They threw away a perfectly good piece of scrap. OMG, it’s the literal representation of the metaphorical coarseness of the green background Russ used for his pear. Forget the eggs. I dragged it back home, got the onion (and my camera) and went immediately to work.  It soon became clear that this wasn’t working.  The textures didn’t quite mesh.  Now what? I spent the morning with my camera, wandering, photographing all kinds of things and all for naught… until I got to the farmer’s market.  There, among all the beautiful, curvy, natural shapes (and I was thinking that peppers, at this point, are cliché) I found some heirloom baby carrots.  Fresh, natural, same shade of green as Mr. Widstrand’s pear and the perfect texture to meld with my background. Serendipity trumps the thinking man’s game.