Memorial Day. Three day weekend. Most find it a moment to relax or kick off the summer, others are finding ways to politicize the day.

I guess I lean towards the former. I spent the morning writing all manner of stuff – updates for this site, emails for OutWord, a few odds and ends among the mess of digital documents. Somewhere around 2, once the rains ended, we wandered out to stimulate the local economy.

Say what you will about Asheville, but if you know where to look there are still deals to be had. Unless you’re eating off a food truck – you will always overpay from a food truck. The good deals keep us in Wedge for longer than I anticipated and by the time I need to be somewhere, I am digging out my helmet and reinflating the bike tires because maybe I’ve had just a bit too much to attempt to drive anywhere.

Mondays are long-post nights at the studio. Violet came by and sat for the group, settling on a prone pose that was lovely and relaxed. I warmed up a bunch with graphite sticks, finding ways to layer and blend with 8B and 10B and while none of it is going to hang on the refrigerator, it got me in the right direction. So much so that the brush pen felt mighty fine.

The goal, which has always been the goal, is to highlight the shadows. Here, in the photography, in the writing – focus on what isn’t showing up to the eye. That usually brings about something decent. “Everything that is casts a shadow,” says our guy Neil Gaiman.