Blog Love for "A Year of Mount Tamalpais"

Today we give a big Bean Up The Nose Art "HOWDY!" from one blog to another -- from us here, to a new blog that launched at the beginning of this year: A Year of Mount Tamalpais. (Click here to visit right away!)

(All photos courtesy of "A Year of Mt. Tamalpais" site.)

As the proposal post explains, the blog features a photo-a-day (which is paired with commentary, reflection, historical information . . . all sorts of goodness) "of the mountain that looms over our lives in this corner of the world." Which in this case is Marin County, California.

What's the scoop here?

Great poet and just-as-great friend Maria Benet has been blogging in various forms since 2000. This project is one of the latest iterations of her writing-and-blogging creativity. She has "always been a writer. Even before I learned to write, I use to tell myself stories." Her poetry has been published in many literary magazines, and in her own collections: Mapmaker of Absences, published by Sixteen Rivers Press, and most recently A Month of Haiku, Unraveled. She's also a painter. And she was kind enough to answer some of our burning questions about this project.

How did the idea for this project come to you?

I've been taking pictures of Mt. Tam ever since we moved to Marin, some 27 years ago. Last year, I spent a lot of time randomly snapping pictures of the mountain and posting them to Twitter, or on my blog. I thought it would be good to get a little more systematic about this picture-taking business, as well as develop some arc for presenting the way the mountain gets seen through my lens.

What does Mt. Tamalpais represent to you?

I grew up in the shadows of big mountains, of the Carpathians, the peaks of which in Romania exceed 8,000 feet. Mt. Tam seemed like a molehill in comparison, but also, given its ridges, reminiscent of the mountains of my childhood. . . . Mt. Tam is both an echo of the past that is diminishing with time and memory and it is also an anchor that helps orient me in space and time, especially as I watch the seasons paint light and shadows on its slopes.

What are you looking forward to in this venture?

I am looking for consistency of effort on my part in this project, but definitely not a consistency in my experience of the outcome. I hope it will be surprising to me. I am also hoping that eventually others will contribute to the blog with their views of the mountain, with pictures and words of their own.

What do you think the hard parts will be?

The hard part will be the consistency of that effort I mentioned, the discipline to take the daily picture, but more so, to pick only one picture from each day's shoot.

What other creative projects are you working on in 2012?

A series of dramatic portraits in prose for a specific collection, which I am hoping to publish as an ebook, given how satisfying it was to experiment with that venue when I put together "A Month of Haiku, Unraveled," a few months ago. Took the cue to do so from the inspiring example of a very creative community I encountered through Twitter in Marin.

I would also love to collaborate on a project with other artists. There is so much talent out there, and joining forces would be a blast. Collaborative art projects would also make for better bulwarks against the trends of hopelessness that come in the wake of so much bad news from the economy and politics these days. I believe that art sustains life and is essential to being fully human. I've seen this at work in the old Eastern Europe, where I grew up with art not as a luxury, but a necessity for survival.

Here's hoping all artists find the inspirations and collaborations they're looking for in 2012. We're inspired by "A Year"'s spirit of creative diligence and experimentation, and look forward to seeing all the ways this works throughout the year. Great job, Ms. Benet. YOU RULE!!!