Maćkowa Ruda, July 4-11, 2005

"Not history or myth – but landscape and atmosphere somehow." (Lawrence Durrell)

The more I travel through this world, the more I appreciate the qualities of tolerance and peace. Particularly am I drawn to humanized landscapes, natural environments transformed by human settlement, agriculture and forestry. Here in Maćkowa Ruda, in the northeast corner of Poland, the people live and let live, and the Czarna Hańcza river flows clean and clear through a benign and hospitable land.



In the last house in the village, literally at the end of the road, live my friends Alfred and Ela, with a number of cats and a dog named Kozłoski.




It's the kind of place where early morning feels like the first day of creation.




As the morning sun burns away the night fog, neighbour Piotr Malczewski takes his photography students kayaking on the river, Buda Ruska, July 5, 2005.




Louise and I borrowed a kayak from the Komorowskis, to paddle our way down to Frącki. July 9, 2005.




A pair of swans with their cygnets.




Can anyone help me out here? What is this flower?




A stork keeps a solitary vigil over Ela's house. In summer, this part of Poland has one of the greatest concentrations of the magnificent bird.




When she's not kayaking, birdwatching or searching for rare plants, Louise likes to bomb around on her Soviet Dnepr M-72 motorcycle with sidecar.




We look pretty happy considering how terrifying it is to bump around on field roads at a 100 km/h. Maćkowa Ruda, July 8, 2005.




Ela's birthday and nameday - a festive occasion. Maćkowa Ruda, July 9. 2005.




Pani Komorowska z Panią Luizą.




Venus in white marble, one of Ela's sculptures. It has such a classical feel to it I'd not be surprised to find it lying among the ruins of some ancient Greek amphitheatre.




Another kind of sculpture, white thunderheads over Belarus.




Another of Ela's sculptures. Have you read Reflections on a Marine Venus?




Alois Nawrat, sculptor and neighbour.



For me, Alek's work, whether in marble or in wood, evokes the 1920's and 30's.




Alek with a design model for a sculpture of John-Paul II.




Fredek walking with Kozłowski, July 10, 2005.