Josh’s StateoftheOzarks Picks 2016

The memories of a past year. Of the many photos I took as editor of StateoftheOzarks, these are my favorites. Most aren’t very fancy. Few are particularly edited. But they are a montage of my life’s last 12 months. As a writer, I do, naturally, have a lot to say about this new gallery.

1. The abstract blues of a sky over Arkansas in late autumn. An early springtime blossoming over Eureka Springs (from the Basin Park Hotel’s roof). An enigmatic bat-owl in the lobby of the Crescent Hotel. The abstract oak twig enshrouded in nearly invisible spiderwebs with the Peace Cemetery in bokeh beyond.
2. Compendiums of crystals, herbals, and magic in the form of stacked books for sales. Last light in the poignant military cemetery of Fayetteville. A close-up inspection of a dead and dried yucca pod, again in the Peace Cemetery of Joplin. I find cemeteries deeply intriguing and the shadowed silhouettes of dead weeds are an open door to deep and emotional introspection.
3. Life is captured in a playful, unconscious moment at the Hulston Mill’s cook shack. A wooded swamp near Cotter Bridge is a mysterious, haunting place. The bright Edwardian lights of the Crescent Hotel’s gallery is both beautiful and creepy and the redbud appears to be peeping in the windows. A gnarled, fungus-covered tree spirals through an autumn sky.
4. Dogwood spring. A strange view of Eureka Springs frames multiple planes. The dried asters of fall are seemingly drab, but deeply interesting in texture and depth. The Confederate Cemetery of Fayetteville, Arkansas, presents the city skyline from a unique perspective.
5. Lone Swan Creek is explored by a weathered, ancient cedar. Kids play at Hulston Mill. Jason Trask of Greenfield splices natural cordage. Primitive skills are learned at Bois D’Arc.
6. A strange melancholy overtakes the oak fence line of Mincy Full Gospel Church. Night-blooming Missouri Primrose blossom. Christmas comes to old Hollister. An Osage-orange gives weight to the last day of summer.
7. VisionCon’s Princess Leia gives an apt tribute to the now-late Carrie Fisher. Ray Robirds Elizabethan guest house rises from a summer forest. Truck and tipi combine at Bois D’Arc, as the brilliant primitive skills work of talented Tony Pike fill a display.

Joshua Heston, January 4, 2017