Finished Swamp Rose Mallow Pix

This is it, though hard to see in detail. I plan to have a scan made of it on Tuesday at Katonah Image and then hand the scan in on a CD to Teatown on Thursday. I have become nervous about putting the real thing on my blog or anywhere else that I can not protect. I have noticed that artists put pieces of their work on their websites, sometimes not the whole piece!

Something to Remember

Swamp Rose Mallow

I have been working on a portrait of the swamp rose mallow. This is actually my first commission--it will be the card for the wildflower of the year for Wild Flower Island at Teatown Nature Reservation. This is quite exciting, but a bit paralyzing too, as I keep having to deal with my own PERFECTIONISM. It just never gets to be good enough... Anyway, here are some early and more current pix of my progress. It was tricky because the flower blooms in September, and my deadline is March 1, so I have been working from photos and sketches I took last September. Not an ideal way for a botanical artist to work, but there it is! These pods are the hardest and most frustrating, though they look so innocent.

Dad's Yahrzeit

Tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of my dad's passing.  Usually there is an unveiling at around this time, but because of on-going family issues there is no gravestone for my dad right now.  In order to give myself closure on this year of mourning, I created a personal shrine for him and will light the Yahrzeit candle in front of it tomorrow.

Poem read on 9/11/08 at Ground Zero

 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may  be,

  I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.  For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--Wendell Berry

Writing Spa

This is a picture of my writing spa group.  Jen Louden, one of the two faciliators, is on the ground in front of me.  It has taken me over a month to post this, because I really want to try and find the right words to describe the whole experience.  There I am with my perfectionism again.  Not enough to write about it.  Has to be  "the right words."  Well, here are some words anyway.  It was the most supportive, creative, loving, focused-yet-not-forced week I have ever experienced as an adult.  Whew.  That sounds like something.  And it really was.  In beautiful Taos New Mexico.  I will write more about all of this at another time.

A First Place!

So Connie talked me into entering my art in the Yorktown Grange Fair, Art After 55.  I took some coaxing...I mean, it isn't exactly a juried art show, like the one I entered today in Ridgefield.  And I sort of felt like I was a cute baby goat or a  jar of  jam.  I guess I really am a snob.  But at this point in my career--hey, it's exposure.  And how cool is it to have a blue ribbon?  So here it is!