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!  

Weird Eggplant for 2008

A year ago I found a strangely shaped eggplant.  (look at old  posts to find it. )  Now here is one with a schnozzola.

Art In Progress

A finished plant portrait: Monarda

And below are some examples of the prep work involved.

Maine Adventure

Three shots of the sky from a friend's boat, an hour before sunset.

This is an island off the coast, near Boothbay Harbor
This is the foggy, rocky Maine coast.

Professional Orchid Scan

I took my work, now called "Moth Orchid," to a place that did a high-res scan. Here it is.

Another First!

Here is my first ever abstract painting. It is called "Colors of Santa Fe." The scan suffers from the same problem as the orchid--shadow because it is too big to lie flat on the scanner bed.

Summer Adventures: Body and Spirit

We spent two weeks in the Southwest from July 19th to August 2nd. The difference in the terrain and the colors from the Northeast were quite striking. The sun-washed oranges and reds of the high desert, the vast distances across the mountains, the storms that flash lightening in one direction while the sky is bright blue in another--so different from the deep greens of the Hudson Valley. The first two pictures are from Bandelier National Monument, where you can climb up to ancient cliff dwellings, as Connie is doing. Next is the Santa Fe farmer's market, followed by us in front of an old church on the high road to Taos. The amazing rock formation in the next photo is called Chimney Rock. We hiked up to it on Ghost Ranch where Georgia O'Keefe lived and painted. The next photo is looking down at the Rio Grande from an overlook in White Rock NM, followed by a distant view of Pedernal, a mountain near Abiqui which is also Georgia O'Keefe country. She painted this scene. The final picture is a rock formation on Ghost Ranch.

4 kinds of Monarda (Beebalm)

Here are 4 different varieties of monarda--a purplish red/pink growing in the back next to the arbor, pink growing by the porch trellis, lavender, just opening, also by the arbor, and my favorite red (Jacob Kline) in the front garden by the mailbox.

See what I mean?

Explanation

This is the top 3rd of an orchid done in colored pencil.  I unfortunately do not have a scanner with a big enough bed to do the whole piece at once, and I am having great difficulty putting the 3 scans together in Photoshop.  The reason for this is that the paper sits at different heights from the bed when I put it in different places, and this affects the color of the background.  It is hard to match up the whites, as some are in shadow.  Does anyone know where I can find a scanner with a big bed to use for this piece???

The top third of a colored pencil work

Late!

I see that my last post was on the 12th, so I am already a day overdue in posting. I am in the midst of participating in a teleconference for artists--not an excuse, but perhaps an explanation. This is an on-line and on the phone seminar about being an artist and selling your work. It's called SMartist-Telesummit and includes many excellent coaches and artists and entrepreneurs in the arts. Registering for this is another way for me to take my art and art career seriously. I do not know where I want to go, exactly, but this is all giving me much to think about.  Claudine Hellmuth, the collage artist whose site is on my hit list of sites, is taking part in this conference, as is one of my favorite gurus of personal growth, Michael Bungay Stainer, whose site Box of Crayons is a welcome newsletter every two weeks. I am still working on colored pencil exercises, this week on a color wheel and on mixing colors. I will post some of my work soon.

Links to Visit

I am beginning to compile a list of websites and possibly blogs that include botanical artists and other folks whose work I admire. It is on the left. Please check out these sites!

Resolution for 2008?

Well, it has been a while since I blogged. And what is a blog (noun) if one does not blog (verb). Therefore, my new year's resolution is to blog every week. From now on. It is already 2 weeks into the new year, so I am already challenged--but, as Janice Taylor says, "All is forgiven. Move on." (Who is Janice Taylor? She is an artist/weight loss consultant, with a terrific motivational blog and a book called "Our Lady of Weight Loss.) And this reminds me that I want to add a list of websites and blogs to this blog. I am taking a colored pencil class with a wonderful artist named Lauretta Jones. Her website shows off her amazing work. I will include that. In the first class, we discussed issues related to pencil use and did some exercises with lines and colors. I love the preliminary exercises that good teachers begin with. They are fun and free of judgment, since they are only exercises, filling squares with color. But Lauretta said something that I think is very profound. I told her that one big problem I had with my art work--and with pencil work in particular--was that I had a tendency to go too fast, to rush. And she said, if you rush, then you do not get to the same place. You get someplace, but not where you wanted to go. I really like that. I have been saying it over and over to myself, as I watch the tip of my pencil and try to control its speed.