4 pieces sold!

I was happy to hear from the gallery that 4 of my pieces sold this past weekend. One couple bought 3, and then a woman came in wanting to buy 4(!), but there were only 2 left. she took one, but wants more, so the gallery owner has asked me for 6- 8 more pieces. So I ordered frames last night, and spent the day matting, with the help of my daughter. Anyway, here are some of the pieces that I'm going to take, as soon as the frames get here!

Time's Dance

Time's dance
is carved of stone and bone,

asleep,
dreaming in secret phrases,
once written, invisible
once spoken, silent

born of countless instants,
collected, gathered,
deposited
one by one, one upon another
by the flow of minutes, hours,
centuries

she sleeps
in silent stone
but once
she danced.

Gardening

I apologize for neglecting my blog for so long, but I've been too busy with my regular springtime activity, i.e. gardening. I love my flower garden, and consider planting and playing in the dirt to be a wonderful act of creativity. A garden is truly a living work of art.

Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
- Scott Adams



I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
- Claude Monet

Take thy plastic spade,
It is thy pencil; take thy seeds, thy plants,
They are thy colours.
~William Mason, The English Garden, 1782



I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden. ~John Erskine

Creativity is our true nature; blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a
process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming
of a flower at the end of a slender green stem.
- Julia Cameron



Don't underestimate the therapeutic value of gardening. It's the one area where
we can all use our nascent creative talents to make a truly satisfying work of art.
Every individual, with thought, patience and a large portion of help from nature,
has it in them to create their own private paradise: truly a thing of beauty
and a joy for ever.
- Geoff Hamilton, Paradise Gardens



"The secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all
the details of daily life, and in elevating them to art."
- William Morris

Gardening is not a rational act. What matters is
the immersion of the hands in the earth, that
ancient ceremony of which the Pope kissing
the tarmac is merely a pallid vestigial remnant.
- Margaret Attwood



"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."
~ Rachel Carson

"Nothing is more the child of art than a garden."
-- Sir Walter Scott

Icarus Reborn

This is a piece that I finally finished after several re-workings. I think I washed the figure off and started over at least 3 times; hence, the title. I probably should have just given up, but I guess I'm not made that way. I'm very stubborn about certain things, which can be good or bad, depending on the timing and circumstances. I always tell my students, though, that perseverance is the key to success. As Einstein said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." There's a lot of perspiration in this piece, and I'm NOT re-working it again! (Even I have my limits.)

I think it has a very 'fairy tale' kind of feeling. Fairy tales were a favorite reading matter for me as a child, and the illustrations from those stories have had a substantial influence on my artistic expression. When I was growing up, I often drew princesses, knights, horses, and dragons, which I would then cut out and play with, creating my own imaginary world.

The story of Icarus has always fascinated me. Of course, you could get into some really deep and complicated psychological and archetypal analysis here, but I'll leave that to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. In many paintings of this subject, Icarus is seen falling into the ocean after flying too close to the sun, and my first version of this piece focused on that moment as well. But then I thought, why not go back to the point BEFORE he took flight, when any outcome was still possible? Why not; it's my imaginary world, isn't it? And so, Icarus is reborn, just at the moment of hope.

May Flowers

On my various hikes around Kentucky, I've taken quite a few photos of Kentucky wildflowers. I thought I'd share some of the ones that are blooming now. Enjoy!

Yellow Woodland Violet


Crested Dwarf Iris


Virginia Bluebell


Trout Lily


Redbud


White Trillium


Bluet


Wood Fern

April Showers

Spring in Kentucky is indeed "a wonder", as people say. It is mercurial in its swift changes from summer-like warmth to damp cold, bright sun to sudden, dark storms.


I love the strange light that turns my simple yard into a scene from another planet,


the drama of advancing storms,


the moment just before the rain begins,


the sense of being given another chance, another season to grow.

Kinneyconnick

This place is sacred to me; a place of peace and beauty. Profound connection with the Earth is an experience for which there are no words, because it is beyond thought- it's in our very blood and bones. Walt Whitman tries to express this truth in his poem "Song of the Rolling Earth", excerpted here.



A song of the rolling earth, and of words according,
Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?
those curves, angles, dots?
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground
and sea,
They are in the air, they are in you.



Air, soil, water, fire-those are words,
I myself am a word with them-my qualities interpenetrate with
theirs-my name is nothing to them,
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would
air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?



Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and
liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
For none more than you are the present and the past,
For none more than you is immortality.



I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,
All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the
earth,
Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the
earth,
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot
touch.