mixing memory and desire

Lilacs in April, I have to pay them homage, enjoying their luscious and sweet purple scent

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. -T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).  The Waste Land.  1922.

some of the upcoming exhibit works (first Sunday in June, Middleburg)...

hydrangeas and day lilies

purple still life (eggplant, basil, okra beans beets and potatoes)

these are  on the large size, there will be smaller pieces also:

finally, my morning glory sky painting, finished (I think)

Garden Visitors

As the garden warms up, each rustle of grass and leaf warrants a closer look.

Chip Monk: a chipmunk meditating on our patio... had to take this one through a screen door, so it's not very clear.

new piece in wrong order and stinkbug/mantis on orchid

 1:05 pm recent stage

now, back to the beginning
stage 1

stage 2

subject matter...mmmm, very heady lilacs drooping and, sadly, final daffodils and jonquils of the spring

orchid with stinkbug and preying mantis (in progress)

Spring Break lag & country colors of springtime

Spring break for the girls, so very little computer time for me. But here is a photo from this morning and one from yesterday.The sky was candy colored this morning (cotton candy) and the stripes left from the farm mowing seemed so perfect with the stripes of cloud in the sky:

And a bit of the spring glory here, pale coral of quince, pale fuchsia redbud and the horizontally flowering white of the dogwood...these all pass so quickly.

FULL moon

April 18, 2011 Full moon

little mouths opening and a brain bursting forth

more stages of a daffodil painting as they shrivel off to the side

detail

the angel shark in the sky and some other photos

Still working on my daffodils, but so distracted by the goings on in the sky! It's the ever changing canvas that infuriates the drivers behind me sometimes. I pull over whenever there's a good spot. And I signal every time.


the angel shark ate every cloud in its path:

where's the hammer when you need it?

Sometimes you go past the comfort zone and wish you could get back under the covers.

But if I don't go beyond "comfort" nothing new will be discovered, and what's the point?

Hope to finish this one to a point where it feels right.

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all it takes is a rake and a hoe, ...and a brush and some paint and...

A quick post before I fade like the daffodils I'm painting:

Have to wrap this one up in the next few days... my source was fried in the sudden summer-like heat yesterday, and then rechilled and drenched today, leaving me with (see below):

chugging along and a starry, starry day

A few more additions to the daffodil etc painting. People are always asking how long it takes to do a painting. It depends... a painting may be very quickly realized, but that's usually because the subject matter has been visited before, studied, looked at, devoured, digested, pondered, and then you have to see it freshly all over again.

For this one, I had the idea last year, but didn't get to it before the blossoms fried and dropped in the heat. But the idea has gelled for a long time.  Now the task is to paint without insisting the idea is set in stone, allowing the flowers to speak for themselves.

Here are the actual blossoms painted thus far, fuzzy because I forgot to set the camera for auto focus, and it's too late for me to retake because I'm too tired,

And here is the starry, starry day photo. I don't know the name of this ground cover, but the tiny flowers looked like little periwinkle blue constellations.

cloud cover

Still obsessively painting the varieties of daffodils, jonquils and narcissi, and will post the latest stage later today, but meanwhile some cloud-cover photos:

"inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow..."

Day 2: every single type of daffodil, jonquil, narcissus I can find growing will be squeezed onto this surface, hopefully before the season passes all too quickly!

OCD? daffodils & jonquils

I picked one of every color combination of blooming daffodil and jonquil I could find, knowing they pass quickly as the heat rises. My intention is to get  a "portrait" of each one on this canvas.  (they are painted slightly larger than life-size) Meanwhile, the studio smells great!

cloudy, with a chance of stinkbugs

A perfectly sunny, warm spring day yesterday, and a perfectly rainy, cool spring day today... what more could one ask of the universe? Then, on the radio comes an announcement that a collective scream will be heard across the east coast  as (stinkbugs) emerge from attics and try to find their way out of the house. There  is even a "stinkbug summit" scheduled tonight in nearby Purcellville. 

I think about this as I drive. Maybe we will depend on these bugs as an almost indestructible protein, evolved to survive the overuse of chemical pesticides, multiplying rapidly to abundance as other sources of protein dwindle through human greed and consumption. My view is colored by a book I'm currently reading, Mutant Messenger Down Under, by Marlo Morgan. While this book may or may not be fiction, and has been described as cultural arrogance on the part of the author, the tribe presented is portrayed as mystical, accepting and gentle, in an honoring light. The Aboriginal tribe in this book own nothing, waste nothing, and respect the earth fully, leaving no trace as they walk. I'm nudged to guiltily reassess my attachments, overconsumption and lack of respect to our planet, as the rain comes down and the stinkbugs slowly emerge from the cracks of the house.