Second Post in Two Days - Back on Track?

Didn't notice until I posted the photo... the gloves are wringing even without 

my hands in them ... really, not staged!

One good tomato. The only reason I keep weeding.

Then, as I'm sweating away, getting stung and chewed to bits, it dawns on me... the stink bugs are chewing on the weeds I'm pulling!! This must have dawned on every nearby farmer... why pull the stinking weeds the stinkbugs are attracted to???

Meanwhile, the crop continues to suffer, while I sweat, all bitten up

and  a breath-taking, Wolf Kahnscape lies just beyond

is it worth the trade for the sudden burst of a fresh-off-the-vine-tomato

while the next row reminds you how fleeting life can be

(at least, this year, in the country, in the extreme heat, and relentless insects?)

This one watches over the garden, planted by nature from last year's seed.

This one hides herself.

This year we've had a less lush and productive garden, but we appreciate every moment.

After gardening this evening, I saw this Phoenix in the sky, and thought:

the garden is burning itself out this year to produce lush foliage and vegetation next year...

 I always look for signs

eagles and trees and time

I have to accept that my blog time won't return until the girls go back to school. Any extra time I have is devoted to drawing, and that time is limited for the time being. But I wanted to post today's photos. A friend alerted me to an eagle sighting on a nearby carcass, so I dropped everything and went on a shoot.

The immature bald eagle allowed me to get pretty close:

Unfortunately, the adult male circled way overhead and didn't come down to eat while I was there:

Light and trees:

and a drawing tonight

These blossoms, even as they've passed, are so gestural. They seem to grasp at each other. I woke up with a painting in my head this morning, and hope it gets to canvas. I still have a lot of studies to do though.

It's been so long, I forgot my password!

Summer break for the kids, no break for me. I have been working, drawing, painting, but no time to get on the computer these days. But taking this time for a quickie...

Long story short, I got a Night Blooming Cereus with 8 (!) buds ready to pop! Cereusly! An unassuming plant for 364 days of the year, the Cereus has a most intoxicating, heady scent with dinner plate size blossoms that look like they could leave the mother ship to forge their own futures. But, unfortunately they don't. They only survive the one night of blossoming and then hang their heads down, ( I think of it as a Southern plant, since my great aunts had one that they would arrange a mint julep party around each year)

Anyhow, here are a couple of photos... hoping a painting will follow from many drawings done over "the night of the blossom":

In the Moment Exhibit

Opening in Middleburg, VA on Sunday! Following are glimpses of the exhibit:

In addition to the paintings on view, two friends who are remarkable poets have agreed to let me post a poem of each of theirs on the walls of the exhibit. The poems are as much paintings as anything else on the walls :

So In The End It’s Perception

a little sacredness in the midst of all the profanity and mediocrity

to hear the action you make surrendering intention

you have to turn around and be behind the other eyes

vanishing into those places at the edge of seeing and sight

place and destination are completely unavailable for a while

toying with the floral arrangements

as if your eyeballs were a leaf and a great gusting wind was let loose

you won’t know where you stand moving the words around until they feel right

it might be a place where people are gathering according to tone of voice

I need to hear someone speak who can really delay the background noise

in the midst of getting ready the particulars escape me   

—Craig Czury

VIRIDITAS

And do you notice how,

when sitting still, the green

diffuses so that you,

alone in this bit of wood,

escape the highway?

You enter this translucent breath,

trees and beaded rain,

this place where summer’s

late, ragged wings graze

floating light. It’s one of those

moments when  a world opens

behind you, humming viriditas

and Earth’s redeeming mud

anoints your feet.

c. Michele Maria Surat 2005

PS "Viriditas" is Hildegarde of Bingen's word for "the greening of all things"

Here are some of the paintings in the exhibit:

the return of the zombie-tree

Could there be a better tree for a vulture?!

skylight