Some folk mark the equinox by fantastic gigantic feathered serpents of light sliding down their pyramid....
I have to settle for something a little less extravagant but that which marks time in the same way.
My weeping birch begins to change her colours. Just a hint of yellow beginning now. Summer is saying her good-byes.
Good bye Foxy! Sold from the gallery last week.
Fox at Sunset - paper collage
"What Was Given" (The Monk and the Whale) Oil 36" X 30"
This painting turned out quite fantastic and I am very pleased it put up with my vagaries and shennanigans. It took super-long-time to do but it got done. In fact, months went by in-between because I didn't know what direction it was to go in. But you don't need to know that. No, no indeed. I mean to say it sprang fully formed from my head like Athena from Zeus' brow. ;)
So, of course I have forgotten to photograph some of my work before taking them into the Salt Spring Gallery. There's always something to forget. Wired for hanging? Check. Signed? Check. Bottom edge painted? Check. Inventoried? Check. Labels printed? Check. Photograped for posterity.....mmmmm
So here are some pics of the ones I remembered to do.
"Hymn for the Wind" Oil 12" X 36"
"At the Heart of It All" Oil 20" X 16"
"The Alchemy of Light" Oil 20" X 24"
"Trees Drinking Starlight" Oil 12" X 36"
This painting also sold from the Salt Spring Gallery last week. A piece that has been with me for some time. Not always in the gallery but also hanging at home. It was painted from my impression of when I was in France. All days were bright and sunny and the same until one day, the weather had changed to grey and stormy. The sombre tones made the poppies more fiery in contrast. Adieu et bonne chance!
This painting was sold from the Salt Spring Gallery last weekend. Gone to a happy home I do hope!
tonight
I have no time to sleep
moon-viewing -Basho
A new little oil painting that I finally finished. It sat very patiently, wondering when I would stop being distracted by so many other things, much like all my patient teachers.
Actually, I was stuck in how to paint bees the way I feel about them. How to paint them as moving fire and light; little jewels in the air. I am very happy with the way they turned out and of course, it opens the door to other paintings with bees. So important in this turbulent world where we are collectively removing them from our Earth.
In the North, our world is beginning to expand and unfold; buds are unfolding into blossoms, bears have given birth to their young, and bees are expanding their family within the hive. The songs and calls of birds are more audible and linger into the evening until, when, there is a transition of duties and the chorus of frogs leads the twilight into night.
This expansion is the intangible quality of Spring, a quality that keeps us in rhythm with the seasons. We may not remember small details from last Spring, but we certainly remember the feeling, the resonance, the quality of what is Springness. This knowing, this connection, runs in our bones in the same way that a songbird holds the knowledge to return to her nesting grounds.
Food, shelter, warmth, we forget the remarkable provisions of the evergreen forest. Blocking winter winds, evergreens grace the landscape, a familiar green patina. From coastal shore to alpine tree line, and from southern latitudes to the far reaches of the taiga, evergreens are so familiar we forget their remarkable capacity to adapt and provide.
With drooping, graceful sleeves, evergreen branches are designed with downward swoops to easily shed snow build up, and with waxy needles, moisture stays within instead of being lost to biting winter air. Resin, that sweet fragranced anti-freeze, runs in the blood of trees, keeping the sap moving enough for the evergreen to endure long winter nights and short winter days.
The evergreens around our neighbourhoods and about our homes are reminders of their brethern far, far to the north, enduring cold sweeping winds and short sun lit days. With fragrant branches they shelter and nourish the intrepid and the solitary.
