May Full Moon

The career of flowers differs from ours only in inaudibleness. I feel more reverence as I grow for these mute creatures whose suspense or transport may surpass my own.                        Emily Dickinson

Fresh lettuce! Salad straight from the yard with green onions, parsley, arugala, coriander.  What could be better?  A few clear, calm days, everything freshly rained upon.  The very full moon clearly visible.  A soft fragrance in the garden in the evening.

Nearing the culmination of this year's cycle of paintings, which usually runs from September through the beginning of June.  Thinking about "What is beauty?"  Meanwhile, lots of experimentation with smaller "designs."  A feeling of experimentation in general!

April Full Moon

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

Margaret Atwood

Bright orange poppies, yellow-orange gazania, reddish-orange African daisies, pale orange small African daisies, deep orange flowers of the plant next to the front stairs that I can't remember the name of.  Then there's lavender, purple, white, pink, yellow and the deep red of the maple leaves, not to mention green.  Full spring in the front yard.

Some of the more challenging and interesting parts of this project are the watercolor sketches and snapshots which are outside my usual artistic mode of expression.  A way to practice beginner's mind.  Smelling like dirt is also outside my comfort zone--another thing to practice!

Spring Equinox

Now the rain is falling, freshly, in the intervals between sunlight,

A Pacific squall started no one knows where, drawn east as the drifts of warm air make a channel;

it moves its own way, like water or the mind,

and spills this rain passing over.  The Sierras will catch it as last snow flurries before summer, observed only by the wakened marmots at ten thousand feet,

and we will come across it again as larkspur and penstemon sprouting along a creek above Sonora Pass next August,

Robert Hass

Spring is already established, the date only makes it official.  The time has changed--lighter in the evening.  Substantial rain at last.  A relief, if only partial.  The garden is flourishing--lots of new vegetable seedlings going in: lettuce, artichoke, parsley, tomatoes.  Summer starts to appear in the mind's eye.  Plans for household projects start to push up to the surface.

Lots of work in the studio. Paintings and design ideas.  A bit difficult to slow down to the tempo of the blog, but this is it's purpose. A chance to pause a moment, look around, to see where I am.

March Full Moon

Beautiful,  mild, sunny day. Still very little rain but enough to produce many wonderful flowers--calla lillies, poppies, geranium, tulips, wallflowers, and of course, the perennial african daisies.  To eat, there's lots of arugala, mustard greens, kale and lemons.

A very outward time for me--galleries, celebrations, small commercial ventures.   A time of letting go, taking risks, not clinging, finding that lovely inner stream that flows from one thing to the next.

I have always kept ducks, he said, even as a child, and the colors of the plumage, in particular the dark green and snow white, seemed to me the only possible answers to the questions that are on my mind.               W.G. Sebald

February Full Moon

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host, of golden daffodils . . .

William Wordsworth

Daffodils! Cyclamen! Primroses! Rain! 

New opportunities! 

Spring!

January Full Moon

In January
it's so nice
while slipping
on the sliding ice

to sip hot chicken soup with rice.
Sipping once
Sipping twice

sipping chicken soup with rice.

                      Maurice Sendak

No ice, not even rain, but plenty of soup: cream of broccoli, chickpea and kale, sweet and sour cabbage. Last summer we had no summer, now we have winter without winter. Hard to say what season it is—not warm, not gloomy, just cool, gorgeous, clear weather, chilly at night. Growing anxiety about no rain—such a contrast to last year. Started to water a bit, but soon may have to get serious about it.

I enjoyed the holiday socializing , now enjoying January solitude.  A slow time, working solidly in the studio.  Photographed the last series on mulberry paper—somehow surprised at how well they all came out.  Have three different composition “themes” going--focusing on one for awhile, then returning to another.

Winter Solstice

Among several tribes on the northern plains, the passage of time from one summer to the next was marked by noting a single memorable event. The sequence of such memories, recorded pictographically on a buffalo robe or spoken aloud, was called a winter count. Several winter counts might be in progress at any one time in the same tribe, each differing according to the personality of its keeper.                                                                                                                         Barry Lopez

Cold nights, beautiful clear days.  No rain -- the third-driest December on record.  The lemon and tomato trees are at their peak.

What would I choose for my winter count?  A number of events come to mind.  The death of a good friend stands out.  Other deaths and impending mortality of friends and family have colored this year.  And yet, not a sad year--just a reminder of the transitory nature of our existence.  A call to appreciate the beauty and camaraderie while it lasts.  I often have a vision of my friend up in the sky, smiling and waving to me from the beyond.

The day of solstice feels like a pause, a moment of stillness in the ongoing turning of the year.