it’s still dead week

while it may be new year’s eve for some of you, for me it is still dead week. and dead week means no expectations, no shoulds, no celebrations, no anythings, except indulging my whims. as in “i think i will make tea, and stay in bed reading until 11 am”, and “mom’s not making dinner tonight, make yourself some scrambled eggs” and of course, “i think i will i will spend a tedious amount of time cutting these pressed maple leaves into one inch squares.” i love dead week, more than i love new year’s eve.

pressed and cut autumn maple leaves

before they’re gone

if it keeps snowing like it has been, soon all my winter prairie stems will be buried. so i am grabbing them while i can–even though my attention has already shifted to twigs and branches. i recently made a composition of some of my favorite winter branches, and i was immediately reminded just how much i respond to the minimalist serenity of a singular winter branch. this showy leadplant is fun. but a perfectly sinuous branch tip…that’s something else entirely.

leadplant in winter (Amorpha canescens)

homage to barbara hepworth

this sculpture is my homage to british sculptuor barbara hepworh, whom i think is pretty great. okay, so i can hardly take any credit for this particular piece of art. nature did all the sculpting. i simply did the noticing. let’s call it a team effort. regardless, i’m quite sure barbara would have approved. i like to think she would have been a little over the moon about this particular homage. hepworth had four children, and mother and child was a recurring theme in her work. and, to me, this winter iris leaf looks an awful lot like a reclining mother and child.

i also like this quote of hers i found recently:

“A woman artist is not deprived by cooking and having children, nor by nursing children with measles – one is in fact nourished by this rich life, provided one always does some work each day; even a single half hour, so that the images grow in one’s mind.”

wild iris leaf in winter

prettiest little pinecones ever

tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or american larch: perhaps the number of common names for a the same tree is proportional to peoples’ affection for that tree.  in which case, tamarack is a beloved tree by more people than just me.  just out of curiosity i wiki-ed  several other trees off the top of my head (black spruce, blue spruce, weeping willow, ginkgo, paper birch) to see if my theory held. it kind of did. but then i wiki-ed sequoia sempervirens (california redwood) and it only has three names…which blows my theory right out of the water, because that is probably the most beloved american tree of all. oh well, this was all a long way of saying i love tamaracks, and their incongruously petite cones.

tamarack branch with three cones (Larix laricina)

making mulled wine

we’re making mulled wine, so the star anise and cinnamon sticks are out. cheers!

star anise