birds on a wire
the silver gray of these leaves made me pull into a parking space next to a starbucks to pluck them. just to keep things real here. my life is not all lakeside trails and indigenous flora. this is a thorny and invasive russian olive, and here it has outlined an argument on the limits of purity in artmaking.
russian olive leaflets
the complementary colors of fall
these last bits of bright autumn orange (marigold petals) next to those mahogany colored leaves, grabbed my attention today. we are experiencing our final days of mild temps. the next snowfall we get will stay with us until march. not unlike covid i suspect. so i am basking in these late autumn colors. a reminder that colors of the same season almost always go together.
winter garden
filler
steve asked me what i was going to say about this. i told him, i’m seeing my mom every day, who is recovering from surgery and a car accident. i love maple samaras, and this is a pretty good pattern of them, but you know. it’s a good filler. i had a long day. it’s good enough. some days are like that. hey, steve, how much art did you make today? gimme a break.
winter maple seeds
-
Hang in there. Caretaking is a daunting, time consuming, soul-sucking process. Mom lived with us for a month over the summer while she recuperated from shoulder surgery. It wasn’t easy for anyone. It took me another month to recuperate.
reply -
Indeed! and keep in mind that these maples send out thousands of samara, just hoping that one or more will be good enough/ lucky enough to carry on the legacy of the mature tree. Good enough is good enough.
reply
a rose is a rose
here in the north, spring is the most expectant season, summer the most lush, autumn the most showy, and winter the most dramatic. winter with its slant light, long shadows, and black and white contrast, asks me to stop, look closely, and notice the details. notice the the zigzagging stems, the deep pink next-year buds, the flaxen yellow leaves. see. this too is rose.
wild rose stems
a november marigold
a november marigold is still a marigold. when we think marigold, the image that comes to mind is the marigold in full bloom during high summer. but this marigold is also marigold. and those porcupine like seeds are also marigold (who knew?). my personal goal is to expand my visual dictionary– so when i hear marigold , or iris, or rose, or tulip, or thistle, or milkweed, i don’t only think of the most obvious expression of each but also all the other ways marigold can be marigold.
marigold
