dried, pressed, scanned

these fallen orchid blossoms were pressed into service today (literally) when i squished them under the scanner cover to make this image. i don’t know. they look a little resentful. like, “get us out of here.” i can’t really blame them. i mean, have you ever had a mammogram?

scanned orchid blossoms

climbing out

we are climbing out of sub-zero temps here, and tomorrow i will take my first walk in a ten days. we are still snow covered, with little brown stems sticking out of mounds of windblown snow. but i am hoping for some new inspiration. february is always the most existentially challenging month here in minnseota. it’s good for the soul in a character-building sort of way. i know you all think we’re crazy. but i’m telling you, it’s good. it’s hard. but getting comfortable with cold is a form of being comfortable with discomfort, and understanding that it is endurable. being cold, and liking it, is a way of overcoming fear. fear of cold. fear of extremity. fear of your body’s limitations. fear, ultimately, of mortality. prove me wrong.

buckthorn with winter frost

radiant

i found this pressed lily pad in an old magazine today. i couldn’t take my eyes off of veins radiating from the top of the stem, then branching out to the leaf edge. the word radiant came to mind, and i decided it fit. in multiple ways.

water lily leaf (pressed)

of bindings and books

my mind has been on books and bindings lately. i have revisited the book the artist’s way after many years. every monring i sit up in bed with the dog curled up between my legs and a cup of tea on the side table and i write my morning pages. i have found it incredibly clarifying. the entire artitst’s way book is like a different creation from what it was when I was thirty. one of the persistent themes in my morning journal has been a STILL related book that i am just beginning to give shape to, in part thanks to morning pages. more on that project to come. stay tuned.

a soft palette

still reaching for the dried botanicals, while we climb out of our sub-zero temps here in the north. i liked the soft palette suggested by this collection of faded summer. i am especially fond of the blue flower in the center, which i am assuming is a hyacinth. something about that blue with the brown, and the filigreed tips of the dried petals makes me think of nobility. a brocade royal waistcoat. the imagination does funny things after 10 months of quarantining.