structure and minimalism

as someone interested in minimalism, i love to see young pagoda dogwoods sprouting in the woods around our house. they always mean that i will be seeing the simple structure of their shelved branches for years to come. they are one of the few trees to emphasize (like frank lloyd wright’s prairie style) their horizontal lines.

pagoda dogwood leaves (Cornus alternifolia)

knowing the source

i would feel a little bit guilty about posting this photo of these gorgeous variegated trout lilies, if i didn’t know that they had been harvested on private land, by one of the most knowledgeable and conscientious local foragers in my entire state. because, let’s face it, these things can grow colonies that last up to 300 years. and although they are edible, they are maybe more beautiful than they are edible. and the older i get the more i lean toward favoring beauty over utility.

trout lily (Erythronium americanum)

lots of eyes

today one of my favorite minnesota heritage brands, faribault woollen mill, held a photo shoot at our house. photo shoots are always exhausting, because we always end up unable to resist showing the house and the dock and the lake to all of their best advantages. but tbe shoots are always worth the exhaustion because we get to spend all day seeing our house and grounds through the perspective of lots of new eyes. we learn something new every time about our very familiar surroundings. thanks to all of the eyes that wandered over our home today. you made it beautiful through your enthusiasm and i can’t wait to see it through your eyes when the shoot is finalized and published.

spent dandelions

the eye vs. the camera eye

i’ve noticed that most blossoming trees often look completely covered with flowers. there doesn’t appear to be a single empty space anywhere in the canopy of the tree. but what i’ve found is that if i snip a few branches from one of those trees and try to recreate that full-bodied abundance with my camera at home, the branches look spare, and attractively but sparsely flowered. this is true of pussy willows, and red maples when they leaf out, and our redbud tree when it first starts sending out its red laser flares in may. there is one exception to this general rule, in our environment,  and that is the crab apple tree. it is truly teeming with blossom. this photo is an experiment in recreating that profuse abundance on my studio floor. i don’t know if the effect comes through, but i like the photo, so i’m declaring success.

crab apple blossoms

spring . . . ?

Yes, the woodland wildflowers are coming up and all the trees are leafing out and everything is as green as I dream of when I’m surrounded by gray stems and branches in the depth of my march doldrums. But you’re not going to see any of that because today I spent the day at IKEA picking out a kitchen for the house renovation next door that I have been working on since January. Instead you get semi-dry garden flowers because that is what I had time to do today, which, in its way, is very much in the spirit of STILL blog. STILL blog is about fitting art in around all the busy life that I have chosen by choosing to be a mother of two, and an artist, and a part time CEO of the jointly owned businesses that my husband and I run in order to afford our creative lives. So I’m not apologizing, but I am saying that today was one of those days when I wish I were maybe doing one or two fewer things.

dried flower bouquet