July 11, 2023

Artists and gardeners are creative risk takers. They will try to fill an empty space with grace and beauty no matter how small or large that space is. Starting with intention, gardeners and artists choose what they will create, how they will create it, and what story it will tell. They forge something new, unique and tangible into existence by manipulating shapes, colors, light, shadow, textures, and lines.

I am an artist and gardener. Inside my home studio I paint, draw, and write. I garden inside and outside my home. I recognize similarities in the creative processes of making art and gardens. At start, they both share an intimidating blank space. Once marked, the space is informed as a center of creation. When I am deep in that center, I focus on making ephemeral ideas concrete in a gradual process of change and modification. In the end, when only finishing touches are needed, I look at what I’ve done with satisfaction and actual wonder.

During the scorching month of June this year, I spent many morning hours sculpting a border outside the wrought iron fence enclosing my backyard. I wanted my border to provide an engaging, graceful, and seemingly effortless barrier. So to these ends I shaped the border with rocks, plants, glass, shells and the occasional garden ornament. My work was wearying. It required intense concentration of heart, mind, and hands. By the end of each morning’s labor, I was sweaty, overheated, sore and dirty, clothes and exposed skin streaked with earth. Still, when I would step back, to appraise my work-product from a panoramic distance, (just like I step back from a canvas) I felt pleased. If from the new viewpoint I noticed anything that needed tweaking, I’d make the change quickly and then walk away knowing I’d continue my efforts the next morning with renewed attention.

Essentially, I was hardscaping. Hardscaping is hard work; and using muscles I’d forgotten I had, I hauled pounds of individual rocks, bagged rocks, stones, pebbles, and plants from streetside to backyard. I took great care not to drop the bigger, heavier rocks for fear of breaking their smooth, curvaceous heft into smaller, sharper fragments. I dug out sod, added new plants and snaked the rocks and shells in a loose pattern around a few plants already thriving in the area. I wanted the border to appear casual but grounded, fluid but solid. Within the border, close-to-the-ground bird baths describe my love of birds; and a few carefully chosen garden ornaments evoke a sense of serenity.

As I worked from the North end to the South end of the fence a plan emerged much like one does when I start a painting. One rock placement, like one brushstroke, led to another until shapes emerged and I started spilling and piling stones, prompted by an unseen source of creative confidence. When I started the border I attended to the sizes and shapes of the rock groups. At this early stage colors and shades of stones were less important than their placement. Placement was essential for constructing the illusion of languid movement that was my intention from the start. Color would be my finishing touch.

Color was necessary to mimic a cool, shallow stream of water wending its way through the center of my rocky border to somewhere even colder and deeper. The watery illusion was contrived by quenching the center of my border with blue-green sea glass. I scattered the glass sparingly in some spots and more amply in others to imitate the narrowing and widening of water as it sluices through spaces between rocks and roots. The color is exactly right; it works. The glass, my imaginary water, looks lovely in the sun as well as in the shade.

The suggestion of water is perfect because it is hot outside my home on a small island off the Southeast Coast of Georgia where summer ignites and humidity climbs. I and my garden bask and bake in heat’s grasp and need water to slake a thirst felt in skin and bones and roots. Water surrounds my island. It flows through creeks and rivers into the Atlantic ocean. That is the journey I visualize for my constructed water made of glass. While real moving water would bubble and gurgle on its way to the sea, water sounds in my border are made by birds splashing in birdbaths. Birds sing as they flit about the border from plant to branch or rock.

This garden work is finished; the space is filled; and I am satisfied with the result. I like what I’ve created. Nothing needs to be refined. The new border is a charming replacement for a once rather unattractive space. I’ve created an unexpected addition to my garden area that rewards my creative risk taking everytime I water the plants, hear the birds, or just observe the border and all its elements from afar.

June 16, 2023

Do you know that florists do not sell carnations because they are not considered to be “premium” flowers? I didn’t know that until I tried to buy carnations from a local florist. He told me, a little imperiously, “No we don’t sell them; they aren’t premium flowers.” Hmmm. All kinds of gaudy and loud “stuff” packed every surface in every corner of said florist’s shop. If I wanted to I could buy figurines, paper products, linens, candles, and artificial flowers of all sizes, shapes, colors, and types but I could not buy a carnation. I am sure the flower arrangements being feverishly created in the back room would not contain carnations either. However, those arrangements in all their “premium” glory could include a shiny bauble, paper napkin, or any other tchotchke as decoration.

I love carnations. They are inexpensive, quietly beautiful, and humble. Carnations grow in a plethora of colors (all with different symbolic meanings) that are appropriate for so many moods, messages, and occasions. The scent of carnations mixes the aromas of clean air, starched linen, and vanilla together in a most pleasant way. With ruffled petals, carnations look like they are ready to dance and yet they are never raucous or ostentatious. Carnations are sturdy, even vigorous, standing tall days after other cut flowers droop and fade in quiet defeat.

Here are some carnation facts I learned from a variety of sources. Carnations are the second most popular flowers ordered online. Only roses are ordered more often than carnations. Carnations, properly called dianthus, are the flower for the month of January. The word dianthus is derived from a combination of Greek words, dios the Greek name for the god Zeus, and anthos the Greek word for flower. Dianthus means divine flower. I ask you, how can a divine flower not be a premium flower when its name promises something lovely and beatific?

Let’s talk a little about Zeus who lent his name to the genus, Dianthus. Zeus was the most powerful god in Greek mythology. He was the king of the gods, ruling all the other gods as well as humans. Zeus governed the sky with thunder, lightning, clouds, rain, and winds. In fact the thunderbolt was Zeus’s weapon of choice which he used to strike down his enemies. This is quite a prodigious lineage for one of my favorite little flowers; and one considered too lowly by my local florist to sell in his shop.

Should I go back and share some of this information with the florist? Do you think he might change his mind about carnations or do you think flower snobbery is an immutable flaw? I think I’ll just be a quiet champion of carnations and enjoy their beauty whenever I can. I’ll let Zeus take care of the florist who perhaps should be extra careful the next time he is out in a booming Southern summer thunderstorm.

May 11, 2023

A writer whose work I enjoy and whose opinion I value, asked me why I had written the poem, An Afternoon in Darien, about an interaction I’d had with a feral kitten, rather than writing a prose piece. The question gave me pause. It prompted my thinking specifically about the poem and generally about how in my writings and paintings I focus on moments rather than on the big pictures in which the moments live. In both mediums, I try to tell small stories; snapshots of the meaningful happening inside a much bigger, but more peripheral, context. My stories describe connections because to me they matter more than all the noise around them. I believe that even in momentary, wordless connections, volumes of emotion can be shared and change is possible.

Identifying connections is one thing. Another is rendering them succinctly and yet vividly enough for the reader/observer to really experience the moment. How do I capture the gold nugget using words and/or paints to hone it even further and make it shine within its circumstance? How do I describe any interaction using keystrokes or brushstrokes to lay bare relevance? I try to do this by choosing my tools and my perspective very carefully; avoiding using, what I consider, random, irrelevant words, colors or marks when I work. My method involves whittling down the rich palette of tools available to me until I’ve chosen the ones that best invoke the story I want to tell. As with all things that matter, this is never an easy task; and while it is an effort that often eludes me it is also one that rarely fails to reward me.

By way of an example, here’s what happened recently at an estate sale which I went to because art supplies were listed as some of the items offered. I walked through the house out into an art studio that smelled musty and was truly packed with art supplies as advertised. The big picture included canvases, storage bins, paints, easels, drawing pads and pencils, clay pieces, brushes, frames and other sundries that find their way into an artist’s studio. The snapshot within that bigger picture was an old, stained, wood storage box with one rusted hinge keeping the lid from closing. Dried oil paint and linseed oil scented the box. It held some worn and ancient tubes of paint squeezed into contorted shapes by the hands of the artist who used them. I wanted the box. I wanted the box not just for itself but more importantly for the connection it gave me to the artist who once-upon-a-time used it and the contents within it. The box is a conduit between me and someone I will never meet but with whom I share a need to create.

The woman running the estate sale blathered on about the artist whose house I was in and whose supplies I might buy. I pretended to listen. My husband blathered on about the box and its contents being no better than trash. I didn’t even pretend to listen to his criticism. Instead, I fingered the paint tubes and imagined where in my own studio I might place the box. I wondered if any of the paints were still usable. I thought about how I’d just decided to give my acrylic paints a rest and to start painting with oils again. Finding the box and the paints linked me to the artist and, if any of the paints are usable, will link the artist in a tangible way to something I paint.

The box and its contents inspired a connection. Describing that is only limited by my skill to choose words and colors that give life to what resides in my imagination. It is my imagination that will galvanize any creative works that substantiate the moment when a simple artist’s tool box stopped me and made me really look. I will paint the moment on canvas and write about it in a poem; or maybe this time the words in this prose piece are enough.

And one last share? Maybe I have taken a circuitous route to answer the question that started all this pondering because the answer might just simply be “because I have to”. All creatives express themselves through their creations first and then put the end results out into the world for others to respond to and appreciate with their senses, minds, and hearts. How the artist/writer sees the world can not be separated from what is created. Afterall, all art is personal first before it is universal.

I’d like to finish with this quote from Richard Price. The quote speaks to me of the importance of finding the kernel of human connection inside the larger story because for me it is that kernel that makes a difference. Price said: “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.” Richard Price

April 13, 2023

Through memories
that comfort or sting,
writing across continents and time,
years open,
conjuring old angels and demons.
Intrepid,
follow the meandering path
that leads to harsh truth,
(or is it illusion?), and
coaxes raw beauty
out of the ugly bruise.
Dare to explore
in that house
in that time
in that room,
where
pink cabbage roses,
climb the walls,
an optimistic blush
inside the mind’s eye.
Imagine,
their sweet scent
lingering,
coaxing fresh air into
the too dank past.

How The Poem, Cabbage Roses, Came To Be

Memories are elusive and unreliable. They can be crystal clear; but often they are murky, blending together into a confusing assemblage of questionable events. Memoir is an attempt to put the truth of any memory on paper so the memory can be shared with others. Yet to lay bare the memory in written form means some aspects of the writing have to be fiction. I believe this is true because none of us is capable of remembering everything but we are all capable of remembering snippets of everything.

What triggers memory? Sights, scents, smells, the experience of deja vu, and reading or listening to the memories of others arouse memories in me. I marvel at how the emotions conjured by memories are so universally human. I started thinking about all of this after listening to a writer read a small part of her larger memoir. While her actual memory was particular only to her, I recognized the emotional continuum passed by memories from person to person. I felt those emotions and recognized the truth in the tale. In the poem, Cabbage Roses, I try to expose those common threads of emotion and truth.

March 17, 2022

The white mother cat lay
under faded weeds and grasses
unaware of my attention.
Her two white kittens explored
the wild brush around them,
daring to leave her soft side
for the delight of cool freshwater
streaming through a rocky bed,
emptying into the north bank of
the Altamaha river.

I stood quietly above them
on a weathered deck
leaning on warm railing
bleached silver-gray and smoothed
by years of use and exposure.
I watched the kittens,
their wary innocence false protection
in the harshness of their world
on the edge of a marsh filled
with hidden predators.

One kitten waded into the stream,
pausing, then daintily lapping
the cold, thirst quenching liquid.
Unhurried, head down,
focused on her task,
she took her fill
from the endless current
passing over her paws
and around her small furry body,
so poised in this moment of necessity.

She paused in her labor and looked up at me.
I did not move. She stared, I stared,
blue eyes locked onto blue eyes,
her sweet face expectant, open,
mine guileless.
She measured my expression.
I willed her to stay, to trust me,
to fix this shared moment in memory’s memory.
She seemed to hear me as
seconds passed in her appraisal of me
and my appreciation of her.
Then, without blinking, slowly,
she returned to her solitary task,
and left me to return to mine.

February 15, 2023

To her
it all depends on
the bright green sled
staying tethered to her
small mittened hand, clutched
behind her red coat.

Head down, determined,
her black boots footprint
rapidly falling blue-white snow
as she inches forward
on the icy path
to home.

One of my favorite poems is William Carlos Williams’, The Red Wheelbarrow, which describes a simple scene with expertly crafted lines and stanzas. Much has been written about Williams’ prominence in American poetry. I marvel at his skill in depicting beautiful images of simple objects from daily life using carefully chosen plain words. In,The Red Wheelbarrow, a red utilitarian object takes center stage in a bucolic scene with ordinary white chickens.

In four stanzas of two lines, a total of four words in each stanza, Williams shares an unforgettable scene that is enough in itself but when considered thoughtfully leaves the reader with unanswered questions. Some of my questions are: Has the rain that “glazes” the wheelbarrow stopped? Are the chickens caged or uncaged, feeding or roosting? Who uses the wheelbarrow and feeds the chickens? Is the day’s work over or will it resume after the rain? The backstory of this poem is described in many sources and so I leave that to you to discover if you so choose.

I painted, The Green Sled, awhile back but was never satisfied with the result. The simplicity of the scene reminds me of how I visualize the uncomplicated place described in, The Red Wheelbarrow. So, in addition to painting a new version of, The Green Sled (over the old version), I decided to write a poem about this scene in a simple but intentional style. I arranged words deliberately to create stanzas that are upside down versions of one another. As always, I want my poem and my painting to stand alone while being able to enhance one another when taken together.

The backstory of my painting and poem is very straightforward. My granddaughter was off from school for a snow day, so her dad took her sledding in a field near where they lived. I was not with them but her dad took some pictures which he shared with me. Knowing my granddaughter, I imagined that even with clothes encrusted with snow and ice, and sledding in snow that fell more rapidly and thickly as time ticked by, she would take her time and not surrender her day as long as she was in charge of the “bright green sled”.

January 12, 2023

Under the indigo light of a deepening dusk
near a navy blue ocean’s
subdued and gentle nudge
she walks barefoot on cool sand
dressed in denim and shibori
collecting blue gray seashells

My Journey to Creating this First Piece of the New Year

I struggled to find the inspiration to write and paint my first pieces of the new year. The prose and poetry I was writing seemed without merit. The words were certainly not leading to any visual art. My thoughts were random and scattered. I’d write for several hours each day, put the work aside, come back to it, and start all over again, writing and rewriting. None of the words I put to paper made sufficient sense of any message I was trying to convey. Related themes emerged but would not coalesce into a cohesive piece. I got tired of laboring to say something that maybe wasn’t ready to be said, at least not by me. I needed to find inspiration to fuel my creative spark which was sputtering out. Lucky for me, I only had to go as far as my own home studio to do just that.

Pinned to one of the inspiration boards I’d created in my home studio is this quote credited to Henri Matisse, “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working.” My writing as work was not inspiring anything; so I switched gears and instead of writing started attending to my visual art. I reframed and reworked a few older pieces, prepped some canvases, did some drawing, and reorganized my studio, moving my easel and some supplies to different positions in the room. When I started to collate my photos and other papers, I found a few lovely blue pieces I had forgotten about. Blue is a color I am drawn to and I started to feel that shade working its magic. My creative juices warmed and the sputtering spark of my creativity strengthened. I knew I would use one of the blue photos as inspiration for a poem and a painted companion piece; and that is how Gathering Blue came to be.

December 14, 2022

Have you ever been
to a midnight mass
in a Catholic church
on Christmas Eve?
Have you ever smelled
the clove-like incense,
heard the choir sing O Holy Night,
seen the red poinsettias
lining the altar and
spilling into the vestibule?
Nowhere
is more festive
or joyful
during this season,
when true believers
adore a child,
who with his life,
will one day
save the souls of men.
Candle flames
bend light shadows
onto stained glass windows
where biblical allegories
chronicle lives
of prophets, disciples,
and God himself
in colors as rich and vibrant
as the stories they tell.

Have you ever been
to midnight mass
in a Catholic Church
on Christmas Eve?
In the nave,
wooden pews
polished to a high gloss,
scented with lemon oil,
fill with the faithful.
No strangers here
on this night
when young and old,
rich and poor
sit shoulder to shoulder
awed by the pageantry
and beauty.
This night is about
celebration
optimism
hope for the future.
Joy abounds and
it is almost possible to believe
that there can be peace on earth and
that men really do
bear goodwill towards other men.
Almost possible,
because in this place
on this night
light defeats darkness
and there is no room for despair
even though
we know how the story ends.

November 9, 2022

Jersey City New Jersey 1956

She is beautiful,
brown curls,
bright smile,
soft hands on my cheeks.
I bury my face in her yellow and red patterned apron and
smell sun drenched cotton, starch, summer flowers.
My thin arms strain to circle her in a tight hug,
in this never leave you moment.

Drums Pennsylvania 2022

She is beautiful,
gray curls,
bright smile,
soft hands on my cheeks.
I gaze over her head past her slight presence and
remember a yellow and red patterned apron,
the smells of sun drenched cotton, starch, summer flowers.
My strong arms circle her easily in a tight hug,
in this never lose you moment.

October 12, 2022

The informal and very supportive writer’s group I belong to meets monthly when members gather to read aloud their works of prose, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Following each reading, attentive listeners offer gentle comments, critiques, and encouragement to each reader. Group members are bound together in those once-a-month moments by a love of writing and a willingness to take part in an open forum. I write in anticipation of each meeting, which compels me to craft written works more regularly than I would if not participating in this group. Consistent writing refines my skill and improves my ability to combine more intentionally and less fearfully my two favored creative outlets, writing and painting. At most meetings I show with a painting and tell with a writing.

A member of the group once asked me what inspires me most often, words to paint or painting to write? I’ve thought about that query quite a bit and have concluded that for me the answer is irrelevant. The wellspring of inspiration is less important than immersing myself in it and creating something new and imaginative with either words or paint. The paintings and writings created are stand alone pieces not illustrations or explanations of one another. They are different yet related expressions of the personal written and visual languages I use to tell stories in two mediums. Complete and whole in themselves, the written works and paintings are connected to but not dependent on one another. Together they may prompt a more powerful response from an audience but that is more dependent on the audience than it is on me.

Ekphrasis and reverse ekphrasis are literary labels used to describe when one person is moved to create something in response to another person’s work. Since my creative responses are to my own works, I’m not sure my efforts exactly illustrate either of these literary traditions. I had never been motivated to respond to someone else’s painting or writing until at one of the writer’s group meetings a member read aloud her poem, Colors of Nature.

The colors she named exploded in my mind’s eye. I lost any nuanced references in the poem as my imagination was engulfed in vibrant reds, yellows, greens, blues, and sienna browns. Two locations in the poem captured my attention as I was brought first to a morning ocean beach and last to an evening river’s bank. These water elements swam abstractly with the colors splashed in my brain and I was engulfed in a desire to paint something equally as vibrant with more color than form. I did this with two small studies applying freely and loosely to paper hardly diluted watercolor paint in deep beautiful hues.

This brings me back to the title of this piece and the many iterations of beautiful fusion. To me, beautiful fusion is all of the following: the interconnection of distinct art forms inspiring different modes of creative expression; the generosity among creatives who share their work so other creatives can create something different, (thank you for that, Sara); and finally for me, the coming together monthly of like minded yet disparate individuals who bravely share bits and pieces of themselves, through simple written words, that just might be more inspirational than they know.