February, the 2023 Version

     Recording the strange and extreme atmospheric conditions of this year’s winter, makes “Her spirits rose…” feel a little like an infrequent weather report.

    It used to be one could make generalities about the months, we might have said, “February is this way or that way,” but now it’s only safe to deal in specifics. This February was 10 degrees colder than normal. Oh, and wet. In Washington, several days brought a dusting of snow, enough to cause trouble. But on the East Coast, temperatures soared.

     In January I wrote about our trip to Los Angeles during their historic atmospheric rivers of rain, but this month we enjoyed two days of the old California winter weather – 55° sunshine for a hike in the Arroyo Seco and visit to the Huntington Gardens. But for the rest of the days, a “major and unusual storm” soaked us – marked by frigid temperatures in the city and a record snowfall in the mountains.

     Each day, while her brother napped and sheets of rain teemed down the windowpanes, Sweet B and I sat at her kitchen table, drinking ginger tea, and making pictures. And, after a quick dash through the rain from car to art supply store, we explored the possibilities of a new set of Neocolor crayons and ink markers. Sweet B is reading now, and has just discovered she can, with effort, read Jack and Annie, the famous Treehouse explorers, on her own.

     Earlier in February, longing for some color, I spent an afternoon at the Seattle Flower and Garden Show. When I lived in Alaska, I visited the show to write about the display gardens and lectures, but this time I just wandered. All those plants for just a few days had seemed so over the top in the past – pretty unsustainable. (Although, knowing plant people, heroic attempts were surely made to save plants for new lives in real ground.)

     This year the display gardens were more modest – still beautifully full of spring bloomers like hellebore and bulbs of hyacinth, tulips, and daffodils forced into fragrance and color, and only modest and easily transplantable conifer trees. Shopping and eating opportunities have increased, including many marketplace booths featuring compost, making good dirt, and pollinators – hosted by people eager to share knowledge and encourage those activities. Those are gardening concerns more in keeping with our reality here, where a week later a headline read: “Hundreds of state plants and animals at risk of extinction.”

     But given the hope that humans care for what they love, it was good to see so many people in companionable groups, enjoying garden life on a winter afternoon.

 

Dry January

In a different context there is much buzz about dry January, but the weather gods did not participate. And as payback for the rain and freezing temperatures that Sweet B and her family endured here over the Christmas holiday, during a California mid-January trip we watched rivers of rain waterfall off horizontal gutters day after day.  

We dodged the deluge to have fun anyway. A visit to a train museum delighted about-to-turn three Sweet Brother. We rode a tiny train around the park, climbed inside giant steam engines, and walked back and forth on real train tracks for a very long time. Among Sweet Brother’s passions, trains are second only to construction vehicles.

Then we came home to a dry and cold last week of January.

When we first came down here after all those years of real winter in Alaska, I expected spring to happen quickly as it does there – flip a switch and the growth (and gardening frenzy) begins. But, because the beginnings are so welcome in January, I’ve come to love the glacial pace of spring here. Daylight improves, the sunset is after five p.m., and mornings often hold early promise, even if they succumb to hovering clouds that force the day back to gray gloom.

But I spotted a snowdrop just after the new year, the tips of daffodils already emerge through last fall’s fallen leaves, and fragrant bushes stop me in my tracks. Most specially sarcococca – which I can never pronounce – but love its common name, fragrant sweet box. For it is fragrant – now it seems that every street presents a sarcococca offering – anonymous green bushes most of the year, the fragrance of their tiny blossoms surrounds me on early morning walks.

     The local florist does its porch proud all year long, and I often step up on the porch to see what seasonal flowers they’ve arranged. Now, in this gray time, a few hyacinth and pots and containers of tiny blooming jonquils cluster around a blast of painted color. Most welcome!

December Dark

December Dark

     Dark, yes, but full of holiday lights and music to brighten days!

Back in November I listened to an Internet station, playing classical Christmas music in a constant stream, to conjure up winter cheer while I painted images to become small originals and cards for Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery this month.

     I found inspiration in old photos and old drawings, revisiting moments of festivity in our other houses – the living room in the Anchorage house ready for a solstice tea party back in our day, Lady B’s bedroom with a tiny tree, and crotchety Frances in a peaceful moment in our Port Townsend house. A Christmas letter photo from a friend in England inspired an image of her retriever in the snow by a cottage (changing her brick to red). So many years in the north make snow a part of December for me, though mostly painted snow now.

     All the time I thought a lot about the season – comparing, remembering. These days I am grateful to revisit some of my memories by watching the younger generation, remembering the joys of Christmas past, youthful Christmases with someone special, a velvet dress in the evening, snowy ski days; children full of excitement and anticipation, thrilled by it all; and then, returning college students (no matter that they left immediately to go out with friends), the house alive and cheerful again.

Our young friend came home this weekend from Cambridge, where she is studying this year, and I hope the California family will come next week (last year derailed by ordinary colds, the year before by Covid). Crossed fingers, holiday travel (never easy) is more fraught now for sure, but like Sweet B, I look forward to decorating the tree, making cookies, and most of all reading the books of the season by the fire.

     Sometimes my mind slips ahead to next Christmas – what will that be like? Should I buy a recommended Christmas tree stand that promises to make the job easier than the tree-stand-wrestle of this weekend? Or wait to see what the year brings.

     Best to stay in the moment. I will post these winter images on Instagram (@gilmorekaty) but include this one here – our kitchen corner where a teapot warms the dark. For it is time soon to celebrate the winter solstice and welcome returning light and renewal – a celebration shared by all in the northland.

     I wish you a warm, bright, and healthy season – festive and joyful!

“Flower Pleasure: Books, Bookmarks, and Watercolors” at the Miller Library

I’ve so neglected the blog for all these months, but now I wonder what I could possibly have said about our ongoing dire straits. Each week brings some new sadness, for humanity, for the environment, or double outrages like last week’s decisions. Maybe I would have given up anyway – turned completely to painting a record of the wonders we have in flowers and plants – as I seem to have done for the Miller Library show!

My show at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library opens on July 5, 2022, and continues until July 28, 2022, with a “Meet the Artist” from 3-5 p.m. on Thursday, July 7, 2022. (Hours and location on their website: https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/)

Oh, I have enjoyed making this work. The Miller Library inspired much of it – particularly John Gerard’s “The Herball” from 1597. The illustrations provided images to adapt for bookmarks I made specially for the Miller as a fundraiser – 36 bookmarks, each with an illustration redrawing a woodblock image from Gerard and a quote from a gardening book (most available at the Miller).

I also greatly enlarged and painted the images with watercolor for two large paintings.

And for a set of 12 accordion fold books, “A Flower Year: Books I-XII,” I wrote, and digitally printed short essays and printed, then hand-painted, images. Here are Books I and VI:

The exhibition includes a 15-foot long (when extended) accordion book titled, “A Pumpkin Season,” and the series of drawings “Mornings at the V&A,” which first appeared here on the blog, and now will be in the Miller’s wonderful, glassed tabletop display cases.

I’d love to see you at the “Meet the Artist” – if not, I still hope you might have a chance to visit the Miller, such a treasure for those who love plants and gardens. This librarian’s article really describes it well: (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/236591#page/35/mode/1up).

A visit would make a great day out – a pleasure to ride the light rail to the University of Washington Station, then walk below the UW athletic buildings, through the Union Bay Natural Area to the library in the Center for Urban Horticulture. (Info: https://botanicgardens.uw.edu/center-for-urban-horticulture/visit/maps-trails/)

True summer has arrived now in the Northwest – and I wish you a really enjoyable one!

Postcards for May

     Happy May to all! I hope spring finds you well and enjoying our emergence from winter’s dark tunnel. Perhaps because it stands in stark contrast to Putin’s barbaric behavior, this spring has seemed more delicious than ever before – alive with beauty and birdsong.

     As an escape from things one can do nothing about, my mind has been much occupied with flower images for my solo show at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library in July. So, when the Bainbridge Island of Arts and Crafts recently requested postcards for their first-ever mail art exhibition, I adapted some of the drawings I did for part of the Miller show.

John Gerard published “The Herball” in 1597 – full of errors and appropriations from other authors – the woodblock illustrations are nonetheless charming and a great pleasure to draw from. (For the show in July, I also enlarged some of the woodblock images into big watercolors!)

I’ve heard that hundreds of original postcards have been donated and will be for sale as a fundraiser for the non-profit gallery – it should be fun! (On view from this Friday, May 6 until May 29, 2022.)

Here are my offerings, along with all best wishes for spring to you!

January Thoughts

In spite of early snow and torrential rain (no exaggeration), the frost on Sunday felt decisively January.

On a sunny walk, my mind buzzed with thoughts of my commonplace book idea. I’d imagined 24 small books about flowers for the beautiful glass cases at the Miller, but lately, I’ve questioned that plan.

     Now I think about taller books, still about flowers, the year in flowers. Just a sampler, and, of course, Washington flowers this time. Some of the months will require revisiting past notes and blogs. And because the books’ size will better allow stems, I can begin with the branches of January.

     In these early months I get to check memory against reality – and observe new things – like this beginning to bud Ribes sanguineum decorated for some unknown reason with a teeny, tiny knitted hat!  

A Update on “A Garden Project”

     How can it be the middle of July already? Summer days for sure. We endured the heat dome, and now experience our summer drought – day after day of sunshine – but so far, thankfully, without a return of the extreme heat.

     A recent comment referred to these posts as “accounts of life, illustrated,” a lovely definition of what I’ve always tried to do here – and an update is due.

My work is now part of the Bainbridge Arts and Crafts exhibition in September – not August. The pieces made of gardeners’ words and my images are safely at the gallery – all 50 of them! They will be priced at just $35.00, unframed, with my portion of proceeds to be donated to the local food bank at Helpline House. (That seemed a good solution to using other people’s words.) It was great fun to do this project, and I look forward to meeting many of the gardeners at the opening!

     This September show is large, with many artists involved, so I’m not sure my other work will all be hung, but I surely enjoyed the making – illustrating garden bloom. In August I’ll post more blue and whites here, and maybe some pieces from “A Garden Project” on Instagram. Here’s one!

Checking In

     The other day I received an email from a dear reader who wondered, “being a worrier,” about the blog. After 10 years of mostly weekly posts, this has indeed been a long spring break.

     We’ve been to both Alaska and California – exciting to go through the familiar steps of travel – and bliss to see the grandchildren. A long enough visit in California let us settle into a routine with a table full of art supplies and projects, lots of book reading, and much admiring of the changes in Sweet Brother! He’s a whole little person now – walking everywhere, full of fun and strong opinions. We visited the two open museums in Los Angeles, the Sweet Bride made us wonderful meals, and their garden in a California April is paradise.

     And Alaska – one year and five months since we saw Lady B and her brother. I’m thankful for technology for keeping us from seeming strangers, but nothing compares with being together. Lots of hugs, many games of Go Fish (I lose always), Quick Cups (I sometimes win), and Lady B worked with me on my “Illustrating Animals” class homework. Lord B delighted us – funny and smart and so welcoming – he worked on Star Wars Legos with Papa Jim and listened every night to chapters of “The Lord of the Rings.” The Anchorage April landscape brought back memories.  

     I would have written about all this, and books, and excitement about Biden’s attempts to right things, but the Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery offered the opportunity to be featured in August – to do flowers – whatever I wanted.

I plan three big paintings and many more of the blue and white series. In that wonderful way of ideas appearing from nowhere, I also began to think about words from local gardeners about their gardens, to combine with images from my past flower and garden illustration work.

     I passed out a query letter to gardeners on my walks, asked coordinators of P-patches and garden groups to share them, and encouraged all to pass on to gardener friends. The varied responses range from the closely personal to Ann Lovejoy’s, “If you have too many weeds, you don’t have enough plants.” It’s been great fun to receive gardener’s words and choose a suitable image to accompany them. The final products – text and pictures on a backing – look a little like garden book pages.

So, it’s been busy – in a good way for sure! I hope you are well and vaccinated and enjoying this spring and coming summer!

“Hamilton” Redeems July Fourth in the Time of COVID-19

Probably I should drop the “…in the time of” business, because it’s all COVID time – our reality in perpetuity. Only the degree of infection changes – and it roars again now.

And didn’t the celebration of the nation’s birthday seem like a party that wasn’t, like an ill-behaved child’s birthday party cancelled, or maybe this is also apt, the child got sick? At least that was my Fourth of July. Only the president seemed to spend it in his alternate universe where a lethal virus and heartfelt protests don’t coexist, where he is threatened by all of us wearing masks and wanting fairness and health – frenzied hoards in his selfish, petty mind.

Gloomy weather and gloomy spirits on Saturday – until the evening, when we joined Disney, and, with millions of Americans watched the unparalleled, “Hamilton,” on television. What a gift from the creator, Lin Manuel Miranda. Oh, I know he’s already made a fortune, but watching all those performers – the dancing, the singing, the stage, the lighting, the humanity of the show – that should earn buckets of money.

And anyway, Miranda has now given it to us (for $6.95) – to watch and absorb how inexhaustibly creative it is – so clever, so witty and wise. And beautiful, and joyful, and tragic. It rewards multiple viewings (on top of all our listening to the soundtrack).

When I saw “Hamilton” two years ago (a lifetime ago), I kept thinking of the line, “immigrants get the job done!” (Even more true now in the time of essential workers.) This time I saw the inequities built into the whole American endeavor from the beginning. And registered, as the new Americans begin to create a nation (mocked by the glorious King George), the partisan fighting, the negotiating, the compromises.

On television it’s more personal, but it lacks the electricity of real people making this happen in front of a live audience (remember those times, sitting close to strangers!). But filmed during a performance in the early days on Broadway – now we get closeups of faces, beautiful Phillipa Soo as Eliza, singing her heart out in joy and grief, Miranda himself as Hamilton, expressive face alight. I would never have imagined it could be so luminously transferred to the screen – preserving the magic for all to see.

Firecrackers boomed across our island as we watched, and I finally felt slightly celebratory – for the creativity of Americans, for Black Lives Matter protesters (along with pain that this is still necessary on this 244^th birthday). And maybe a glimmer of hope that we won’t “give up our shot!”

Week Two of Teacups for November

Borrowed Flowers VIII: Souleiado

Borrowed Flowers I

Alaska And A Name Change?

For four days in May, while Mrs. Hughes celebrated her birthday with her sister and her best friend in New York City, we flew north to help Mr. Carson hold down the fort. (He doesn’t really need much help.) Chill from the north wind dampened the days of our visit, but didn’t dampen Alaska spring activities.

Pretty much nothing is cuter than a six-year old girl with braids and a ball cap playing her first baseball game (after just two practices). Standing by the dugout full of tiny teammates, I watched the swing and heard the satisfying smack when bat connected with ball pitched by her coach. Braids flying, she headed to first base, a little uncertainly at first, and then swiftly!

One day Lady B’s kindergarten teacher planned an excursion to the Municipal Greenhouse and nearby woods, and asked me to lead a little watercolor demonstration. She provided good materials (that can make all the difference with watercolor) – tiny palettes with six real watercolors, fine line pens and brushes with points. The students didn’t need much direction, and soon scattered around the greenhouse to draw – watercolor paper taped to clipboards – then came together in a circle to paint. The penline and watercolors produced amazed me by their careful observation of shape and color, each unique to its creator.

It struck me that the days of Lady Baby are behind us. That little girl in the orange t-shirt, worn over a red, long-sleeved thermal shirt with Tyrannosaurus rex on the front, seems far from anything with baby in the title. The girl formerly known as Lady Baby has school life and social relationships of her own now – two best friends, a girl with a mop of blonde curly hair, and a boy with dark curly hair and big glasses. Maybe now I call her Lady B, a more grown up title, because Baby Brother (who rapidly outgrows that moniker) calls her Bopal.

We spent great days with Baby Brother while Lady B was at school. Playgrounds please, but nothing is as popular as “owside” – the back yard with swing and slide and balls to kick – or a slow amble down the sidewalk out front.

He loves books – specially ones with pictures of “boom boom crash” providers, particularly enormous bulldozers and crane trucks. Lady B reads to him, revisiting all the favorites (dinosaurs). He laughs with the same joy and relief at the resolution in “Knufflebunny” that I remember from her.

When we first arrived I marveled at his mom’s understanding of his language, but as the days passed I began to get it better. He repeats everything said to him – so the structure and intonation becomes more clear, and you realize how much he can communicate, if only his listener understands. He says all the family names, but somewhat curiously, Lord Cromwell became “Bacram.”

It sounds odd to say of someone so young (he’ll be two in early September), but he seems contemplative as he thoughtfully considers things. I say: “Look, chickadees – chick-a-dee-dee-de.” And he listens and looks, head tilted to one side, before repeating the call. It’s easy to be totally silly with him and make up nonsense, eliciting great grins and chuckles.

I loved watching Lady B and Baby Brother greet their mother when she came back. Both brave while she was away – and overjoyed at her return!

*Image used by permission of the artist

A New Header And An Old Friend

Finally “Her spirits rose…” has a new header – the banner at the top – one of several variations I made thanks to my friend who paints in the woods, Andie Thrams.

Last summer Andie, (www.andiethrams.com), came to stay in the Buffalo for a lovely long time. We have known each other since the night 20 years ago we met as strangers in the Anchorage airport for a midnight flight back East. We’d been linked by a mutual friend, who thought we would get along (being flower painters), and an invitation to attend a retreat for people “who keep field journals in their work.”

We share a love of watercolor – and the making of handmade books. Andie introduced me to Vamp and Tramp, those traveling purveyors of artists’ books who represent her ongoing series, “In Forests,” beautiful accordion-fold hand bound books, illuminated by paintings and words. Most of these now reside in collections of libraries and universities around the country.

Andie paints the pages of her books while seated on a little pad on the forest floor. She hikes or kayaks into wild places, carrying her art supplies in a backpack – brushes, watercolors, long sheets of paper, and easel – and immerses herself to paint. The press of development, the wildfires and bark beetle of climate change threaten her studio spaces, making observing and recording these woodland parts of the natural world ever more urgent.

Giant firs, cedars, sequoias, coastal redwoods (she has a long list of beloved trees) and their understory of berries, ferns, and fungi can be overwhelming to paint. But Andie captures the changing greens of season, the glowing light through forest canopy, and enough individual form to make species recognizable. Most days here, she headed into our nearby woods – or ranged further and longer to the old growth of the Hoh Rainforest.

Toward the end of her stay, before she went to kayak with her husband on the fjords of Vancouver Island for two weeks, we sat at my computer, and she attempted to bring my meager Photoshop skills up a level. She tried not to lecture me about my faulty filing system – I can be slapdash about organizing; she is orderly and patient.

But I’ve kept it up, “lassoing” images and making future headers (including the one below in Andie’s honor – wildflowers I drew in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains).

Thanks, Andie, for computer tutorial, visit, and long friendship!

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Armchair Series – Ireland

On this June morning, the window to my workroom stands open – sun shining, birds singing, weeds growing – the outdoors beckons. When the days of rain return, I will write about our big family adventure in May and early June. Meanwhile – two worn-velvet armchairs – purply-pink from a bedroom and blue from the sitting room of the Ferndale Guesthouse in Enniskerry, Ireland. We spent the night there before setting out to walk along the The Wicklow Way.