March Toward Spring

     It’s easy to read wrongly something observed in the natural world but watching a small bird with a bundle of dried grass trying to begin a nest in the crook of a tree branch, I empathized, beginnings are hard!

     Truly, that beginning looked nearly impossible, bare branches, wind, the dried grass tuft just fell down. I had never thought about how birds begin the process of making dried grass and sticks into a safe and secure repository for eggs and offspring. (Later I read about the varied methods https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/)

     Windy cold spring weather hasn’t helped the task. Inexplicably, on a Thursday in mid-March, the thermometer hit 60°, and people were giddy. In celebration I considered putting away boots and snow melt from the entryway. The next day temperatures dropped, and snow was predicted to follow the cold north wind and sleety rain.

     Nonetheless, signs of spring flash! The flicker who considers our house part of its territory ratatats with a teeth-jarring explosion on the metal chimney. On my walk I hear frogs peep their songs in pools in the woods, and plants soldier on – cherry trees blaze with pink and white – and daffodils have finally spread their yellow sunshine along roads and in gardens. On the patio, anemone bloom and the paperwhites that got nowhere on the windowsill at Christmas promise to open their papery shells. Lilies spike up – reminders of July and summer heat.

     My fantasy meadow – the small patch of sloping lawn in front of our house is abloom! It was a pleasure to leave it raggedy and unmown last year and see what would come that might please pollinators. And last fall I bought early bulbs to plant in the lawn – tête à tête daffodils, crocus, grape hyacinth, and tarda tulips – hoping they could get ahead of the grass (which never did get long). But my hands could barely get the trowel in the compacted and thickly rooted lawn –– I gave up.

     But the gardeners, Alfonso and Jesus, who tend the community property part of our little neighborhood rescued me. They made short order of the basket of bulbs, and this spring flowers dot the space. They aren’t so plentiful as in my imagination (Alfonso said: “you need more!”), but they are cheerful. And this spring, given weather and world events, any cheer is good!

November Days

     Now the thankful week arrives, when we acknowledge how much we have to be grateful for every week. Including this year – disaster averted on Election Day – thank you specially to Generation Z!

On my gratitude list will be opportunities for work I’ve so enjoyed, seizing gift thoughts that float through. In one endeavor, I entertained myself greatly by making postcards for the most recent beginning-reader in the family. Utter nonsense that was so much fun to do. So I subject you to a few of the images and, forgive me, the doggerel. I send these along with Thanksgiving wishes all around!

“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!

COVID-19 Close to Home

Three Saturday nights ago, out of the blue, I began shivering, fever followed chills, and I slept restlessly all day Sunday with fever, headache, nausea. By Monday I wrote both my regular doc and my pulmonologist (from my bouts of cryptogenic organizing pneumonia, called COP), and they scheduled a test.

Eight days later it came back negative, but those eight days I’d like not to do again – perpetual body aches, headache, nausea, fever, no appetite. In all I had 17 days of fevers above what Mrs. Hughes calls “doctor fever” 100.4°.

My pulmonologist, Dr. Steven Kirtland, VM Seattle (so expert and so kind if you ever should need such a person) called on the ninth day to say ignore the test, many false negatives, you have COVID-19. He said no Advil, take Tylenol (data cautioning against ibuprofen slim but concerning).

He called again the next weekend, checking on “patients I’m worried about” – said it wasn’t inevitable I’d get COP back, but very possible – and that would be difficult, because he couldn’t prescribe the usual treatment for it with COVID-19.

But thankfully I didn’t go there, after a wretched two weeks and more functional third week, I am Recalled to Life – and appreciative beyond measure. I recognize my good fortune in medical providers and access.

On Dr. Kirtland’s last call, he said he wanted to see temperatures below 99° for three days. I have learned a lot about fever these weeks – such a difference in functionality between 99.1° and 99.9°, let alone a night of 103°. Now I write this on the fourth of April – having been below 99° since the first of April.

I have this layman theory about why the coronavirus got me. I really never got over the California bug, still a little symptomatic on return, and got briefly exposed to the coronavirus someplace. Then that Saturday we attempted a walk by the water in a stiff wind, getting so chilled we turned back. Instead of walking I wish I’d gone home to a cup of tea and not stressed my immune system further!

A corollary story is my good-natured husband, who has managed to stay good natured (in the face of my failure to perform my “wifely duties” of cooking and cleaning), and also stay healthy. Dr. Kirtland always inquires about him.

My husband attributes his health to his new civic duty – to stay home and take lots of naps. I think he has a strong immune system. We also quarantined from each other as best we could – upstairs for him, and down for me, not in the kitchen at the same time. Wiping down the most used surfaces. You know the drill. Still, he was royally exposed.

Last week, as the fever diminished, I had what my local and beloved doc (Dr. Jillian Worth, VM Bainbridge Clinic) called “the last gasp” – a little conjunctivitis and swollen occipital nodes on the back of my head (who knew those were even there!). They’ve gone now too.

We all know how devastating the bad cases can be – but the mild ones offer no picnic. All the efforts to stay safe and be more sensible than I was will pay off! I write this because I read and reread the two accounts of COVID-19 I knew about, a younger Seattle woman who had fever for five days, a Bainbridge woman who had fever for 13 or so, and spent time in the hospital. I felt very disappointed to go past the five days, and very thankful to stay out of hospital.

My gratitude truly knows no bounds, grateful for our old friends on Bainbridge who brought food and still bring groceries, and our sons who text and cheer and keep us in touch.

I send this cautionary tale along with another guest illustrator appearance by Sweet B. This one, a view “looking down at the world” seems full of rainbow hope – and charming critters!

A Couple of Images from Christmas Just Passed

The Alaskans’ Christmas card was the cleverest ever! The back shows a smiling snapshot of Lady B and Baby Brother, but on the front is a drawing made one night at dinner by Lady B and depicting, as her mom said, “her parents – besotted with their children and absolutely exhausted.”

It arrived while Sweet Baby was here for the holiday (and such a good holiday!). The second she saw the card, Sweet Baby sat down (for a good long time), inspired by her cousin to draw a large and colorful version of her aunt and uncle and their house with a wreath on the door!

It’s winter break time — time to recharge on dark days (although today we have sunshine and I can see tulip and daffodil starts in the garden)! The blog starts its 11th year (!), but I’ll be back I think.

Thanks so much for reading – may your new year be off to a fine start!

December Days

Bustle – and I hope it is cheery bustle for you all – not just the stress of “to do” lists!

Music and lights and evergreen garlands, flashes of red and green and gold interrupt the dark, wet gloom outdoors. I always love this season, and this year more than ever in my gratitude for life and mobility. But am I behind in all I’d like to do? Oh, yes!

In Hawaii, Lady B, her brother and Sweet Baby added their creative touches to our Christmas cards – between swimming in pool and ocean, they sat at a table outside the sliding door and used watercolors (including swell metallic ones), colored pencils, and rubber stamps to make every card unique and colorful.

So, before I begin to mail them off, I’ll post a handful – though it’s hard to select just a few – I love them all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day on the trip, I found Sweet Baby and her parents at work – brushes in hand – so I can’t resist adding two of their cards.

Week Four of Teacups for November

Week Three of Teacups for November

Week Two of Teacups for November

Week One of Teacups for November

“Twenty-five Teacups”

Opening this Friday evening, November 1^st, Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, the gallery where I show my work, will host “Tea Party” – a multi-media exhibition. I was invited to participate early last summer, and my “Twenty-Five Teacups” will be at the party.

Because I love everything about tea – the warmth, the lift, the comfort – and the cups – whether reaching for a favorite at home or choosing from a good grouping at a friend’s house, I was excited right away to be included.

All spring I’d been thinking about pattern and the Souleaido squares were still on my worktable, so I began there, settling on a grid of twenty-five squares, composed of two patterns (wallpaper and tablecloth) and a teacup (mug or cup and saucer, each has its time). I adapted some of the fabric squares and had fun searching for other inspiration to make up backgrounds (learning a lot about the little motifs used in patterns for centuries).

I rearranged repeatedly (my painter friend encouraged my keeping on through many photo texts). I enjoyed manipulating the color, shape, and stylized flowers in the patterns. Then, with all the backgrounds and cup silhouettes complete, I decorated the cups with more recognizable flower species – from this summer’s garden, from my morning walk, and from my old work.

The squares are small (5½” x 5½”), on heavy Fabriano paper. The gallery plans to hang them unframed in a grid (attached by tiny, powerful magnets), and price them at $65.00.

I will post all 25 teacups for a while here on “Her spirits rose…,” beginning with “Teacup Seventeen” (Helenium) – orange flowers for this Hallowe’en week!

 

That Time Again

Viviva Colorsheets!

Bainbridge Island Coast-to-Coast

 **(To Alaska readers, please know I send my best wishes – may you have suffered little damage and recover quickly. The quake and afterquakes seem terrifying and exhausting, and I’ve been thinking about all of you, sure you carry on bravely, like the Downtown Abbey crew, enduring what my old neighbor called the “new normal.” xo)**

My young friend’s parents once walked across the north of England on a 10-day trip – from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. I’ve envied that ever since because islands captivate me – all that water, all that coastline with indents and outjuts of land, and the possibility of a point-to-point walk from one coast to the other!

And Bainbridge, a little wider, but shorter than Manhattan Island, can be crossed on foot via a five-mile linking of trails, heading northwest from the east side. So on a miraculously sunny Sunday in November, Sweet Baby, her dad, our young friend’s dad (who made a previous crossing), Papa Jim, and I set out.

I made a handful of the little watercolors from the trip – added here to tell the tale. The route offers interesting sights along the way: a miniature pony and little goats (with a jar of pellets, so passersby could feed them), a derelict high-up treehouse, tall conifers, trees dropping orange-brown leaves, sunshiny meadow, views, and opportunities for lots of laughing!