February’s Browns and Grays
February 9, 2016
“January and February are my favorite months. I like the bare branches of trees, structure become visible, and the subtle colors, all sorts of varieties of browns and grays that are seen only at this time of year, brought into focus by the pellucid light that is as close an analogy as I know to the silence out of which my work emerges.”
— Anne Truitt, Prospect: The Journal of an Artist
Here are some of the beautiful grays and browns in my Seattle landscape this February:
Still Pouring, Only Worse
January 21, 2016
“Still pouring, only worse. Poor world, she looks so desolate and depressed, as if she did not know what to do with all the wet. The earth won’t hold anymore. The sea is full and the low clouds are too heavy to hold up. The sky leaks, earth oozes, so the wetness sits in the air between and grumbles into your breath and bones . . . ”
— Emily Carr, from Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of an Artist
“Everything broods today, the sky low and heavy. Was there ever a sun?”
— Emily Carr, from Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of an Artist
January, the Hardest Month
January 13, 2016
Nature’s Remedy
January 10, 2015
“When it is wintertime in your life, you are going through pain, difficulty, or turbulence. At such times it is wise to follow the instinct of nature and withdraw into yourself. When it is winter in your soul, it is unwise to pursue any new endeavors. You have to lie low and shelter until this bleak, emptying time passes on. This is nature’s remedy. It minds itself in hibernation. When there is great pain in your life, you, too, need sanctuary in the shelter of your own soul.”
— John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
This has been a winter of hibernation for me. My interior landscape seems to mirror the gray monochromatic winter outside. I don’t mind withdrawing, pulling back, letting go of ambitions while I re-group and lie fallow. I just wish I were a more skilled thinker. My thoughts seem to scatter all over the place. I wonder if I ever have anything original to say. My habit of copying quotes from my reading — words and phrases that resonate with me — makes it so easy to defer to other people’s voices. They seem much more skilled at saying what I mean than I do!
Here’s a scary thought: what would happen if I stopped reading books, even for a month or a year. Would I start hearing my own voice more clearly? (I can tell how addicted I am to reading by how absolutely reluctant I am to act on this idea!!) Do I need to reclaim my own life?
The Perfect Time to Go a Budding
February 24, 2014
“In winter when there are no flowers, and leaves are rare, even larger buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a budding like a partridge.”
— Henry David Thoreau, from Winter: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 8, January 31, 1854
Many trees and bushes are actively budding right now. I saw these azalea buds along the Azalea Way path at the arboretum.
And the magnolias are simply profligate with their showy, soft-as-mouse-fur, perky, candle-flame buds.
Branches Big with Snow
February 10, 2014
“Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.”
— Thomas Hardy, from “Snow in the Suburbs”
The White Page on Which We Write Our Hearts
January 6, 2014
“Winter is . . . the white page on which we write our hearts.”
Adam Gopnik, Winter: Five Windows on the Season
Eisblumen: German for hoarfrost ice flowers
“On a lonely winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence.”
— John Keats
Adam Gopnik sees the poetry in winter. His book, Winter: Five Windows on the Season, explores “why winter, a season long seen as a sign of nature’s withdrawal from grace, has become for us a time of human warmth.” He talks about the sublime side of winter, how it inspires fear, awe and mystery while remaining potentially lethal. Gopnik says that a love of winter is a modern sensibility, evolving only after the use of cheap and abundant coal and central heating.
“Winter’s persona changes with our perception of safety from it — the glass of the window . . . is the lens through which modern winter is always seen. The romance of winter is possible only when we have a warm, secure indoors to retreat to, and winter becomes a season to look at as much as one to live through.”
Winter’s Gems
December 31, 2013
Short Winter Days
December 14, 2013
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
— John Burroughs, from The Writings of John Burroughs, vol. 15, The Summit of the Years
Night falls early. Like Burroughs, I find the days much too short for everything I want to do. Unfortunately, picking up a paintbrush has fallen to the wayside. One day soon I will get back to making paintings. For now, I am enjoying reading and incubating some thoughts.
I did rouse myself to walk to a neighborhood coffeeshop, though, and took these photos along the way: