Lately, I love to work in a series.  I am making small pieces again and each one seems to lead to the next. As I assemble a group of small pieces, they gain strength.  One seems to inform the other.

It’s been nine months since my last blog post. I’d like to say how can that be? But I know. 

I stand in front of the blank sheet of beautiful Washi paper, brush in hand. Sumi ink, green gold  and brown ochre watercolors have been watered down to a consistency I like. White acrylic paint is at the ready. 

Anne Truitt writes beautifully about the influence of being born with undiagnosed nearsightedness and its influence on her view of the world and art. She speculates that it is partially why she is attracted to abstract art.

I have always loved trees and have sometimes crammed too many in a garden. When we lived in Virginia and had 11 acres, I dreamed of planting a birch tree wood. Sometimes we are saved from ourselves.

On New Year’s Eve, I like to take time to intuit about the year ahead. What might it hold for me? What are my responsibilities?  Each year is different and seems to have its own color; its own temperament. Sometimes I feel it is a year to explore, or to widen horizons, or to find the spotlight.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, I was helping my Dad plant his summer vegetable garden. I had just been to a psychology conference and was telling him about it. A topic at the conference was “transitions” and how it is best not to rush into something new but to be quiet for a while and slowly let the heart pull us in the new direction.

“. . . of or relating to the regions beyond the earth”

“. . . suggesting the heavens or heaven”

“. . . lacking material substance”

“A lifetime devoted to creativity is nothing but a scavenger hunt – where each successive clue is another tiny hit of curiosity. Pick each one up, unfold it, see where it leads you next. Small steps.” Elizabeth Gilbert

It’s hard to believe but just a few short months ago, I was so frustrated with my art work that I was ready to give up on it all together. I kept trying to paint on canvas the way I paint on paper and would make a terrible mess. Then I had to clean up the whole mess.

I’ve come to believe that time is on a different continuum when it comes to art. Think how long it takes for us mere mortals to truly see the Van Gogh’s of the world. On a much smaller scale our own artwork often needs time to settle, too.

My garden has many plants that self seed. I love foxgloves and columbines and welch poppies. They can be quite invasive, especially the poppies. I have been warned to get them out of the garden. And perhaps some day I will wish that I had. But this past spring, I loved seeing where they had set themselves.

I suspect it is a restlessness in my nature that loves movement. I love to walk. And to dance in my studio when no one is watching. I love paths in gardens because they show a way to move forward. It is with movement that my mind quiets most easily to a meditative state.

This is one of those concepts that has layer upon layer of meaning.  Books have been written on it and it seems that everyone is talking about it lately. For me, it juxtaposes new life with signs of decay to remind us to embrace all of life.

When I was little, before car seats and safety laws, I loved to curl up in the back window of our family’s sedan as we drove through the Minnesota countryside from St. Paul, MN to Fairfax, MN on the way to visit my Dad’s parents.

Perhaps it is in my genes. No matter what is happening in the close-up of my life, even a brief glimpse at the horizon will take me out of myself and remind me of the bigger picture. 

I just finished a piece that I love. It is so quiet and gentle I can almost see the soft snowbanks covering a North Dakota field.

Slow stitch requires slow time.  So often all the tasks of daily living and work soak up an urgency and I bring that urgency to the studio.  The stitch work is different then.

As I slowly put together a new field piece, I remember the first field that I loved. My “Granpie” Silvis’ vegetable garden covered an acre (or so it seems to me) on his land that fronted Sugar Lake in Minnesota. 

I love the window seat on an airplane so that I can look at the patterns made on the earth below.  Google Earth makes window seats available all the time and around the world.