Sound Tracking in the Forest

We've had a bit of rain.... and mornings 

with magical mists while I sit drinking 

coffee in the moss garden. 

The same brown mossy hill I photographed in an earlier 

post bejeweled after a rainy night. Today it is back 

to brown, but more rain is expected and this 

hill knows how to sing exuberant songs of green

after a good shower. 

Gentle ferns do a lovely dance with the wind, 

swaying back and forth and dipping into the birdbath, 

kissing the stone bird. Not many birds come to this 

little bath, but the chipmunks who live in the stump

behind it drink here in the morning before Pasha 

is out and about. 

I do love balancing stones in stacks around the gardens, 

though they always lose their little top ones when 

those same chipmunks perch there and eat acorns. 

Though we really could use a week of rain, I have 

been enjoying being outside in warm, dry 

weather. Needing to write on the computer 

today, I had the grand idea of setting up outside 

in the moss garden. It has been such a sanctuary 

this summer and mosquito free. Dappled sunshine all day 

and cool with gentle afternoon breezes. 

Strange and wonderful this world of technology, 

that I could bring my computer outside and still 

check email listening to the Baroque iTunes

channel thanks to invisible waves passing through

my router.... wonder if the sound inaudible to me

 is too much for the dragonflies... 

"Storm at Dusk", watercolor 2009

On Sunday evening I was called out by frog songs and

the just past full moon. Sometimes at night, 

in the midst of doing evening things like 

reading or listening to music, I suddenly silence 

the artificial noises and move outside into the

sounds of frogs or owls or coyotes, 

or light rain on the 

metal roof. 

quick forest sketch

Sometimes the forest sounds are just so...

so soothing and wild that I am reminded of 

  the myriad of creatures living here as they 

sing their night songs. Vast spaces

feel measurable when filled with the far-off call 

of a coyote. Last night I could track the 

path of one as it moved around the forest, 

calling, calling as it traveled. A few 

nights before I heard the clattering 

of a branch as something lighted on it. 

A moment later, as I climbed into bed, 

the owl in a tree just eight feet from 

my window began calling to its mate.

So close I could hear slight resonances 

and nuances in her call that would be 

lost at a distance. Off in the forest, 

just at the edge of my hearing, 

a faint response.  

another drawing from my youth, 

"HawK" - age 18 or so

Day sounds in the forest are often quite 

shrill due to the resident ravens. 

If you've never heard them, they are 

amazingly diverse vocalists. Sometimes

sounding like other corvids - crows mostly- 

but a bit more throaty, and other times 

creating a variety of clicks and shrieks 

that find me shaking my head or laughing. 

three night bugs on a branch

As I sit here, a sweet buzzing of crickets fills 

the night, a clear marking of the seasons 

flowing toward late summer. July is frog songs,

August crickets. The buzz invites me to shrink

and travel the spaces between grasses, 

imagining the night view of a bug. 

Teasel Time in the Garden!

Teasel - quick sketch

When the teasel blooms, its quite a spectacle!

I love the spike patterns and the strange way it 

 blooms. Sometimes it starts from the center, 

other times from the top as this one... 

what a truly amazing plant to witness - from 

dangerous to downright over the top fancy in a few days!

Weed drawing from yesterday...

(motherwort)

Balance is a good thing.... I've been 

balancing my list of art-biz tasks with

blocks of time in the studio. Some of 

the urgency around deadlines is eased, so, 

finding balance is easier. At present 

I'm mostly exploring, playing and settling

in after bringing so much old work 

back from my parents' house that 

needed to find places to live in my 

small space. 

When work is happening.... piles of paper and bits 

of inspiration fill my work table.

Two older sketches exploring natural patterns. 

I cleaned out the studio loft 

that housed nothing but empty moving 

boxes... they seemed precious at the time, 

but since I don't plan on moving,  

better to have my old work 

stored nicely somewhere. I need to 

build some shelving to house the 

HUNDREDS of old sketchbooks from 

Greece and piles of drawings my 

my parents so carefully saved.  

I think I was probably 10 or 11 when I did this one below! 

click to enlarge and read the funny signs!

This is a self-portrait from sometime 

in the 1980's - I 

KNOW my mother must have 

said it was sooo unflattering!

Below is one of my first 

paintings from Samos, Greece. 

Goats in Agios Konstantinos where I

studied art in a small studio program and 

fell in love with the land and began  

eight years of living there part-time. 

"Goats" from Summer 1987.

Below is a small diptych from graduate school, 

sometime in 1993, I think. I was playing 

with using the grain of the wood panel

as part of the image. I used this technique 

a lot in later paintings if I could find interesting 

panels. I'm still interested in this idea and want 

to explore it again. Not the best shot of it, 

but you get the idea. 

I visited my parents twice in the past few weeks, 

to finally get to the overwhelming task of 

clearing out a huge wall of work I had 

stored there. They are moving, so, finally 

I had to go do it. It was actually kind of 

entertaining to re-visit all my old images. 

My father and I laughed at some really bad stuff,

and I had a kind of semi-private retrospective 

exhibition in the basement. 

I purged quite a bit, but couldn't let go of 

sketchbooks. Some of the ones from Greece

are wonderful to look back at. I'll share some 

images from there sometime. 

My father took two trailer loads of old paintings, 

drawings, and sculpture to the dump - some awful work and

some damaged. I took carloads of large paintings, sketchbooks

and portfolios back home with me each time. 

Thank goodness for the studio loft!

someone's stone stack in the river

On the weather situation, we still have had very 

little rain. Thunderstorms seem to skirt around 

here many afternoons, but very few have 

come to the forest. Its been hot, which means

I've been swimming at the river. 

I can't quite make it home without a stone or two. 

Feeling an abundance of gratitude today while strolling 

through the garden. There is something so profoundly 

healing in sharing space with an exuberance 

of flowers and the strangely blooming teasel. 

Buzzes and flights of pollinators 

doing their thing all day is a healing thing. 

Waiting For Rain....

"Marsh Pines", watercolor, 2008

Dark clouds slink by today - we are 

waiting for rain. Its been over three weeks since we 

have had a soaking storm.  Last summer, 

we had two months straight of pouring, 

soaking, monsoons. It was miserable. This summer, 

the land is parched, and I am watering more than

I ever have before. With heavy clay soil, 

I almost never water, or rather, until this year.

The other night, the mosses sang themselves

green in celebration of a thunderstorm, 

but today, they are back to brown, 

and I am wandering about on my 

mid-day garden stroll, hose in hand, 

making sure that nothing dies while 

 waiting for the rain that is 

suppose to come. 

brown mosses waiting for rain

The resiliency of the plants is truly something. 

The mosses look dead, but one rain 

and they are vibrant and reaching and

as lush as a jungle canopy. Though the lack of

rain is hard on the plants, I can handle this 

better than the monsoons of last 

summer - as long as my well keeps flowing 

and the farms keep harvesting.... 

Still working my way through a list of art-business 

tasks, I feel myself a stranger to the studio, 

and have written ORGANIZE STUDIO on my

calendar for tomorrow. Having cleared 

years of paintings and portfolios from 

my parents' basement in preparation

for their move, I have piles of old 

work to sort and store. Getting back 

into the studio, even to organize is a

way to re-connect and feel my work again.

"Cloud Shadow", watercolor, 2008

I know myself as a cyclical creator, 

and with all the varied things I do, 

I MUST be ok with this. Right now, 

I am clearing the fields, 

planting the seeds, 

organizing the tools, 

gathering my tribe. 

And until I begin again - fully - in the studio, 

I grow purple petunias that burst in abundance 

from the window boxes, and find the perfect, 

yellow-green pot for peach-colored blooms. 

I eat my meals at one of the garden tables, 

and look through the camera lens at the 

structures, colors and patterns of 

flowers, gathering information 

for my fall classes, and understanding the 

work of Georgia O'Keefe more and more.

 

  

Inside a petunia, a cathedral with stained glass, 

and the uncurling Queen Anne's Lace reveals 

its fractal form.

What was a bed of purple lupine gives way to a 

tangle of fleabane, bee balm and black-eyed susan. 

Year after year I intend to do something more 

orderly with this garden bed. Though it never 

seems to get done. And today, while wondering 

if that rain will ever come, I am in loving appreciation

of the native plants that put up with just about 

anything and fill in the holes with their 

wild abundance. 

Its their refusal to be orderly that I love, I realize, 

and that I can depend on them, even 

in a drought. Wild and made for this 

particular place.