Quietly Tending

"Blue-Gray Morning" watercolor, 11"x15", VClaff, 2017

Here I am, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, after so many months. 

Spring is coming, some flowers are up, especially in the woodland garden. 

Today it is damp and raw and rainy, cold enough for a morning fire. 

"Afternoon" watercolor, 5"x10", VClaff, 2017

I've been busy this year, tending to my inner world that was rocked by the 

outer world and the new reality here in the United States. There is a lot to process. 

My studio has been a sanctuary, and the act of creating a refuge. I've been quiet, 

and my work - or myself inside my work - has emerged a bit from the deep forest to 

stand at the edges. Open spaces beyond the trees are visible - distant ridges, fields 

and ponds. I've been spending a lot of time with the reflections of trees and skies in 

water, and experimenting a bit with white watercolors. 

"At the Edge of the Woods" watercolor, 10"x10", VClaff, 2017

"Birches" watercolor, 5"x10", VClaff, 2017

"Snow on Pond" watercolor, 8" x10", VClaff, 2017

"Marsh Sunrise" watercolor, 7.5" x11", VClaff, 2017

March marked Rhu's third circle around the sun... he's been great company, 

as mischievous as ever, keeping me on me on my toes.

 We had a day-long visit from a barred owl, as friendly as ever. 

She watched the day unfold with one cracked eye as she snoozed on her perch.

I hope to be here more often as my days will soon open up when classes end 

tomorrow and I won't be off three days a week to teach. I appreciate 

a few followers who reached out to let me know they missed my posts

and to check to see that I was ok. In a world gone slightly mad, acts of 

kindness swell the heart.

Inspiration

I drove out on an adventure last weekend: a gray, snowy day with mists rising from icy

ground, filling the deep spaces. The cold and wet wind blew in through the car window 

as I pointed my camera towards the softened treetops and distant ridges. I can clearly 

see that this place has rooted itself in my imagination - deeply - to become the inspiration for my work. 

"Ridges", watercolor 2011

It was a strange and variable weather day. I drove through white out snows and high winds, then suddenly bright sunshine illuminated icy branches and sparkling brush. 

The day was a long, woven braid of sun and wind, snow, ice and mists. Subtle blues 

and grays played with the dancing bare branches in fields where the evergreens 

at the edge of the forests, watched. I wonder if I can do justice to the magic 

when next I put paint to paper?  As soon as I ask this I know that THIS is the quest, 

and it will never be done, because always, the next painting holds the promise of 

some other subtlety I might capture, some color, some dance of light and pattern. 

Warm days of sunshine melted almost all of the snow, 

revealing the source of other creative endeavors. 

But early March is hardly spring, and I awoke one morning to soft new snow clinging 

to the beech tree outside my bedroom window. My bed sits next to a large 

picture window, from which I see the view below. Once, an enormous bull moose 

walked under the window, his rack slowly rising from the earth as if a new tree was 

sprouting there. In the early morning light, he was dream-like, melting into the forest

with a grace that seemed incongruent with his bulky form. 

By early afternoon a warming sun turned snow to water and an endless 

shower of drops and plops was the rhythm of the day. 

Strange how fast the day shifted from cold and frozen to warm and soft and wet. 

More snow came but just as soon the sun, and my late afternoon walk yesterday

 was full of a hide-and-seek light, surprising me at every turn.