There used to be this wonderful arched gate nestled into a walled courtyard I would pass in Georgetown that boasted a marvelous coif of trumpet vine. I think that is what was in my minds eye when I planted the vine and installed the blue gate. It was one of those lyrics of place that I never painted and wished I had. Perhaps I lacked the wisdom then to appreciate what I saw on a daily walk. I was far to busy trekking up the banks of the Potomac river seeking out the unusual and adventuresome. This little painting is my homage to the lost lyric.

Gardening is such an act of faith. You cast your seed and blend your elements. Then you wait for sun, rain and wind to work there magic and stand back in awe of what has been revealed. It's a lot like painting. You choose your subject and blend your elements, allow the accidents of the day play into your work and if you are lucky everything falls into it's rightful place. This painting was pretty much like that.

What I found engaging in this piece is the back lighting of the woods. It set a challenge for me to see if I could understand how to express the feeling it evoked in me. It seemed to intensify the play of light and dark and the use of color in the foreground. I almost feel intoxicated or heady by the play of light across the canvas. this was painted late June/ early July.

This is a small pond that greets visitors as they meander to our front door. It's just a delightful interlude to encounter as we go forth for the day. Japanese ferns, iris and lilies create a wonderful neighborhood for the resident frogs and occasional snake. What caught my attention is how the dappled light set off the elements and allows the eye to travel along the path to yet another surprise. It's so easy to walk by our daily epiphanies without noticing. I find there are times when I am not focused visually I can easily ignore mind snapping beauty. But when I'm attuned and exquisitely tapped into the visual stimulus it can literally overwhelm my capacity to assimilate the beauty that surrounds me moment by moment

Wow where has the summer gone? The series is progressing slower than I had hoped for actual paintings. But I have a good photographic portfolio to draw on as we approach winter. This piece is from late May with the honeysuckle in bloom. Funny, I noticed today that there are new honeysuckle blossoms. We have had a very rainy and extremely warm season. The garden has been flooded on several occasions, at times under two to three feet. So I have lost all my mulch and there has been a good bit of soil erosion. After last year's drought I dare not complain but the perennials have not had an easy time of it! I have a few older paintings of the garden that I will be posting as well. I hope you enjoy them. Please contact me via the website if you are interested in purchasing a piece.

This month I've begun a new series called "The Blue Garden". For now it's evolving as a sequence of small intimate paintings as the garden unfolds across the weeks. All are executed en plein air to achieve the most immediacy. What I find interesting is that even though I have designed and planted the garden myself , painting it affords a "knowing " unlike any other method I can think of. I often spend an evening sitting by the pond watching the fish, snapping turtle,frogs and dragonflies do their dance. It is a marvelous place to unwind and recharge. But the intensity of focus necessary to paint it and respond to it on that level is quite different. It requires resonating to it's lovely vibration and translating that vibration to canvas by color and brushstroke. My expectation is that these small snap shots will evolve into larger studio pieces through the winter when I need to languish in today's warmth which they forecast to be a 100 degrees! Plein air in this weather is not for the feint of heart!

The Lyric of Spring

The relentless march to spring is underway in North Carolina. Despite the mid-twenties in early morning. The daphne is gracing my garden with its lovely fragrance. Tulips split the soil with their fragile leaf tips, tender buds expecting to become luscious figs appear on seemingly dead bark and the apricot has almost completed its bloom cycle despite the frost. You can almost feel the earth leaning into the sun for just a bit more warmth as the days lengthen. A robin sang the other morning in the crisp air and appeared with three friends for a weekend sunbath. It's such a wonderful time of year. It's as ifI can feel my sap rise and everyday brings a host of new painting ideas.

The original Lyric of Place

The phrase Lyric of Place was used as an exhibit title for which this painting "Coastal Poppies" was the centerpiece. I like to paint for a show so that each individual painting stands on it's own but also is an intergral part of the whole. This particular show had a number of medium sized canvases painted in pleine air as well as a series of 11 x 14" works. The challenge I set for myself in this painting was to take everything that pleine air painting teaches me and transfer it to a studio piece that literally stretched my reach since it is 72 x 48". And what a delight it was! The sheer size required that I dance with the canvas in order to paint it. This was actually one of those landscapes that I was driving through on the way home from a beach vacation. Lucky I had the digital camera at the ready this time. The dramatic size and bold colors though presented it's own challenge when it came to finding it a home. We did several horizontal works using a similar theme as commissions - I'm actually painting another presently. But I received a call from Bill Hester Fine Art in Chapel Hill,NC that it has just been placed. Thank you Bill!