Studio Snapshot
The Garden
There is a Season
January 21, 2022
Friday
9:23 p.m.
Planting a Seed
I have an idea for a painting, and can't come up with the image. Instead, I write it out. Like when I write a page in my journal. When I want to sort out my thoughts.
The problem is that sometimes the image just doesn't come into my head, no matter how hard I try. When this happens, the words that I write are what end up on the canvas. “The Garden” is pretty much a journal page painting.
Cultivating
On the canvas, I paint the words first. The words read like an open-form of poetry, poetry that doesn't follow a strict set of rules (thank goodness). The words need to balance on the canvas just right. So, I take a good amount of time here to work out my composition. Much editing happens. I use paint and a paintbrush to do this. No autocorrect. No eraser. No tossing crumpled paper balls into a waste basket.
The text finally falls into place and I'm satisfied. I add the layers of color. The colors in The Garden are blues, greens and browns- my earth colors. Texture is important here too. I want it to look as if I had taken a stick and had written my words in the garden dirt. It all comes together when the words and the paint are united, when they relate to each other.
Harvesting
"Digging in the earth is such a simple way to feel grounded."
—Author Unknown
We think of a Garden, typically, as a plot of ground used for growing plants. But, can a Garden represent something else- a metaphor for our brain, our cerebrum, our thinker, our head, our psyche... our mind? Can a Garden, like our mind, be thought of as a safe enclosure? A place where we are free to think, meditate, contemplate, to unearth.
a place to dig up or put to rest.
a place to make a kind of peace.
a place to create a sense of well being.
a place to grow?
A garden, like our mind, has the potential to reward with a kind of spiritual calm. Soul and innocence. New life. We can turn a season of pulling weeds into a season of flowering... or into a painting.
"Advice from a garden—Cultivate lasting friendships, sow seeds of kindness. Listen to the sage advice. Don't let the little things bug you. Be outstanding in your field. Take thyme for yourself. No vining!"
—Author unknown
Your turn. What does a Garden mean to you? Feel free to share in the comments.
Happy Gardening-Lenore
