Garden: Saturday Morning

I’m sitting in the garden. It’s Saturday morning. I made it halfway out to my office, which is in my garage, out back.

I’m weeping. I’m weeping because my heart is spilling over. I stepped out on the back porch with my briefcase: Busy Bee, Busy Bee…gotta get some extra work done…mentoring a colleague in a few hours, must clean up the office…tons of work…..just figured out how to use InDesign to get my book into production…It’s quiet in the house, the yard.  A blissful Saturday morning; the sun is finally shining, and it’s spring. It’s finally spring.

I step outside and hear all these birds –it’s a symphony. They are so beautiful. The world is alive…Alive with sweet songs and whistles and staccato twitters and I just have to sit down halfway down the path and perch my behind on a cold slate step. I just have to stop and listen. My heart is so full.

This is my garden. This is my sanctuary. This is me creating a space of beauty and serenity, in the middle of a busy life.  And it just makes me so appreciative for everything I have and it reminds me to stop…and feel.   These epiphanies – this place of richness and depth – is new and unexpected.  I’m having these moments of discovery more and more when I stop. Stop and take a moment to breathe.

 

It brings to mind the poem by David Whyte, “The House of Belonging”

I awoke

this morning

in the gold light

turning this way

and that

 

thinking for a

moment

it was one

day

like any other.

 

But

the veil had gone

from my

darkened heart

and

I thought

 

it must have been the quiet

candlelight

that filled my room

 

it must have been

the first

easy rhythm

with which I breathed

myself to sleep

 

it must have been

the prayer I said

speaking to the otherness

of the night.

 

And

I thought

this is the good day

you could

meet your love

 

this is the black day

someone close

to you could die.                              

 

This is the day

you realize

how easily the thread

is broken

between this world

and the next

 

and I found myself

sitting up

in the quiet pathway

of light.

 

The tawny

close grained cedar

burning round

me like fire

and all the angels of this housely

heaven ascending

through the first

roof of light

the sun had made.

 

This is the bright home

in which I live

this is where

I ask

my friends to come

this is where I want

to love all the things

it has taken me so long

to learn to love.

 

This is the temple

of my adult aloneness

and I belong to my life.

 

There is no house

like the house of belonging.

 

I’m taking in the huge infinity of wonder and good will and gratitude and I’m learning to just stop and appreciate the beauty of nature and the moment. In my mid-fifties it’s a new and exciting experience that’s taking me by surprise. And it’s glorious.

 

Every Leaf

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

…..

– Emily Bronte

I’ve always loved this poem. Particularly the line “Every leaf speaks bliss to me”…. And they do. As an artist who does a lot of looking-at-nature, leaves fascinate me and seem to me to be works of art unto themselves.

These leaves, from my ornamental cherry tree in the front yard, are stunning…luminous. I picked them up off the sidewalk as I approached my front stairs the other day.

In the background is a lovely scarf I bought from Maiwa Handprints on Granville Island. It has   three layers of feather light wool, interwoven to connect them together, in many gorgeous warm shades. It’s a work of art too.

William Blake said, in his ode “To Autumn”: “pass not, but sit…. Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers”….. Yes, the lusty song of autumn, the sumptuousness of colour, of maturation, fullness, richness. It’s been a delight.

My Day Job

 

Not all of the time, but some of the time I get to create unique, amazing spaces in my role as an interior designer who specializes in health care design.

This was a particularly sweet project, at a local hospital. My Health Authority client has moved from having “Chapels” to having “Sacred Spaces” that are denomination neutral and available for all to use (along with their own faith’s worship materials) or just for peaceful meditation. The guidelines state that the space must remain neutral and use universally appealing elements of nature to be welcoming and comfortable for all. Mother Nature certainly has unmatched universal appeal and is being used more and more throughout health care facilities as colour inspiration, and in artwork, and thematic elements.

After a brief discussion I did a concept sketch of what I thought would be that peaceful place: sitting in the tall grass, leaning back, and seeing bright blue sky above. And it would be geographically relevant: there are some lovely rivers (Fraser, Alouette and Pitt) in the Fraser Valley, located in the southwestern corner of British Columbia. I grew up in this area through my teens, I know it well, love it, and fortunately still live within a half hours drive.

The room was built as an ellipse, and where I had considered panels of grasses set in resin, the user group wanted to see nature photography. This is the great thing about the design process: you start somewhere and then let it grow organically. I was happy to incorporate their suggestion, and commissioned my talented photographer colleague, Jerald Walliser, to take a photo that would work in the space.   He went out and shot this photo mural from the Pitt River Bridge looking east towards the Golden Ears Mountains, in Pitt Meadows, just a few miles from the Hospital.

 

 

Serene watery blues showed up in the carpet and furniture but were warmed and contrasted by the wood surfaces. An airbrush artist created a soft blue sky in the vaulted ceiling circle with a few wisps of clouds.

Most of the time, I’m writing specifications, checking drawings, detailing cabinetry, reading meeting minutes for large hospital projects….this job offered such delight in designing something unique. The client group was great, the construction manager was so efficient and organized. It was a dream job.

It opened recently to a hospital community who was thrilled to have such a space…..On to the next!

Here are a few “in progress” shots I took along the way, every few weeks while it was under construction:

The Book Beckons

It is very heady and exciting working on my book. Nearly 100 first draft essays have almost all been given a once-over again. Along with my enthusiastic and talented photographer Kathy, shown above, we’ve completed 10 photo shoots over the last year. Now it’s time to put it all together.

I’m working on a physical print mockup. I can see it completed in my head (most of my projects come to me as a photo in my mind of some kind of finished/complete thing…). I think it’s best now to create a mock up and start getting some advice on fine tuning – and make it more “real”.

I’ve said for many years: “There’s a book inside me”. Still it feels surreal that I am actually working on completing one….am I ??? I hope so! I do want to give birth to it, to see it complete. That is the first step. Where it goes from there? We’ll see. I battle with the two opposing voices in my head: the one that says: “Really? What do you have to say???” and the other: “Your ideas are fantastic!!!” As a lifelong writer said: we must put forth and write what is true to us. We are unique and wonderful as we are. Speak from the heart, speak your truth and share it fully, with an open heart.

I love the many facets of my creative life, and how I can appreciate the art and beauty we see around us daily – the sacred in the everyday. How nature’s designs are so exquisite, how we can create art with our food, our clothing, our gardens, our words, our voices…How we can share the sublime appreciation of all this with friends, family, partners….

Last week we were busy shooting all kinds of fill-in bits, and the power went out! It was pretty dark in the house, so we moved out to the front porch. The southern (albeit cloudy) sky was more than adequate to shoot my cousin Susan’s gorgeous floral painted silk scarf. Kathy has taught me so much about photographing in natural light – something she does almost exclusively. Things do look particularly beautiful (and natural!) in natural light.

Stay tuned as we head into the homestretch. I can’t wait to have more to report.

Six Flowers

I’ve been gathering ideas for the next artwork series. I’ve always loved flowers, leaves, stones, skies – any bit of natural design that I come in contact with. I also love getting flowers and having flowers on the kitchen island. I marvel at their beauty and complexity and symmetry; the layers and patterns/arrangements of their petals and components. Each one is a masterpiece, really.

So I’m thinking of some large-ish canvases, maybe 36” square, and want to explore their “close-ups”. I love to work with colour and layers of tissue and other art papers. I think these will lend themselves well to that. I have the canvases. Time to get into the studio.

Stay tuned!

Morning

I revel in the earlier daylight, in spring, in the hint of warmth in the air. Now that I’m able to wake up around sunrise, instead of crawling out of bed in the dark, I’m fondly remembering one of my favorite poems, by Emily Dickinson:

Noon—is the Hinge of Day
Evening—the Tissue Door
Morning—the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar

That is what it feels like these mornings: the east compelling the sill. Wake up! Spring to life! Behold!

Dickinson’s words were the ones that lured me into giving poetry a chance; sampling what it had to offer – they facilitated the beginning of a love affair with poetry. The phrases in this particular work inspired me to create a few paintings, way back…

These spring mornings feel that way too: inspiring a love affair with the world.