Gothic Garden

Gothic Garden is part of the Gardenscape Series I have worked on recently.  The goal of this image was to portray the haunting quality of the Southern garden with all its thick foliage, deep color and reflection of light.

Actually, this painting surprised me with the light reflection.  It was more than I envisioned as I started painting it. 

Ghinko on Black

What a difference a background makes for an image.  On blace the gold of the ghinko leaves just seem to burst off the page. 

Thanks Be To God for the Little Gold Dress of Fall

The ghinko is my favorite icon of autumn, so it should be no surprise that it will be the theme of the postcard ad and bulletin cover for my church's  Thanksgiving service this year.   All this image needs is my friend's calligraphy "Thanks Be To God" placed in the center.    

It is hard to design with the ghinko leaf without becoming "craftsman" in attitude.  It has such clean, crisp and elegant little leaves, completely brilliant when grouped against a dark blue Alabama autumn sky.  Compared with flashier fall leaves, in shape the ghinko becomes the equivalent of the quietly tasteful little black dress; as its color dazzels one to ponder how such brillance can appear and disappear so quickly.   

The ghinko in my side yard and the ghinko in my church's side yard define the arrival of spring and fall for me, the cool lime green splash in spring and the warming gold in fall.  When leaves start to appear on the rug inside the front door, fall is officially in full swing.  Year after year I take the same photos.  Nothing much changes, but I have to capture the glitter one more time.  But I see, in my mind's eye, the different falls under the huge tree.  The year my nephew, Joseph who, while learning to walk, surfed through the gold leaves beneath the tree and learned to kick and laugh...the puppy, Parker, playing under the tree on a  Halloween about nine years ago...the blue bench and chair that sat under the tree for so many years... the tree I visited in fall before it came to belong to me and the relief I felt when Hurricane Opal spared her in 1995 while downing her neighbors.         

Thank God for such cyclical beauty.  What a spectacular gift.   Thanks be to God for all the blessings of this life, including, but not limited to, the ghinko.

Symbol for Gratitude

I am looking for a symbol of gratitude, thankfulness...all of the emotions we feel at Thanksgiving.  

This is harder than it might appear.  Thanksgiving is a national holiday recognized by the church, but there are no liturgical thanksgiving symbols on which to draw.  Somehow I can't see a little pilgrim in the Episcopal Church, and I cannot, for the life of me, find a way to turn a pumpkin and haystack into an appropriate postcard and service bulletin art for my church's Thanksgiving service.  

Then there are images of harvest and abundance, like wheat.  Maybe.  But the cornicopia (along with the pilgrim) were overused and worn out long ago.  And for sure turkeys are completely out.  Somehow I just do not see the service bulletin being adorned by what we slaughter and stuff in our faces on this most significant of occasions.

I have learned that the bellflower (campanula, canterbury bells) is a floral symbol for gratitude, especially white, so that might be something with which to work. 

Another angle might be just a seasonal image, like a ghinko or maple, with all that fabulous color. 

It is amazing to realize the I cannot come up with one liturgically significant symbol that says "Thanks be to God for all the blessings of this life" despite the fact those words weave through our liturgy constantly. 

Maybe we need to invent a Thanks be to God symbol. 

Colours to Delight the Celestial Eye

I am grateful that I experience synchronicity on a regular basis.  A few days ago I looked at the fall foliage and thought that heaven just has to have color because I cannot imagine joy without color.

That night while reading Exuberance, The Passion for Life by Kay Redfield Jamison I came across the following quotation by Churchill: 

"I must say I like bright colours.  I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours.  I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.  When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.  But then I shall require a still gayer palette than I get here below.  I expect orange and vermillion will be the darkest, dullest colours upon it, and beyond them will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye."

Yes.

War Eagle!

Auburn 27, Florida 17.

Tiger flew over Jordan Hare tonight - the fifth largest city in the state of Alabama when Auburn plays a home game.  And Tiger always returns rather than fly off to the wild.  It is one of the most beautiful sights I can ever imagine. 

The story of Auburn's eagle, named Tiger, is that the tradition began with a Confederate soldier who found himself and a baby eagle to be the only survivors on a battlefield.  The soldier returned to Auburn taking his little eagle he named Tiger with him.

And Auburn has had an eagle named Tiger ever since.

So, War Eagle! 

God's Book of Paintings

An Aztec song:

With flowers You paint, O Giver of Life!
With songs You give color, with songs you give life on the earth.
Later you will destroy eagles and tigers: we live only in your painting here, on the earth.
With black ink you will blot out all that was friendship, brotherhood, nobility.
You give shading to those who will live on the earth...
we live only in Your book of paintings, here on the earth.

What a thought: 

while on earth we live only in God's book of paintings,  beloved creations in his portfolio.  Which implies that God keeps the good paintings and those that don't hold up or perform so well, shaded (and shaped?) on earth until we are blotted out by black ink. 

I would prefer to think that we are blotted out by white ink, consumed by light. 

Either way, not erased.

Nature's Altar

Last Sunday I went to my church's 8:00 a.m. Eucharist so I could skip the 10:30 service to go on a photo shoot.  After helping set up an altar on a picnic table at Chewacla State Park (for our yearly outdoor Eucharist)  I headed down the side of a mountain on an almost nonexistent path to make my way to the creek and falls, proving to my church that I am as strange as they know me to be.  Holding on to trees on the very steep decline I kept wondering if I would start having fun at some point.  Then I heard the water in the distance.  Oh, my, water in the distance will draw me faster than anything I can imagine, so I plunged on down and made it (wondering if I would ever make it back up). 

Words cannot describe the beauty of such a place that looks like it must have looked before touched by a form of humans who do not respect nature.  On this type of day (I call a blue/gold day of Fall) everything glimmered in the sun and wind.  I wondered about my native American ancestors who lived in a world like this - hard and beautiful - who did not have trouble believing rocks had souls as they talked with animals, the Great Spirit whispering in their ears.  I felt like that alone on the creek marveling at the revelation of beauty hidden down there on the rocks as the people of God up above tried to find the Great Spirit under a state park pavilion, never knowing, never knowing.    

I photographed a rock that looks like an altar.  Too bad the church couldn't bring the Eucharist down to the creek and set it up on the rock.  It would have been lovely. 

Think Quickly

The Association for Psychological Science  reports that a study entitled "Manic Thinking: Independent Effects of Thought Speed and Thought Content on Mood", co-authored by Emily Pronin of Princeton University and Daniel Wegner of Harvard University, concludes that when people are made to think quickly, they report feeling happier, being more energetic, more creative, more powerful, and more self-assured. 

Which might lead one to think that being manic has its benefits. 

Winning a Face

The ancient Aztecs believed we are born without a face and that we must win our faces bit by bit as we grow. If we lie, or if we are not clear about what we want to say, we will have a face without form. Only with an authentic face will we be able to come out of Tlalticpac, the world of dreams.