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The Artist’s
Almanac
February 2008
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A change is as good as a rest
- Anonymous proverb
Yesterday started warm and dank,
followed by squalls of rain that later turned steady. I spent it
in my warm studio, working a painting I enjoy, listening to the
drumbeat of the rain and to good music.
Then a storm came and took the roof
off a nearby shopping center, winds rose to sixty miles an hour, a
tornado was sighted in West Tennessee, and we were warned to ready
shelter. By midnight it went calm and the mercury plunged to
twenty. By dawn it had cleared and the morning star rose in the
east like a diamond set in blue porcelain.
February is a mess. Gone are the
dry, clear, intervals in December and January, ideal for walking
out, measuring and reflecting. We can thank the calendar makers
that it is the shortest month. They knew what they were doing.
Yet it is good wife’s favorite. The
rush of the holiday preparations past, it is a quiet time for
reading books in front of the fire and for writing. It is the
perfect time for intimate dinners with old friends and for talking
the night away.
At this season even primitive man
sought the fire and the recesses of his cave. Thomas Spencer, the
earliest white man to winter over hereabouts, survived a winter
alone in a hollow sycamore above the salt lick at Castalian
Springs.
Thomas Spencer – Bill Puryear, Artist
Nature is preparing the earth for
the next act of the drama, turning the stage to mud. We are
surprised by willow tips already yellowing green. The first
buttercups, February Gold, emerge earlier than ever expected.
Spring begins in February, thrusting through our biggest snows.
‘Change is not made without
inconvenience, even from worse to better,’ wrote Sam Johnson. We
live here in a no-mans land, subject first to winter storms from
the Great Plains, then to lows and tropical storms from the Gulf.
If our weather is never constant it is never dull. How vain to
chase the seasons when the seasons chase us.
Yet poor February, barren of leaf,
fruit or harvest, sodden and glum, blasted by frosts and storms,
enjoys the advantage of barrenness. The frozen ground offers no
distractions and is pure potential for the year’s plans. Our hopes
spring ever fresh before us in gardens without weeds. The artist
can make roses bloom in February. Perhaps we will break 90 once it
greens up this year.
Scrambling on the 14th at Fairvue – Bill Puryear, Artist.
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Bill
Puryear, Artist