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The Artist’s
Almanac
April 2004
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April, at last, and
suddenly it’s uncomfortable to be inside. Try as we may, we cannot
remember winter.
Growth everywhere,
carpets of magenta wildflowers, red buds bursting green, and weeds
getting a head start. The lawn threatens to hide the house and the
mower won’t start. Roses must be uncovered and pruned hard. We are
already behind on Spring plowing and planting. April’s are the most
used up days of the year.
Asparagus tips are up
and delicious, cut fresh and served on salads. It is the only
perennial vegetable, except for rhubarb, which can’t survive
Tennessee’s summer. But the legendary Tennessee tomatoes thrive in
it, and they must be planted now if we are to have bragging rights
on the Fourth of July.
The Artist’s studio is
suddenly darker and challenges the painter to be abroad, capturing
the moods of spring’s skies. Sketches are seeds, most of which waste
away or die aborning. A few may mature to paintings, and a few of
those survive.
Tax time clears the
last of last year’s obligations, and short of cash, but replete with
plans, we begin the ancient cycle of planning, plowing, planting,
tending, and harvest.
For painter, planter
and planner, April is the season of hope. She comes to us now,
bearing Easter and promise, as a season of renewal. Like a young
girl, wide eyed and fresh from the garden, her hair moist with rain,
in her hand a clutch of the rainbow blooming abroad, she offers us
the best she has, asking, what will you make of these?
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