|
The Artist’s
Almanac
May 2005
download and print this installment as
a PDF
(you will need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this file, you can
get
it here free)
When the Present has latched its
postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbors say,
‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?
-Thomas Hardy
We’ve waited all year
for this. The trees decked in billowy new dresses, creeks murmuring
fresh water, hungry fish, calm nights with Venus rising after
twilight – how can we use it all?
The lacy dogwood
delights us and is gone. Local strawberries come in a rush and we
gorge on shortcakes, remembering Sam Johnson’s observation:
Doubtless God could have made a better berry; doubtless He did not.
Green peas, new
potatoes with butter and fresh dill, lettuce and radishes - all are
in now. A special appetizer for us each year is watercress, gathered
fresh from the branch at Cool Springs, arrayed on mayonnaised bread
cutouts, and garnished with crumbled bacon. Chilled watercress soup
will follow.
Roses gather in
throngs and spend themselves covering our stone wall with glory,
showering their petals like snow. Peonies amaze us anew and adorn
the sun-dappled shade with their sensuous beauty, their huge blooms
fragrant and voluptuous.
We invite our roses
and peonies inside to share our living space like good friends. The
irises are a bit too formal for that, and the gorgeous lilies are
not housebroken and will stain our dining cloths with their
indelible pollens. Better to enjoy them at a distance and paint
them. My mother preserved the fragrance of her large rose garden
with the finest of potpourri, the scent of which I can still recall
to memory.
All the senses
celebrate May. We finger the sticky little leaves and think of
Dostoevsky’s remarkable passage in The Brothers Karamazov. The
mockingbird has new tunes for us to hear this year and the crushed
mint perfumes our bourbon julep on Derby Day. It is time now to wade
in the creek with our children and feel the minnows nibbling our
toes, to catch crawdads for bass bait, or to find the perfect fossil
brachiopod and reflect upon the mystery of geologic time. We take
our new grandchild’s hand in ours and introduce her to the mystery
of fireflies in long summer twilight.
Why must Nature be so
prodigal? Can she not save a bit of herself for baked August or
spare a rose for Christmas?
The artist grasps at
fleeting beauty, stealing from nature a bit of herself to be enjoyed
at leisure on long winter nights. Wordsworth described Art as
passion recollected in tranquillity. Beethoven invites us to
experience a flowing stream in the second movement his sixth
symphony, the Pastoral, and his Leonore Overture will
always bring fresh my memory of Chilhowee Mountain and my first
watercolor, that of Little River in the Smokies. John Prine’s
Muhlenberg County recalls fishing with his Dad along the Green
River in the time before “Mr. Peabody’s Coal Train carried it away”.
The plein air painter
worth his salt will be out and about now, in May, gathering
fragments of light. On rainy days he will be in the studio enlarging
his sketches or arranging a floral display which will bloom all
year.
Gather ye rosbuds
while you may…
Visit our website, for some new
watercolors, plein air sketches and a couple of large oils
And please join us as our guest at The Harding 2005 Show.
Thursday, May 5th 6-9PM, Shuttle
Parking At Belle Meade Methodist Church
Friday, May 6th, 10AM-9PM, On Campus Parking
Saturday My 7th 10AM-4PM, On Campus Parking
|
