Seasonal Influence
These collaged watercolors, mutable installations and videos (coming soon) explore sensations of the seasons as I know them in the Pacific Northwest.
I’ve written about this theme. My written and visual work support one another. Neither one is an illustration. Simply skip to the bottom for links to images.
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Freely painted pieces of paper inspired by walks, gardening and sensing followed by countless and fussy adjustments to compose hundreds of pieces until color and mark suggest seasonal timelines.
Cyclamen’s clean white, cherry blossom baby pink, and Star Magnolia’s purple pink. The start of azalea and rhodi to come. Calendula and longer days. Columbine and colored blue skies. Succulent hens will soon make chicks.
Daisy faces, rose buds, geranium bouquets and lavender scents. Celery, cilantro and carrot, garlic, ginger and sage. Climatus, jasmine and honeysuckle. Shrubby bushes and manicured lawns. The forest floor with dappled light thanks to small leafed trees and towering hundred-year-old spruce.
The start of duff at first with green leaves faded toward olive. Celadon, blue and violet florets all at once on the same hydrangea as it bows at the close of the summer season. Champagne and peach. Fir, ferns and fruiting persimmon. Maples, Katsura and Ironwood. Purple red cercus seemingly bruised but beautiful. Tulip Poplars. Fire King Crocosmia and Purple Aster. Fading bamboo. Rains begin and the sky has the beginnings of a temper.
White rain by day and shimmering silver wet black at night. Skies in all shades of white to grey with the occasional break of sunlight. Pint size and penny size drops. The forest floors are deep chocolate. Hearty limbs sustain chill and frost. Trees drink and hold water for the coming dry season. The grey goes on and on punctuated by night. Some evenings, you can see the stars. Nights are darkest furthest from light; a pewter-gray hovers here in the city. Then, the long tease begins. Days fluctuate between wet and just moist. Clouds part for a spell, then snow drops. Burgundy hellebore and hot red, yellow centered camellia startle the uninitiated, bursting and sustaining themselves under cover of snow and ice. Blue green spears of iris and egg yellow pricks of crocus climb their way out from dormancy.
Heat builds. Days flash with reasons to spend more hours outside. Snowbells sprout. Daffodils break spring open. Yellow finch flit in yellow, black and white. Anna’s hummingbirds click and flash. Daphne’s drunken nectar welcomes spring.
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Click here to read “In Praise of Blue” by Alex Hirsch, a short poem about the color blue.
Click on any image to enter gallery
