Prints

Among the very first volunteers to break through in my spring garden are treasured bloodroot plants. I love the way these flowers look like miniature tulips, open fully in the sun, and fold or fan their leaves like peacocks. The fact that the Indians valued these plants for their ability to produce a red dye for baskets gives them an impressive pedigree as well.

This scene is from a Pennsylvania winter. The valley is near Williamsport. The rolling hills seem to go on endlessly, and it is clear from the evidence that shows on the land that this is farmland at rest beneath the snow.

This small family cemetery near Danville, Pennsylvania had an inviting starkness. Because the stones were all gathered beneath this one tree on a rise, it somehow suited my mental image of the classic “boot hill” of cowboy westerns, places I envision as lonely, isolated rises that can be seen for a good distance.

The beans climbing up this pole outside Christina Olson's kitchen made this an appealing composition. The Olson house is a mine of wondrous visual images, of which this was one of the first I drew. The coloring on the door is mine.

No hyacinth blooms in December, but fortunately one can find them at the market at times. This one came from Canada, and I was most grateful both for the visual treat it offered and the heavenly fragrance it provided to my living room for at least a week. I was particularly drawn to the greenish tone to its buds which, combined with the deep blue of the blossoms, offered a really wondrous color scheme.

One particularly cool summer, the tomatoes seemed unable to get ripe on the vine, so they were ensconced on the window skill. With the backdrop of the back of the kitchen settee and a view through the vegetation, this scene seemed to need recording, along with the promise of ripe tomatoes.

Our neighbor, when we lived in Oxford, Maryland, was a gracious southern lady named Grace. Behind her house, at the end of her yard was a small garage that could never have housed a horse or car, but certainly had a great deal of classic architectural character. By its door stood a gathering of hollyhocks and larkspur. In concert with the pale blue paint on the garage, they made an irresistibly appealing annual bouquet I decided to record one summer.

In late April, if one is lucky, the daffodils finally appear in bloom, marking the “hot spots” in the yard by the order of their bloom.  Carefully watched from their first tentative peek through the ground, they truly deserve the distinction of being harbingers of the actual Spring, one that appears long after the calendar’s denotation of same.  Sheltered and warmed by a rock wall and its reflected warmth, these are often the first ones in our yard to bloom.

This print began with the rock, the daylilies, and the birches, all of which I encountered one day walking on Vinalhaven. From that section it grew, with the addition of standard Maine garden fare and not a great deal of sunlight thanks to the overhead tree cover.