Prints

January Scent

To brighten the winter, we always plant paper whites just after the new year. Two successive plantings can get you into mid-February, when the lengthening of the days is slightly perceptible. Filling the house with a delectable scent, the paper whites do their job of making gardening a winter sport of sorts and providing a hopeful touch to a challenging time of year.

July

All prints in this edition have been sold.

Ubiquitous orange day lilies dress up gardens and rock walls for much of July. This image of lilies, rocks, and a view across the bay can offer me, in the dead of winter, a reassuring reminder of summer's golden Maine days.

July Bouquet

Though she is no longer able to work in the garden, my mother has no difficulty putting together a bouquet.  This was one of her offerings from a season that provides an excellent variety of blooms.

July Guys

The first of these daylilies by my driveway invariably open on or about July first, so I think of them as my quintessential July flowers. Eschewed by some as being “no better than weeds”, I look on them as old friends. They require no real maintenance, always appear, and happily thrive in challenging locations. This is not the first, nor likely to be the last print I will do of these sunny blooms.  So - three cheers for my July guys.

July's Tigers

All prints in this edition have been sold.

Many folks refer to these flowers as tiger lilies. For my part, I call them wild day lilies, differentiated from the many varieties of carefully cultivated hybrids that are presently available. For a gardener in Maine, these plants are a staple, as they have numerous helpful attributes. You can be sure they'll bloom throughout the month of July; they will grow in any type of soil; they are undeterred by road salt and sand; they hold no interest for pests; and, they are ignored by deer. Once in place, these beauties take virtually no care. They are, though, not for sale at the garden center, so if you don't have any, you'll need to find a neighbor who'll share.

June Lupines

All prints in this edition have been sold.

I first met lupines many years ago in Germany on a trip in early June, and liked them and their little mitten-shaped blossoms immediately. I tried unsuccessfully to grow them where I lived in Maryland at the time. It was just too hot for them there. Now, though, in Maine's June lupines provide seas of blue and purple spikes to cheer the soul.

June Rapture

When lupines start to bloom each June I always experience a sense of joy. The way fields suddenly fill with blue makes my heart leap a bit and a big grin fills my soul. They are fussy and independent, spreading their seeds far and wide but only thriving where they choose - more likely in less hospitable roadside spots than in fancy cultivated gardens, a fact that matches the storied Maine culture of independent self-sufficiency. This image is one I created from my head. It began with the lupines, and grew from there, including all my favorite Maine things - rocks, pine trees, water, open land, and lupines.

La Maison de Chasse

I found this wonderful little structure with its tiled roof and yellow stucco sides on a walk near the little village in southern France that I visit in March, when mud season diminishes Maine’s appeal. I did not venture inside since it was clearly someone’s private domain, but ultimately discovered it was a “maison de chasse” - a hunting house - where one can hide the fruits of the hunt from scavenging critters. Practicality aside, I just liked the structure and the image, so it became a print.

La Porte Verte

In Nerac, in the Garonne region of France, one can walk along the Garenne river through a much-used park. On one such walk on an early spring day my friend Franny, her dog Echo, and I came around a corner and there was this wall with its green doors. The real visual treat of this scene, though, was the gathering of self-seeded California poppies declaring the advent of balmier weather and hope that Spring was on the move once more. 

La Romieu Chat #1

The village of La Romieu in southern France is noted for its 12th century Collegiate Church of St. Pierre which began life as a Benedictine priory. It also has a village legend about Angeline, a young orphan who saved a couple of cats during a famine that caused the population to eat all the cats. When things improved the crops, in turn, were consumed by rats and mice that had proliferated in the absence of felines. Angeline then released her hidden cats and saved the village from a new famine. Whether one believes the tale or not, it is hard not to be enchanted by the cat sculptures that now appear in odd places about the village. My three “chat” prints are the result of my visit to La Romieu.