Prints

Although this print began on Hurricane Island, I suspect this island garden could be found on many of the islands off the coast of Maine.  The original sketches for this print were done while I was visiting friends on Hurricane.  As sometimes happens, I feared this print would be a disaster - the drawing went together too easily, it seemed, and when I pulled the first proof I was amazed at how well everything worked.  Clearly it was a picture that was, from the outset, “meant to be”.

As a child when I occasionally found one of these plants in the woods I marveled at it and thought it a magical rarity. I went back to look for them each year, often without success.  When I moved to Maine I transplanted several from a friend’s garden in Massachusetts, but they didn’t take, as wild flowers are picky about soil and location.  One day I discovered a whole host of them in our woods, moved a few, and they took hold in force. Now they are an annual source of delight, far grander and larger than those ones I first discovered years ago.

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.

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.

These geraniums were nearly discarded after being carried through a number of years. We decided to offer them one last chance, though, and brought them in at the frost. Amazingly, they rose to the challenge and by February were gazing hopefully out at the snow, keeping a bead on the distant bay and clearly scouting for the advent of Spring.

The tiny islands off the coast are an endless source of fascination to me. I look out across the horizon and try to imagine what it would be like to live on an island, in solitude, with one’s life dictated by the elements.

This image is based somewhat on reality, though it is, as the title denotes, born of the “madness” that March engenders in Maine.  It is a dreamy anticipation of a scene to come in the summer when the daylilies fill the landscape, nicely contrasted against birch whiteness, and the sea invites voyages on sunny days.

Watching the evolution of this nest of hatching birds is an adventure indeed. Fortunately, I was able one year to log progress via a number of photos. The open mouths hoping for sustenance were a stage I managed to catch one day. Presumably some food came at some point, but I did not see it arrive.

The adirondack chairs at the Trailing Yew provide a perfect perch from which to think and dream. Listening to the foghorn at night, gazing at the sea by day, being a vacationer on Monhegan transports you into a dream-like existence, one which I can readily bring to mind by looking at this picture.