Prints

On Monhegan Island at The Trailing Yew, a classic boarding house, the horseshoe pitch is a focal point. Everyone gathers here to await the clanging bell that signals the arrival of each day's breakfast and dinner. Tinting the pine tree that overlooks this scene was an experiment. Fortunately, I liked the results.

A shasta daisy and the apple tree outside my kitchen window both bore fruit at the same time one summer. I looked out the window, and there was a print which needed to be put on a plate; thus, “The Kitchen Window”.

The red lily was the first plant I added to the garden at my house. The natural composition of form and color it made at the corner of the house made me produce this print, one of my earliest Mills scenes. The flag doesn’t really have blue stripes, but that was the color they needed to be - I think that’s what’s known as taking artistic license.

Sunflowers have an unending fascination for me. Each summer I try to develop my own crop, sometimes in pots, other times in beds. All manner of pests that roam the acreage at night work against my efforts, so when I do succeed from time to time, it is a great victory. When they endure, these horticultural wonders are sentinels, indeed, following the sun through the day and keeping silent watch into the early Fall.

In central Pennsylvania there is a well-known, most elaborate barn with a number of decorative stars in its structure. This bird house model of that star barn appeared one day in a garden shop in Maine, having been made by a man in Pennsylvania, and my mother decided it needed to live in our garden. To date, no bird has dared move into it despite the consistently open door, but it is a hopeful reminder, in our Maine garden, of our Pennsylvania roots.

A friend did a series of paintings of pears one year, most of them single portraits. Her pictures made me see them in a new light. Then, last March I went to the market looking for flowers to draw. The pears caught my eye, and I came home with pears instead of flowers. The more you look at them the more anthropomorphic they become. Here is a singing trio, The Three Boscs.

One snowy Saturday in late February I was at the market gathering the week's vegetables and found myself considering the extravagance of a bunch of tulips. Spending the afternoon drawing their image proved to be not only justification of the purchase but the hopeful gift of the eventuality of Spring's arrival. Thus, this print reminds me of late winter grayness and the annual assurance that Spring does, indeed, eventually arrive.

This pear trio puts me in mind of a group of frumpy middle-aged people. They wear a few battle scars and their figures have slipped a bit, but they've still got more than a few interesting thoughts and ideas to share with the world.

On a visit to the gardens at Sissinghurst I came upon these watering cans situated by a wall hosting a leafy curtain. They were clearly long-used and posed in a way that made the composition of this drawing appear before my eyes. Now they are a visual reminder that allows me to return at will to that setting and day.