A Bouquet

A bouquet of flowers and branches picked for a beautiful friend who I'm holding even tighter than usual in my heart this week. xo

Lines and Connections

Anyone who comes here regularly knows that I love birds, rocks and hearts, and that I really love detail. So maybe this painting was meant to be. First I created a composition. I assembled one of my favourite heart-shaped rocks, a lovely ball of twine and...oh oh...I don't have a real bird nest.  So instead, I made my composition using a not-so-natural-looking decorative bird nest (that dark brown thing in the upper right hand corner of the photo). Then I looked up photos of what a real song sparrow's nest and eggs look like. I chose a song sparrow because they are among our backyard birds. In fact, there's one fellow who often sits in the birch tree just behind our yard and sings his little heart out to me.

My painting was done referring to my composition photo, several reference photos of song sparrow nests and my actual rock and twine. Do you know how many little lines and tiny squiggles there are in a ball of twine or a bird's nest? Let's just say several days' worth.

In my painting, a piece of the bird's nest touches the rock. There are bits of twine woven into the nest and there is a lovely spiral piece of twine that winds its way through the painting. I wanted to convey a sense of connection.  I've titled the painting "This is where my heart lives".

Pictured below is the print that I did of my painting. That took me days as well! After several unsuccessful scans (angled this way and that way), I finally worked from a photo of my painting and have ended up with a print that I am proud of.  I hope you like it too.

Choices

Can you read the name on the side of the preserve jar? It says 'Golden Harvest'. It contains branches I cut from my garden this morning--each full of promise of the flowers they will carry in days ahead.  Serviceberry, flowering almond and lilacs. That gorgeous entwined branch was found for me by Chloé on a recent forest walk.

When I wrote about balance the other day, it obviously struck a chord with many of you. It's something we all struggle with. This morning I read Arounna's post (Bookhou at Home) and it's all about finding balance and making choices to stay true to yourself, in her case the artistic vision of both her and her husband.

My thoughts have been swirling in past days, as they tend to do. I was reminded of a beautiful story I heard about making choices and measuring 'success'. It comes from an album by Harry Chapin. He was a storyteller and songwriter who died tragically at a very young age.  He tells the story of his grandfather, James Ormsbee Chapin:

"My grandfather was a painter. He died at age eighty-eight, he illustrated Robert Frost's first two books of poetry and he was looking at me and he said, 'Harry, there are two kinds of tired: there's good-tired, and there's bad-tired.'

He said, 'Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other peoples agendas, other people's dreams and when it was all over there was very little "you" in there, and when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn--you don't settle easy.'

He said, 'Good-tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don't have to tell yourself, 'cause you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy--you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say "take me away."' He said, 'Harry, all my life I've painted. God, I would've loved to be more successful, but I painted and I painted, and I am good-tired and they can take me away.' "

James Ormsbee Chapin "Child at Window"

Going back to my photo, everything is entwined. We are surrounded by promise and potential. It's a matter of unravelling things and making daily choices in a way that make sense to us and hitting that pillow at night (at least every now and then) feeling 'good tired'.