Sunflowers, I just love 'em

I can't resist at least one post each summer dedicated to my favorite flower. I just love everything about them -- Their size: so large they look almost comical in contrast to my manicured shrubs -- their color: some very yellow, some with red highlights, some more ochre and brown -- their shape: round and happy and symmetrical -- their seeds: that attract and feed the summer birds and bees.

In my garden they grow whereever the birds drop them out of the feeders, so I never quite know when or where or how many I'll have.

This is the last of them for this summer, brightening my dining room table.

A glimpse of summer around my house...

I am really loving the summer this year. Even with all the rain, we've have relatively cool evenings until this week, and I love opening the windows wide and listening to the birds singing outside my windows.

And Cutes (my niece's nickname)is doing well. She's had all of chest tubes removed and is slowly being weaned from pain meds, ventilator, etc. Next week, I have will have a Cutes-related giveaway. Stay tuned!!

Have a good weekend all!

Two art dates in one month - woo woo!!

My friend Debbie and I love to get together for art dates, which usually include talking, web surfing, eating, and oh, yeah, also art-making. Our goal for years has been a day a month, but often life gets in the way of our plans and we don't get together as often as we'd like, so the fact that we were able to get together twice in one month is pretty amazing!!

This is the third piece I made (mixed media acrylics and collage) on mdf, to donate to the Hubbard Hall art & cultural center auction. I enjoyed making this piece more than the end result. I experimented with texture, using dress pattern tissue, embossing paste, gel medium, assorted fibers, and acrylic paints. I think it's a bit lacking in contrast, but it was very satisfying to build up the background textures.

I haven't had a lot of art-making time this summer, as I tackle the realities of single home-ownership, so my attempts at art are a bit fragmented and all over the place. I know that I will eventually strike the right balance and find my groove again. I'm not forcing it.

In addition to our art-making, Debbie brought another trunk full of rocks from her farm for me to use alongside my shed. (I cannot thank you both enough, Debbie & Len!!!) I planted some hasta around my shed in the spring, and the rocks fill in between to keep down the weeds so that I don't have to trim and mow there. They also just lend some great texture and detail to my yard. I love rocks!!! This may look like no big deal, but these babies are sooo heavy that we can only transport a dozen or so at a time by ourselves. And they'd cost a fortune if I had to buy them, so I am incredibly lucky that my friends are so willing to share them with me!

Ta da list for June (late) and other stuff...

Wow. The month of June came and went without my monthly list of creative pursuits. I did have a lot of other things on my mind, but I was still able to do a few things:

I read a book -- More than you know by Beth Gutcheon
I made a few rings & necklaces on the Vineyard, after shopping at Beadniks
and I taught 2 classes.

For me, summer is a time to switch creative gears a bit, so this list would have been shorter than usual even without the personal junk going on. I love to spend some of my creative energies in my garden, and also fill the well by reading, visiting antique stores, and roaming the countryside, both on foot and via car, taking photos and exploring. People often think of the city when they think of New York, but the landscape upstate is ripe with rolling hills, beautiful valleys, farms, and quaint towns that beg to be appreciated at this time of year. I am also spending a lot more time with family and friends this summer.

This weekend, I head outside Boston to visit my sister and niece, along with my mom and Max. We're helping my sister with a yard sale. In addition to the regular treasures you'd expect to find, we're making up "mystery bags" to give away with every purchase!! Oh, the suspense!!! My niece has also decided to sell my mom's husband, "Poppy Dick" for "fivey-eight dollars," which I think is a bargain for a guy who can cook.

I leave you this week with a picture of my sunflowers - planted by the birds who dropped them from their feeder in the early spring. They are better gardeners than I am! My own attempts never grew like these!!

I also want to say thank you to all of my blog readers for stopping by and for those who leave comments that make me feel so fortunate. I wish I could thank you all in person with a hug and a handmade gift of thanks, but in the meantime, I want you all to know how much I appreciate you. Okay, enough mushiness, have a great weekend everyone, and if you're in the Hopkington, Mass. area, there's a mystery bag with your name on it!!

The unofficial beginning of summer...

That's what this time of year signifies to me...My herb garden is planted on my deck...I shine up the gas grill for a summer of kabobs and marinades...the lawn is mowed...and mowed again...and again...hasta are split and replanted...birds are nesting all around our house...I ease into a four-day work week...and I try to remember how to relax...read a book...paint for hours...feel the warmth of the sun...roll in the grass with Max...and breathe...breathe...breathe...

Adventures in gardening...

I love to watch things grow. -- Maybe I should qualify that. I get no enjoyment out of watching my waistline grow, or the mold and mildew that flourish in my bathtub. But I do love to watch my garden grow. I didn't know when we settled into our first home in Fall '03 that I would want to garden. I hadn't really considered it, but in the spring of 2004, when the first buds pushed through the thawed ground, I marveled at the miracle and resiliency of nature, and I could not wait to sink my fingers into the loamy earth, plant some seeds, and watch them as they reached for the warmth of the sun and transformed from tiny grains into fruits and flowers and vegetables.

That first summer, I learned that although we were in a busy suburban neighborhood, there were still plenty of hungry little animals waiting to decimate my first vegetable crop. I planted just a few tomato plants and was beaming with pride as they grew tall and bore fruit. As the tomatoes began to ripen, I anticipated picking that first one, smelling the unmistakable scent of the vine, and savoring it with a little salt and black pepper. Yummmm. Unfortunately, when I returned a day later to pick that first ripe tomato, there it lay... in the middle of my lawn, with one giant bite (or a hundred little nibbles) taken out of the side. Since I had planted my tomatoes among my perennials, I was not able to fence them without creating an eyesore, so I dejectedly watched as the squirrels and rabbits beat me to my harvest day after day.

The following spring, I decided to try "container gardening" on my deck instead, and was relatively successful, but I felt like I had cheated, as I bought all seedlings and small plants rather than planting from seed. I did lose a few seedlings to a late frost in May, but by mid-summer, I had tomatoes, an assortment of herbs, and some wonderful hot chile peppers. Buoyed by my success, the next spring I decided to do the same, but with seeds. I might have been successful, but last May it rained 29 out of 31 days, and most of my garden drowned. I did have a decent pot of lettuce and a few herbs, but not much for all of my effort.

This year, I went with mostly seedlings again -- what was I trying to prove in our short and unpredictable growing season? On a whim, I also bought some sweatpea seeds and planted them in two large pots, complete with bamboo poles for them to climb. By early June they were climbing, twining in curlicues two feet high around the bamboo poles, and budding with little white flowers that would evolve into peapods. Over the past few weeks, the peapods grew, and I waited patiently to harvest them.

... And after all that, this is the sum total of my sweat pea harvest....
If I put them in a salad, there might even be enough to share with my husband.

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Footnote: I blanched the peas and did indeed sprinkle them on a salad. They were delicious! Now I just need to figure out a way to fit 100 pots on my deck next spring and I'll have enough peas to share!!!

Fragmented

Sometimes my days and weeks feel very cohesive. This is when I am most creative and productive. Unfortunately, this was not one of those weeks. No matter how much I accomplished this week, there were 40 more things I needed to do. Hopefully, I will make time today to catch up on a little housework and a lot of artwork. The garden also beckons. A friend gave me some daylilies and I cannot wait to plant them alongside my house.
I did manage to experiment a bit in Photoshop yesterday to create this collage. And tomorrow I teach a class on art journaling, and I cannot wait. Art journals are such a wonderful and free way to get out of your own way and create with wild abandon. I hope to instill this in my students.