Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!
Spring is at its showiest and best now, earlier than ever. New flowers are opening every day, fiddleheads are unrolling, and birds are singing. The mountains are beginning to show a delicate green here and there. The hermit thrushes have returned; I heard one tuning up early this morning.
I went out yesterday to look at the bloodroot patch. I had been thinking that I should just go and sit and soak in their beauty, since I am working on a painting about bloodroot now. I was really disappointed. They were finished blooming already. A rainstorm had knocked the petals down, and all that was left was a patch of green leaves and flower stalks with tiny seed pods. But I sat down to look at them for a while anyway, and I learned something.
Flowers are flashy and attention-getting, a joy to the senses. But those simple stalks with seed pods developing on them had a grace and beauty all their own. Flowers are here today and gone tomorrow. But the life of the plant goes on in the seed, from generation to generation. Flowering is eye-catching, but fruit-bearing has a deeper, more elemental beauty. The seed pods are small and insignificant-looking, but inside them new life is growing. I went looking for flowers, and came away in awe of the miracle of a seed.
I discovered again that the subtle things, the small things, the hidden things, can be beautiful, too. The secret world of a seed developing is as much a part of nature’s beauty as the more obvious things. My painting as it stands right now is all about the flowers. I see now that I need to incorporate more of the bloodroot’s nature and life process into it, somehow, including the seeds.
What I learned from the bloodroot this week seems to be a metaphor for my own life, too. A few years ago I was managing an art gallery and going to college. I was blossoming and growing in those days, learning new things, being in the public eye. Now I am hidden away in my studio, pursuing the dreams that I was dreaming then. This is a much more private time for me, but also much more fruitful.
The gallery, Pennacook Art Center, has disappeared and reappeared in a changed form, too. It is no longer a commercial gallery, but has metamorphosed into a small grassroots cooperative. The storefront on Congress Street in Rumford was showy, like an ephemeral bloodroot flower. But what we are doing now is self-supporting and sustainable. And I believe that in the long run it will be much more fruitful. (To see what some of our artists have been doing, you take a look at our Fine Art America website: http://pennacook-art-center.artistwebsites.com .)
I ran across this quote from George Santayana this week: To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. I think that I would like best to be interested in the changing seasons, and hopelessly in love with each one of them in turn, as they change. I sincerely hope that you are enjoying your spring season this year.
My gift to you this month is going to put me out on a limb. If you would like to try growing bloodroot from seed, I will attempt to collect some seeds when they are ready, and send them to you. They need to be planted immediately, and kept moist. They will not sprout until next spring, or possibly the spring after. Let me know if you are interested, and I will send you information about how to plant them. Bloodroot grows best under deciduous trees; our biggest patch of them is in a small stand of maple and birch.
For more information on “Swift River Treasures,” my artmaking process, classes, or recent work, or to check out my blog, see my website at http://www.betsygraybell.com. Here you can buy original artwork, or order prints of my work from Fine Art America. You can also find links to the Moments of Transcendence book and my online stores for shirts, mugs, and housewares featuring my art.
Thanks for joining me in the journey. I hope that you enjoy looking at the art as much as I have enjoyed making it! I would love to hear from you, too, so please do reply with comments.