Peruvian lilies | The Hawks Perch

SUMMER SOLSTICE the longest day taking forever to get here with winter at our backs and spring too cold and how can it be that tomorrow the planet begins to rescind all we have waited for.

Bird of Paradise in Coffee Pot With Clouds

So I paint flowers for this delicate cusp of a day wherein the heart sings with all that’s radiant, I paint to hold this high note longer. Peruvian Lilies in Old Lalique Crystal Vase

I seldom paint flowers to only make a pretty picture.Tulips in Blue Glass Vase With Orange and Garlic Bud

It is the road to discovery…my brush in my hand…where will this take me. What is in your dreams. How did you do this. Why does it thrill me. How are we similar.

Last winter. I sort of remember my hands stretched out in front of me, blindfolded by fear, stumbling through the chaos of what had been and was no more. Then I found a teeny new studio. Which had a massive garden. Which seized my heart on day one. Which surely angels led me to.

Moi: It’s PERFECT!

Real Estate Agent: It is?

It is. I’ll let you see for yourself. It had exquisite bare bone established, fallen, gone to seed and cluttering dead branched shrubs and trees. I watered, fertilized, tilled, moved rocks, opened to sunlight, transplanted, and incrementally added every flowery small cheapo thing I could get from Grigg’s Nursery down the block. That was the new. The old have revived, blossomed, stretched arms to the sun. Brutally pruned cherry tree, hedges brush-cut before they could flower, tall reedy Oriental Lilies chopped to knee high are all now an hourly windsong thrice the height of yore. Just started really. This is the beginning and I am very proud. And yes, naturally, I painted the chairs.

Ah, August you darling you, let joy be unconfined……..