Artists Are From Venus

According to astrological indicators, "artist" is one of the favoured occupations for those born under the signs ruled by Venus -- two signs, Taurus and Libra. Not a bad line-up for the Taurus crowd:-- Redon, Turner, deKooning, Delacroix, Inness, Church, Rossetti, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Gainsborough, Rossetti, Mary Cassatt, Rousseau, Dűrer!

And here in the middle of Taurus' reign (April 22-May 22) is the latest in my series Astrological Plants of the Squamish Valley -- "Taurus/Wild Rose."

In the first flush of beginning a new painting in this series, (and I have another two under way now), I always forget how long each of them takes. There are lots of preliminary layers to build up, lots of fiddling around with templates for the lettering, and many minute-by-minute decisions about what to place where and what colour to use, all within my overall plan for the graphic motifs for the signs, elements, and alchemical correspondences.

As I work away, I ruminate on things like: How many wild rose varieties are there? (Alberta's official wild rose is evidently a different variety than our BC rose of the Nootka). Wasn't the Western Garter Snake the perfect correlation for the earth signs? Why don't I re-read Mary Renault's novels (popular best-sellers in the 1970's-80's -- was it really so long ago??) that first introduced me to the labyrinth at Knossos and the significance of bulls and snakes to the
Mother Goddess? Ruminate step-by-step with me, if you like.