seems to be the best way to bring the Astrological Plants series to harvest.
This time, I decided to work together on Libra and Aquarius, the remaining Air signs, playing in different ways with the same design elements I previously used for Air in Gemini -- the upward-pointing triangle with crossbar, the whirling symbol from Neolithic patterns, and the butterfly reminiscent of the swallowtails that visited our Upper Squamish garden.
Libra is ruled by Venus and thus shares its colours with Taurus -- green, blue, yellow, pastels, and the metal, copper. The wild columbine is surely a plant Venus would smile on (so I'vedecided -- Venus' plants are many, prominent among them are roses and lilies). I've read that the "columbine" name comes from the flower's shape "said to resemble a dove (columba)" -- I don't quite get this, but it's nonetheless a graceful association for this joyful plant of coastal fields and highlands.
You can view Libra-in-progress and then switch to something completely different....! Aquarius.
Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, a planet which (like Pluto and Neptune) was unknown in classical times. Their discovery presented a dilemma for later astrologers who had to think fast to make some creative connections between new planets and known astrological signs and the things the signs connect with in human affairs. The colours that have come to be assigned to Uranus are described as "electric tones, light azure, silvery white, striped; a profusion of glaring colors creating a harmonious result." Check out the evolution here.
My sourcebook continues: "Little is yet known concerning the plants of Uranus...(They) may be similar to those of Venus and the Moon...It is probable that plants possessing strange occult properties such as mistletoe and orchids belong to (Uranus and Neptune)."
Well, Lobaria pulmonaria is certainly "strange" and I've loved it from first sight -- it's a flat hand-sized lichen that grows in leathery fistfuls, often in the clefts of trees, bundled with licorice ferns. Blown to the ground, a clump could last for weeks in the moist air of Upper Squamish but whenever I brought some back to Vancouver to sketch and study, the ripply sheets would dry out and flatten within a day. And it's "occult" enough that, after my first sighting and a lot of searching, I had to contact UBC's Hort Line to find out what the heck it was.
Interestingly, the common name "lungwort" is attached to some other wild plants, probably because they were used in healing lung disorders. (And here's an odd reminiscence: The sheets of Lobaria resemble the dessicated paper-thin section of a cancerous lung that I happened upon in the filing cabinet of my first Canadian boss, who was a pulmonary specialist.)
It was fun to work on these two paintings in tandem -- switching back and forth between the soft greens of Libra and the electric tones of Aquarius.
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