Over the years, I've done dozens of drawings of wild and garden plants in their various stages of unfolding, and finally I was struck by the obvious: For so many plants, each aspect of its being -- buds, leaves, roots, seeds -- is as striking as its flower. I had the idea of a series of paintings on this theme, an idea now partially realized with my March 2011 painting, "The Seed is the Flower."
It started with September's hastily gathered bouquet of crocosmia and rudbeckia seed heads, which sat on the front porch through the winter. One day, the time was right, and I brought it into the studio and placed it on a box well below eye level.
I made a quick study which almost immediately planted the seed of an idea.
As I worked at the painting, something kept nudging my memory. It wasn't just that the stems reminding me of my own "A Brown Study" -- but the spaces between the stems suggested...something. But what? I finished the painting -- as shown below, it's rather different from my recent still lifes. (You can view the whole progression here)
It was only then that I recalled a series of drawings/paintings in one of my art books by, surprisingly, Mondrian, master of stern geometries. Look at this sequence, and join me in wonder, at where "the spaces between" took him:--
I've spent a large part of the morning reading the 2011 posts, having fallen woefully behind. Do I know Blackie? He sounds so familiar.
ReplyDeleteI was transfixed by the spaces between the stems sequence. As always, so much food for thought, truth and beauty.