Summer vacation in Brazil takes place in the dead of winter in the United States, and so my vacation visits to my hometown happen during my least-favorite season. I notice a distinct difference in my body and my mood when I leave the sun and arrive in the cold, dark North. This January, I found myself in the kitchen of my grandparents' house, fighting off the gloom that comes when the sun angrily glares over layers of dirty snow, and then suddenly slips away, wrapping up the mid-afternoon in an oppressive cloak of dark night.
I had prepared to have some friends over to catch up, but icy roads kept most of them away that night. After a bit of visiting with a few dear folks, it ended up being just me and an artist friend, Susan, and my dad, who was doing his own thing in another room.
Somehow, Susan and I got onto the topic of sunflowers. She paints sunflowers in her garden, celebrating the myriad of light and colors and shapes that evolve and vary throughout the summer. I have always been mesmerized by the sunflowers at the farm around the corner. I lived with my grandparents when I was in art school, and my first year there, I walked by the farm a lot. I watched the sunflowers happily gaze upward until they no longer could, and the cold air dried them out, sucking out their color, making them curl up into a crispy brown clump on a stem.
In the raw cold of New England winters, with their early sunsets and endless months of darkness, I felt like I identified with those shriveled up sunflowers, dispossessed of all gaiety and even of the ability to look up lovingly at the sun. As those twisted forms caught my eye that winter, my first one of more than a decade in New England, I started to draw them, and eventually painted a winter sunset scene of dead sunflowers.
That painting lay tucked away in a portfolio for years until a move prompted me to clean out and donate some art materials to an old contact, who insisted that I fill an extra place in an art show. With only old art to offer, I dug out my portfolios, and that's when my new roommate and I became enamored by this painting, which I had forgotten about. It had waited silently through many Massachusetts winters, hidden away from light and laughter. Now, finally in a frame, it only lacked a title.
A few years prior, I had been struck by an idea in one of the Hebrew Psalms, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright of heart." (Psalm 97:11 KJV) I pondered the idea of light being sown, like a seed, and wondered if the light and joy that I enjoyed in the summer could be sown and harvested later. Passing twelve winters in Massachusetts, I witnessed many moments of light and joy even in bleakest winter. Friends who provided laughter or just silent companionship through painful seasons, peaceful moments watching early sunsets as the afternoon silently sank away in a glorious blaze of gold and crimson, the comfort of candlelight breaking through the thickest darkness, and even the buds daring to appear on bare branches when no other signs of spring were present--all these beautiful things gave me pockets of peace, moments of joy, a harvest of light. Realizing that the lifeless brown sunflower contains seeds for next year's crop, and that a sunset is prerequisite to a sunrise, a step in the rhythm of the changing seasons, I came to interpret my painting in a new light, and titled it, "Light Is Sown, and I Have Seen."
That evening, as the warmth and light of my grandparents' kitchen kept the bitter cold and darkness at bay, waiting just outside, Susan and I started to excitedly talk about sunflowers and art-making. That's when a loud crash startled us. We both saw something fall out of an open cabinet, hitting a small plate that was holding some spoons I had set out for the chili I was serving. As we investigated, with my dad coming to join is, we saw the plate, cracked like a pie chart from the center, with a few fraction-like pieces on the floor, and some of the spoons still resting on one piece where it had been sitting, on top of the dryer (which was not in use).
The baffling part was that we could not find anything that might have fallen from the cabinet, even after a thorough search. Furthermore, in order to hit that plate, an object would have had to fall at an angle, which seemed very unlikely, and yet, both Susan and I were positive that we saw something fall. I wondered if it was a mouse, but it didn't seem plausible that a mouse would crack the plate in that way, and we didn't see any scurrying action, just a fall. I also started to wonder why the cabinet was open, because I didn't remember leaving it that way. And that's when, amidst plenty of laughter, we realized just how spooky the event was.
Now, my grandparents' house is nearly 300 years old, and with all the stories and mysteries it contains, most people assert that it is a pleasant, peaceful place, not what you would think of as a haunted house. Even so, it seems so much emptier these days with the ache of their absence, as my grandparents have both passed on in recent years. At the time, Susan's father had recently passed away, and so the sting of loss was very much present with us that evening. Actually, Susan and I first bonded years ago while sharing stories about losing a loved one in April, observing how the harsh reality of death was quite a contrast to the new life of spring.
I don't believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, but I do believe there are things we just don't understand, and I'm OK with that. Many spiritual traditions, including some expressions of the Christian one I grew up in, understand this life and what may come after as being separated by only a thin veil. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was a ghost or the spirit of someone we loved that came in to the kitchen and broke that plate. (Although my mom thinks it was my grandfather, always a prankster, now hanging out with Jesus, discovering new abilities and playing with them.) Whatever it was, it does pose a fun mystery, and it ignited a surge of merry creativity in Susan and I that night.
Somewhere before or after our discussion on sunflowers, I began talking about the gelatin print process I had discovered (which I described in my latest Maker Monday post). I had just bought some new printmaking supplies to take back to Brazil, and Susan and I decided to open them up and have an art night. She just so happened to have some dried flowers from her father's funeral, which she had been saving for an art project, safely stashed in her car. We bundled up and excitedly bounded out into the numbing darkness to retrieve them.
My grandparents' antique, wooden kitchen table, which had stood silently in the center of countless gatherings, meals, prayers, and tears, now supported inks, an array of flowers and leaves, and a synthetic gelatin plate, something it had never seen before. If my grandparents had been there in life, I doubt they would have been thrilled to see the controlled chaos of creativity that we brought to their colonial era kitchen (even though we are both teachers and know how to create with care.) And yet, I could somehow imagine my grandparents, with a different perspective that can only be found on the other side of eternity, smiling in approval at the joy that flowed from our colorful mess.
Susan and I have known each other for years, and, even while having taught side by side, and having seen each other's artwork, I can't remember a time that we actually made art together prior to this. But the way we worked that night, completely in the zone, in a frenzy of passionate, creative expression, one would have thought that we did this regularly.
I'm not sure how much time passed, but I know we rolled out several layers of ink on multiple sheets of paper. With only one gelatin plate, we ended up making compositions together, each adding to and building on what the other had started. I'm not used to making art this way, collaborating so closely with someone else on a single piece, but it felt so natural that night, like I had been doing it all my life.
I rarely get a print that I like enough as a finished piece of art on its own, but that night, Susan and I ended up with six extremely satisfying prints that we both signed and divided between us. They seem to tell a mystical story of love, loss, a spooky prank, and pockets of light sown into a dark winter's night.
As I wither in the sweltering heat of Brazil, sometimes sweating out my knee-pits, I remember with poignancy the long, dark, bitter winters of the North. I recall conversations, laughter, and meaningful moments with loved ones, those who have left this world, and those who, thankfully, are still around, though perhaps miles away. I look at my sunflower painting in my apartment, which, together with the mountains that surround Saint Joseph of the Fields, tells stories, giving silent, sure encouragement. I embrace the promise of Easter and the change of seasons, and the season of life that I find myself in.
Time rolls on more layers of color and texture than the printmaking brayer. Each passing season, and each encounter with loved ones leaves its impression, adding more character and nuance to life. All lives, all dies, all becomes life again. All is art.
I had prepared to have some friends over to catch up, but icy roads kept most of them away that night. After a bit of visiting with a few dear folks, it ended up being just me and an artist friend, Susan, and my dad, who was doing his own thing in another room.
Somehow, Susan and I got onto the topic of sunflowers. She paints sunflowers in her garden, celebrating the myriad of light and colors and shapes that evolve and vary throughout the summer. I have always been mesmerized by the sunflowers at the farm around the corner. I lived with my grandparents when I was in art school, and my first year there, I walked by the farm a lot. I watched the sunflowers happily gaze upward until they no longer could, and the cold air dried them out, sucking out their color, making them curl up into a crispy brown clump on a stem.
In the raw cold of New England winters, with their early sunsets and endless months of darkness, I felt like I identified with those shriveled up sunflowers, dispossessed of all gaiety and even of the ability to look up lovingly at the sun. As those twisted forms caught my eye that winter, my first one of more than a decade in New England, I started to draw them, and eventually painted a winter sunset scene of dead sunflowers.
That painting lay tucked away in a portfolio for years until a move prompted me to clean out and donate some art materials to an old contact, who insisted that I fill an extra place in an art show. With only old art to offer, I dug out my portfolios, and that's when my new roommate and I became enamored by this painting, which I had forgotten about. It had waited silently through many Massachusetts winters, hidden away from light and laughter. Now, finally in a frame, it only lacked a title.
A few years prior, I had been struck by an idea in one of the Hebrew Psalms, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright of heart." (Psalm 97:11 KJV) I pondered the idea of light being sown, like a seed, and wondered if the light and joy that I enjoyed in the summer could be sown and harvested later. Passing twelve winters in Massachusetts, I witnessed many moments of light and joy even in bleakest winter. Friends who provided laughter or just silent companionship through painful seasons, peaceful moments watching early sunsets as the afternoon silently sank away in a glorious blaze of gold and crimson, the comfort of candlelight breaking through the thickest darkness, and even the buds daring to appear on bare branches when no other signs of spring were present--all these beautiful things gave me pockets of peace, moments of joy, a harvest of light. Realizing that the lifeless brown sunflower contains seeds for next year's crop, and that a sunset is prerequisite to a sunrise, a step in the rhythm of the changing seasons, I came to interpret my painting in a new light, and titled it, "Light Is Sown, and I Have Seen."
That evening, as the warmth and light of my grandparents' kitchen kept the bitter cold and darkness at bay, waiting just outside, Susan and I started to excitedly talk about sunflowers and art-making. That's when a loud crash startled us. We both saw something fall out of an open cabinet, hitting a small plate that was holding some spoons I had set out for the chili I was serving. As we investigated, with my dad coming to join is, we saw the plate, cracked like a pie chart from the center, with a few fraction-like pieces on the floor, and some of the spoons still resting on one piece where it had been sitting, on top of the dryer (which was not in use).
The baffling part was that we could not find anything that might have fallen from the cabinet, even after a thorough search. Furthermore, in order to hit that plate, an object would have had to fall at an angle, which seemed very unlikely, and yet, both Susan and I were positive that we saw something fall. I wondered if it was a mouse, but it didn't seem plausible that a mouse would crack the plate in that way, and we didn't see any scurrying action, just a fall. I also started to wonder why the cabinet was open, because I didn't remember leaving it that way. And that's when, amidst plenty of laughter, we realized just how spooky the event was.
Now, my grandparents' house is nearly 300 years old, and with all the stories and mysteries it contains, most people assert that it is a pleasant, peaceful place, not what you would think of as a haunted house. Even so, it seems so much emptier these days with the ache of their absence, as my grandparents have both passed on in recent years. At the time, Susan's father had recently passed away, and so the sting of loss was very much present with us that evening. Actually, Susan and I first bonded years ago while sharing stories about losing a loved one in April, observing how the harsh reality of death was quite a contrast to the new life of spring.
I don't believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, but I do believe there are things we just don't understand, and I'm OK with that. Many spiritual traditions, including some expressions of the Christian one I grew up in, understand this life and what may come after as being separated by only a thin veil. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was a ghost or the spirit of someone we loved that came in to the kitchen and broke that plate. (Although my mom thinks it was my grandfather, always a prankster, now hanging out with Jesus, discovering new abilities and playing with them.) Whatever it was, it does pose a fun mystery, and it ignited a surge of merry creativity in Susan and I that night.
Somewhere before or after our discussion on sunflowers, I began talking about the gelatin print process I had discovered (which I described in my latest Maker Monday post). I had just bought some new printmaking supplies to take back to Brazil, and Susan and I decided to open them up and have an art night. She just so happened to have some dried flowers from her father's funeral, which she had been saving for an art project, safely stashed in her car. We bundled up and excitedly bounded out into the numbing darkness to retrieve them.
My grandparents' antique, wooden kitchen table, which had stood silently in the center of countless gatherings, meals, prayers, and tears, now supported inks, an array of flowers and leaves, and a synthetic gelatin plate, something it had never seen before. If my grandparents had been there in life, I doubt they would have been thrilled to see the controlled chaos of creativity that we brought to their colonial era kitchen (even though we are both teachers and know how to create with care.) And yet, I could somehow imagine my grandparents, with a different perspective that can only be found on the other side of eternity, smiling in approval at the joy that flowed from our colorful mess.
I'm not sure how much time passed, but I know we rolled out several layers of ink on multiple sheets of paper. With only one gelatin plate, we ended up making compositions together, each adding to and building on what the other had started. I'm not used to making art this way, collaborating so closely with someone else on a single piece, but it felt so natural that night, like I had been doing it all my life.
I rarely get a print that I like enough as a finished piece of art on its own, but that night, Susan and I ended up with six extremely satisfying prints that we both signed and divided between us. They seem to tell a mystical story of love, loss, a spooky prank, and pockets of light sown into a dark winter's night.
As I wither in the sweltering heat of Brazil, sometimes sweating out my knee-pits, I remember with poignancy the long, dark, bitter winters of the North. I recall conversations, laughter, and meaningful moments with loved ones, those who have left this world, and those who, thankfully, are still around, though perhaps miles away. I look at my sunflower painting in my apartment, which, together with the mountains that surround Saint Joseph of the Fields, tells stories, giving silent, sure encouragement. I embrace the promise of Easter and the change of seasons, and the season of life that I find myself in.
Time rolls on more layers of color and texture than the printmaking brayer. Each passing season, and each encounter with loved ones leaves its impression, adding more character and nuance to life. All lives, all dies, all becomes life again. All is art.
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