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Bzzzz February 9th, 2008

I recall a conversation from years ago with my dear friend Claudia. She has just moved into a charming little cottage in the old Ortega section of Jacksonville, Florida. The house was surrounded by old trees and magnificent, mature flowering shrubs. I was completely taken with the place. I commented to Claudia that I would garden constantly if I lived there. Her response?

“Oh, I love the idea of gardening. But I just don’t want to be outside there all by myself. It would be so lonely!”

Although this conversation took place, oh, nearly 10 years ago, it has stuck with me, and occasionally crossed my mind, because the feeling that Claudia expressed is so foreign to my own needs and desires for being with nature.

See, while Claudia yearned for company to enjoy nature, I am more like the legendary Hollywood star.

“I want to be alone.”

When I am indoors, I continually bounce from one activity to the next, multi-tasking between home and office and getting distracted with one thing or another. My mind leaps from one idea to another…

“Need to clean the frig…haven’t heard from that client yet…what am I going to do about that programming issue…should I go to the spinning class tomorrow…oops, need to finish that project schedule…can I deliver that report early…”

The internal chatter is a lightening speed, incessant drone.

When I am working in the garden, that chatter gradually subsides. I become lost in the activity. Minutes at a time go by without my having a single thought other than about what I’m doing with my hands.

And although there is no shortage of work for which I could use an extra pair (or more) of hands, I don’t nag my husband or son to join me in the garden because I just want the company of the wind and the birds. (And little dogs, of course.) When they do join me, we usually work at a distance, all of us lost in our own internal worlds. Happily, they share my desire for quiet time.

So you see, perhaps, why I wasn’t entirely sad to be alone in my visits to some of the country’s most spectacular public gardens this past year—the Phoenix Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanical Garden, the Denver Botanic Garden and the Dixon House and Gardens, among others. Although part of me would loved to share the experience with my husband or another friend, the selfish part of me was happy to have the gardens to myself.

As I wandered through, I could go at my very own pace, lingering over an unusual combination of primroses and cabbages, admiring the coy in the Japanese garden, sitting under the shade of a well-placed trellis.

I observed many groups of families dutifully trudging along after the more enthusiastic members of their parties. Not all the groups looked entirely happy, I must say. Most of the kids looked bored to tears. Not a few were arguing.

So I was glad not to feel I was holding someone back—or dragging them along on my personal nature adventure. There are certainly times when I enjoy the company. But those visits have a different purpose altogether, and it’s not mostly about nature.

And you? Is nature something you prefer to share?

Posted In: Gardening, Lifestyle

Tags: gloriosa superba Rothschildiana

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Bzzzz February 1st, 2008

After reading about it on the Ellis Hollow blog, I decided on a whim to take an online class on botanical drawing through Cornell University.

Given that I have never before expressed (out loud anyway) the desire to draw or paint, it rather took some folks by surprise when I finally admitted to family and friends why I was stocking up on drawing pencils, pads and books on drawing.

My husband’s reaction was: “WHAT?”

My son’s reaction was: “You’re just like your mother!”

My friend Angela’s reaction was: “Why botanical drawing?”

So, to them I’ll answer:

To my husband: [Carefully enunciating here] “An…online…botanical…drawing…class.”

To my son: “Not exactly what I was aiming for, but I can see why you would say that.”

To my friend Angela: “What else would I draw?”

Here’s what I have learned in one week.

First, I have learned to never again say “I’m not an artist.”

No, it’s not that I think I’ve transformed overnight into Marie Cassatt with the help of one week of an online course. Rather, it’s that saying the words “I’m not an artist” is an excuse not to try to improve what skills I can.

On the other hand, given that I’ve reached the age of <<bleep>> without drawing much more than some stick figures here and there and poking fun at myself with a series of drawings on my garden blog, I don’t expect to discover my inner Vermeer. But perhaps I can learn to pay better attention to the details of the natural world around me, render them with enough skill to be able to put it to practical use, and—hey—why not just enjoy slowing down and communing with nature in a way that doesn’t require gloves. a shovel and a shower afterward?

The second thing I’ve learned this week is that the hardest part of learning to draw—so far—has been getting started. I have dedicated the small secretary desk by my bed as my drawing “studio” and filled all the little cubbies with pencils, erasers and inks. I have a nice basket on the floor by the desk where I keep my pads and books on botanical drawing. That was the easy part.

The very hardest part was facing the sprig of Winter King Hawthorn and the empty sheet of paper with a pencil in my hand. OMG. I am taking an online course so I can turn in stick figures and humiliate myself!

“Stop it!!!” (Mental head slap.)

I finally took a deep breath and started with the stems. Big stems. Slim stems. Slimmer stems. Even slimmer stems on the slimmer stems. Did you know there are little tiny white places on brown stems? And some little darker brown spots? And did you know that when the stem meets the tiny little orange-red berry on the Winter King Hawthorn that there is an ever-so-slight indentation?

I don’t believe I’ve ever really looked that closely—or for that long—before. I’ve been too busy pulling the weeds under the tree, I suppose.

But as I looked at the berries, I see that they aren’t just ORANGE. They are hues of orange that can be drawn to suggest the shading, circular shape and even shininess of the berry.

Capturing all this newfound insight with a pencil is not so very easy, however. This does not come naturally to me.

But as I was browsing through the Barnes & Noble for the last of the recommended texts I needed, a rather obvious revelation came to me. The reason people write and publish books on drawing and other arts is because all these fabulous techniques don’t come naturally to most people. And that’s why they have whole classes devoted to learning different art techniques. So you can learn to do it!

Just like I had to take years and years of piano lessons and spend hours and hours of time practicing before I could call myself a pianist, people spend many years at training and practice to become artists! No one (okay, hardly anyone) just sits down at the piano for the first time knowing how to play. Most people don’t just pick up a pencil and create a fabulous drawing their first try.

Isn’t it funny how the most obvious things can be the last things that you understand?

Posted In: Lifestyle