I think many people are seeing their surroundings more deeply and in new ways this year. I have always loved the forest and found inspiration there, but more and more I am seeing the fleeting birds as well as the steady trees. Jude recently sent me Sibley's big bird guide, and it has been a delight. Then yesterday, after I posted about the heron nests, a facebook friend named Leslie wrote me and said she was clearing out some family things and would I like a pair of binoculars. I was both touched and delighted. Her mom isn't well, and they've been downsizing. I remember finding happy homes for some of my family things after turning my dining room into a printing press room instead. It meant a lot to have people enjoy those things I wasn't using, instead of just dumping them at a charity. I told Leslie, kind enough to bring them that very day, that I would think of her and her mom Virginia as I used the binoculars.
They're perfect. So exactly what I needed. I went straight to the heron nests again and watched the babies. The mother wasn't around, but the babies were edging gingerly along the branches, preening, shaking out their wings, and generally putting on a show. I took a chair (always in my car now, for visiting friends outdoors without having to touch anyone else's things) and sat and watched and sketched in my lap. It was a delightful evening. This morning over breakfast I did a picture of the book and binoculars for the journal. They certainly deserve prominence at this time. And I also want to remember the kindness of a near stranger who follows my art reaching out and giving me another tool to make it.
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It was a magical day today. I took my bike down to the farmers market, and I did an extra loop through a gorgeous old neighborhood in Memphis to look at the houses and get a little extra exercise. This week I hit 300 miles on my bike for the year so far. For some of my friends, that's small potatoes, but since I didn't learn to ride until last summer, it's been worth celebrating. So I need to do at least that again before the end of the year! Not only did I see some lovely old houses, but I saw some lovely old friends as well. I had two very good chats with people I hadn't seen since all this craziness started. That was good enough, but then Kevin and Erin told me about two heron nests in the neighborhood -- that I'd been whizzing underneath on my bike without realizing for some weeks now, watching houses and traffic instead. It was glorious. They're right out over the sidewalk, so anyone can stop to watch (and the neighbors out were really kind about it, even pointing out the second nest I hadn't spotted yet). The babies are huge, almost fledged. I'm so glad I got there in time to see them. And one of the mamas walked down a branch and took a bath/preened herself for a long time. I got a great look at different angles of her head and beak and gorgeous long plumage that wouldn't be out of place at Ascot. My bike was mostly falling over, too heavy with all my produce for the week for the kickstand to hold, so I was juggling it, and then my fountain pen started leaking badly as I was drawing. I finally did totally lose control of the bike, and it went over onto the pavement. I had a couple of busted peaches as a snack when I finally got home. And you can see fingerprints and smudges all over the sketchbook page. But my sketches are better than the super small i-phone photos I got -- the herons are way high up. I did get one short video of the joyful cacophony in one of the nests, which I'm adding at the bottom for fun. I'm so grateful for this new focus on birds through the quiet, at home spring. It's been a gorgeous new facet of the world to learn about and pay attention to. I spent a lot of the rest of the day (lunch and work) at the back porch table with birdsong and the fan (and, realistically, a couple of really loud leaf blowers nearby for a bit). I just started a second volume of the Quarantine Journal (top image, the neat one) -- I finished the first book I had started. I used my messy sketches and also my new Sibley bird book to double check colors some. I'm so grateful I'd thought to tuck in my sketchbook when I left this morning. I wanted this magical day in my big and colorful journal where I would remember it. It was a glorious morning in the forest. I had been stopping by the tree where I saw the owl to check for her every time I passed (reminding myself of my beloved, deeply optimistic first dog who checked under a car every day for six months after seeing a cat under it once). It turns out optimism is sometimes warranted. She was there again today, and once again stayed to watch and chat with me. I've been taking my sketchbook religiously on the off chance, so I got to draw her from life. The black and white one was done on site, and then I found the rare gift of a very late wood poppy. Mostly they stopped blooming a month ago, so it was delightful to sit and sketch it as well, spending time with the unexpected beauty. Over lunch I pulled them together and sketched the rabbit I also saw from memory, since he didn't stay around long enough for me to sketch from life.
I also picked the first of my blueberries from my new bushes today. I was more delighted before something came along after and knocked off almost all the rest of the green berries. I put up some netting and wished I'd gotten to it the day before. We'll see if it helps. But I had five lovely little berries at the end of my lunch after drawing them. I wasn't expecting any the first year, so I shouldn't mind the loss really. I cleaned off the porch at the beginning of the season, removed the second hammock chair that crowds it (no one ever really sits out there with me anyway), and have been spending lots of time out there lately. It's been a great joy. I did a line drawing of this scene some days ago in my smaller journal with the new Sailor fude pen, and I decided to have it in the Quarantine Journal as well. I was down to the right hand side square, and it probably would have benefited from being more horizontal, but it shows the critical elements of the scene, along with my new bird book, a long distance present that I am really enjoying. Spending this much time on the porch has me watching the birds more intently than ever before, and it's been deeply satisfying.
I'm showing off my deeply ugly house shoes in both of these sketches, but they're incredibly comfortable for standing up painting and print work, and I have to say that they are also fun to draw. I wrote yesterday about how much I'm watching the birds these days, and what a beautiful new awareness that is in my life. I've always admired them, but never sat still and long and really looked more than occasionally. The learning about birds been a huge gift of this quarantine season. And then this morning, an enormous owl flapped across my path in the forest and sat on a limb for ages, looking at me and chatting a little. I'd gotten over there very early (about 6:15), sadly without my smaller sketchbook today, since s/he sat so long. I wish I'd had it. It was still pretty dark to take photos, but I got a couple and locked in a little in my memory as well. Over breakfast I sketched out this page to help me remember in coming times. I loved the side to side head motion. I must have stood there 5 or 6 minutes. I think perhaps there was a nest nearby, or probably s/he would have just moved on. I finally decided I'd been an annoying presence long enough and took up my walk again, with such gratitude for the beauty of the forest and all its creatures.
I don't know if this is really a Quarantine Journal or a new normal journal. We're a long way in from what we used to think of as normal, though, so even though the shelter at home order is lifted, it feels like I'm still largely in quarantine from the virus if not the government.
My new garden, which has been giving me herbs, is now also giving me gardenias, and I could not be more delighted. They smell divine. One good friend has brought them to me before from her bush, and I've wanted one ever since. Our little midtown nursery is open air shopping, so I got there first thing a month or so ago. I also have my first hydrangea blossoms. It's been a joy to reclaim a bit of my messy yard for beauty. I had lunch on the back porch today and watched a dove building her nest. With every beak full of straw, she stopped to perch on the fence across from me before she took it on to the nest. I finally got my sketching things and managed to draw her over several trips. After the Cardinal tragedy (though I'm happy to say they're still whizzing around the yard and seem to be mating again!), it's happy to see another nest being built. This one is quite high, so I'll have to just watch from a distance, but it's a joy. I've never watched birds the way I have this year. I feel like I'm turning into my grandmother, and it's really given me a lot of quiet happiness in the midst of the chaos. I had a reptile kind of walk this morning. I got out early to beat both the heat and the holiday weekend crowds in the park, and I had the forest beautifully to myself. I had done a short walk with Mr. Darcy (who struggles with an arthritic hip these days) and then gone back out with my smaller sketchbook. I'm so glad I did. I found a turtle in the middle of the path, and he very obligingly hung around and let me sketch him. He didn't even pull into his shell.
Not five minutes later, I came across a pair of copperheads writhing together on the path. This time I took a photo but didn't stay in the vicinity long enough to sketch. I did the journal page looking at both my turtle sketch as well as reference photos for both. These are the first snakes I've seen in ages, which is a little unusual for me. For several years now I've been a bit of a magnet for them, enough that the forester has joked about having the copperhead researcher (a professor at a local college) follow me around so she can find them more easily. I was beginning to feel like I might speak parseltongue without knowing it, though truthfully, a port key or apparition would be much my preferred form of Harry Potter magic. Today made up for the gap, however, since I saw two at once for the first time. I’ve been slow on my journal this week since I’ve gotten back moving on prints, though truthfully, I’ve been slow on a lot of things. I’ve been spending a lot of time in my favorite reading chair with Wilkie Collins. I did at least draw the view. This is another corner I reworked recently in my push to get the house how I want to live in it. I found the little square stained glass lamp at a garage sale. It’s not fine, but it matches the wall well and cheers up to top of the cabinet. Hanging next to it is a Hatch Show Print I had bought years ago and never gotten around to framing. I love it, and it’s great to have it up on the wall. Less clearly visible to the left, on the oven with magnets, are a drawing from a friend for my birthday (which itself needs framing, but it came after my big order of frames and binge of work in that direction) and several show cards that inspire me and make me happy.
I’m trying to talk myself into more journal sketches again. I’m having a hard time finding the balance between cutting myself some slack and being even partially accountable for getting some work done. Today I carved after lunch and finally got this posted, so now I’m going to read a little more Woman in White. I feel like most of us are having these most weeks. This week has been especially so for me. I had a lovely mother's day visit on the patio with my folks, from a safe distance. Then the baby Cardinals finally hatched. And then they died overnight in the nest, I think from cold. It affected me in an outsized way, although I imagine some of that is just the grief and stress of these times also showing up, and it's not bad to push a little of that out occasionally. Plus Mr. Darcy came over and gave me big sloppy kisses to make me feel better.
I found that I needed to physically turn the page on this page of my sketchbook, so I drew my dinner last night. I've never cooked beets before. Thanks to Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (which I think is going to be key for my CSA journey), it was super easy, and I've had a couple of truly lovely beet salads with goat cheese and slightly candied walnuts. Then today was lovely again. I met Dad and Pat at his grandparent's house, my great grandparents, about half a mile from their daughter's (my grandmother's) house where I live now. I never knew my great grandparents, or the house, and it's recently been bought by a lovely woman who is lovingly restoring it and who wants to know the history of the house and of our family as she moves in. It's beyond special to have someone there who wants to know and carry forward those family stories. We've had such a great series of emails over the last week, and it means a tremendous amount. I sat afterwards and sketched the house to have more happiness in my journal from this time. My favorite thing, aside from getting to see the place, was finding out that the sunroom off the main bedroom was called "The Joint" because it was jointly owned by my dad (with his bed there for weekend visits) and his grandfather, who kept his desk in there. I've never done a CSA before, and for years now I've traveled too much to even consider it. This year, however, I will be staying home, and I'm trying to shop as little as possible. Plus I'm tired of my same cooking, so it seemed like a good idea to branch out, support fantastic local farmers Whitton Farms, and learn to cook some new things. Boy howdy, it's a lot of food for one person though! I can see that I may be sharing some with my folks as we go along, but it's exciting and very beautiful to paint. This week I am going to learn to cook beets (which I usually just buy cooked and ready to go), and I think I'll try my hand at a beet/goat cheese salad. Or feta, depending on whether I can get some goat cheese easily. And I haven't had sweet potatoes in a while. It's good to bust me out of my routines.
I also did a nest sketch. The mama goes off occasionally for short periods, so I sat up on a ladder (inside my kitchen, not near the nest!) to peep down in. It's quite a deep nest, and I'm hoping another egg or two is hidden on the near side that I couldn't see. But it was fun to glimpse the one speckled one. I didn't even know what a cardinal egg looked like. I'm so excited about a baby or two. |
online store Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. Get occasional studio email updates. Categories
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