It is black as the inside of someone's mouth outside, and the sound of rain rules over the room, meshes with the glow of the screen. It's Monday morning again, which means a guilt-induced breakfast salad, half-day of cleaning house, another half-day of painting. Squeezed into there somewhere is cooking and coffee with a friend.
I've been thinking about the contents of the next solo show for a while now, and must sadly conclude that it will be about birds. Why? Because birds are interesting. Ever-present. Enduring. Symbolic. Birds are one of those things that are Worth Painting. I'd even put them somewhere between houseplants and cats within the realm of personal understanding. (But, who would want a painting of a houseplant?)
Recently, one of those mega-flocks of starlings has been hanging around the trees in the front yard. It is no surprise that they've yet to move south- it was 50 degrees out here last afternoon, probably a record high for this timeof the year. The flock itself splits up every morning into smaller marauding bands, which waddle across lawns and plop collectively into privet bushes to eat the tiny blue berries. In the evenings, starlings sing much like they walk- with a great deal of enthuseasm and zest, but little grace.
Starlings remind me of people- those gregarious, tenacious flocks of strangers in the cities.
I think the question is who wouldn't want a painting of a houseplant, no?
ReplyDeleteWhy, do -you- want a painting of a houseplant? ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, you know. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteAs far as birds being an enduring symbol and stuff, you might want to reconsider; birds may have taken on a slightly different meaning. . .
Put a Bird on It! (Portlandia clip on YouTube)
Put a Bird on It: The Aftermath (Salon.com article about the clip)
Of course, it's also possible that now is the best time ever to sell paintings of birds. Hard to tell.
Upon viewing that video without the mandatory sound on, I have one thing to say-- poor pigeon. Animal cruelty, both to pigeons and to pieces of colored paper, should be punishable by tarring and feathering. Never you mind that both of the above are an invasive specie..
ReplyDeletePainting-wise: I'll trade ya a small painting of an image of your choice for a few plant off-sets? ;D
Well, that could probably be arranged, if you're serious. I have nothing if not plant offsets. (Though I anticipate a tough time making up my mind about whether I'd want you to put a bird on the painting.)
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck, sure. It wouldn't be framed, mind ya. Just an (~9.5x11) acrylic painting on Masonite board, in exchange for 3-4 offsets.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find the list of your extra plants on the blog, though..
I took it down because there's no chance of me mailing them out until April or May (too cold), so why advertise them.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the matter of not being certain about what I'll have in April or May, because I don't know what I'm going to try to propagate and I don't know which of my propagation attempts will fail. I can try to get you a list now (though it won't be now now; I've recently been having some trouble with a couple long-form blog posts that are eating up a lot of my time. But probably by the end of the month, at least.), with the understanding that the list will likely be different by the time it's warm enough to mail plants, or you could just wait until it's warm and claim your plants from the same list everybody else sees.
I also have plants (like Syngonium wendlandii, for example) that I wouldn't ordinarily propagate, but if I started them nowish, I could probably have rooted specimens ready to go by spring. So I suppose coming up with the list now probably makes more sense, so as to give you a shot at those. I dunno.
Actually, not mailing them out until April/May thing's perfect! Could we reconnect when it gets warmer? (Just dug myself up to the neck with a children's book+show in April. Unsurprisingly, the former involves birds. Will post an exemplary page something next week.)
ReplyDeleteI vaguely recall you having an offset of a Screw Pine that I was very tempted to buy.. Other than that, just something cactusey and hard to kill. ('ve learned my lesson of specializing with having 70+ African violets. At some point, they all get cyclamen mites and die a horrible, terrible death.)
Sure. I've written myself a note about this, but feel free to go ahead and write me first, 'cause I have no idea what will be going on in March/April and may forget or whatever.
ReplyDeleteIf you're pretty sure about the screw pine, I can go ahead and start rooting one now -- they're normally pretty easy to do, but I figure it's better if I can send a rooted specimen. Once rooted, they're basically indestructible, but I have lost some before they managed to establish themselves, so getting a head start on that would get you a better plant.
Also, I can't promise a variegated or non-variegated plant: the only screw pine I have that's got decent offsets on it is the Big Damn Screw Pine, which is variegated, but it's lost the variegation since it's been living here because it's too big to put close to any good sources of light. I don't know if it would remember how to be variegated, if it got put in better light again. (My guess: probably. I have an offset of the BDSP that's gone back and forth between solid and variegated and is currently variegated, but it never got completely green, as the BDSP has.) I have Pandanus that are definitely solid green, but none of them have offsets that are big enough to separate yet, and I don't anticipate that happening before spring, so it's probably offspring of the BDSP or nothing.
Will do! What houseplant did you want a painting of, anyway?
ReplyDeleteVariegation is a non-deal-breaker for me-- the one large screw pine we've seen in a conservatory didn't have it, and still looked bloody awesome. In fact, just getting an offspring of the BDSP would be good. Not every plant can brag that sort of Subjunctive lineage. ;)
Hmmm. I don't rightly know. You said you'd done one of the transmitted light photos once -- that could possibly work for me. (One of the more colorful Aglaonemas, or Caladium, Calathea, Canna, Episcia, Maranta, or Quercus, perhaps? I also like Bridget Riley rather more than is reasonable, so something like one of the Zea mays transmitted light pictures would work too.)
ReplyDeleteI also wouldn't object to a straightforward portrait.
If you really wanted to get zany and found the idea interesting, I'd be exceptionally interested in an illustration for one of the fictional botany posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), particularly #4 or #6. But it might work best if you come up with a handful of things you'd find interesting/entertaining/whatever to paint, and then ask me to pick one.
I've rather enjoyed your fictional plants, and would love to do one of those for you. 8D This project is officially on the "Taped to the monitor" list, but it might take me a couple of weeks to get to it.
ReplyDelete