Reality and imagination

I come from a long line of artists. Both my parents were artists, as are all of my siblings. My grandmother, a woman of her times, took precious moments off from gardening, doing the laundry and feeding the farm hands to indulge in a bit of delicate china painting. I love to think of her, stealing the time to hold a tiny brush, instead of a pitchfork, painting on porcelain so delicate you could almost see through it.

After – school hours and summer vacations at my family home were all about art and crafts. From copper tooling to leather working, from painting to paper mâché, we were always doing something, piled around the round table in the sun – room to make and create.

It was a happy childhood and one that provided the foundation for both my hobbies and my career, though sometimes it’s a little difficult to tell the two apart. I have dabbled in a lot of different kinds of crafts and have used a multitude of different mediums. I love textile art and weave and quilt, I’m fairly passionate about my glue gun and I have painted with anything I can get my hands on, from dirt and flower petals to oils, from acrylics to natural dyes.

But by far my most favorite canvas is the garden. It is the keyboard waiting to be played, the white paper waiting for the paint, the chocolate chips and brown sugar begging to be made into cookies.

As I look at my garden now, toward the end of February, mostly what I see is potential. There are a few lonely clumps of hardy daffodils, bright green and shiny, and even a couple of intrepid early blossoms. Lenten rose is showing off, as she always does this time of year with an abundance of pink and white blossoms, and the evergreen ferns look staid and solid, though a little weather worn.

But mostly, it’s brown ground and bare branches and it reminds me of a quote from John Lennon who said, “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

My imagination colors the reality of my winter garden with swoops and swaths of vibrant, fragrant blossoms, with backdrops of rich, dark green shrubs, with butterflies hovering, birds flying and everything healthy and abundant and vibrantly alive.

Of course the trick is in the manifestation of the vision. But if you can SEE it, you’re well on your way to making it happen. Just as I sit patiently, drawing and painting each stamen and pistil in my botanical art, I also have to dig deep in the garden and to plant, weed, water and love this day dream into existence.

But what a journey it is! and how lucky I am to have this canvas. To partner with nature and work hand in hand with the Great Creator is a blessing indeed. I can’t wait until spring!!!!