resurrection

My life, for those of you who know, has been challenged by major health issues since last August. I've struggled to keep up with my creative work during the wasted days of illness, and long winter of recovery. Recently, however, I let go of the struggle to simply rest. That's why my blog has been so quiet.

Now spring is here. My Doctor said I would feel better in the spring. Indeed, I do. But only in small measures. If only I were like the tree in our front garden that gloriously grew a full mantle of green overnight! There is no better time for healing than spring, when black, weathered branches become fragrant with blossoms and bright with luminous leaves.

"...This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?"

—Theodor Roethke, from: Cuttings (later)

gaudi chimneys

A friend, Kjerstin, has been posting on Spain, and the fabulousness she discovered there, like Gaudi, the blow it out of the box spanish architect. I was lucky enough to spend some time in Barcelona where his amazing church, La Sagrada Familia, stands like a beacon to brilliance. He also designed a park, Parc Guell. These watercolor sketches are of the chimneys of the caretaker's house. The black thing is an iron gate nearby, which Gaudi also designed. The brown thing? A plant! Designed by Nature, plucked and glued by me. See the artwork better here.

My regret is not filling in the pencil sketch with pen on site, as pencil doesn't reproduce very well, and when I'm no longer with the subject of my sketch, my memory fails me where details are too pale to read. I have sketchbooks full of pale pencil lines. Here, the window is in pencil. I burned and burned it to get it to show. It looks not like a graceful pencil line, but... burned!

My character from The Nik Notebooks, Nik, has a sketchbook she carries with her wherever she goes. She will draw in pen.