“A Fresh Kind of Life is Starting.”  Teilhard de Chardin 

Earlier in the fall (2015,)  I planted some seeds for a variety of flowers to bloom in the spring-summer (2016.)

While seeing each plant sprout, grow and bloom I could be closely engaged with this natural pattern of growth.

Over several months, I have been enthralled with the diversity of colors and color combinations, forms and the arrangement of shapes within each flower along with a wide range of sizes.

My garden includes poppies, marigolds, daisies, cosmos, zinnias, calendulas, hollyhocks, palm and fruit tree blooms.   I enjoy looking at the geometric design elements in these plants and many of them have inspired my work.

I have observed the patterns that leaves assume to enfold an opening bud, the sequence of seeds forming as a long string grouping, the compact close knit arrangement of delicate monochromatic petals forming a small bulbous bud, the long equidistant and parallel lines that can be found on orchid petals as well as the firework-like explosions of stamens of a “Poma Rosa” flower.

As for colors, I am including a small arrangement of flowers in solid pinks, oranges, purples and yellows and with  color combinations of red-yellow and yellow-white, red with white and red-orange with orange-yellow.

 

I want to be especially attuned to the growing life of my garden as I work on the geometric forms and compositions of my paintings.  The process of planting and studying each of these blooms allows me to do exactly this, to remain closely connected to the textures, colors, patterns and the wide diversity of designs found in nature.

Notes:

“Today, something is happening to the whole structure of human consciousness. A fresh kind of life is starting. Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world are seeking each other, so that the world may come into being.” From the Phenomenon of Man;   (for Lectio Divina and Contemplation bibliographic excerpts see Meditations with Teilhard de Chardin by Blanche Gallagher)