Gardening by Heart

I am reading Joyce McGreevy's book Gardening by Heart: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Garden. the book encourages everyone to garden and discusses the benefits of gardening for one's well-being. It offers advice for how to become a gardener, how to learn to stop and "smell the roses" so to speak.

McGreevy's directions and observations make me think of the gardeners I met last summer for my The Gardener's Soul project. McGreevy discusses the same themes that have come up over and over again with my gardeners:

• A garden brings happiness.
• Any plant you tend can be your garden.
• Gardening is a way for us to connect with nature and find respect for the earth.
• Gardening itself is a process. It is the act of gardening that brings us joy.
• A gardener's character is seen in the garden he/she creates.
• Our lives are filled with gardens. We just need to open our eyes and look for them
• Experience is important in the garden. We need only to pay attention to nature to be a good gardener.
• Bring all of your senses to your garden to really experience it.
• "Find what thrives for you and grow it."
• Find the corner of the garden that speaks to your soul and cherish it.
• Find a connection to nature every day, even if only for a limited time.
• We connect to generations in the garden.

When in the garden, I work hard. I sweat. I step back and take a quick look. Then, I dive in again and work some more. When I am all through, I grab my little girl and we walk around the yard together, just like my dad did with me when I was a girl. We examine plants, smells and design. We frolic. (Isn't that a lovely word? Just made for the garden...) For me, the cap on the gardening experience is writing about what I've planted or grabbing my camera to take photographs of my work. From seed to photo completes my gardening experience. The camera helps me stop and smell the roses. I remember the experience better when I had a camera in my hand to record it.

Plein Air

I need to send out kudos again to another artist friend. Up until last month I was editor of the Manchester Artists Association newsletter. Artist Sue Whitaker stepped up to take over when I needed to step down. Her first newsletter came out this month and it is wonderful. Sue is a graphic designer and has pushed our humble newsletter to a new level.

Sue is a plein air painter, meaning that she goes on location and she paints what she sees. Plein air artists are generally known for their landscapes. They like communing with nature and trying to express what they feel while they are painting out in the open.

Perhaps I should call myself a plein air photographer. My artist statement reads that I generally enjoy finding my garden subjects through serendipity. I like trying to express the happiness I feel in the garden. Warm breezes, sunshine, rustling leaves, and dewy grass all wake up my senses. My photographs aim to make you feel like you are on the journey with me. I want it to seem as if you can reach out and touch the petals of my flowers. While it is fun to craft a still-life indoors, there is nothing like wandering out-of-doors to seek the perfect photographic subject to share my love of nature and flowers with others.

Plein air was popularized by the Impressionists. Look at a Monet and you can practically feel the Giverny sunshine playing across his waterlilies. According to American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, "I don't believe in making pencil sketches and then painting your landscape in your studio. You must be right under the sky." While some artists will complete their preliminary outdoor studies in the studio, others like Chase prefer to address the whole task of painting nature outside.

Out in the open you don't just see nature as your subject. You experience it. Experiencing allows you to add intense emotion to your art. If you don't really experience your subject, the communication of it is dull and lifeless. If some part of you doesn't feel deeply energized while you are creating a piece of art, it is not worth creating. If the natural world energizes you, the art work you do out in the open will communicate your enthusiasm.

Fruit Photography and Eating Clean

Food is on my mind today. I'm still in the process of ordering my summer seeds. I've got the bio-dome picked out for my vegetables and have vowed to order it today! As I was footnoting my book this morning, I realized that I had referenced produce related topics a number of times. I am also back on the Zone Diet, which helps regulate my hormone levels and really make me a much happier person. So food seems like a good subject for the days writing...(My friend Regina is also taking me out to lunch today and I am getting very hungry!)

But what does food have to do with garden portraits? Well, beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables can be just as photogenic as colorful vibrant flowers. Strawberries are my own personal favorites for photographing. You can't beat the bright red color, the way the light plays off their sensual form and the bright green tops to cap (no pun intended) the whole thing off. When I plop down a strawberry in the middle of some flowers that really gets my creativity flowing. Slice open the fruit for another view of your fabulous subject. Apples, corn, raspberries, and kiwi are some more favored materials for my artistic endeavors. Pile them high in a bowl or let them stand on their own. Play with lighting - natural or artificial. Make pleasant shadows mimicing nature's enticing forms.

And after you photograph it you can eat it! Check out the work of my friend, fellow gardener, and photographer Lisa Allen. She is the author of Eating Clean (which is available on her web site.) She offers lots of tasty ideas for what to do with fresh from the garden produce. Thanks Lisa! (Lisa is also one of the gardeners who posed for my upcoming book The Gardener's Soul. She is a lovely and fascinating individual.)

Have a great day everyone! I'm off for some Thai food!

Secrets of a Natural Gardener

My book proposal has been edited by a friend and I am busy re-working it now. My mind today is wrapped around chapter summaries. In the proposal I write about each of the individual gardeners I visited last summer. I learned so much from them. Despite the fact that I have been gardening on my own for ten years, there is so much I don't know. Learning in the garden is a never ending process. Everyone has a different method. A good gardener is always experimenting - moving things around, playing with new methods. Here are some of the "secrets" I learned last year. As I start to plan for this year's garden, I am trying to keep all of these things in mind.

- Clover lawns are healthier, easier to care for, and greener than grass lawns
- There are many sources of natural fertilizer from horse manure to sludge from the local waste plant.
- You can dry seeds from your vegetables in the sun and plant them next year.
- Elements of whimsy make a garden special.
- Seating areas encourage others to enjoy your gardens and make them more homey.
- A vegetable garden mixed with flowers encourages more wildlife and makes the garden more beautiful.
- Vegetables can be grown for food and/or for beauty.
- The garden can serve as an inspiration for all creative aspects of your life. You can mimic nature's beauty in paintings, photographs, and decorative arts. You can bring bouquets into your home or dry flowers to decorate your living space.
- The garden should serve as an outdoor room to enjoy in nice weather. Encourage this kind of living by providing decks, walkways, and sheltered spaces. Think of your outdoor space this way and create niches with different atmospheres to enjoy at different times during the day.
- Think of children when creating your space. Make the garden a place to play.
- Add bright colors on a shed, arbor, or other outdoor element to make the space more fun
- Consider all of the space in your landscape. Plant around a mailbox and in out of the way corners to make your space a real nature haven.
- You do not have to save every plant. It is okay to give up on the ones that you have trouble growing no matter where you put them in your yard.
- Phlox can survive disease free in some people's yards.

I think that I am going to order my seed starter kit from Park Seed Company today!

Still-Life

A fun indoor garden photography project is creating still-lifes. I always use flowers in mine. Sometimes I start with a flower or bouquet from my garden or the florist and build the still-life around it. Other times I start with a favorite personal item, a holiday nick-nack, or an unusual item I find in a gift shop and then find the flora that matches it. I build my still lifes around common colors or shapes.

One trick is to mimic shapes throughout your set up. I favor circular movement or S curves, but sometimes I will create a neat sharp line. Whatever shapes I choose, I try to make them guide the viewer's eye through the scene. My "Coffee Cups in a Row" image to the left is an example of this. In this image I also play with light and shadow/ light and dark. The flower softens the diagonal line, but the single stem does not dominate the image. (My friend, the lovely and talented, Robin Frisella says this is one of her favorite images in my portfolio. It is similar to the type of still-lifes she sets up. Robin is an oil painted, but her work as an outstanding example for any still-life artist. Please visit her web site.)

Still-lifes styles can be very personal. Last year I participated in a two-person still-life show with my friend and fellow photographer Glenn Urquhart at the Wine Studio in Manchester, NH. The exhibit focused on the dichotomy of our styles, emphasizing his more masculine image and my feminine point of view. Though Glenn will sometimes use flowers in his imagery, his still-lifes possess a decidedly bolder feel then mine.

The subjects of still-lifes can also be intensely personal. Incorporating personal objects or creating a story with your picture can be very satisfying. To the left is the series of photos entitled "Not My Breakfast," which relates to my Celiac Disease and inability to properly digest the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye. Relating a serious issue, I chose to incorporate flowers and present my subjects (the wheat products) in a beautiful way. The matted versions I have of this photo are labeled "Breakfast," because I thought more people would be able to identify with that title. My friend, watercolorist Lillian Christmas, ordered a copy with the "Breakfast" title. She claimed it was because breakfast is one of her favorite meals. (My four-year-old thinks this is not right and tells everyone, "This picture is really called 'Not My Breakfast!'" She then goes on to tell anyone who will listen that mommy can't eat wheat.)

Still-lifes are a fun way to play with light, concept and color. Have a little fun with your camera and give it a try!

Weather, Mood, and Creativity

It is 50 degrees in New Hampshire today. We have lots of fog and rain here in Bedford. While driving from a doctor's appointment this morning I began to think how much weather affects my picture taking. I generally prefer taking photographs on sunny days. I like playing with light and shadow. And as weather greatly affects my mood, I am more apt to want to be outside with camera in hand on a sunny day. Other photographers prefer unusual weather including foggy days like today when you can get cool shots of mist off a lake. Some like thunderstorms or snow. Others prefer overcast days to cut down on the shadows I love so much. On days like that I stay indoors. I prefer to take still-life photos or pictures of my cat.

But the garden can be a great place to take unique pictures when I drag myself out on a non-sunny day. When I decide to leave the kitten whiskers behind to seek raindrops on roses, I find that the weather can be my friend. It is just another part of nature that I need to accept and work with. My camera has a raincoat and so have I. I'm not going to melt. I've taken some of my best photos out on rainy spring days, but what about winter? We are covered with white and I feel uninspired, whether or not it is 50 degrees out. My creativity must plummet in February and March. Every year after New Year's I am ready for spring. Why do I live in New England?

As I stop to gaze out my sunroom windows as I write this, I notice that my junipers and pines have lovely droplets hanging from their tips. Large lovely icicles hang from my holly bushes. The red branches of my Japanese maple are dotted with water. Brown rose leaves hang delicately above the snow... Maybe I need to brave this weather I so dislike and seek some opportunities? Before I go, maybe I'll grab a cup of tea!

Onward and Upward

I received my copy of Katharine S. White's Onward and Upward in the Garden yesterday. I am enjoying it immensely. As I simultaneously read Eleanor Perenyi's Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden, I am struck by the strong voices of these women. Gardening never struck me as an opinionated arena until now.

I have a strong opinion about organic gardening. I also have strong opinions about clearcutting and massive overly green lawns. I am particularly annoyed when my neighbors water the road in the middle of a drought, especially on the one day of the month when it is raining...perhaps I do have strong opinions. And maybe now I am just finding my voice to express them. (With my apologies for any comparison you are making of me to Hillary Clinton...perhaps finding one's voice is in vogue at the moment, but I didn't think about Mrs. Clinton until after I wrote that sentence!)

It would do me good to follow the examples of Perenyi and White. Perenyi's book contains short essays about everything garden related. She gives historical information about gardening, provides practical information about growing, and relates advice that has to do with her own personal gardening experiences. She is blunt, funny, and informative.

White's book reviews garden catalogs. As an editor for the New Yorker, she wrote her annual Onward and Upward column to impart information about the products available for the upcoming growing season. Evaluating catalogs, White also analyzed the writing within them and the service of each company. She relates her own gardening experiences and discusses her preferred plants and planting methods. (Her writing is so personal that I am drawn to her. I feel almost as if her garden is mine. It helps that she seems to favor the traditional plants that I too favor and we are both New Englanders and writers.) This book is a compilation of her columns and reflects a remarkable woman.

Once again I am thinking about the camaradarie among gardeners. If you are a lone gardener, make an effort to reach out to others who share your passion or read about others who throughout time have been drawn to this remarkable past time. Realizing that your passion is shared gives you the courage to express yourself in new and profound ways. What you have to say is important. Your little garden is important. Your gardening methods and creations are unique and worth sharing. Our opinions help others learn, as their opinions help us.