alchemy & inquiry on wave hill

On Mother's Day, Jennifer, Magnus and I saw a painting we liked a lot called "Aspidium, Aspenium, Pteris," (2011), at the Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery by the artist Philip Taaffe. The painting is part of a three-man show called 'Alchemy & Inquiry' Philip Taaffe, Fred Tomaselli, Terry Winters, (through June 19th). Jennifer has an affinity for nature and plants, which are sometimes my muse. The painting depicts an array of ferns in various sizes and colors ranging from shades of green to rust. The ferns sway elegantly layered atop one another, cohabiting in a simple familial nature. I looked up the meaning of the title and found aspidium to be a male fern, aspenium, a mother fern, and pteris to mean "with children."
Jennifer took me to Wave Hill on my birthday a few summers ago where we walked through scenic grounds, and where I did this drawing of a Dawn Redwood tree (a Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

spring thawing

Upstate
Awaken in brightness to the sound of morning doves, I gazed out the window to see them. All I could make out were pine trees powered by sunshine reflecting off the pond. I noticed insects on the glass, fixed as I was, trying to make sense of the landscape. I studied the bugs for a while from my bed as they roamed around searching for a way out or something. I thought about killing them, freeing them, then not interfering. They gravitated to sunnier spots and buzzed erratically. Through a spider's web outside the window, my eye spotted a robin combing the ground for worms. Upon hearing the woodpecker it occurred to me I was half asleep and that the bugs were OK. They weren't trapped or dying to get out or anything. They were just responding to their surroundings, in accord, aroused by the sun.

summer

Woman on the Beach, Ditch Plains, Montauk NY