I stand while painting in the studio, but I crouch while resting. In the garden, where glory is given by gardeners and illustrated into Botany, I find respite in dirt from thought, and in the tedium of uprooting weeds from the spilling of ink.
Though, yes, I battle against nature (mostly that of thistles and sticker burrs) I confine the battlefield to my backyard enclosure. And by putting myself in charge I alone determine what is welcome to grow here and what is not.
The garden is where I hear and locate (in this order) a pair of woodpeckers. And as an artist blogger I find this a fitting phenomenon to catalog. Isn't this what my painting blog is for? To journal my painting alongside my experiences of bird-watching and gardening? Woodpeckers are reminders of what's blissful, and they always have been. They are the purest of distractions along the straight and narrow path.
