Category Archives: Spring

Marking Time

If there’s such a thing as visual euphoria, it’s the garden coming back to life again in all its glorious colors and textures. The early season vibrance of azaleas is beyond stunning after a long Vermont winter.

For those who have followed me faithfully here, you will recognize color as a recurrent early summer theme. How could it not be? With the lupines now out and irises just beginning to pop, I am reminded of this post from a couple of years ago, exalting a landscape immersed in purple and blue – my favorite.

Lately I’ve been noticing that the variety of greens on the hills and mountains that surround us are more vivid than ever. As summer wears on, the leaves will mature, becoming increasingly monochromatic, but for now their wide spectrum from warm to cool, offset by scattered reds and pinks, is pure visual pleasure. The sight is a post-winter reward.

May 18, First Color ©2021 Elizabeth Fram, Watercolor and stitch on paper, 5 x 5 inches. I have been meaning to get back to watercolor for ages. This is a rusty first stab after a long break but, as with everything, practice is all. It’s such a pleasurable activity; time just melts away in pools of color.

Digging deeper, it is the constant change of the seasons upon a set structure (mountain) or template (garden) that I find endlessly interesting.

May 18, detail ©2021 Elizabeth Fram One can only learn by doing. By matching the colors of thread in the stitched house so closely to those of the paint below, I think the image melts just a bit too much into the background. The aim was to have it be like a good conversationalist, holding its own without either monopolizing or fading into obscurity. The results seem to lean more toward the latter the further you get from the piece. But maybe that’s good? An unexpected surprise upon close inspection?

With that in mind, I’m beginning a new project this summer, both as a break from months steeped in COVID-centric houses (although I haven’t released the house shape yet), and also as a creative stretch. I’m looking to combine paint with stitch, and what better inspiration could one ask for than the ever-evolving flora that has suddenly taken center stage once again?

The painting before stitching; the marks that outline the house are visible underneath the painting.

The core idea I am grappling to articulate relates to structure, within the garden or even, perhaps, in the larger landscape. Inspired generally by Piet Oudolf (designer of Manhattan’s High Line and Chicago’s Lurie Garden in Millennium Park) and particularly by the Red Garden designed by Jack Lenor Larsen at his LongHouse Reserve, I am thinking about constancy amid change – and even the constancy of change. I don’t quite know yet how this will pan out, you are seeing my very first steps. There are bound to be lots of stops and starts as I figure out where I’m headed, but for now it’s enough to embark on something fresh.

And since I’ve brought you into a garden headspace, here’s another resource, especially if you’re out and about in the area:
Elizabeth Billings is currently doing an artist residency at three of the Nature Conservancy’s natural areas in Vermont. She is creating intentional contemplative spaces under the title “Together: Nature Unites Us”. She has been posting about it on Instagram.

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Summer reading:

Oudolf Hummelo – A Journey Through A Plantsman’s Life

First Blush of Spring

Our landscape is finally coming back to life. Each day there is something new to see as the browns and grays of mud season recede, making room for the richer hues of spring.

Spring 1

I have been watching for a solid couple of months as people who live elsewhere in the country — and world — post images on Instagram of their neighborhoods as they green up.

Spring 3

We in the upper Northeast may be the last to arrive at the party, yet there is sweet reward in the feeling of having truly earned the colors that are re-emerging after a long, hard winter of visual restraint.

Spring 2

For those of us who relish the cycle of seasons, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Spring 4

For now, our days are fluctuating between cold & rainy and warm sun, so the garden is unfolding slowly, making it possible to mark changes daily. I watch those details closely and am rewarded with a world of color in each square inch.

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For a dose of pure chromatic eye candy, Carl Holty’s Flowering brings the garden to the canvas. Read about him and see more of his lush work in this article in Art & Antiques.

Exhibits of Spring

Did you hear the collective sigh of relief this past week as the sun emerged from hiding? It brought with it welcome warmth and cheer that seemed to put all of Vermont in a good mood.

I was so glad to finally pull back the burlap from one of my raised beds to expose the tiny garlic shoots that are valiantly making their way up and out of the dark. My arugula, lettuce and chard seeds are now planted between the rows of subterranean heads, and it’s reassuring to know that eventually the garlic’s leaves will shade the tender greens from the sun’s strength, so they will last far longer before bolting than if left unprotected.

Garlic Sprout

It’s been a great week for art viewing, with several shows to recommend for those of you in, or near to, Vermont. I was so caught up in each exhibit that I didn’t even think to take photos to share, which hopefully will only reinforce how good the work was. They all have less than a month left in their runs, so don’t delay.

First, the Fleming Museum has two excellent exhibits that exist independently, yet at the same time provide the perfect counterpoint to each other. Make sure you make time to see both if you go.

Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel

Honoré Daumier’s Bluestockings

Despite the obvious disparities between artists, eras of creation, and social messages conveyed, the pairing of these works, albeit in separate galleries, emphasizes their combined strengths, not the least of which is the technical beauty and finesse of each.

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A trip to the Northeast Kingdom for a sunny walk along Caspian Lake brought the unexpected delight of discovering a wonderful exhibit at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro.

Muse, features the work of three artists, Jess Polanshek, Amanda Weisenfeld, and Kristin Richland. Their enchanting work, also technically stunning, is irresistible — especially to any animal lover.

Muse

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And finally, a reminder that my exhibit, Drawing Threads: Conversations Between Line & Stitch, at the Emile A. Gruppe Gallery, will close on May 6th. If you haven’t had a chance to visit yet, I hope you will consider making the trip to Jericho to cap off any other shows on your list.

Early Color

Spring has been very slow to arrive on our hill this year. And while my perennials are gradually pushing up, the only real color that has broken through the drab grey-brown of our still mostly dormant yard and woods comes from the few crocuses the chipmunks missed, some strikingly blue scilla and hyacinths, and a handful of early daffodils.

These earliest flowers bring strong memories of my mother. When I was growing up, she never failed to point out and share her joy in the year’s first purple & yellow crocuses, caught in a patch of sun, often surrounded by snow. She would bring in pussy willows and force forsythia; her Korean azalea in full glory was a treasured marker of warm weather to come. In my mind, daffodils always seemed to be her flower. She called them “jonquils”, a name I’ve never heard anyone else use.

As a Pennsylvania transplant living in Maine, she relished spring’s hearty blooms, perhaps all the more because she’d learned not to trust that she’d seen the last of the snow until June. It wasn’t until I lived in PA myself and saw that spring there exists on a completely different plane from the ones we know in northern New England, that I could truly begin to understand what she must have been missing.

As I’ve looked out the window through the unrelenting rain this week, the sturdy yellow and blue blooms are a sweet sight. They are a harbinger of good things to come, a symbol of both dependability and of strength through adversity – all worthy metaphors for the woman who put her heart and soul into caring for us throughout the years. How appropriate that they are here just in time for Mother’s Day.

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Sally Swain’s 1988 humorous book Great Housewives of Art, is a compilation of paintings that pay homage to the wives and mothers of great artists who, like my mother, worked endlessly with intelligence and grace at home, making it possible for the rest of us to do as we chose. Check out Swain’s Facebook page for a glimpse her wonderfully clever work.

The Essence of Spring

Color is returning to our landscape as the snow slowly melts and evaporates. It’s a lift for my spirit to see the vibrant shades of green and red that quickly reappear after having been buried for such a long time. There is much to see and absorb as the season changes.

Red-barked dogwood, moss and lichen

Contrasted with the earthy shades of stones that have just emerged from under the snow, the vivid moss that survived through months of subzero temps is a wonder in both its color and its resilient softness.

Stones and moss

With the remaining snow as a backdrop, textures become more noticeable and appreciated.

White Pine

The shadows plants cast against the smooth surface of rocks create interesting abstract patterns. I can’t help but think of arashi shibori (wrapped resist).

Shadows on Stone

Arashi Shibori

Wide swaths of white still cover large portions of the garden, offering a counterpoint and an opportunity to look at individual features differently than during the rest of the year. It’s easier to frame interesting compositions because everything is still pared down to essentials. Variations of tone carry new weight in their subtlety.

The areas of “empty” space created by the remaining snow, offer a compelling contrast to these characteristics, simultaneously creating both weight and breathing room. And because color is just reemerging, there is a sense of promise that is missing during late fall and winter.

Courtyard Garden

Seeing my yard and garden in this way reminds me of the visual elements of Japanese gardens that I find so irresistible. Spring calls attention to the essence of the garden. It provides a chance to appreciate the intrinsic nature of plants through their inherent structure and their understated textural variations that aren’t as easy to see once their leaves and the grass have filled in. Irregularities that will become hidden once the beds are back in full bloom, are now their pride.

All of these elements carry strong suggestions for new work. I don’t think of myself as a landscape artist, but there’s no denying that my surroundings have a strong effect and influence on my thought process. The ice pieces I began in February are mostly finished and it’s high time to leave the winter months behind and to begin to concentrate on what’s to come.

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PS: The photos above were taken yesterday, the post written right afterward. This is what we awoke to this morning.

It looks like I will have more chances to enjoy the essence of spring…proving once again the Power of Persistence.