Crickets and Chainsaws

Irene blew through and left downed trees, widespread power outages and way, way, way more water than anyone really wanted or needed. In the silence that followed hours of raging, roaring wind, the sun finally emerged to shine down on the green leaf blizzard that blanketed the ground. I took my dog Tiger out for a walk to contemplate the power of Nature. Well, I contemplated; Tiger just sniffed around. So quiet. No cars, no air conditioners, just...crickets. Crickets all around us, chirping their tiny hearts out. Maybe they were just happy to be alive. Maybe it is always like that, but we don't hear the song because our own noise drowns it out.

Back home after our walk, I threw open the windows to the cool, squeaky clean air and dragged my easel and supplies out onto the balcony to work. It had been so long, I had almost forgotten the charms of  painting en plein air: the bugs, the breeze, the shifting light. But I felt glad - glad the storm was over and our community weathered it well, glad for a gas stove and a hot meal despite the power outage, glad to get back to painting.

The peaceful serenade of the crickets soon gave way to chainsaws and generators, but the next few days were very productive anyway, despite the change in music. I made good progress on an oil for a show before packing everything up and heading back to our "home base" in Indiana for a few weeks' stay.

Home Base is home to an interesting experiment - a garden left to its own devices for an entire summer, bountiful but overgrown with grass, hiding green peppers turned red, crisp and sweet, blazing hot jalapenos, tiny bright tomatoes, and enough cucumbers to pickle the town. Cantaloupes and watermelons and pumpkins wander freely. Their vines, leaves and fruit in various stages of ripeness cover the ground under strikingly tall sunflowers that nod over, top heavy with seed-laden, faded blooms. All this was bare ground less than four months ago, studded here and there with a barely visible dusting of green, offering nothing more than hope of a harvest and a promise to try, if God would bring rain. He brought bunnies, too, if the mysterious disappearance of the snap peas and green beans is any indicator, but the cucumbers gladly took over. Let be for the season, what happened was not what I expected, but full of welcome surprises nonetheless.

I guess that is what I love about painting, or gardening, or even the weather: sometimes if you are lucky, certain things come together in just a certain way in just the right time, creating something that is ultimately more than the sum of its parts, and ultimately beyond our control, and that can be beautiful in unexpected ways.  A watercolor workshop instructor I had many years ago used to say, "put it down and leave it alone." He explained that despite all our planning and preparation, paint touching paper takes on a life of its own, and we would be well served to recognize when something good is happening there and let it be. He could always  find the one untouched, beautiful square inch in the midst of a muddy, overworked, disastrous mess of a painting and exclaim, "Look! See what you have here? It's brilliant! Now don't kill it!" and of course we loved him for it.

He was teaching us to listen for the crickets before pulling out the chainsaw.

The watercolor of sailboats that serves as a background at the top of this blog is a small preparatory sketch for the 11 x 14" oil of the same title I just finished, and entered in the Solarbron "Art of Our Decade" Invitational Juried Show and Sale in Evansville, Indiana. I was pleased to receive an acceptance notification today, and look forward to the opening reception this Sunday. In the meantime, I'll be seeking out the offerings of a wild garden, and trying not to step on the crickets.