Calidum Frigus– At Kada Gallery
December is a month that is rife with nostalgia. If there’s anything deep in your heart that you want to keep buried, you can count on December to bring it to the surface.
–Lois Duncan, Don’t Look Behind You (1989)
Fittingly, there was a dusting of snow on the walkway as I left the house this morning. It’s December, after all. We’ve been spared the brunt of the early seasonal snowstorms that walloped our neighbors to the west and north of us with multiple feet of the white stuff. But we will inevitably get ours though hopefully in more manageable amounts.
I never predict those things dictated by Ma Nature. That’s pure folly. Just take what’s given and make the best of it. At least with snow, when it’s too much you get a spectacular vista in exchange.
Big snow, with the white clinging to the drooping branches of the white pines, is always awe-inspiring here in the woods–until the time it isn’t which is the time the shoveling and plowing begins.
But when the required work is finished, that awe comes back. The crisp and clean white blanket covers everything and all sound is muffled, leaving a sharp stillness that is heaven to behold. The occasional chirp or twitter of a bird rings out like a clarion call in this quiet.
The sheer beauty of it seems like a fair tradeoff for the harshness that we must suffer.
Aaah, it’s December.
Here’s a Norah Jones song about just that subject. And for your information, Lois Duncan, who wrote the excerpt seen at the top, was a writer of children’s books and suspenseful young adult literature. You might know her from I Know What You Did Last Summer from 1973.
Got to go, light is finally breaking and I can see the light dusting on the grounds around the studio. Lovely…
Redtree Times 
Love your painting but don’t know much about art techniques. Do you use the handle of the brush to get those grainy lines?
Thanks so much. The lines you see are actually the texture of the surface which I apply prior to painting. It consists of multiple layers of gesso that are put on in a variety of ways– with brush, trowel or spatula, splatter or with fingers. It is done randomly, without any concern for what the painting will be on top of it. The whole idea is to create an abstract surface that has an almost sculptural bas relief feel with its own visual interest before I apply the first drop of color.
Well it really works!