a persistence of colour

 

My intention in photographing the trillium was to get close to white on white, engage with a disappearance. And yet, here, with the trillium, a day after spending time with the works of Rothko, I can't help but be mesmerized by the ethereal nature, yet stubbornness of this colour.

“The recipe of a work of art – its ingredients – how to make it -the formula.

1. There must be a clear preoccupation with death – intimations of mortality…Tragic art, romantic art, etc., deals with the knowledge of death.
2. Sensuality. Our basis of being concrete about the world. it is a lustful relationship to things that exist.
3. Tension. Either conflict or curbed desire.
4. Irony. This is a modern ingredient – the self-effacement and examination by which a man for instant can go on to something else.
5. Wit and play…for the human element.
6. The ephemeral and chance…for the human element.
7. Hope.10% to make the tragic concept more endurable. I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the proportions of these elements.”

M.Rothko’s „Address to Pratt Institute”, November, 1958.

Canadian "cherry blossoms"

 

perhaps not quite as intoxicating as cherry blossoms, but (this far north) maple flowers are worthy of praise and meditation 

                                                                                                                                    milkweed

winter flowers viii.

"Those who do not see the flower are no different from barbarians, and those who do not imagine the moon are akin to beasts. Leave barbarians and beasts behind; follow the ways of the universe [nature] and return to nature."  Basho, from Japanese Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader, edited by Nancy G. Hume

                                               glads

deciding what and where colour is

winter flowers vii.

                                               glads

“Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.” John Berger quoting Cezanne.

 

deciding what and where colour is

winter flowers vi.

"The effect of color has real power....So much power that, in certain lights, it seems to become a substance. Once when I found myself in the chapel, I saw on the ground a red of such materiality that I had the feeling that the color was not the effect of light falling through the window, but that it belonged to some substance. This impression was reinforced by a particular circumstance: on the floor in front of me there was some sand in a little pile that the red was resting on. That gave me the effect of red powder so magnificent that I have never seen the like in my life." Matisse

                                               glads

deciding what and where colour is

Red Thought within a Gladiolus Blossom by James Owens

--after a photograph by erin wilson

The image is a garden inside the garden.

Eros as shimmer
as blood unfurls
through the wall of this wound
that opens the air like a sex.

The strokes of her looking
breathe
the petals to further opening and opening
and un-
fold
membrane contour texture.
Different wet reds shine.

All this from dirt and sun and water
dust the flower has healed
sepal
ovule
anthers laden dark
nudge of a cell upward
any touch would soft to bursting
and scatter sperm
inside the four chambers of the stone.

winter flowers v.

"Thinking about color abstractly hasn't done me any good." Frank Stella

                                                                                                                                  glads

deciding what and where colour is

winter flowers iii.

 

some months ago I rescued these roses from the graveyard dumpster

 for many weeks the strong scent of decay interrupted me as I passed

did I rescue the roses?

or were they waiting for winter to rescue me?

winter flowers ii.

                                                                
                                                                                         orchid flowers

winter flowers i.

                                                                                                     sunflower

from "The Winter Flowers" by Brian Brett

     This house is a jungle thick with shivering green that
slows a man down. This house fills the brittle heart with the
sharp shoots of spring even when the snow sings heavy
through the outside evergreens.

meditation on what a flower is, gladiolus ii

meditation on what a flower is, gladiolus, i

meditation on what a flower is, black eyed susan, i

"Centripetal Force and a Lull in the Stratosphere"
 
 

meditation on what a flower is, tiger lilies, iv

meditation on what a flower is, tiger lilies, iii

meditation on what a flower is, tiger lilies, ii

meditation on what a flower is, tiger lilies, i

meditation on what a flower is, wild rose, iii

meditation on what a flower is, wild rose, ii

meditation on what a flower is, wild rose, i

To Pablo Neruda In Tamlaghtduff by Seamus Heaney

Niall FizDuff brought a jar
of crab apple jelly
made from crabs off the tree
that grew at Duff's Corner—
still grows at Duff's Corner—
a tree I never once saw
with crab apples on it.

Contrary, unflowery
sky-whisk and bristle, more
twig-fret than fruit-fort,
crabbed
as crabbed could be—
that was the tree
I remembered.

But then—
O my Pablo of earthlife—
when I tasted the stuff
it was freshets and orbs.
My eyes were on stalks,
I was back in an old
rutted cart road, making
the rounds of the district, breasting
its foxgloves, smelling
cow-parsley and nettles, all
of high summer's smoulder
under our own tree ascendant
in Tamlaghtduff,
its crab-hoard and—yes,
in pure hindsight—corona
of gold.
           For now,
O my home truth Neruda,
round-faced as the crowd
at the crossroads, with your eyes
I see it, now taste-bud
and tear-duct melt down
and I spread the jelly on thick
as if there were no tomorrow.