Virgin Snow Covered White Rose

Winter surprised one November morning up on the Roszadomb in Budapest.

Descending into freshly fallen snow – earlier than expected

I rush past a rose bush layered lush, a brighter white

Flakes falling damp like dew, grasping

holly leaves hanging heavy off amber stems

Flakes so delicate and wanting no rejection

piling on petals resilient and full of might

Virgin snow covered white rose.

A shutter snaps capturing this white rose wanting

life beyond lapels, vases and fragrant gardens

Long a symbol of innocence and an untarnished world

taking on new life during revolt

Hoping for intervention, nothing divine transpires beyond

unfulfilled promises of support­ that doom defiance

Virgin snow covered white rose.

Bare hands assembled so many barricades erected

holding out gallantly only to be

Crushed bloody red by rolling tanks while sewing seeds

of future revolts behind a rusting iron curtain

Twelve years later in a Prague Spring

twelve years from a shipyard  in Gdansk

Virgin snow covered white rose.

Somewhere My Love

Looking out my dining room window, winter has taken over.

Two benches sit idle near our blown-shut path leading to a frozen-over Lake Michigan. Knee deep in wind-packed snow, a foot and a half on top, the benches offer no refuge.

Rounded-white effigies occupy the black, wrought iron chairs on our patio. No respite, again, for winter has settled in.

Winter can make for lonesome days in January that have sometimes made me quip, “Doctor Zhivago visits here often,” when summer visitors ask me, “How’s winter in Leland?”

Today’s solitude makes me think of that scene in Doctor Zhivago where he and his femme fatale arrive by horse-drawn sleigh at a dacha – encased outside and in by a glaze of ice and snow.

“Somewhere My Love,” Lara’s theme from the film sings in my ear.

Thankfully, Valentine’s Day falls in mid February and the rose is the flower of choice. Roses have a cultivated mystique, ancient symbols of love and beauty, remembrance and passion. Each rose has a magnificence that transcends its physical uniqueness, deep fragrance, and short life as a cut flower. The color of a rose has significance, too.

Red stirs romance and passion.

Pink… grace, elegance and refinement.

White holds out for happiness.

Blue... try mystery and intrigue.

Purple longs for love at first sight.

Orange shouts out enthusiasm.

Yellow conveys joy and friendship in today’s western world, although it has historically meant joy, wisdom and power in Eastern cultures, and has long symbolized jealousy and dying love in Europe.

Come next week, pose daily with a rose when you knock on your door.

Don’t wait for Dr. Zhivago to come singing “Somewhere my love.”

Three Old Facebook Posts

Last July, when my wife and our two daughters were off in Missouri for a family reunion, I wrote three Facebook posts. Here they are.

Looming First Iris

Come late June early each morning
as the sun rises to greet the flowers

of our terraced garden out front

we rise and anticipate the first Iris bloom.

As the Iris patch turns soft purple

Brenda will rise early to paint.

Looming First Iris
http://www.brendajclark.com/paintingf15.htm

A Horticulturalist’s Visit

Late Sunday afternoon a horticulturalist visited our gallery.

“The color pulled me in,” she said. “That large canvas depicting a look-in on your garden has Hollyhocks. Was it painted some time in late summer?” she asked.

Garden Outback
http://www.brendajclark.com/paintingf14.htm

After our visitor had toured the gallery and seen Brenda’s several Poppies and Iris paintings, she noted how these flowers bloom about the same time in June.

When I described the two beds of these flowers at home, the visitor proudly acknowledged her college degree and profession, and spoke at length about Brenda’s two Iris paintings: Looming First Iris I and Looming First Iris II. (The first is acrylic on arches paper, the second acrylic on wood block.)

Our visiting horticulturalist seemed to like both, stating fondly how she came to love the Iris  as a flower when studying Van Gogh’s still life paintings of them.

She liked the paper piece for the way Brenda’s Iris seemed to be the sole being in its universe and engulfed by lush green foliage.

The wood block’s rich contrast of a bright yellow background and green stems surrounding the Iris, and the swirling brush strokes with Impasto edges, fascinated this horticulturalist.

Myself, for summer 2013, I like Brenda’s painting, Poppies ‘n Iris and Me, inside a wood shadow box.

Patron and former art professor, Ray Betts, noted that Brenda’s work some times achieves a “stained-glass effect.” I guess he’s right; the shapes of the flowers, their stems and leaves, do project this effect. 

Lyrical Realists
http://www.brendajclark.com/news8.htm

“Why guess,” perhaps I should say. An evening like tonight is a fine time for a visit to the gallery, or for sipping a glass of wine while checking out Brenda’s work online.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

I've changed my mind.

Again.

The evening of my last post - A Horticulturalist's Visit - my favorite flower painting for the summer was Poppies 'n Iris and Me.

I guess it's my fine art whim, being at the gallery almost daily.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

This morning, I am choosing Poppies at the Wellhead.

It' almost like a still-life painting. A findly woven tapestry with it's disappearing space, and hints of Catmint and Chives amidst so many Poppy blooms.

A sole plant that my father and mother gave to Brenda and me for our anniversary during our first June in Leland.

You want to put this painting in a vase, and water it.

Does anyone have a really large vase that I can borrow?

Winter On My Palette

Post Note: The post that follows was written for the Facebook page of our fine art business, the Brenda J. Clark Gallery. It was then picked up and posted by MyNorth.com. Here is the link:

Up in Michigan during winter.

Snow.

Pure white. Fluffy and soft. Virgin. Where no man should tread.

A wonderlust for snow and the loving pact that Mother Nature and Ol' Man Winter have struck. Looking out at winter up in Michigan, snow symbolizes it. Our minds always interprets it as white.

Winter's snow up in Michigan also makes for painting outdoors. Just ask Expressionist painter, Brenda J. Clark. She paints winter's white differently.

Fishtown in Winter

I remember that blurry, snow-swirling day above Fishtown. Brenda was determined to be out in it, painting. So I hauled an old palette crate down to the guard rail along side of Lake Street, padded it with a couple of moving blankets, and then backed my SUV up to the crate and lifted up the back door.

Inside, she sat. Shivering. Frothy steam poured from her mouth as she drank hot cocoa and absorbed the melting marshmallows. Out she went to paint, and in Chicken Big ran to our gallery. I checked back with her every half hour, bringing something hot to drink. She painted all day.

But the snow _- it was not exactly white. The circle road around the harbor parking lot moved in iridescent pinks and yellows. Fishtown's buildings glowed red violet.

The following morning, Brenda had a head cold, but the snow swirled round in round in swirling pinks and yellows.

http://www.brendajclark.com/painting18.htm

Blue Winter Breaking

Snow can be blue, too. Scientifically, it turns blue when packed together and deep enough. The red light waves are absorbed and only the blue waves escape to reflect that color back in to our eyes.

On that warming March day on Leland Estates Drive overlooking the Manitous Islands, the huge snow base of two feet plus had begun to melt. It began to compact. Brenda's palette for the snow that day reveals just such a blue hue. She didn't study the electromagnetic spectrum before going out to paint that day, but came as close to realism as her Expressionistic mode (unknowingly) took her.

Blue Winter Breaking could also be a summer scene, suggesting the sun's bright light bouncing off a sandy ridge above Lake Michigan. But it was a perfect winter day melting toward spring.

http://www.brendajclark.com/painting3.htm

Panning the Manitou Islands in March

This cold day should'be turned anyone's hands a raw pink; instead these hues showed up in Brenda's painting mid way up North Beach from the deck of a summer resident.

Maybe Mother Nature scolded Ol' Man Winter for such cold that day, causing him dismay, only to see the color spectrum revert to a monochromatic pink.

We usually think of pink as hot, flush with emotion. Pure love. Pink roses. Pink flamingos. From now on, think pink drifts of snow on North Beach.

http://www.brendajclark.com/painting98.htm

Blissfully White at North Beach

By contrast, when Brenda painted Blissfully White North Beach, she recalled fondly, "I could've gotten a tan on the beach that day."

It was a bright winter day glowing from the sun's rays and it warmed up Brenda's color preference.

The high level of reflectivity made North Beach glow in yellows. The sunlight bounced off of snow-covered sands and back into the air. Frank Zappa and his Huskies were no where to be found.

http://www.brendajclark.com/painting97.htm

Blue snow. Pink snow. White Snow. Yellow Snow.

Snow is a kaleidescope for Brenda J. Clark in winter.

https://www.facebook.com/BrendaJClarkGallery