Summer Inspiration

Seasonal changes inspire me to make art! The grasses around my home grow wild and lush as the summer sun infuses them with a beckoning green florescence. They are so tall now I need to lift my long-skirt tails as I weave my way around them on my morning stroll to the pond. When I need to relax, I gently float flowers on the water and watch as the warm breeze moves them to the sound of frogs, and crickets and song birds.

I would like to wear one of my renaissance dresses today and take photographs of myself in the grasses, surrounded by the soft pink blossoms that decorate the southern meadow. But the blackberry bushes have grown so thick in the pastures that I can’t roam freely without the thorns catching my skirt. Maybe I should take the canoe out instead and delight in the beautiful overabundance of the earth that is summer! I echo Henry James sentiments when he writes: “Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

I’ve spent most every summer of my life barefoot and outdoors. This year the summer has given birth to so many little frogs, they leap out of my way as I walk near the creek. The air is filled with intoxicating scents of honeysuckle and magnolia, and fuzzy seeds that glide magically before impregnating the rich soils. I intend to acquire a proper camera lens to capture all these tiny details of beauty as it paints itself into this most glorious season! Sometimes all one can do is lie down and breathe in the loveliness in gratitude, lest we miss this most festive of seasons. Then again, as Shakespeare says: “...thy eternal summer shall not fade”.

Summer is the season I was born in and therefore I connect it to a celebration of life itself! It fills me with new inspiration and prospects, and a feeling that all of life’s little wrinkles will eventually iron themselves out. I think Ada Loiuse Huxtable may have sensed something similar when she said: “Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world!”. May each of you enjoy your summertime and let it move you to make beautiful art!