It's still cold outside, and though the days get longer, it still seems so dark most of the time. The dead of winter. But inside, thankfully, there's some respite. Flowers manage to bloom in spite of the gloom, amazing. Oh, they are, no doubt, drawing on reserves and those reserves are getting low.Each of my long suffering house plants has a history. Many of them are pretty old, in house plant years. The geranium, for example, entered my life as a $.50 annual about 10 years ago, to use in a planter outdoors for summer decoration. Now it's a grand dame.
Begonias start fresh every other year or so and I mostly give them away. Messy, but they keep blooming anywhere, any time, 'most any place.
This "Easter Cactus" began as bits that broke off when I repotted a huge specimen for an Iowan friend of mine. I couldn't bare to pitch them, especially given the grandeur of their parent at the time. That was about 9 years ago. "Marie's Cactus," as she's called, seems to choose a different time to bloom every year-Christmas? Valentine's Day? Easter? any time in between? all of the above?
So why all this talk about flowers? While I delight in my house mates here, I was actually thinking about crocuses and hellebores the past few days. And a new series of work, now in progress on my bench, draws on those ideas and forms. This is a clue about "where ideas come from..." To be continued.
