Stand In Your Own Light

Stand In Your Own Light, 2018,  no.4729

Roses in November

Roses in November, no. 4212 

Flowers & Fruit Still Life

Flowers & Fruit Still Life, no. 4236

Sighs and Sadness

Sighs and Sadness 2017

Walk into the picture and hold on to your heart. Feel whatever it is you're feeling today. Some days it's hard to think in vibrant colors and bright harsh light so the soft lighting and muted blacks and whites tells the story better of what you're experiencing. Breathe in the smell of the flowers. Close your eyes. Inhale. Exhale.

When you're ready, touch the big beautiful peonies and the tiny lilacs. Accept them for where they are in their life journey.  We love them when they're young, fresh buds and even while they're aging and turning brown around the edges.  But it hurts a little when we see them at their final stage.

Flowers are small players in the big picture of life but they experience the same cycle we go through. Hopefully, they can give us some comfort when we feel comfortless.

Sometimes it can all be so overwhelming. To hear of friends who are losing their deeply treasured love ones, humans as well as pets, is heart wrenching.  To see on screens the devastation of war and terrorism is staggering and can make us feel powerless.  Each have their own piercing pain that ebbs and flows, highs and lows.

The dread of future pain that is inevitably coming at some undetermined time can take your breath away.  So today, now, take big deep breaths and let it fill you up and give you strength.  

Know that this may be a time of sighs and sadness that no one can do anything about.  Be with it but also find gratitude in the love that you've been blessed with in the past and every second that you can feel joy in the present.

Some days I wish 

I could go back in life,

not to change things,

just to feel a few things twice.

www.Simplereminders.com

Limited edition reproductions of this still life portrait are available at:

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sighs-and-sadness-wendy-blomseth.html

Walk Into The Picture #4

May 2005, Lilacs for My Mother

Spring Lilacs will always remind me of my mother, Eunice.  She had several wide and tall lilac bushes in our backyard, in an area called "the North 40" even though it wasn't in the north boundary of our yard.  I think it was just a farm term she or my father had heard at one time and liked the sound of it.

In the spring we always monitored the blooming cycle of the lilacs in the North 40.

So I invite you to walk into the picture of these lilacs.  Of course you have to smell the lilacs because there isn't a better smell in the spring time.  Touch the tiny petals and notice the graduated shade of the color purple.  Some will appear darker, some lighter if they're affected by the sunshine.  That morning eastern light gives it a beautiful glow.

The vase is very special, too, because it is a collectors item from the Red Wing Pottery Company from Red Wing, MN.  People that collect these, love them.

Lastly, the little table stand was actually crafted by my husband's late father, Carl whom I never met unfortunately because he passed on before we ever met.

What do you think of when you see this image?  Does it remind you of anyone? Or, are you simply a fan of spring lilacs also?

However it calls to you, look at the still life portrait but feel the love of someone else and call it by their name as you enjoy the sight and smell of these spring lilacs.

Reprints available at Fine Art America:  https://fineartamerica.com/featured/my-mothers-lilacs-wendy-blomseth.html

Loving Me Some Roses

Loving Me Some Roses, April 2017 

I brought home this bouquet after visiting with a friend on a rainy Sunday morning.

Originally my intention was to gift the bouquet to her and keep it at her house but she said she'd be traveling during the week and wouldn't be able to enjoy it.  "Take it home," she insisted.

I felt sad that the flowers wouldn't have a new admirer but also happy that I could bring it home because I certainly would admire it.

Even though there still was no sunlight coming in through any windows I gave this a try because I couldn't leave it ignored.

I'm at the stage now that I must attend to my bouquets and give them my love and attention.  

Of course I know they're not humans, but they are in my care and I feel a connection to them, like a person when they're with me.

So I thought making a still life of them was a way to treasure the memory of our time together.

Roses

Roses,  #2177,  April 2017