The dark days of winter are the best for being in my equally dark studio, making paintings. I like hunkering down and going inward. It's harder to paint when everything is growing and blooming outside.
The sour grass pictured has taken over my yard, despite all my efforts for it to go away
(Dictator Proclamation -Take 132!) It's inspired me to hunt for some weed enlightenment...
I've found it in a book called "Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants".
It's a fascinating survey of the perception of the unwanted plants through British history with a nod to American soil as weeds migrated west with colonization. It appears that the dilemma of wanted/unwanted plants arose with farming. Nice loose, cultivated soil attracts certain tenacious plants. So this differentiation of wanted/unwanted plants has been going on for decades and guess what? They're here to stay.
On the flip side the author talks about the idea of a weed being a nostalgic and perhaps useful constant. Weeds have been growing in areas for decades. Some of these seeds simply lie dormant waiting for the right conditions to grow again. They are survivors and adapters.
So, to try to get friendly with the idea of thinking about weeds in a different way, I took some shots of sour grass though the color unnerves me, I have to say. It should glow in the dark. And speaking of dark, here's Buddy.
