Origins

I was recently in Arizona and New Mexico visiting friends and seeing fabulous galleries in Scottsdale and Santa Fe.

But it was even more amazing to see the origins of painting, on canyon walls in the Verde Valley of Arizona, that were created over 1200 years ago. Outside of Sedona, we drove on a dirt road out to Palataki Red Cliffs to see the dwellings there and the pictographs painted by the Singua people.












It was discovered that the rock painting above, with it's small grey triangles below a jagged line, seemed to suggest the mountain range directly behind it. On the summer solstice and the equinoxes, the sun rises exactly in line with the places on the mountain indicated by the small grey triangles on the rock painting.












Outside of Phoenix was the Deer Park Valley Rock Art Center, where we saw perhaps 1500 petroglyphs, markings carved into the stone. The art was only discovered in 1980 when a dam was being built to control flooding on Skunk Creek. Radiocarbon dating of petroglyphs at this site has resulted in ages that range from about 700 years to more than 10,000 years ago.

It's believed that this was art meant to communicate although we can't read the language now so we don't know what was intended. Were they spiritual messages? Often these paintings and carvings are found at what might be considered sacred places. And what might our work say today if uncovered in 1200 years? Will it be possible to read without an artist's statement?

To Cy Twombly

A couple of weeks ago, a friend gave me an article from the NY Times Literary Supplement. The article was about Cy Twombly's new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in NYC, called "The Rose". His paintings were in response to Rilke's poem, "Les Roses".

As so many artists who paint "florals" will know, in the art world, the subject is considered prosaic, the work of Sunday painters. As a sometime painter of flowers, I was delighted to see Cy Twombly painting 'florals'. Very freeing. I felt like laughing out loud. I guess it's OK to paint 'florals' now that Cy Twombly is doing it!

Last week after visiting Linwood Gardens, I visited the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo to see the Action/Abstraction exhibition, Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976. I loved the exhibition, particularly the work of Anne Truitt, whose memoirs I had read. I had never seen her work before. Tall, elegant, silent wooden columns, each side carefully prepared and painted in many layers of colour. Her intent was to release colour from the wall.

A lovely thing happened next. On my way out of the gallery after spending a few hours in the exhibition, I stopped off in the gallery gift shop before I left. There I found the most astonishing book on Cy Twombly, which I promptly bought, called "Photographs, 1951-2007". In the introductory essay to the work, Lazlo Glozer, art historian and critic, says, 'Intoxicating beauty, flooded with light, saturated with poesy, ensconced in iridescent color, suspicious of harmony." The photos are like paintings. They are mostly sepia in tone, shot on a point and shoot camera I think, but printed with a glorious grainy surface. Many of the photos are blurry. They would never win a prize at my local camera club show....or in Photolife Magazine. They are kind of personal journal entries..photos of his studio, or details of his paintings, or photos of peonies, roses, details of sculptures. But some sort of fragile and honest beauty is felt here. Inspiring.

Tree Peonies

Sappho

Persephone

Hephestus

Oread

Nike
I'm still floating in the world of tree peonies as I look at the more than 700 photos that I took at Linwood Gardens last week. These otherwise private gardens are open for three weekends during tree peony season. And it is spectacular, not only to see the tree peonies, but also to see the weathered structures of the formal gardens that were designed by the architect Thomas Fox and to experience the palpable history that surrounds the place.

Tree Peonies are native to the mountainside and forest regions of China and Tibet. Known as the "King of Flowers", it was held sacred in the gardens of monasteries and temple courts, and grown as an exclusive treasure of the Imperial Palaces. In the eighth century, Buddhist monks took the Chinese tree peony, moutan, to Japan. Extensive hybridization by Japanese gardeners produced distinctive flowers with pure colouring, and elegant lines with long, delicate stems. The tree peony did not appear in the gardens in England and America until the nineteenth century, but even then it remained a rare plant because it was difficult to propagate.

In 1888 the discover of Paeonia lutea, the long sought yellow peony, enabled the introduction of new genetic material and unique colours never before seen. Dr. Saunders, in the late 1920's, made the cross between the P. lutea and the Japanese varities, obtaining seventy new hybrids with exceptional vigor and beauty. Over the next 50 years, William Gratwick and Nassos Daphnis continued the hybridization work at Linwood Gardens, creating an historic collection of new tree peonies, which are preserved at Linwood. The Daphnis varieties are named after Greek Gods and Goddesses and I've included a few photos of his peonies here.

Linwood Gardens

This week I visited Linwood Gardens to photograph and enjoy their famous tree peony collection. Linwood Gardens is SW of Rochester, NY in the farmlands of the Genesee Valley.

Designed in the early 1900's the walled gardens have pools and fountains, ornamental trees and a view of the valley below with an Arts and Crafts style summerhouse. The story of Linwood Gardens is a fascinating one. Lee Gratwick who lives on the estate, is the current steward of Linwood Gardens. Her grandfather William Henry
Gratwick II created Linwood as a country home.


Her father, William H. Gratwick III was a landscape architect, artist, sculptor, and sheep farmer among other things. He imported tree peonies from Japan and over the years created many new hybrids in partnership with NY artist, Nassos Daphnis. William's wife, Harriet directed a community music school on the property. It seemed to be a time out of the Great Gatsby, where all manner of creative endeavors happened such as Sunday evening music concerts with a full orchestra and famous artists came to visit including Ansel Adams, Minor White, and William Carlos Williams.

Lee Gratwick has added her own creativity to the gardens which she has rebuilt and manages on her own. The Gardens are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lee opens the Gardens for three weekends each year in the spring for the Tree Peony Festival for the public to enjoy this famous collection of tree peonies.

I was able to photograph for nearly three days before it started to rain and I had to leave. I photographed there two years ago and put together a small hardcover book of Linwood Gardens, the proceeds of which go toward maintaining the gardens. Because it's a self-published book, I will continue to update it with current photos of the gardens.




"It is at the edge of a petal that love waits."-William Carlos Williams

Evening on the Lake of Dreams

My current exhibition, "Evening on the Lake of Dreams" opened at Galerie D'Avignon in Montreal on May 2 and will run until May 23, 2009.

One of the most interesting things that happened to me during the course of my work on this series, was that the title of the exhibition came to me in a flash at 4:00 am one morning. I was in that state somewhere between waking and dreaming and hoped I would remember the title when I woke up later on. As I lived with the title for a couple of days, the idea for a myth came to me and I began work on a story that the title suggested in my mind. This story is posted on my website, www.janicemasonsteeves.com. As I continued to paint, the story wove it's way into the paintings, which became more dreamlike as the series progressed.

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."-Henry David Thoreau