This series was conceived as a way of relaxing. Summer of 2007 was an extremely hectic time for me and I loved escaping from everything into the grass of the Hall’s Pond in Brookline or the nearby Reservoir. As time advances, the grasses soak in the heat, the light and the stillness of the midsummer days. Like the wave of laziness, the smell of the hot grass drifts in the air, leading you inescapably to a willful decision to postpone everything until another day. And yet, the grass is full of life. To paint or draw the plants in general, it is not enough to get their shape or color right, to make them live you have to capture the energy that makes them move, “the force that through the green stem drives the flower” as so well put by Dylan Thomas. There are added benefits: while drawing that force, one drinks it in and becomes infused with it. Think of thousands of roots, spreading into the earth, water pumped by tiny capillaries, stems intertwining and growing and pushing leaves out. Some of the images of grass came from a bog and still have the healing dampness about them. Some came from the nearby gardens of the mad gardeners on Windsor street. They were very patient letting me sit on their sidewalk drawing their plants.Please click on a thumbnail to see the large image.
