Here is a picture of those Hoodia Flowers I mentioned in my last post...'other-worldly' was the phrase I used to describe them...And I said I thought that they looked like they were from another planet. They are most unusual...as is the plant itself.Another view of these strange but beautiful flowers...here below....
Unfortunately they look like they were 'closing up' in this picture, above...And on another day when the light was quite different...here is another picture of this now very famous "for loosing weight" plant....
And one more, below....well, for now, anyway...(lol)
Somewhere I have more pictures of these very amazing flowers, but I haven't scanned them into my computer yet...When I get around to it, I'll post some more of these...but, don't hold your breath!And....I got another couple of pictures of the "katydid"...the next day he was still there on the Pachypodum but had changed leaves and positions...
And just one more, below.....take a good look at these back legs...I mean this guy has some amazingly long back legs, doesn't he?
I looked for him again yesterday and today, too...but, he is either gone or hiding really well...But he was there for three days!
More To Come.....
This painting above is called "A Bunch Of Ten" (acrylic on canvas, 24X24, 1990)....this is my abstraction of some of the flowers in my Cactus Garden. No, none of the flowers actually look like this, but it is my 'abstract' interpretation....which sometimes one has no words for, you know? I guess if I had words for them, I wouldn't have painted them....
This is "My Hoodia Flowers" (acrylic on canvas, 24X24, 1990) Yes, I had a Hoodia Plant (this is the plant that has become famous as a diet aid, but this was not the case while I had these plants....that bit of info had not been discovered yet)...well, I actually had two of these other-worldly plants....and they had the most amazing flowers....Again, this is my interpretation in an abstract way of these beautiful...look-like-they-are-from-another-planet....flowers...And here below is another painting from that same series...a bit smaller..I think it was 16X16, Acrylic on Canvas, 1990
And then...the one below here I used on the brochure for my One Woman Show in 1997. It was a Retrospective of my work which included things I had painted when I was a very young child as well as the more recent work...I included some of the color drawings from my childhood in that show because you can really see that I have pretty much been painting
a certain way, for my entire life...this painting above is called, "There Is Only One Of You", (acrylic on canvas, 24X24, 1990). And the title was taken from that quotation from Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille....where she told DeMille that "there is only one of you in all of time and this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist"....for me, an incredibly meaningful and inspiring quotation....So, though these flowers look very much like each other, each one is unique---no two are alike....just like all of us....
Going back in time, here is a very large panting, "Bullseye" (Acrylic on Canvas, 64X64, 1987)....And it was a very important painting for me....And it was in fact, a kind of breakthrough for me....the heart image broken apart, but behind it is the light, and the hope....
And here below is another important painting. Also a big canvas...it is called "Breakthrough". (Acrylic On Canvas, 72X80, 1987) Here the heart is still a puzzle and there are pieces missing, but, there is this truly hopeful light that is shining behind it and through it...even more hopeful than "Bullseye"...because the heart is no longer broken apart....it is together.
And here below are a couple of color-pencil drawings....these are from 1998...in fact all 60 or so drawings are from 1998....these have never been shown....so you all are seeing them for the first time....
This one above is called "Feathery Pinks & Oranges Headress" (Mixed Media,9X12, 1998) As I said, I did around 60 of these drawings...no two are alike...many combinations of colors and in general, the shapes though drawn free-form, were all similar....Here below is a drawing called "Multi Colored". The colors in the actual drawing are much more vibrant...richer, more natural....
And this last drawing below....(I cannot find the name unfortunarely, but it was done during the same period of time as all the others)...Again, the colors are more vibrant in the actual drawing...and I know this because I did a number of drawings using these particular color combinations....I really loved this combination, a lot!
Many of these drawings are framed in a very simple wood frame and covered with glass....You'll just have to come to my house to see all of them....(lol)...And they are for sale, of course....(my Lordy, pimping my own work....well, why not!)
I haven't shown very much of my work on my blog because I have had problems downloading my 4X5 transeparancies---and they are the closest reproductions of the actual works...and I don't have the proper scannig equiptment to do the paintings justice....so, what I've posted here is just about all that I have that look really good. The drawings I actually scanned in themselves....again, it would be better if I had a fantastic scanner....but, what you see is what I got! (lol)
Enjoy!
More To Come....
Look who came to visit me this afternoon....Isn't he cute? I went outside for a minute and stopped to smell the beautiful flowers on this Pachypodum, and there he was....He is only about an inch and a half long...amazingly little...I moved around to his front so I could try to get a picture of his eyes....I wish I had a macro lens because if I did have one I could have gotten in much closer...but, considering, I think this is pretty good....
This time of year there seems to be a lot of little creatures that are coming to visit....I see so very many spider webs...especially ones that have been built between plants....I don't have any really good pictures of these webs....but, here is what I got the other day...
Not very good, I know....I'll keep trying to get some better ones...So, back to my little 'hopper' guy...I went into the house for a little while and when I came out to visit him again, he had turned around and I took some other pictures of him from this angle...
You can see that there was more light on him after he turned around...I love the eyes, of course, but also the design on his body, too....And how delicate his itty bitty legs are and those antenna-like things coming out of his head...gee, they are long, aren't they?
And just so you get some idea of how small he is, here is the head of the beautiful plant he decided to get on...You may remember it....I posted the flowers and also the trunk about a week or so ago, and all those lethal spikes that are on the trunk...
That little teeny tiny hopper is there, but it is very hard to see him cause he is so small in this picture...you can't see the trunk in this picture but in case you've forgotten, here is another picture and a close up, at that...so, take a look at it!
And here is the whole plant---trunk, head and flowers, as it stands near my front door....This is one of the Pachpodums from Madagascar that are in my garden...I have about 6 or 7 of them....But this is the only one in the Front Garden.....
So this was my wonderment for today....A little "hopper" visitor that allowed me to photograph him...which I think was very generous and kind of him, so thank you dear little "hopper"...and please do come and visit again, soon....
More To Come.....
In regard to my last post about the 'fruit of george', the response was...shall we say....very interesting. In fact, I have never had such a reaction before to anything I have ever posted in the almost one year that I have been blogging!Either I am from a different planet---(and this is very possible, cause the jury is still out on that one...lol) or some of you are far more conservitive than I realized. Something about the fruit from George really brought up a lot of icky-poo-Ewwwww-I-Could-Throw-Up feelings for quite a few people....
Well, I apologize for kind of grossing you out and I want to say...it's just "nature" guys! It is the natural order of nature...And I am thrilled by it...but then you already know that!
So, in the intertest of fair-play, I am going to post a few photographs that I hope you will find beautiful, starting with that lovely flower at the top....
These lovely little flowers above are on an unusual succulant that has leaves that are wonderful to touch, (okay...so I am a sensualist, too....!) These flowers are really really tiny and so very perfect in shape and in color, too...This next picture, below, is one of my favorite Agave's....it is one of the most elegant of Agave's and the color is gorgeous...Here is a close-up of the design that is made by the leaves growing in a very tight knit way so that when it opens up, we see these indentation marks on each pad that came from the outer tack-looking things pressing into the flesh of the pad as it was growing.....
And this next picture is a beautiful almost-translucent flower that speaks for itself, I think....
Perfection Personified! I love the angle of this next picture...more yellow and so lush....it looks like I "lit" these flowers in some very special way...I didn't....it is just nature again, including the sun, doing it's thing......
Again, there is this translucent quality about these flowers...It makes them look so incredibly magical to me....I love this plant....It has grown so over the years and here below you can see a new baby on the side....
And below is another picture of this wonderful plant where you can see the whole plant as it looked just a day or two ago.....
And below, the same plant about 10 years ago....
It has grown so much, we've had to move the Agave that was over to the left side and behind it--in this picture--to another place entirely so that this gorgeous plant could just grow to it's hearts content.....
And last but by no means least....one of my very favorite Bouganvilla's...the combination of colors just pleases me no end....
As a painter, I have always been fascinated by the way one color can become another color with teeny tiny gradations of changes in the paint going slowly from one shade to another....Here above, is nature in all it's glory doing this magic in the very act of just 'being'.....
More To Come......
So...yesterday morning...well not yesterday anymore---it actually was days and days ago now....(It was actually last Friday) I went to take the garbage out and as usual, checked George to see if any of the three fruit/seed pods had burst open....(yes, that is what they do....they just burst wide open and there are the seeds and the 'flesh' right out there for all to see and eat, including lots of little creatures....)....and lo and behold, one of these seed pods had done just that, sometime before I took a look....I have no idea exactly when it did this bursting thing, but I know it wasn't open the day before.....
And here above, is a closer look at what the inside of this round ball-like thing with the protective needles looks like on the inside! Amazing. The little black oval shaped things are the seeds and the thick white/pink stuff next to the outer skin is the flesh...which btw, kind of looks like cocoanut flesh, but it is a lot softer than cocoanut, and much more fiberous. But, the stuff inside...this mixture of seeds and stringy spaghetti-like white/pink translucent stuff....is quite incredible.
I took a spoon and got a small amount of the interior seeds and spaghetti-like stuff out...unfortunately some spilled on the fruit pod below, but what you see above in this dish is what I was able to retrieve....And the taste? Sweet as can be! How is it to eat? Well, not easy. The seeds are really very crunchy and don't really disolve easily with chewing, and the fiberous spaghetti-like stuff is very difficult to chew...at least it was for me. But, the sweetness of the whole thing is quite wonderful and the flavor is not like anything I can compare it to...I have found this to be true of every Cactus type fruit I have ever eaten....indescribable because it is not like anthing else....
I had seperated, as best I could, the seeds from the spaghetti and I have saved those seeds, as you can see above...I would love to start growing a little itty bitty George from these seeds, but usually one needs more seeds than this to get even one seed that will take...but I'm going to try anyway...quite truthfully, it takes such a long long time for a plant like George to grow, I'm not sure I will still be around....but, it is fun to try anyway, you know?Here is a picture of the stuff that fell on that bulb below the one that burst open....
Can you see what I mean about it looking like Spaghetti? See that l-o-n-g stringy looking piece that goes on forever? Well, that is all mixed in with the seeds..but the Spaghetti stuff is so fiborous it just doesn't chew up very well...but you certainly can get the 'good' sweet out of it....
Here is another picture of the inside of this fruit/seed pod after I had scooped out what I could....
This photo above is actually the next day and you can see that the interior 'flesh' is not quite as generous as it was the day before...and that is because it has started to dry out from being exposed to the air and the sun, etc...It lets me know that when I saw this first on the morning of Friday, September 8th, it must have just happened....(Thank You God...) And being exposed to the elements it has opened it up a bit more, too...
I just cannot get over the fantastic magical happenings of nature....the unexpected...the beauty of things never seen before...the look, and the taste....Amazing, Amazing.
And lest we forget where this all started back in late January...here is a picture of the 'buttons' that hold all the dna or whatever, of the flowers, and the fruit and the seeds....
And seeing all this from a slightly different angle.....George...well, the top of George, and those three Seed/ Pod Fruit Thingys, now, in September....
And here below....on this Friday, September 8th....around 5:45pm in the Afternoon...(as Lorca said...only he actually said, 'At Five In The Afternoon') Here is the fruit/seed pod....the flesh, dryer than it was....having dried up and shrunk in the heat and breeze of the day and now, here in the early evening....this fruit is no longer viable..I think the seeds still are viable....well, I guess I will find out.....
And, last but not least, here is George...at least a head taller than me...And I am 5' 4".....(well I use to be....lol) so George is over 6 feet tall...and he is listing! (Oh Dear!) But the point is, here is dear George, once again....
I do dearly love all my plants...And yes, George has a special place in my heart....George and I have been through a lot in the last more than 20 years....And I hope and pray we get to go through a lot more!
But, as I leave you...think about this. These little buttons on George do not seem to go away...they are there, there, there...And, in late January--early February they began to grow....then we finally (after months) had some flowers....and then those flowers turned into fruit/seed pods...here it is September and these fruit/seed pods finally burst open. It is 9 months in the making! Wow! Now what does that remind you of? (lol)....
And just above....the second one of those three---the one nearest the one that opened on Friday? Well, the second one burst open this morning, (Saturday) and here it is, above....And just below is all the wonderful spaghetti-seeds which I scooped out---and this time nothing spilled....
I'm not going to eat any of this....cause I cannot chew the seeds or the spaghetti like pulp....but, I am going to let the pulp dry and take the seeds and save them with the seeds from the first fruit bulb and then when the third and final bulb bursts open.....save those seeds, too...and carefully plant them all in a pot and keep them warm and hope they 'do-their-thing'.....
Hope is a thing called 'seeds'......
More To Come....
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