Amy Anna Gallery
  • Blog
  • Virtual Exhibit
  • Painting Gallery
  • Photography Gallery
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Contact Me

Growing Things

5/11/2011

1 Comment

 
 I didn’t know I wanted to be a farmer when I grew up until I was 45 years old.
Picture
Pomeranian Puppy - Ten Days Old
It’s irresistible: all these living, growing things popping into life around you, and you get to play a part in the process, too.

 There is a saying in the Talmud that every blade of grass has its angel which leans over it and says “Grow! Grow!”  It is exhilarating to be that angel.

My family and I are starting a small farming business, and the planet has gotten much bigger and a lot more interesting. We have conversations about good dirt and watch Youtube videos on how to shear sheep.

I never had such a visceral sense of all the plant life being around me being alive – as actual living beings – until this spring.  Somehow I never noticed that I was surrounded by aliveness, even though this area is like a jungle in the summer.
Picture
Tomatillo Seedling: I Hear Salsa in the Distance
Maybe I finally grew new senses because this winter was particularly deadening and full of death. Now it seems that the planet is bursting at the seams with life and potential, stretching and growing in a leaping, bounding, exuberant way.

 A goat smiled at me (they do, you know), and it opened my eyes.  To use a metaphor that feels like an archaic expression from a dead language, I awakened immersed in a live green world which previously I had scanned but never downloaded.

I guess I’ve been doing this all along, because art-making is a lot like farming; they both involve growing things.  It’s just that the materials are different.  In fact, I think I had been farming art for so long that I had lost some of the excitement of creation.  I had forgotten how cool it is to make new forms out of raw materials. 

Farming is more custodial, though.  While all art projects have a life of their own (and some of them are bloody willful pigheaded little brats), there’s not quite the same sense of responsibility for new life.  That’s a different feeling altogether.
Picture
Dandelion Hope
R. W. Emerson said that the earth laughs in flowers, and I need to laugh more.  So we’ll see what grows and develops in the coming months.

 Watch this space.
1 Comment
A. Mills
7/19/2011 03:44:11 am

Love the Emerson quote...and I agree that the more time you spend in nature, the more enormously observant you are of the little gifts to be found outside

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hi, I'm Amy Anna, and I'm an artist, photographer, and writer.  I'm a Person of Unrelenting Curiosity, so come explore with me.

    Archives

    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    December 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Clothing
    Dresses
    Fiction
    Life
    Philosophy
    Photography

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.