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New Images from The Gardener’s Almanac: Hydrangea!

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From the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena: The Hydrangea

As the autumn rains come, I notice the squirrel’s moods are completely unaffected. The squirrel has never bothered to look up, whisker the the winds of change and pause for melancholy. His job is to keep his head down, dig up every newly potted bulb and chrysanthemum and shred the babytears growing between the pavers – and he does not stop to admire the hydrangeas. Praising flowers with long and homely names is my occupation.

The delicate colors of Hydrangea macrophylla normalis are welcome distraction from the calamities unfolding beyond the garden. I hope you will find respite in the Autumn Suite from the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena, just published and available today in my shop. For my fellow writers and thinkers and keepers of friendships far flung, these are excellent with ginger biscuits and strong coffee or black tea with honey. All you need is a table, a pen and a quiet moment.

Hydrangea in Amber botanical image and greeting card
Hydrangea in Amber

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Botanical Stationary and Prints from The Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena

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Wheelbarrow in garden photo by Iskra
Winter Muse

Since the last entry from my garden The Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena has published a series of botanical stationary and prints. The response has been wonderful, and I am grateful for the support of friends and new patrons from around the country. I am beginning to hear from people who share how they have used the cards, sending them as thank-you’s, condolence, letters and in sets as gifts. There are now ten in the series, with more to come each month. Here are a few glimpses of what’s in the shop.

Anemone in the Field Botanical Card by Iskra
Anemone in the Field
Victorian Anemone

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Almanac Entry, December 9th

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the stunned bird, mixed media on plaster by Iskra

Memory, December 9, 2015

A summer day, July. The air giddy with heat and mote-filled like the river in California. Everything buzzing and humming and hungry.

The birds in their circumference of delight swooped from locust to maple and up to the roof. The clouds, shimmering cellophane white like molten sand showed themselves twice: here, and also there, exactly. Easy to fly into the unreal cloud and be met with blackness, sudden and complete.

The bird lay for a long time, whether sleeping or stunned could not be determined. After due consideration of the forms of interference the gardener let sun and wind and ravens take their path. A few days later she opened the window and the bird was gone.

       – The Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena, Chapter 3

 

Artwork: “The Stunned Bird,” © Iskra Johnson, mixed media collage

New Graphite Drawings: The Fragility Project

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The Nest ( Fragility No.1)
The Nest (Fragility No.1)

 

During Pandemic and during the crash of 2008 I turned to drawing as a form of psychic survival. Our current times echo the sense of upheaval I experienced then, and I have once again gathered my pencils and opened my Moleskine journals. In 2008 I drew tulips and convicted bankers, in Pandemic I drew locks, doors, and a tiny lightbulb made large, as though to clear a way through the darkness. The constant barrage of headlines from the Epstein files has created a sense of a world with too much malevolence to bear. And so I am drawing fragile things, the most fragile I can find: the shells of eggs, and nests. These subjects are phenomenally challenging, and symbolically healing. While I draw I must forget everything except the shape of light and how a line becomes a real thing, woven into a place of safety.

If you visited me now without warning you might think I had gone feral, as there are egg shells everywhere, placed so I can study how light moves across them throughout the day. Each time I draw I think I have never drawn before, and am convinced I have no idea how to do it. Each time I draw I am stunned that the pencil itself knows something, and it’s a matter, more than anything else, of pure, sensory observation: What is the sound of lead when it hovers above reflected light? What is the sound when it is pressed too hard and violates the grain of the paper? What happens when I step away and come back a day later? These drawings are made in very slow time. Each one evolves over several days, and as much happens when I am walking in the forest studying the shapes of trees as when I am appear to be “working.” [Read more…]

New Photographic Art from England

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Blue Swan on the River Wensum Swan in garland of branches
Blue Swan (The River Wensum)  ©Iskra Johnson
 
I have been home from England just over a month, and I am still in a state of wonder and dislocation. Thirty perfect days abroad, and now – insert quandary emoticon– normal life. This post will share a few first highlights of the trip and a glimpse of new work, more of which can be seen in this portfolio under Photography. 
 

I had many reasons for making the journey to England, after 30 years away. Any one of the reasons is a novella, which is why I am thinking of creating a new blog devoted to travel. Where to even begin? Perhaps with the question posed last week by friends who had just returned from Scandinavia and Prague: why England? To which I replied: The Wind in the Willows. That classic children’s book about Mole, Ratty, Badger and Toad and their bucolic life along the river shaped my idea from the age of 6 of what countryside should look like. I was a child of the wide open west, where barbed wire and naked fenceposts divided the fields, you could drown in the murky depths of a horse trough, and a volcanic mountain filled the eastern door of the barn. Our river was a quarter mile down a steep cliff littered with rusted barrels and stalked by coyotes and mountain lions. 
 
My father gave me the Wind in the Willows when I entered 1st grade. I would sit in bed in the farmhouse and run my fingers over the illustrated endpapers, tracing a green quilt of soft hedgerows, a river you could easily row a boat down, a tiny bridge, a weir, and Pan’s Island, where, in Chapter 7, Rat, Mole, (and every susceptible child) could be awed by The Mystery. Page 133 still holds a four leaf clover and the browned paper on which I wrote out Rat’s failed attempt to describe, in words, the wordless presence of god. So yeah, I went to England to find that. It may explain why I could not stop following the swans. (Click on any print image to see details in shop.)

White Swan on the Avon River fine art print
White Swan on the Avon ©Iskra Johnson

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