This picture is from the Silent Retreat this weekend.  It's of these weeds I see every summer there but don't know what they are.  They fascinate me completely. I love them!  They're so funky.  The heads looks a bit like raspberries with those crazy green things sticking out of them.  Here's a photo of one.  I just love how bizarre they are.  If you know what they're called or anything about them, please tell me!  I'm so curious!

I also love the quotes, especially the one by Kandinsky - that if the artist is good and true, she can put her vibrations  in the artwork, and in turn, the vibrations of the artwork will be felt by the viewer.  I believe that and definitely try to accomplish that in my paintings.

Another of my favorite weed in the meadows at Dayspring Silent Retreat Center in Frederick, Maryland, is milkweed.  It's astonishing to me how it morphs from what I've painted here into the next picture of dried pods with wispy dandelion-like seeds wafty through the air.  I'd love to watch that transformation over the course of the seasons, but I've only ever seen the two seasons.

 The quote by William Martin is wonderful too.  It gave me some peace when thinking about my son's surgery.  I especially love the line, "We have more questions than answers, and this is a great delight to us."  I am not a person who revels in ambiguity.  Gray is my least favorite color. I am a fan of black and white.  So I rolled my eyes quite a bit when I read that line.  And breathed deeply to take it in with the intention of making that response part of my being...

Part of the excellent food we had at Dayspring was cherries.  They are so beautiful I wanted to paint them.  I don't think I was all that successful, but I enjoyed trying!  And I enjoyed the quotes I found, especially the one about Henri Matisse - he wanted to make paintings so beautiful that, when a person saw them, all problems would suddenly subside.  I'm right there with him.

During the 50's, it seemed like beauty was an abstraction to be avoided in art, as if it were too simpering and wimpy, not important enough.  I disagree.  If I can make the world a more beautiful place by bringing a work of beautiful art into it, then I have accomplished something quite fine and worthwhile.  What's wrong with creating and expressing beauty?  There is so much of it in the world, I think it's a wonderful thing to help others perceive it.