Clear Morning Air

Watercolor & 24-ct gold leaf on paper, 22 x 22 cm, Private Collection

I am very drawn to hoopoes and often include them in my paintings. Here is a hoopoe imagined on a bright morning with a medlar tree in blossom. The medlar seems to me to be such an ancient tree. We planted one in our own garden. Sometimes the blossom starts out white and then turns pink—perhaps as a sign to bees that the flowers have already been pollinated, but it seems like magic! We mostly live in cities where we might long for an enclosed garden in which to find an hour of sunlit peace. I hope my work takes people out of the everyday, and offers a fragment of a paradise garden to uplift their spirits.

Detail