“Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful”*

I’ve been collecting notes in a folder — from photographs taken and magazine tear outs — of color groupings. This is simply data, ongoing practice, recently revved up. For, I use these color collections as prompts into paintings. When I don’t know what to do, color seems to awaken. It’s as if my eyes, directed by a still beating heart, lead the way for my hands.

Last night, near the point of retiring for the day, I opened a small poetry book, a gift given to me in Canada. Therein I found an added bit of beauty between the leaves. Pressed in the pages of this lovely booklet was a singular remnant from a maple. I had almost squished this leaf with my shoe on a walk in Vancouver. My eyes must have stopped me then, but I forgot that I had this incredible thing. The re-discovery near a month later was more delight than I even remembered in the initial find.

Look at this specimen simply for its color: The greens have retreated to the background, allowing in that desaturation such quieter tones of olive. The removal of pigment provides a surprising highlight of pales, tans and muddy yellows, like the translucence of aged skin. This, in turn reveals the markings of veins ever more vitally. And the reds! The stars in this symbol, have their chance to shine now: like the bleeding herald of a great King. It’s the victorious finale! Even the stem has turned its signature to alizarin strength.

Any one of these hues could be matched somewhat closely in a paint store. But what would you have in the dissection? A clinical compartmentalization? It is only in the grouping where the colors dance, and play off each other, where they sing their song again. Even a dead leaf plays it. I am so heartened that I did not miss this.

*Emily Dickinson, #1540 Johnson’s Chronology, 1865