Hope

As a backstory: I lived in condominiums for twenty years. So I thought gardening happened on Thursday—the day the gardeners showed up to mow the lawn and tend the flower beds. Lovely.

Then in 2019, Chuck and I moved to Hendersonville and bought a home with a huge yard. The former owner was a master gardener. Lovely.

Confident I could maintain, and even improve, her creations I thought gardening was one-and-done. Easy-peasy. Nope. Gardening is lots of work. First I plan. (That’s the easy part.) Then I shovel, rake, mulch, dig, plant, weed, and sweat—I hate to sweat.  When I’m” finished,” I improve.

The same is true with my artwork. At first I thought creating a painting was one-and-done. Easy-peasy. Nope. It’s much like gardening—hard work. I consider shapes, color palettes, textures, and placements. And when I’m “finished,” I improve.

Improving is the hardest part because I must wield my palette knife and kill my darlings . . . you know the parts of a painting I fell in love with too early.   

Truthfully, on days when my back aches from digging in the dirt and hauling the wheelbarrow up our steep driveway ask myself, “What am I, a gardener or an artist?”

Well, my artwork influences my garden, and my garden influences my artwork.

So, my answer is, “Both.

Basil Interrupted

Judith Kolva, Artist