One a cool January morning, as I walked by a neighbor’s front yard, this cluster of succulents catching the just rising sunlight jumped up at me, telling me to take their picture.  Succulents have been quite popular in paintings, sculptures as well as in gardens these past years, but their allure has eluded me.  My friend Sue made a gorgeous painting from it.

Never say never.  I used this image as a demonstration/exercise for a workshop that was re-routed to Zoom in the pandemic lockdown.  Demonstrating how to create volume by painting each of the leaflets, with their multiple blues and greens, combined with a soft yellow and deep blue-red for zing had me think:  why not?    

Here was a piece to indulge my obsession with cobalt pigments – all of them:  green, turquoise, teal, blue and blue-violet. 

I worked on this one in my parents’ bedroom while I kept my dad company in the last weeks of his life.  As he dozed along with the National Geographic channel, I put blues and greens onto watercolor paper.  Precious time I’m now very grateful I spent with him.

I wanted to give this a name describing these plants tucked in together – as we are – people sharing one planet.  It’s a tricky needle to thread – not hokey or trite, nor straight out of the dictionary.  The name that fit that in-between place best was Kindred.  There’s “kin” in it (we are all related).  I liked that it’s often followed by “spirits.” 

May we all know we are truly kindred.

22”x22” Autumn 2020 – Watercolor on paper

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