Continuing our snowy theme this month, we turn to animation. Come Again in Spring is a short animated film about an old man who has a mysterious visitor one day who threatens his peaceful existence. This gentle film contains gorgeous imagery of the snowy landscape, and also the birds who are ever-present throughout the tale.
In addition to the beautiful animation, it’s also a great story, and I urge you to watch it through to the end. It is a film about life, about nature, and about the human spirit.
The film is based on a story by Richard Kennedy. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, and was directed and animated by Belinda Oldford.
To kick off this wintry new year, here is a poem by Emily Dickinson, who was no stranger to the outdoors. Throughout her roughly 1,700 poems, she described nature in her own singular way, as someone who has quietly observed it all her life. This particular poem is written as a riddle, never explicitly stating the subject, though I think you’ll guess.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain –
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem –
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen –
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
It has been exactly three months since I started this blog, and I want to thank all my readers for their feedback and support. I have lots of ideas for the new year, and here’s just a peek at what’s coming up.
January will be “snow month” at The Untended Garden — all the posts will involve snow and winter. Snow has always inspired art and writing, not just for its visual beauty, but how it changes the way we see nature, making everything seem new. It has also been used as a metaphor in countless ways, as something that both hides and reveals, that protects and threatens.
Another theme that I will delve into next year is the ocean, which is a huge part of our planet (two thirds of it!) and also has inspired writers and artists for centuries.
I will also feature a wide variety of media, including novels, poetry, picture books, drawings, paintings and films that deal with nature. I hope you can join the conversation, as we continue on our voyage of discovery!
Few artists have been more in tune with nature than Tasha Tudor. Not only did she paint the natural world around her, she lived her life as in olden days, growing her own food, raising livestock, and spinning and weaving cloth for her family’s clothing. Her persona and her work seem so quaint and old fashioned, many people forget what a great artist she was.
This is one of her most famous works, commonly known as “Laura in the Snow.” It’s a beautiful composition that first draws your attention to the girl’s face, then down her arm to the cat, then across the lines of her snowshoes to the other cat, and finally back to her face again. There is also drama in the picture — do the cats belong to her? Is she trying to befriend them? And the beautiful spareness of the open snow is a model of restraint. A perfect painting, from someone who has undoubtedly been on snowshoes herself.
Tasha Tudor died last year at the age of 92, and her art will be missed.
Many people stop looking at trees after the leaves fall off, but this is when I think trees become the most interesting. And one of the best artists at interpreting trees in all their raw, twisted glory is the great Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). He was famous for illustrating classic fantasy and children’s books such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and influenced generations of artists who came after him.
His trees are especially unique, and often become characters in the story. The world of humans and nature come together, and it is often hard to distinguish between his whimsical characters and their surrounding landscape. He had a flair for making his trees seem like living creatures, often literally with faces and arms, but also just by their organic and sinewy shape, as they grip the earth with their claw-like roots.
So the next time you go walking in the winter, stop to notice the trees, and you may be pleasantly surprised. I will discuss more of Rackham’s work in future posts, but in the meantime, here are just some of his amazing trees.
Autumn is fast disappearing, as the few remaining leaves manage to cling to the trees. It is a season of transition, all the more precious because of its fleeting nature. Here are some beautiful fall images by artist Kristina Swarner that perfectly evoke the feeling of autumn, when leaves are turning, seeds are scattering, and birds are flying south.
Kristina is the illustrator of several children’s books, and her lyrical work is very much inspired by nature. You can see more of her work at her website.
In honor of Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, I present one of the best “green” songs ever, performed by the one and only Kermit the Frog. Written by Joe Raposo, the song is deceptively simple but contains a powerful message about accepting who you are, with poetic references to nature (as befits a frog).
This video is from the very first season of Sesame Street, and is even more poignant with the passing of Jim Henson, who left this world too soon. I’m sure he would have loved this 40th anniversary celebration, and I’m sure he would be gratified to know that his amazing work lives on.
Andrew Millner is an artist who creates digital images of plants and trees, exploring the natural world and the way we see it. His method is to take photographs from many angles and trace contour drawings on a computer tablet. The resulting images are amazingly detailed and very unique. Here is an excerpt from his own artist statement:
What is “nature?” What is “natural?” These questions are increasingly difficult to answer as the borders of the natural and artificial continue to blur. As the sphere of human influence grows larger, questions about our relationship to the “natural” and our place in it prove ever more pressing.
The digital medium describes all things equally; the near and the far, the large and the small, without the prejudice inherent in our familiar acts of looking. The idiosyncrasies of my hand trace over photographs taken from multiple points of view. Through the process of zooming in and out, the drawings capture information outside the experience of the human eye or camera. The closer one gets to these works, the more one can see. It is a pure act of drawing, evoking a mental map of the natural world.
For his gallery shows, Millner prints out his works on a huge scale, allowing the viewer to explore them in all their scope and detail. The monochromatic palette focuses attention on the patterns and forms, and lets us marvel at the maze of branches and leaves. The relationship between the digital and natural world is a something we have only begun to grapple with as a society, and these works are a beautiful example of how art can help us move towards a better understanding of our world.
Andrew Millner’s work is on display through October 28th at the Miller Block Gallery in Boston. I also encourage you to visit his website where you can see close-up/interactive views of his drawings.
The seasons have inspired poetry in every century, and for good reason. Today I thought I’d share one of the more famous seasonal poems by John Keats (who is also the subject of a new feature film by Jane Campion.)
Keats was an English poet who was born in 1795 and died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. His poetry was not well received by critics during his short life, and he died before winning the praise he deserved. Keats requested that the following words be put on his tombstone, in lieu of his name: “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” Keats may have felt that his own life was not worth remembering, but he needn’t have worried — his work will live on forever. You can read more about Keats and his works here.
* * * * * * * *
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Walt Disney’s animated short film The Old Mill won an Academy Award in 1938, and it is remarkable not only because it’s a beautiful film, and pioneered the multi-plane camera, but also for how it depicts nature.
The mill itself is merely the backdrop for the story. The main characters are the animals — in the opening minutes we see creatures who live outside the mill (a spider, ducks, cattle, frogs, crickets) and those who live inside the mill (a pair of nesting bluebirds, doves, mice, bats, and a wide-eyed owl.) All are living peacefully until a storm sets in, and everyone ducks for cover.
The mill is forced to battle the elements, and it nearly topples over — but somehow all becomes right in the end, and nature’s balance is restored. We get the sense that the abandoned mill, built by human hands, is not long for this world and won’t survive too many more storms. But the birds, the mice, the owl — the creatures of nature will somehow always pull through, if left to their own devices. If only we would let them.
To kick off this wintry new year, here is a poem by Emily Dickinson, who was no stranger to the outdoors. Throughout her roughly 1,700 poems, she described nature in her own singular way, as someone who has quietly observed it all her life. This particular poem is written as a riddle, never explicitly stating the subject, though I think you’ll guess.
Many people stop looking at trees after the leaves fall off, but this is when I think trees become the most interesting. And one of the best artists at interpreting trees in all their raw, twisted glory is the great Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). He was famous for illustrating classic fantasy and children’s books such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and influenced generations of artists who came after him.
