The artist’s statement

When life gets loud, I head to my garden. It’s where I’ve turned for years. Where I center myself, my mind and my body. I take time to slow down, look closely, and see differently. I listen to the birds singing songs and calling to each other. They are the background music for the scenic stage, which hosts untold stories and lessons to be learned.

The varied fragrances in a garden signal many different events. It might be the bright smell of rain seeping into the musky crevices of the soil. Or the perfume the flowers use to seduce pollinators, to help them create the seeds of life. It could even be the tantalizing fragrance of herbs we use in our nightly nourishment. The gurgling sounds of water, splashing and flowing, are an invitation to stop for some moments, and drink in the dazzling spectacle of the garden.

My garden has taught me patience. The patience of understanding that I am just a small contributor to the ecosystem surrounding me.

A walk along my garden paths can be humbling when I observe how each tree, shrub, and flower, along with the songbirds and bees, keeps living and evolving through its own life cycle. Their lives go on without my input, my attention, or my assistance, while I’m busy elsewhere.

Taking time to look closely at a thing, or a process, centers me. It slows me down. When I do, I see things I overlooked in my too busy, too fast-moving, too hectic world. I notice how the sun moves shadows over the soft petal of a pink flower. And how the songs vary between the finches, robins, and blue jays, visiting at different times of the day. The garden is a spectacularly different place when viewed from the seat on the deck, than when observed from the distance of my nose to the pollen on the end of a stamen.

You enter this space through a curtain printed in a circle with the flower centers I have painted. A Space For Centering offers a suggestion, a reminder, and an invitation to visit a garden.

Spend time looking closely at some of the flowers from my garden on the monitor. Pick up the headphones and listen to the birds. Glance at the reflections in the water, as it circulates quietly over the sphere. Touch the herbs, and think of how they enliven the taste buds when you enjoy your dinner.

Stop. Look. Listen. Smell. Feel. And think.

Experience, in a small way, the centering effects of time spent with the fragment of my garden I’ve brought indoors. Come away a bit more calm and more refreshed, knowing that you can go out into the world and find all this on a grander scale, by slowing down and spending time with nature.