Tag Archives: Art

My Garden My Muse My Inspiration

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My muse is my garden. Other gardens as well, but my garden in particular. I move in it, feel it, and hear the breezes whisper through it. I watch the lighting during the day as it slides over and around the textured surfaces.

Mary Ahern - Azaleas and Tree Peony in my garden

This azalea and tree peony combination bloom in my garden together every year. Their colors match perfectly and are so inspiring to me!

Lighting is so different on days with sun and with clouds. Lighting in the spring with the bright yellow-greens of optimistic new growth and lighting by the fall with ambers & tans of a lived life. Morning light offers tender ambiance while afternoon colors not only light the scene from a different direction, the colors are deeper and warmer.

My garden brings consciousness and meaning to me. It keeps me grounded. The ephemeral beauty of an unfertilized blossom studied up close with magnifiers and macro lenses is a representation of a miracle. The world of possibility. The beginning of a story I represent in my Art. I walk through my garden gathering ideas. Stories I want to tell. Suggested ideas I want to convey.

In my garden I spend time designing the landscape or I spend time closely and intimately with a singular specimen at a particular stage of growth. In my studio I may paint a vignette or a full landscape view of a part of the garden I’ve designed, or I may choose to paint a small portion of one flower that has moved me. The minute miracle. This is my work. Outdoors and indoors. These are the stories I tell. This is my Art. You can see more of my work in my online Art Shop.

Fire Flame Peony

These Fire Flame Peonies bloom in my garden each year in May at the same time as the color matching azalea.This and other pieces of my Art can be purchased in various sizes on canvas, fine art paper, metal and acrylic in my online Art Shop.

Tunicate Bulbs

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Tunicate bulbs are some of the most familiar bulbs we come in contact with both in and out of our gardens.

Many underground plant structures are generally named bulbs. A definition of a bulb is a plant that incorporates its entire life cycle in an underground storage unit. Technically true bulbs are compressed stems surrounded by fleshy leaves acting as food storage organs. They are in the Monocot family of plants.

Graphite Drawing of a Onion and Garlic bulbs by the Artist, Mary Ahern

Graphite Drawing of  Onion and Garlic bulbs by Mary Ahern.

Bulbs can be further classified by looking at their various growth habits. Some of these “bulbs” are actually further classified as “true” bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes. Examples of these bulbs respectively are: narcissus, crocus, dahlia and canna. 

True bulbs are represented by two classifications, tunicate and imbricate as represented by onions and lilies in that order. 

Tunicate bulbs have a dry thin paperlike sheath surrounding them which helps to prevent them from drying and improves their storage capability. The basal base plate along with the tunicate sheath hold the bulb together. Roots emerge at the bottom of the basal plate.

We enjoy these bulbs both in the kitchen and in our gardens. Our cooking is enhanced by the addition of the tunicate bulbs of onions, garlic and shallots. The joyous colors in our early spring gardens are presented by our daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. 

 

What are bulbs and how do they differ from corms, tubers and rhizomes?

The Garden Artist Posted on by

The term “bulb” is used by most people to refer to plants that have underground, fleshy storage structures. Only some of the plants commonly called bulbs actually are bulbs. The general definition of a bulb is any plant that stores its complete life cycle in an underground storage structure. These underground storage structures store nutrient reserves to ensure the plants’ survival.

Tubers, rhizomes, corms, and bulbs actually all serve the same purpose, just in a different way. They are each a storage unit for food that gives the plant the energy it needs to grow, bloom and complete its lifecycle each and every year.

The energy is created and stored by the foliage’s photosynthesis. You’ve probably heard that it’s important not to cut back the foliage after the bloom has died. That is because the leaves need to have time to absorb energy for next year’s bloom. Each storage system takes differing amounts of time to perform this task. Examples would be Alliums and Daffodils.

Bulbs or bulb-like plants are usually perennials. They have a period of growth and flowering. This is followed by a period of dormancy where they die back to ground level at the end of each growing season.

As with perennials, there are bulbs that are hardy in our climate and others that must be overwintered as house plants or placed in dormant storage.

Bulbs can be broken down into five types of storage structures. These include: true bulbs, corms, (stem) tubers, tuberous roots and rhizomes.

"Leeks and Pearl Onions" a graphite drawing by the Artist Mary Ahern

“Leeks and Pearl Onions” a graphite drawing by the Artist Mary Ahern

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Anemone coronaria in the Garden and in Art

The Garden Artist Posted on by
Anemone coronaria in the garden of the Artist, Mary Ahern.

. Anemone coronaria

My Garden and my Art go side by side. Both require me to make aesthetic judgments about composition, scale, color, texture and style. When I’m deciding where to plant the flowers I’ve hauled home on my endless trips to the nurseries it doesn’t seem that much different to me then when I’m deciding how to compose them on a two-dimensional surface.

I think about what style I’m looking for, what colors will work together, whether the scale of the placement works for me. I think about the type of flower and texture of the leaves. I make decisions about the 3D composition of the garden much like the 2D composition decisions on a painting.

Anemone coronaria in a Watercolor Painting by the Artist, Mary Ahern.

. Anemone coronaria – Watercolor Painting also, available as a print.

The garden adds so many additional layers of complexity since the artwork is moving in time with nature, the seasons, the elements, and time. The painting remains caught in a moment.

Capturing that ephemeral moment is so gratifying to me in my Fine Art. I control it, unlike my Garden which is usually out of control.

This watercolor painting is available directly from me, Mary Ahern, as an archival print on Fine Art Paper, double matted and ready for framing.

Please contact the Artist directly for purchase information.

Looking closely at Grape Muscari

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Muscari armeniacum in the garden of the Artist, Mary Ahern

Muscari armeniacum

Grape muscari, otherwise known as Grape Hyacinths live close to the ground. For years I never took much notice of them except for the little spots of brilliant purple that bounced so nicely against the bright yellow daffodils they bloomed along with in April.

Then I got down. Hands and knees down.

What a surprise! How intricate the little flowers are. Little bells dance around a central stem forming a small pyramid. This inflorescence changes shape as it ages and can be more and less tightly knit.

The individual purple doesn’t seem to change on each bell but the overall purple varies when viewed at a distance based upon the tightness of the overall flower.

Muscari azureum from the garden of the Artist, Mary Ahern.

Muscari azureum

I enjoyed these 4″ bulbs so much in my garden that I bought a bag of them from Costco one year and low and behold the next spring the flowers that bloomed were very different from my originals. They were more blue than purple and were more rounded than pyramidal.

So I googled Grape Muscari and found a world of cultivars I didn’t previously know existed. That’s one of the things that is so much fun about gardening. You are constantly in a learning mode. You are in for surprises every year and every season. The knowledge and information you acquire just keeps on growing, along with your garden.

So now I know that so far in my garden I have Muscari armeniacum and M. azureaum. Next year I’m sure to have more.

When I made my Digital Mixed Media Painting of my Grape Muscari I was careful to recreate the basal growth of the leaves. It would not have been accurate if I’d placed the leaves higher on the stem. The painting would have looked like a plant Frankenstein. As a Garden Artist, that is not what I’m trying to create.

You can view this Grape Muscari Designer Print artwork and others too in my online Shop!

Grape Muscari

© Mary Ahern. Grape Muscari. Prints available in my Art Shop in various sizes on canvas, fine art paper, metal and acrylic.

Dicentra spectabilis

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Dicentra spectabilis vignette with Athyrium nipponicum var. pictum fern, Hyacinthoides hispanica and Polygonatum biflorum or Solomon's seal.

• Dicentra spectabilis vignette with Athyrium nipponicum var. pictum fern, Hyacinthoides hispanica and Polygonatum biflorum or Solomon’s seal.

Isn’t that a fantastic name? Dicentra spectabilis. It just rolls out of your mouth in a lilting singsong kind of rhythm, doesn’t it? I love to say it quietly under my breath as I walk around my woodland garden in May. Not too loud so as to scare the birds and the neighbors (and myself for that matter.)

I love their color pink. I have some white ones, but the pink ones are just so luscious. They reseed very freely for me and I’m able to reposition the offspring into springtime vignettes

Dicentra spectabilis otherwise known as Bleeding Heart

• Dicentra spectabilis otherwise known as Bleeding Heart dazzling in my spring garden.

When I bought this property in 1989 there was one plant of Dicentra native here and I’ve managed over time to spread the wealth around my own garden and also with other gardeners. What a treat!

I don’t mind that they die back in the summer because it gives me another planting opportunity but some of the holes they leave behind can be very BIG planting opportunities…all the more opportunity for creativity to kick in.

I made a Digital Mixed Media Painting, which I call, “Dicentra Necklace”. I think of these joyful little gems in my garden, decorating the light greens of spring with their pink heart shaped “jewelry”.

Dicentra spectabilis by Mary Ahern the Artist.

• Dicentra necklace is a composition I made using the beautiful flowers from my own garden.

"Dicentra Necklace", an Artwork of a Bleeding Heart by the Artist, Mary Ahern

• This photo from my studio shows the reference to the size and treatment of the “Dicentra Necklace”, 12×36″ framed. 

Contact me directly for pricing and to order this print to brighten your own home or office.

White Daffodils

The Garden Artist Posted on by
Spring Daffodils by the Artist, Mary Ahern.

Daffodil in my front garden entryway.

I have a number of varieties of White Daffodils growing in my garden but I don’t feel that I ever have enough. Since I am overrun by squirrels I try to focus away from crocus and my beloved tulips. (After all, both my parents were born in Holland!) Squirrels consider the bulbs as an entrée and the flowers, if they arrive, as a delectable garnish but they leave my daffodils alone.

The abundant shade in my garden causes challenges to many of my daffodil plantings but I still crave the color in early spring. One of the fun parts of designing gardens is figuring out how to hide the declining leaves on the daffodils as they absorb the chlorophyll for next year’s growth.

I’ve been known to hide them using daylilies, Siberian iris and ornamental grasses. I’ve stopped braiding the leaves since it seems so demeaning to their dignity plus is reduces their exposure to sunlight which helps photosynthesis.

I created a Designer Print from one of these white daffodils. I love the way daffodil leaves have a slight twist to them. One of the things I kept in mind when composing the piece is that the stem is offset where it enters the back of the flower, unlike a tulip which is a straight up vertical.

Another issue is making sure that I paint the shadows different from when the “light” hits the round stem vs. when it hits a flat leaf.

You can see this Single White Daffodil on a Black Background is available in my Online Shop. in a variety of sizes on canvas, fine art paper, metal and acrylic. I think it has a rather heroic feel to the composition don’t you!

Single White Daffodil on Black Background

Single White Daffodil Designer Prints are available in various sizes on canvas, fine arts paper, metal and acrylic in my online shop.

Yellow Daffodils

The Garden Artist Posted on by

My garden is often the source material for my Art. Though I am not a Photographer, I like to use my digital camera to record the progress and changes in my garden from day to day and year to year.

Entry Garden Yellow Daffodils

Springtime is such a hectic time since I’m always late uncovering the perennial beds. These jolly yellow daffodils came up in my entry garden and I was lucky enough to catch the early morning light behind them.

My entry garden is still in need of some tidying but putting the pansies into the pots and baskets takes my mind off the leaves from last fall.

My Entry Garden in April of the artist, Mary Ahern

My front entry garden with yellow daffodils and purple accents.

Though I like to create gardens and like to create Fine Art using my garden, in the garden I get messy and dirty while my Botanical Art is clean and stylized.

This Designer Print is a very popular piece that surprisingly sells all year long, not just in the spring as I would have imagined. People buy this Single Yellow Daffodil as an individual piece and also as a grouping along with some of my other daffodil Art Works. You can see them in my Art Shop

Single Yellow Daffodil. Art print by Mary Ahern the Artist.

© Mary Ahern. Single White Daffodil. Art prints available in various sizes on canvas, fine art paper, metal and acrylic.

Dream chaser Newsday article

The Garden Artist Posted on by

Today I was featured in a Newsday Business section article written by Arlene Gross. The excerpt focusing on my background and my life choices is copied below. If you’d like to see the article in it’s entirety you can see it on my website in the News section.

Dream chasers

At midlife, taking lower pay to begin more satisfying careers

By Arlene Gross

Special to Newsday
11:07 AM EST, January 4, 2008

Newsday photo of Mary Ahern at ComputerMary Ahern had dabbled in art for many years, but had never been able to actually make a career of it. Until four years ago, that is, when she made the switch to full-time artist.

“I had always been a creative artist,” the Northport resident, 60, explained. “Life, however, intervened, and as a single parent, I was never able to create my art on a full-time basis.”

Changing careers at midlife is no small feat, and switching to one with substantially less earning potential is more difficult still. According to Randy Miller, founder and president of ReadyMinds, an online career counseling service, downsizing a career can be a source of great anxiety.

Newsday photo of Mary Ahern painting in studioYet for some people, any fear or hesitation is mitigated by the yearning to follow a dream. Seeking more spiritually uplifting endeavors can be the ultimate challenge, and Miller said any attendant loss of income is often compensated with a renewed sense of purpose and newfound happiness.

“There are a lot of people who go through life and think, ‘What if?'” Miller said. “With a strategic plan, coupled with the new passion and ultimate objective of doing something different, one can more easily achieve their ultimate goals.”

For Ahern, a new husband provided the impetus and financial support to move forward. Income, the couple concluded, was less relevant to the quality of their lives than the legacy they wish to leave behind.

“When we married, Dave urged me to follow my dream,” she recalled. “The hard part at first was trying to find inside myself what that dream actually was. You spend so much time marching forward and doing what you do, you lose the essence of yourself.”

Once their five children — all from previous marriages — were finished with college, Ahern felt it was OK to follow her calling.

“My income from my art doesn’t yet come close to the money I’m used to making in either my career in computer graphics equipment sales or my own graphics design firm,” she said.

One of her greatest sacrifices was a big dip in retirement savings, which now come exclusively from her husband’s salary.

“We have a comfortable nest egg,” she said, “but by coming out of a conventional career, I no longer have the extra cushion to add to my existing portfolio of tax-advantaged savings vehicles.”

Despite her diminished earnings, Ahern says she is happier. “I am living the life I am meant to live,” she said.