From my studio window I have a direct view of this weathered nest box. For years it hung unused until spring of 2019, and now in 2020 it is the trending piece of real estate on our property. A family of Bewick’s wrens resided there in late March.Some weeks later activities resumed with a nest-building war between a returning wren, seen here in flight, and a stubborn mountain chickadee, seen here blocking the entry. The antics continued for two days when all fell quiet at the house. Shortly thereafter, two black-capped chickadees tried to enter! One of the chickadees and some nesting materials were ejected in a flurry. Then it was quiet again. Two weeks later, the Bewick’s wren emerged, returning with food. Last week, I spotted a very small wren on a cedar branch above the nest box. After several hovering, in-vain attempts to re-enter, the fledged baby finally took to the air and didn’t return, but the singing of the wrens continues every morning in surround sound from our lofty trees.

May, 2020

Every gardener I know has talked about the abundant growth that has beset all of our gardens this past spring. Along with the expanding shrubbery is the happier phenomenon of our exuberantly blooming roses. I'm not a serious rose gardener, but I have several hardy (they have to be) ones. All these are showy at this time: a delight.

I have one friend who, along with her gardener-husband, has a glorious, fully-tended garden and yard. Further, she is gifted at placing a few blooms in just the right container - usually a vintage one. When our little drawing group met at her house last week, she had a pudgy, antique, silver-plated teapot sitting on the table with a few dusty pink roses in it. We sketched it quickly as we had spent an unusually long portion of our 2-hour meeting catching up with one another about life happenings. Here's my sketch:

Above is a collection of four fragrant, cabbage-type roses from my own garden. A gift from my mother-in-law some years ago, this rose evokes such tender feelings because I know that she knew how much I loved these. We lost her in 2016. Often, I will lean in for a deep whiff of their unique fragrance.

As an example of a "Personal Letter as Manuscript" the letter below was written by me to the students who had signed up for the mini-workshop I taught on May 2. Twenty students went right to work last Saturday at the Letters of Joy conference at Edmonds Community College. Watching these calligraphic artists launch into writing their letters was a moving experience. I took some photos of their work, but then realized that these were personal letters to real people so I will not post them. Kudos!! to all of my hard-working students.

A vintage Schaeffer calligraphy fountain pen (fine) and colored pencils were used on 8.5" x 11" Crane's stationery. I designed a lining guide that includes borders and boxes for placement of initial cap letters (versals). Gold gel pen was used to enhance the artwork and writing.

Ode to a Garden Fork

Poem and Illustrations by Jocelyn Curry

I first saw you

on a day dim with January light

while the baby napped

and joy was but a memory

pasted and closed within

a shelved album. 

Outdoors the earth was frozen,

closed for the winter,

the sign saying 

Stay Away.

I obeyed, reached instead

for the Smith & Hawken

catalogue, the warm wishing well

for gardeners banished by the cold.

You were on page 23:

Bulldog Garden Fork,

Drop-forged steel,

Filled-Y ash handle

Handmade in England

Lifetime guarantee.

Your tines

were four-sided spears                                                   

tapered and ready to

pierce and lift at my command,

eager to find stones

left carelessly behind

by the glacier 

that was once my neighborhood.

The smooth, golden wood

of your eager up-stretched handle

was your invitation to toil

hand in hand with me.

Your gleaming image

became nectar and manna in one -

without you I would be as weak as a brittle stalk,

unable to till a single furrow.

I filled out the order form,

wrote the check and sent it off.

Time passed as slowly

as lichen grows upon a stone.

At last, in late February

you arrived on my porch

a boxed Bulldog,

my winter savior,

my English Adonis!

I slit the tape,

opened the box,

and lifted you in wonder.

Your handle was not wood,

but molded amber.

Your tines were not metal,

but forged light.

I rushed you to the garden,

where the frost had heaved and crusted

the soil of our Eden.

I pressed my foot onto your steel shoulder,

plunging you into the earth for the first time.

We married at that moment, 

bound by fertile purpose.

Many winters have passed since then.

The baby is now 24. 

Your shaft and handle 

are the color of spores,

the wood grain raised and rough. 

The edges of your tines have softened,

worn by basalt stones and cedar roots.

Once, on a wet day in April

when the daffodils strained 

against the rain,

I thought someone had taken you

from our garden.

I searched for you as I would 

for a vanished lover.

But you were there,

leaning against the fir tree,

camouflaged against its craggy bark,

your body resting, but

your purpose unchanged.

Relieved, I grasped you

with my gloved hand

and together we worked the soil.

Poem written in 2005 as an assignment for a college class in poetry.

Artwork done in 2007

All content: copyright Jocelyn Curry 2015. For permission to use content

please contact me via email.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Post script: the baby is now 34. The fork is still in daily use:

One of the simple pleasures of summer in my garden is the dependable blooming of Lathyrus odoratus, the sweet pea Matucana. On the left is a seed packet I designed to share the Matucana seeds with friends and family members.

Everything about this plant, fabled to have been first cultivated by monks in Italy in 1699, is desirable. The plants volunteer if previous year's seeds are allowed to drop to the soil. Requiring no watering beyond the natural rainfall (granted, this is Seattle), they are hardier than most weeds. The color and the fragrance are exquisite. Blooming early and continuing through July, they are a source of pure summer delight.

Two weeks ago, while on a weekend excursion with friends, I found a small, cut glass pitcher at a garage sale. What could be more perfect for a bouquet of Matacanas? (Click on either image for a large view)

At the start of almost every drawing class I teach, the participants are force-fed a little contour drawing to warm up their eyes and hands to seeing and recording shapes. I think I'll always love the look of these drawings, especially if the hand is allowed to meander freely about the page as the eye stays essentially fixed upon the subject. In this drawing of my own, a collection of small vases (only one is visible here) hold stems of hellebores. The uppermost blossom cried out to be tinted with colored pencil, so that's what I did.

A trip to the produce department in the autumn is a feast for the artist's eyes, isn't it? Among the predominantly purple veggies I bought a couple of weeks ago was a gorgeous savoy cabbage. I decided to render it in two layers: a fine line contour drawing and a loose watercolor layer. Here are both the parts, and then, the combined image.

For the line drawing I used a 000 tech pen. After placing the line drawing on my light table, I put a piece of 90 lb. watercolor paper over the drawing and loosely painted the cabbage which was perched nearby. I scanned both renderings and combined them into one image in PhotoShop.

To see a photo of the purple vegetable collection, including this Savoy cabbage, please click here.

After a summer of being focused more on learning about chickens than on doing artwork, I have once again picked up my writing tools and paintbrushes. The August colors and fragrances of the garden have inspired me. The piece I'm working on isn't finished, but in looking at the sequential photos I've taken of the progression of it, I found myself enjoying the detail photo below of the floral bouquet part of the composition. The colors of daylilies and dahlias together in a vase struck me as so beautiful. The watercolor was first painted on Arches cold press watercolor paper, then the sumi ink was applied from a very fine-tipped bottle. The full piece will be posted at a later date.

My inky jaunt into our American past began last month with the admiration of a boldly colored, berry-laden mystery plant in the garden of my son and daughter-in-law. As Amy and I were admiring this tall, magenta-tinged interloper, Eli went online to find out what it might be. Soon he had the information: it was a pokeweed, a significant plant in United States history. The Declaration of Independence was written with the fermented juice of the berries of this plant. Further, Civil War soldiers wrote letters home using this available ink. The plant is more common in the south and east than here in the northwest. The more information Eli relayed to us, the more intrigued we became. I asked myself: what calligrapher worth her ink wouldn't give this a try? Immediately, I harvested some berries and once back at home, I proceeded with the experiment, inspired by the historic significance of the plant also known as inkberry. Here's the way it went:

A ripening cluster of pokeweed berries. In the background, the valley in SW Washington where Eli and Amy have their small farm. 

First, I crushed the berries using a mortar and pestle. Next, I allowed the berries to sit in a glass bowl for two days in a warm spot so that they would begin to ferment.

Then, I poured the fermenting berries into a cheesecloth-lined coffee cone and pressed the juice through. To the juice I added a little bit of water. I heated the resulting "ink" in the microwave in order to discourage bacteria from growing. 

My two clusters of berries yielded about three tablespoons of ink. Below you see my handwritten sample using the historic ink recipe. The fluid wrote perfectly with the old-fashioned pointed steel nib shown in the photo. Currently, the sample is on my windowsill, exposed to light so that I can witness the probable fading of this very organic ink. Oh, one more thing: don't drink the ink. It's poisonous!