"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.” -Voltaire

      Some things about February are worthy of true love.
    Between the 1st and 28th of February, we gain about an hour and 15 minutes of daily sunlight- something we can all love. In addition, the sun is moving higher and higher in the sky- about 15 degrees higher here in Madison, WI, USA. I love feeling the light grow more intense, don't you? 
     Alternately, the clear, crisp night sky is something to love in February. Toward the end of the month, we'll be able to view, without a telescope, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn at various times during the night.  
    Out in the woods, owls are mating and nesting while squirrels are raising their first litter of the year. Yep. The season of reproductive love has begun. Even migratory birds are beginning to make their way to northern breeding grounds. I saw my first robin just yesterday. It looked too tired and surprised by the snow and cold to be thinking about love. 
  Valentine's Day brings thoughts of love to our species. I'm given to the idea that Valentine's Day is more about love in the larger sense, rather than the guilt-love fed to us by sellers of chocolate and diamonds. Of course I love my spouse, friends and family. But I'm not stopping there.
     I love the excitement of standing before a big blank canvas. Woo-hooo! 
   I love the process that accompanies abstraction, as opposed to more realistic work, because it most rouses my courage as a painter, and challenges your openness as a viewer. ​
    I love what I do in the studio and while walking in wild places because it keeps me directed toward the sublime unknowable- the place of my heart. My artistic process is a progression of making adjustments and exploring the edges rather than capturing any sort of ideal. I hope you love it. It won't break my heart if you don't.  
    Enough about me. How do you find heart? Where do you find love? Things to ponder this sparkly, chocolatey, red, pink, and love-ly February 14th.

                                                         Happy Valentine's Day!

    Have you noticed how long your shadow is these days, even at noon? As the Earth's Northern Hemisphere tilts methodically away from the sun, we slide toward the heart of winter. This "tilt" affects the angle of the sunlight reaching the earth and is responsible for seasonal change.
    December 21st, the official start of winter, marks this season's maximum "away" tilt. In Wisconsin, we'll take in around 6 hours and 22 minutes less daylight than the longest day in June. I don't know about you, but for me, that's way too short a day. But not to fret- from here, the amount of daily sunlight we receive grows as we edge toward spring.
    Noting the Winter Solstice  as both the night of deepest darkness and the return of light is more than an act of faith. For me, celebrating the celestial cycle honors ancestral longings- and abilities- to figure out the workings of the world around us, and our drive to continue doing so.
    The usual pace of holiday celebrations dictates high energy - shopping, eating, drinking, and entertaining, This is the antithesis of nature's truest winter energy, which fosters stillness and introspection. It's worthwhile to observe winter rhythm by drawing inward and reflecting, even if briefly. Give your solo self the necessary and rejuvenating gift of peace and quiet- walk in the woods, curl up by a fireplace, or snuggle in with a good book. Just sitting and doing nothing for awhile is A-ok.
    The above painting, Solstice (Earth Tilt), (30"x 24" acrylic on canvas) is one of my Series 2 pieces. Unlike the more abstract expressionist work in Series 1 and Series 3, these pieces are harder-edged and a balancing nod to the "other side" of Mid-20th Century Art, as well as my Nordic roots.
    Though not apparent, Series 2 paintings are also "free" in the sense that they are done in the moment, without a preconceived idea, theme, or detailed drawing, usually with no tape or masking. The act of painting propels me toward an unseen destination. I started work on this piece with an open mind, red & gray paint, a canvas, and began by painting a few scattered shapes. They led me to Solstice (Earth Tilt).
    You can see more of my Series 2 work here and here.

    Thinking optimistically, this long string of gray, rainy days will end. Meanwhile, the permeating and powerful scent of rain is hard to miss. This time of year it is a promise of things to come. Spring is here, even if it's coursing mostly underground and our bodies are still desperately craving a boost of vitamin D.
    So what about the scent of rain? A little background - in the 1960's, Dr. Isabel Joy Bear and Dr. Richard Thomas of Australia's national science agency named the unique smell that accompanies rain after discovering what forms it. Their paper, The Nature of Argillaceous Odour, was the first to define petrichor as the earthy scent that occurs when rain falls on dry earth. It comes from the Greek "petra," meaning stone, and “ichor,” meaning the ethereal blood of the gods.
    So how is petrichor created? To greatly simplify, during extended dry periods, plants and soil bacteria release various compounds. When rain drops collide with the earth, the compounds combine and aerosolize to become the unique scent we now call petrichor. Petrichor is most pungent after a dry spell, in the moments when rain first begins to fall.
    Human noses are highly sensitive to the scent of rain. Researchers believe recognizing petrichor on the breeze is important to animal survival because it allows us to anticipate and locate coming precipitation. Some people find the scent disagreeable. I like it. How about you?

Within an hour or so from Trinidad, dozens of waterfalls, verdant mountains, and shade grown coffee plantations await exploration. We spent a day aboard an old Russian military transport vehicle visiting Topes de Collantes National Park and a shade-grown coffee plantation. ​The topography and mountaintop ocean views were stunning.

Text and photos ©2017 Michelle Louis

Recreational development is a job not of building roads into the lovely country,​ but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind. -Aldo Leopold

Learn more about the chemistry of fall colors here. 
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​ I'm honored to be one of 100 artists selected from across the country to participate in an exhibition celebrating the National Parks 100th Anniversary. I walk in nature on public lands more than 1,200 miles/year as part of my art practice- most of it on the the several Ice Age National Scenic Trail Segments located near my home. This cultivates a living palette of form, movement, and color ready for my brush. The jury-selected painting, "Morning Rain/Ice Age National Scenic Trail," was inspired by an early morning walk in the rain on the Table Bluff Segment of the IAT. It emerged from paint and moment to suggest a remembered experience that I worked to reinforce.

The exhibition, National Parks, Personal Narratives, October 21-November 27, takes place at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, WI, just east of the Twin Cities.  

How many pounds of nuts and seeds do you think a squirrel caches? While the definitive answer is fuzzy (pardon the pun), gray and fox squirrels, the most commonly seen squirrels in our area, probably cache between 50-100 pounds each per year. That's a lot of nuts! They do this by "scatter hoarding" - burying individual nuts all over their territory. Red squirrels are "larder hoarders," burying or covering small collections of nuts in shallow depressions. Some believe squirrels remember where they cache their food, while others believe they sniff out their stores. In fact, they do both, unwittingly providing an important eco-service- uneaten nuts and seeds sprout and grow into future generations of valuable food and habitat for squirrels and others. 

September Earth Offerings- hickory nut hulls discarded by busy squirrels re-arranged into patterns. Maybe you'll spot one, or create one, while hiking on the Ice Age Trail.