Everyday Matters #34 Leaf (and a poem)

The Everyday Matters online group started by Danny Gregory has been a gift to me.  Through that group I've made virtual connections with other artists, had an opportunity to see how other they interpreted a weekly challenge, and it prompted me to look at my home and my life as source material for art.  Often seeing other people's work inspired me, and just as often it humbled me.  At first I wanted to do all the prompts (draw your shoe, draw dinner, draw some organized chaos in  your life), but filling notebooks with ideas for sketches and writing chosen by other people eventually became a chore - certainly not the goal of doing illustrated journaling.  Every day matters, and it's my job to find subjects that interest, delight, or concern me.  Now I cherry pick ideas, looking for subjects to share with others that they may also have tackled, but ignoring the ones that leave me staring stupidly into space.  I used to try to draw every day, put I've modified that.  Now I try to draw, or paint, or cut and paste, or take a good photograph every day.  

Yes I can.

At any rate, the leaf idea is an old one, but it's fall, and leaves have been an issue here.  We live on a lot in an old established part of town, full of maples, walnuts and oaks.  I call it squirrel heaven.  We built our deck around a maple, which I now know is a romantic but not practical thing to do.  In the spring its red blossoms and helicopter seeds, in the fall it's wet leaves.  So I drew one.  

Here's an autumn poem from the Wisconsin Poets Calendar I won by answering the Midday Quiz on our local public radio station.  Actually, it might inspire a good collage.

A Visit to Lands End

by Liz Hammond Rhodebeck

The rich colors of an autumn catalog

warm my eyes on a darkening afternoon;

plum and chocolate,

the words roll in my mouth

like edible stones.

I can almost feel the sureness

of the herringbone and tweed

in tones of memories,

and the deep hum of the earth,

relish the sound of houndstooth in

its sturdy complexity of olive and rose.

What else but a camel plaid

can set the world right

and promise the peaceful glow

of a scarlet wood cardigan,

knowing the storms of life are no match for wide-wale

corduroy and a bulwark navy turtleneck.