Opening Day 2016. The pomp and circumstance begins at 8:35 am sharp as the 1st Corps Army Band Brass Quintet begins to play. Marching to the tune of the band, Past Admirals and Amiralettes form an honor guard. Commodores from all visiting yacht clubs, parade judges, and visiting VIPs fill the neatly coiffed grounds. The flags of the United States and Canada are raised while their respective National Anthems are played. In addition to the country flags, the burgees of the visiting yacht clubs are raised. A colorful array of cloth.
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Opening Day, May 7, 2016. Portage Bay (foreground), leading into the Montlake Cut, connecting to Lake Washington. Cascade Mountains in the distance. The Seattle Yacht Club (not seen here) is to the right.
Maritime
A few Saturdays ago, I decided to go on a 22-mile bike ride on the Burke Gilman trail that runs along a portion of the west side of Lake Washington. I didn't set out to ride 22 miles round trip, that is just what it turned out to be. I ride a vintage 1970s French-made Motobecane. Being an older bike, the ride was not one of speed, but rather of leisure. A great way to enjoy the Burke-Gilman.
My ride took place the same day as Opening Day, the official kick off of boating season in the Pacific Northwest. The weather that Saturday was perfect. The sun was out, the sky was clear blue, the temperature in the 80s. It was a classic Seattle kind of day.
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"Tulip Field, Skagit Valley." Oil on Canvas, 4x4" 2016.
The tulip is the world’s peace flower, with special status in countries like The Netherlands and Turkey. It has a “sacred significance” in Istanbul.
Tulipmania!
"Tulipmania," as it is known, occurred during the Dutch Golden Age, when a rare tulip bulb went for the cost of 12 acres of land.
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"Morning Harvest." Oil on Canvas, 4x4," 2016.
The tulip is the world’s peace flower, with special status in countries like The Netherlands and Turkey. It has a “sacred significance” in Istanbul.
Morning Harvest
Upon wrapping up my visit, I am touched by the simple elegance of the tulip harvest, filled with so much honor and meaning. These people are earning their living by picking tulips. It is my privilege to witness the dignity of which they are earning their livelihood.
I will remember this experience for a long time. The next time I stop in the grocery store to purchase my $4 bundle of tulips, I will say a silent "Thanks" to those who picked them for me.
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"Returning from the Field." Oil on Canvas, 4x4." 2016.
Anthologia - A Collection of Flowers
The word "anthology" derives from ancient Greek, anthologos, (antho + logos, adj. derivative of légein to pick up, collect) literally means "flower-gathering."
So, how does flower gathering have anything to do with literature and anthologies?
Well, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts. In genre fiction anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short stories and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication.
Thus, an anthology preserves the best of a kind, the "flowers" of the art.
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Gathering Tulips. Oil on Canvas, 4x4.:" 2016
Gathering Tulips
One man is designated as the tulip gatherer (seen on the right.) He goes into the fields where the group of pickers are located. One by one, the tulip pickers lay bunches of bound tulips in his outstretched arms. The tulip gatherer remains in the field until he has all the bundles he can manage to hold.
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Working in the Tulip Fields. Oil on Canvas, 4x4." 2016. M. Lamery
Working in the Tulip Fields
Walking along the edge of the field towards the back where the tulip pickers are, I join them.
They are working in a quiet manner, silently picking the spring flowers. In unison, they advance, slowly, rhythmically. Reaching over, gently snipping the bottoms of the tulip stems.
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"Working in the field of Red Tulips." Oil on Canvas, 4x4." 2016. M. Lamery
A Field of Red Tulips
Upon seeing the tulips in the Skagit Valley for the first time, I fell in love with the setting.
Morning light, dew laden earth.
The rows of tulips are long.
The colors are lush.
In the distance, I see groups of people on the perimeters of the fields. I think to myself, they must be on a guided tour or a field trip of some sort. As I continue to walk about the fields, I see similar small groups of people huddled in the rows of tulips.
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Deep pinkish red tulips.
Tulipmania!
Did you know that before the stock market bubble of 1929, before the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s/2000s, before the housing bubble of 2008, there was the Tulip Bubble of 1634-37?
True story!
"Tulipmania," as it is known, occurred during the Dutch Golden Age, when a tulip bulb was worth as much as ten times that of a skilled craftsman.
“At no time was this truer than during the tulipmania that swept Amsterdam between 1634 and 1637, when a single bulb of the most prized tulips fetched a price greater than the grandest canal houses in the city. This brief paroxysm of aesthetic zeal and financial speculation brought the nation’s economy to its knees, wiping out the fortunes of many and, for a time, making the flower into a national villain.” -- The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.
Tulipmania is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble. The term "tulip mania" is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble when asset prices deviate from intrinsic values.
Mary Lamery is a lifelong resident and native of the Pacific Northwest. Lamery paints regional landscape in a manner that leans towards 19th century French Impressionism. Through her project, "Washington Americana," she will create original landscape paintings from her journeys through Washington for the creation of an art book of painted landscape of Washington State.
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"You're strictly a tulip girl -- a red tulip girl." Alyson Noel
Tulips Fields, Skagit County, Dutch Roots
Being a life long resident of Washington State, I have always wanted to see the tulips in bloom in Skagit Valley.
However, my first and only tulip "experience" to date was in 1985 on my very first trip to Europe, in Lisse, the Netherlands a little more than 20 miles away from Amsterdam to visit the world-renowned Keukenhof Garden.
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Farmland. Oil on Canvas, 4x4." 2016. M. Lamery
En Route to Fir Island
Snow Geese feed almost exclusively on plant material on the flood plains. In winter, waste grain from flood plains like the one above are a primary food source, using cover crops such as winter wheat, rye grass, and potatoes.
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Wetlands in Conservation. Oil on Canvas, 4x4", 2016. M. Lamery.
Wetlands in Conservation
A mist covers the ground from the rain laden skies. A stream flows through the marsh grasses, sloping hills in the distance. For a moment, I feel like I could be in Ireland, with the lush emerald green around me.
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Wetlands
One of the things that is very clear when you are in this area is the regional focus on conservation--for the land, for the wetlands, for the wildlife. The Nature Conservancy is working in partnership with Skagit County to restore 60 acres of freshwater tidal marsh, aiding salmon recovery, supporting agriculture, improving flood protection for the local community and creating new jobs.
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Snow geese, early morning, Skagit Valley. February 2016
Washington Americana: Snow Geese, Skagit Valley Winter Migration →
On February 28, I set out for a road trip to Skagit Valley.
Destination: Port Susan Snow Goose & Birding Festival, Stanwood, WA. I wanted to see the amazing snow goose migration, where an estimated 60,000-100,000 Snow Geese migrate south for the winter.
Before I describe this trip, I want to go back in time a few years.
The last time I saw the snow geese was about this time of year in 2009. I drove up to Fox Island Nature Center with a friend. We planned our trip to arrive early morning sunrise. That is when the birds are waking up and flying in from their water nests in the surrounding inland marshes.
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Four Traveling Musicians. Seattle, 2014. Photographe, M. Lamery.
Washington Americana
For all of my life, I have had a love for the outdoors. When I was a kid, you would find me building tree forts with scrap wood rounded up from the neighborhood. I used some of that wood to build go-carts, using 2x4s for axels and nailing old wagon wheels to the ends. When I wasn't building something, I was exploring dirt trails in the backyard woods, flying kites and paper airplanes, riding bikes. Being outdoors was about a sense of exploration and adventure.
Over the years, I continue to enjoy being outdoors for the same reasons--to explore and for the sense of adventure. I am now setting out to capture the natural beauty of our spectacular environment through painted landscape. I am titling my project "Washington Americana."
Valentine
My first memory of Valentine's Day was when I was six years old. I remember writing out Valentine's Day cards for my first grade classmates. I remember spelling the day as "Valentime" with an "m." Eventually, I learned to spell the holiday correctly.
Interestingly, if you break up the non-word "Valentime," you will find the Latin root "Valen" which means "Strong." It is also a Latin baby name, which I like very much.
So, "Valentime" can be construed to mean "strong time." That make sense to me if we are talking about "Love."
Let's explore this analogy of "Love as Strong" a bit.
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Oil Sketch. 8x10," 2012. M. Lamery. I will use this image in note cards I am producing for the 2016 Northwest Flower and Garden show.
Inspired by Beauty →
Gosh, what an action-packed week it has been!
Speaking of the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, it is NEXT WEEK! Egads! What did I get myself into? Everything is still sinking in. It is all a bit surreal. Where is the panic button? I am still feeling calm and under control. This is a huge undertaking on my part, something I have never done before. Beginner's Mind?
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Forget-me-not. Oil on Canvas Paper, 8x10," 2016. (Detail.) M. Lamery
Un Jour Avec des Fleurs
In just a few short weeks, I will be participating in the Northwest Flower and Garden show, February 17-21, at the Washington Convention and Trade Center.
I made a short 41-second video featuring a few of my new paintings I am preparing for the show. I really enjoy making these little videos. I like setting the images to music as a way to express myself through my art.
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The Calla Lilies are in Bloom Again →
The calla lily originated thousands of years ago in southern Africa, particularly from the range of South Africa to Malawi and the island of Madagascar. The most common tropical calla comes from the banks of the Nile River in Egypt it is called calla lily, Ethiopian lily, or common calla.
For this painting, I chose to use yellow as the predominant hue in the painting. Yellow is the most luminous of all the colors of the spectrum. It’s the color that captures our attention more than any other color. It’s the color of happiness, and optimism, of enlightenment and creativity, sunshine and spring.
I also made a short little 60-second video showing various stages of creating this painting. I hope that you will enjoy it!
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David Bowie. Changes. Oil on Canvas paper. 8.5x11 inches. 2016. Digital filters. M. Lamery
I Saw Bowie!
When I lived in New York City in 1990-91, I spent many many hours on the weekends walking from Greenwich Village to Central Park. I also took the subway trains on occasion, but walking is my thing. Walking you see more...you get a feel for the urban landscape, the people, and the amazing architecture of the city. So much history! More often or not, while walking you will see the sites and an occasional celebrity or two.
One of those celebrities was David Bowie!
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