The Cloisters in Bloom

I just spent a lovely afternoon at The Cloisters with my good friend Fred Hatt. It was a great day of looking at art, taking pictures and enjoying the woodland sanctuary found in the northernmost section of Manhattan island.

For those of you who are gardeners, like me, you know how even the most well-tended plants become ratty and worn looking toward the end of the summer and lose some of their earlier vitality and vigor. Well the gardening team at the Cloisters must know all the horticultural secrets because their perennials, herbs, and flowering shrubs are still looking pretty damn good in mid-August.

If it’s any shade of purple, I will photograph it. My favorite color! Deep purple, light purple, lavender or violet, bring it on

I love these maidenhair ferns. They look wonderful in pots throughout the garden cafe:

This was my favorite plant of the day. It’s called Fuller’s Teasel. I actually like the thorny stems and prickly “flowers”. This plant is an unapologetic individualist. It knows who it is and proclaims it with confidence. Rock on Teasel!

By the way, I did take pictures of the medieval artwork at The Cloisters – yes, they have ART there too! – but those will come in future posts. Until then, this squirrel critter says, “Thank you for visiting Museworthy. Now give me a nut!”.

Mellow Friday and Garden Plans

Heyyyy everybody! Are you all in TGIF mode? I have the day off today which is good because I can rest my weary artist’s model’s spine. I predict some yoga will take place at some point this afternoon. I need it badly! My back is all out of alignment. Some downward-facing dog will work wonders I’m sure.

I don’t have much else to share at the moment except that I’m trying to make spring gardening plans. I feel the urge to do something different this season although I don’t know what exactly. It’s not like I have five acres of land to work with. I wish! But on the other hand, having limited space forces you to be more creative. Maybe I’ll plant different vegetables and rearrange my containers. My herb section got really out of control last year. Thyme was the culprit. I’m thinking of a small berry patch of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I’ve had great success with strawberries in the past. I know the birds get to them and have a feast, but if they can just save me enough to have with my cereal perhaps we can share

This redheaded model is ready for spring, holding a lovely vase of daffodils in Spring Flowers by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema:

Honeysuckle on the Hudson

So what is everybody doing on this holiday weekend? Enjoying family, friends, and Mother Earth perhaps? That’s what I’ve been doing so far, all within the boundaries of good ol’ NYC. We’ve got everything here, folks, and “everything” even includes a medieval garden of the highest horticultural standards.

My family and I spent Saturday afternoon at The Cloisters, the uptown branch of the Metropolitan Museum that houses the museum’s impressive medieval art collection. Located in Fort Tryon Park, the Cloisters overlooks the Hudson River. This was the second time in less than a year we’ve all gone up there. I posted last summer about a Cloisters family day. Here’s a picture of one of the many stunning views from the Cloisters’ balcony. I took it earlier in the day when the skies were still overcast. That’s the George Washington Bridge, and that land is New Joy-zee . . . ahem . . . I mean New Jersey

This weekend the Cloisters is holding events and  fun activities for the children, and my niece Olivia enjoyed exploring the castle atmosphere and, most of all, the gardens. Here she is smelling a pretty pink carnation:

The Cloisters gardens are carefully designed and landscaped to replicate an authentic medieval garden, right down to every botanical selection. So you have plants that were prized for their medicinal uses, fragrance, cooking and  magical symbolism.

Check out that beautiful climbing yellow honeysuckle on the right:

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Gorgeous pink roses:

Sunny beds around the border, quince trees providing shade in the center:

Getting a lift to explore the fountain:

Everyone stopped to enjoy these still-young citrus trees. How can you resist them? They are charming and colorful and so cute!

Herbs are abundant in the Cloisters gardens. For centuries, those plants have been valued  for their therapeutic, healing properties. This is Valerian:

Comfrey:

Chives:

Stroll, kneel, and sniff. That’s how you explore an aromatic garden with delicate plants. There’s that honeysuckle again:

I just had to take a picture of these branches of the quince tree:

Something called a Hart’s Tongue Fern. I don’t know anything about it, but I want one for my garden! Great for shady spots, and nice shiny green leaves:

Peering in from behind the ivy:

A nice spot for quiet reflection:

Enjoy the rest of the weekend my dear friends! Love, peace, and happiness to you all. See you soon

The Fruits of Summer

The other day I ate the first ripe tomato from my garden. I picked it off the plant, took it into my kitchen, and within five minutes it was gobbled up with a piece of whole wheat toast. Delicious!! When you eat a homegrown tomato like that, you realize just how tasteless and crappy the tomatoes are from the grocery store or, heaven forbid, the supermarket. Horrors! I don’t know what those supermarket tomatoes are supposed to be, but they are a sin against nature.

My vegetable plantings don’t exist in the form of well-tended rows over acres of land. (Acres? What are those?) Like most people who live in urban areas, my vegetables hold their own in limited square-footage and free standing buckets. But the plants don’t mind. Give them good soil, sun, water, organic fertilizer, and they will dutifully grow and yield luscious fruit.

In celebration of my sweet and juicy first tomato, I couldn’t resist posting a work from the 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Born in Milan in 1527 to a wealthy family, Arcimboldo’s career started out on the usual route of the times; securing jobs in the royal courts of Vienna and Prague doing the traditional work of painting portraits, designing costumes, palace decorations, stained glass, and tapestries. But Arcimboldo’s personal imagination didn’t begin to soar until he created strange and unique paintings of human heads in the form of fruits, vegetables, and plants.

A reflection of the season’s abundance, here is Arcimboldo’s Summer. I love this painting! Totally weird, but totally awesome:

It comes as no surprise that Arcimboldo’s bizarre heads were admired centuries later by the Surrealists, such as Salvador Dali, who saw in his work the earliest expressions of the grotesque beauty and peculiar visions they would explore further.

ArtinthePicture has a more complete gallery of Arcimboldo’s heads. Check it out!

Kate Update

Back in June I posted about my garden cat Kate, and since then a couple of people have inquired as to how she’s doing. I’m happy to report that she’s doing great! Like all cats, she sets the boundaries and makes the rules. They’re so different from dogs.

My original goal was to develop enough trust with Kate so that she’d eventually come live inside the house. But I’ve decided to abandon that idea, since she’s pretty content living outside like a feral creature. She hangs out with her cat friends – other ferals in the neighborhood – and she sleeps in and around the shrubbery, swipes playfully at bumblebees and crawling beetles, catches mice, and eats well. She’s living the good life. As a break from regular cat food, I treat her every once in a while to a can of tuna or sardines. When she sees me emerge with the can, she meows in eager anticipation. She’s so cute!

I tried to take pictures of her the other day but she was a difficult bitch about it. I guess she’s camera shy – the complete opposite of her caretaker! Here’s the best one I was able to manage:

And here is my solution to the salmonella tomato scare we had here in the U.S recently. (Or was it jalapeno peppers?). Actually, I grow tomatoes every summer. This year’s crop isn’t nearly as good as last year’s, not sure why. But this sucker, once it ripens, will be pretty tasty with some olive oil and basil. Bon appetit!

The Cat Who Lives in My Garden

She appeared a few weeks ago. Slinking through the bushes. Peering out from behind the garage. Stalking birds and squirrels to no avail. At first, the mere sight of me sent her fleeing for her life. Then I started putting out food for this sweet, angelic, homeless little cat. Now she knows who I am – the lady with the food – but still she keeps her distance; cautious, wary, on the defensive, confused as to why this person is filling a food and water bowl, pestering her to come out and play, and flinging pieces of freshly cooked chicken at her.

Friends, I LOVE this cat. I truly love her. But she doesn’t love me yet I’ve named her Kate, and she and I are in a “dance”. A dance of trust. I talk to her gently and lovingly, but she won’t let me get close. Kate is content to live in my garden, and seems to understand that it is the safest, most welcoming place in the neighborhood for her. She will keep me company out there while I garden, but from a distance. She will hang out while I deadhead my flowers, but from a distance. She will eyeball me as I fill the food bowl, but from a distance.

I really must get a more substantial social life or something because I’m obsessed with Kate. I worry about her at night when the tomcat bullies seek her out for lascivious activity. I worry about her now as New York is melting in a scorching heat wave. I worry about her being mistreated by a callous cat-hating neighbor. What if something happens to her when I’m not home?? Ok, so I have some paranoid tendencies. Or just a melodramatic weak spot for helpless creatures. Kate!! I’ll protect you!!

With my brand new digital camera, I snapped some pictures of her, which is hard to do with this skittish, easily spooked cat. I just wanted to share them with all of you. I’m not great with the camera yet as it’s right out of the box and I read maybe one and a half pages of the user guide, so bear with me! I’ll get better, I promise. By the way, it’s a Canon PowerShot SD1100 digital ELPH. And it’s blue and really cute! I’ll be bringing it to work with me to take some modeling/posing/art class pics to post here on the blog.

Here is Kate snuggled in her favorite spot behind the fern:

Lounging by the sundial:

Kate is cool. Kate is my feline sweetie. I don’t know where she came from, or what circumstances led to her living alone and abandoned. But something brought her to me. To my backyard – the smallest one on the block. Snug, cozy, full of sheltered little corners.

And here are some other test shots, some plants and flowers in my garden. For now, this is Kate’s “home”.

Hydrangea:

Purple geranium:

Coreopsis:

How Does My Garden Grow?

Hi everyone! Hope you’re all well. How am I you might be wondering? Oh, just fine. Entering the art model’s brief May “intermission” from work. Spring terms are coming to an end, and summer sessions don’t start until June. This is the “in between” time. So I have to cope with just sporadic job bookings over the next couple of weeks; non-school places like Spring Studios, where I posed on Monday night, Salmagundi Art Club where I’m posing next week, Brooklyn Artists Gym and a couple of private jobs. While I await new schedules from SVA, the National Academy, and the Studio School, I have to make do with not-so-steady work for the time being, and I’ll try to do so without moaning. Or feeling restless. Or missing the work I love. It won’t be easy.

But I suppose it’s nice to have some totally free days this week and next. How do I fill the time? Gardening is number one on my list. As of now my garden has that untended, unmanicured, wild, overgrown rainforest look. And I kind of like it that way! Here in New York we had several days recently of robust rainfall, and all growing things have flourished as a result. It’s the enchantment of spring; seeing budding leaves burst open into full green foliage at an accelerated pace, in the sumptuous growth that occurs right after those nourishing rainfalls. Plants grow that were never “planted”. Branches extend aggressively as if to say, “Prune this! I dare you! Sucker.”

So my garden is my priority for now, although I could garden in the nude to keep art modeling on my mind. The neighbors will love that, right? Oh, they can just think of it as the subject a great work of fine art: “Nude with Gardening Gloves”, or “Nude Woman with Hand Shovel”, or “Weeding Nude”, or “Nude Being Stung by Yellow-Jacket”, or “Figure Study with Squirrel”. 

As long as I can maintain the garden in such a way that preserves the natural-looking growth brought on by the rain then I’ll be happy. Balance between order and disorder is the key (and for life itself very often). Precision trimming, controlled shapes, and neatly manicured beds isn’t exactly my style. I want to honor the rain-fed lush and let the profusion of greenery do its thing without too much interference.

Enjoy this video of the Beatles singing “Rain”. It’s one of my favorite songs, and this is considered one of the first “music videos”. Watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo frolic around a greenhouse can inspire anyone to work in their garden. And John is just too cool in his shades!