It doesn’t feel like it outside, but inside of myself I can feel that autumn is on the way. The changing of the seasons is underway. There’s been a subtle shift, and every year when this point passes, I can tell. I can’t pinpoint what the difference is, but it’s noticeable to those who are sensitive, I suppose. My mood changes, and some might feel it as a depression. But for me, it’s just a need for time alone in nature and with my thoughts. Sometimes it becomes urgent.
So I spend more time in my garden by the house, or linger longer when I feed the horses up at the back gate. I stop to look at rocks, plants, and other things always, but especially so at this time of year. And if not for the ticks, I would give in to the urge to get down to the ground and surround myself with the scent of leaf humus beneath the trees. Yesterday evening, I did go deeper into the woods at least, if not completely down to the ground. Here’s some pics from that little foray.
Things to do During the Changing of the Seasons
During the sultry days of July, when the rain crow calls close to the house, I can feel the changing of the seasons underway. This is a busy time of the year and I’ve got a lot of projects in the pipes.
Paint-Making
The yellow pigment I made from the thyme in my garden is ready to process into paint. I want to make a video of that process, too. The other thing I want to do today is grind up some rocks for a new set of oil paints. I want to make enough pigment to make enough to have some to sell, and some to use for the Making Oil Paints workshop I’ve got scheduled for next weekend.
Painting
I resumed a painting this past Saturday, and that must have heralded this feeling of the changing of the seasons. It’s another landscape, but a modified Kings river scene. The dead trees in my painting are not there in real life. And it’s full of autumnal atmosphere already. It’s not finished yet. I want to add a great blue heron in the foreground, heading away.
Writing
I’ve been working slowly, slowly, on my last book of a fiction trilogy. There’s a lot more yet to do on this. And I’ve also been working on a mock-up book similar to my Artist’s Annual, but focused on the merchants of Alpena that I can submit to the city council to see if they’d like me to flesh it out and make it available to the tourism centers. If the city can’t pay me to do one, then I will canvas the merchants to see if they’d like to pay for a page in the book.
It’s a great way to advertise all of our businesses, but if there is no interest in such a thing on their part, then I will make it all about The Wild Ozark Gallery & Studio, and place it in the Arkansas tourism centers and everywhere that will take them. Perhaps a tourist or three will see it somewhere and decide to pay us a shopping visit.
Dreaming In the Changing of the Seasons
At the moment, though, what I’d most like to do is crawl back into the bed and take a nap. I might do just that later on, but there are some things to do on my list that I really do need to get done. I’m just not in the mood to do any of it this morning. So maybe the nap first, to dream in the changing of the seasons, and the doing later, haha.
Contact Mad Rox: (479) 409-3429 or madison@madisonwoods and let me know which hat I need to put on 🙂 Madison for art, Roxann for real estate, lol. Or call me Mad Rox and have them both covered!
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Author/Artist Info
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Roxann Riedel is a salesperson for Montgomery Whiteley Realty, artist, owner of the only ginseng nursery in Arkansas, and the author of books and this website. Madison Woods is the pen-name she uses for her creative works. She’s a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. Her paintings of the Ozark-inspired scenes feature lightfast pigments from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery
There’s always a discount for paintings on the easel 😉
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