Two Calendars for 2025
Tracking time, today and yesterday, with flowers and runes.
Keep track of your coming year!
In the course of events over the last 25 years, I have been making art and teaching. One result of this experience is that I have come out with two new art calendars for 2025! They are my unique work and now can be ordered and shipped on demand through my website or from my Etsy shop. Price includes proper packaging and free shipping.
Floral Watercolors Calendar for 2025
This summer, I made a series of plein air watercolors on subjects very close to home, the nature of things. Altogether there are twelve watercolors, and here’s a sneak peek!
When I have an hour or so, I sit on my porch, look at the flowers I’ve planted, and paint what I see. Sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly. It’s a “burrowing in” to the vibrance of nature and the beauty of flowing color, the momentary quietness. Plein air painting is much different from studio work.
Norse Runes Calendar for 2025
The Runic Calendar’s images are based on Elder Futhark, used from the 6th to 11th centuries CE by Germanic cultures across northern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland. Each page of the calendar presents a rune written with spontaneous, free-flowing brush strokes, the name of the rune written with a ruling pen, and supportive texts taken from the original 13th c. rune poems. Rune poems were originally an oral tradition, recited as teaching aids for learning to write the runes correctly. These mnemonic verses often described the personified shapes of the runic glyphs as well as their cultural meaning through references to local shared life experience.
Runes tell a story. By looking into the history of runes, the thoughts of our ancestors—fears, hopes and awareness—become more real. I found much that rings true to my ear. The discovery of the wise reflections in the haiku of Japan is something well known in the West. But the practical wisdom found in the rune poems is little known or appreciated. Why, I wondered? Then I went in to discover what was there, and aimed to make it visible in a new way, so we can ponder together. And that’s my story.
Next week: The story of the cover painting for the Norse Runes calendar, which is the famous quote from the Havamal, stanzas 138-139, about the receiving of the runes. Stay tuned.
Signing off for now. Have a great week doing what you enjoy!
Advance notice: My winter quarter course, Art 53 - Calligraphy Design and Norse Runes, at Stanford Continuing Studies begins on January 29, 2025. I’ll give a full description in one of the next blogposts. As you can see by the above image, the exercises are multi-layered, painterly, gestural, literate, and expressive!
Winter courses have been announced by Stanford with registration opening on December 2. When I have the registration link I will post it here and on my website. I hope you will join in.
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