Anastasia Nelson - Painter and Photographer
Iris Cycle
Twenty Three years ago I had a love affair with a heirloom purple iris and the satin of oil paints. After many years of playing with oil paint in studios where many of us had our thinners out I gave up oil painting for a gain in health. Watercolor, Acrylic, Color Pencils, Soft Pastels, and so many ways to mix them together. Years of other mediums. Still none of them had the feel of oils. And in response to one of our clients becoming allergic to their oil paints we did some research and found safer alternatives and creative process solutions. We paint primarily Alla Prima with minimal brush cleaning at the end of an art session. The salves I make work great as an emulsion cleaner too, and no paint goes down our drains, no dirty rags in the trash. And again I could paint with Oils and feel Good!
As I am reclaiming my artistic life and existing resources to make as much heaven of what we have I find a long lost painting in pristine condition in storage. One of my favorites that somehow I allowed myself to keep and not sell. So, we made an archival print and one of our art patrons discovered it and requested a commissioned version at a larger size. And I am off an painting with oils again.
And I see a gorgeous iris with Phil at a nursery he built a web site to promote. We had just enough left in our budget for Blue Oaks Organics and we brought it home to the studio and planted it together with our heirloom iris. I become enthralled with its life cycle and how it exchanges breaths with us. How entwined our life experience is as we all need to breath the air together and collaborate to live. To thrive!
Today you can see the Iris Cycle in all its richly interwoven brush strokes and lush paint. A collaboration of years of painting, planting, patrons and my partner Phil Dynan. We grew this Iris and I became more and more intrigued by how it integrated into our garden with all our heirloom Iris. The Iris of our original art affair now live in exuberant abundance at our studio in far Northern California where we are blessed with clear air and a milky way of stars to grow great iris to inspire living happier healthier lives where our environment is recognized as having the ingredients to make the most of our heaven on earth. Live and Love Life by making the most of the moments, breath the air with the plants and appreciate the magic of seed, plant, flower sharing air with us. We together are one:-)