Increasingly I believe Nature is trying to expel us, we bad ape children who repeatedly kick her in the shins and set her hair on fire, and I didn't have a particularly gentle mother growing up. BUT, I like to incorporate lines from Emily Dickinson's poem "Nature, the Gentlest Mother" into my work.

One of the pleasures of cold wax and oil is that layer upon layer of paint provides a thick enough surface for carving in text. You can absolutely write legible text, but I like to scribble it and then obliterate parts of it as if it were written in the sand before a breeze came along and swept up some letters or entire words here and there. 

In this painting are a few lines from Emily's poem, one I find comfort in even if it's only wishful thinking. Here is the full text:

Nature, the gentlest mother

Nature, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest,

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon,--

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

•••

You can find more details about the painting HERE.