How much work happens in the roots
while we wait to see spring?
The white of snow.
The red of berries.
Black branches against the sky.
The colours of winter.
February is one of the months I love most.
I like this quietness that can be felt in nature, which is not stillness.
Under the surface, the roots continue their silent work.
Something is weaving itself deep below.
Something is preparing.
Spring cannot yet be seen, but it is already at work.
The flower, like the artwork, is the culmination of a process.
A process always in becoming, in a form that returns, transforms, passes from one form to another.
From one season to another.
From one painting to another.
From one material to another.
If the process is well constructed, there is a flow.
One form generates the next.
It is never quite the same.
And in the silence of February, the soft pink of spring is being prepared.
In the blossom of the peach tree.
In the cherry blossoms.
In the green of the leaves.
In the camellia that flowers before its leaves.
February prepares this explosion.
Underneath.
Silence.
In the dark.
In the warmth held by the roots.
In the cold of the short days.
Something is weaving itself deep below.
Something is preparing.
Spring cannot yet be seen, but it is already at work.
It is something I also know from working with materials.
There are things that happen while we cannot see them.
During a resting period.
While something is drying.
During a firing.
The material continues to work.
A piece of clay changes while it rests.
A glaze changes in the kiln.
There too, something is preparing itself, transforming, passing from one form to another.
And perhaps this is what I love about winter.
The fact that what we see is only part of it.
The surface tells one story, while other things are happening underneath.
The roots.
The earth.
The water.
The material.
Time.
The invisible work.
And perhaps we too sometimes need this time that seems to be doing nothing.
A time that is not stillness.
A time in which something can work deep within us.
Without showing itself yet.
February is this for me.
A season that is still holding back.
And that already contains, somehow, spring.
