Cultivating Unlikely

Crossing Broadway, a couple of days ago, on my way to work. 

I have a job running an architectural modeling facility in an architecture and interior design department of a global college. The pay is minimum, the health benefits are decent and, as for many in academia, there is extra time to do your own thing. But as one grows older, one feels time very differently, and what felt like a lot of time before is starting to collapse as my perception of the days and weeks travel faster. Nearly seven years ago I began this blog, feeling the need and having the interest, spending countless hours constructing posts useful and otherwise, learning to edit my writing, to shop images, thinking about landscape, parks, and gardens. These days are no longer. 

My wife and I are very close to leaving this city, leaving 'NYC' garden, a blog, out of place. When we move I do not know if or how I should continue my blogging presence. It seems that, outside of the joys of telling one's story somewhat anonymously, without a professional interest in publishing or marketing, blogging is time away from less soluble pursuits. 

Leaving this city, as an artist, is a hard pill to swallow, harder still because it doesn't so much speak of my failure to succeed as much as a failure to try. So now, before that future move takes shape (although many phantom moves have shown their dark shadows), I am making every effort to pursue what can be pursued within the confines of the job and short days. This means going to art openings, spending time in Chelsea on days off, thinking and writing more about art, and generally having the confidence to participate in the discourse and social arena that makes up the New York, so-called art world.

I am confident in my capability as a painter, the depth of my experience with the land, and have more to learn and say about this in the coming months. Garden, farm, park and painting are distinctions that people want to make, but in truth are the flow of one spring only seen in different light. A gardening blog may be an unlikely venue to discuss why I paint, what I paint, or to present the art that I see, but that is okay with me.