Sunday Series – Minimalist Summer

Cornfield in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Iowa County, Wisconsin © 2012 Bo Mackison

Summer has set in with its usual severity. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Stripes - Iowa County, Wisconsin

Stripes in Iowa County © 2012 Bo Mackison

Summertime, summertime, summertime, summertime. ~ From Porgy and Bess by Ira Gershwin

Queen Anne's Lace - Lost in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Queen Anne’s Lace © 2012 Bo Mackison

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year – it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.  ~ Author Unknown

Telephone Wires in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Telephone Wires © 2012 Bo Mackison

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.
–  Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Iowa County, Wisconsin

Horizon © 2012 Bo Mackison

In summer, the song sings itself. – William Carlos Williams

Beans, Corn, Sky -- Iowa County, Wisconsin

Beans, Corn, Sky © 2012 Bo Mackison

People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed.
~ Ray Davies

Converging Fields - Iowa County, Wisconsin

Converging Fields © 2012 Bo Mackison

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful. ~ Gertrude Stein

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo takes photographs every day, even on days when the temperature is breaking all the heat records, and she finds beauty in the patterns of Wisconsin’s fields. Each Sunday, she shares a series of photographs and quotes she finds meaningful.

Lilies in Monet’s Garden

Lilies in Refection Pool

Lilies in Monet’s Garden © 2012 Bo Mackison

It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. ~ Claude Monet

The current exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens is Monet’s Garden, located in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory on the grounds, truly a spectacular site for this themed exhibit.

NYBG’s website describes the exhibit as such — “Claude Monet was an avid gardener who once reflected that perhaps flowers were the reason he became a painter. This exhibition explores the legacy of his idyllic garden in Giverny, France, transforming the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a floral masterpiece of diverse plants, bold colors, and dramatic design . . . Monet’s most famous subjects, water lilies, many of them the varieties he grew, are featured in the Conservatory Courtyard Pools.”

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory opened in 1902. This Victorian-style glasshouse is home to A World of Plant which is its permanent exhibit – a series of gardens that takes you on a tour of plants found around the world. After walking through the crowded Monet’s Garden exhibit – yes, our only chance to visit was on a Sunday afternoon! — we also walked through the permanent gardens.

I could have wandered through the many displays for days and days, but I only had a few hours, hours I was grateful for. Such an opportunity to fill the well of my senses –  fragrances, textures, colors. Ahhh.

I could not resist the challenge of taking photographs of a few of the lilies that are now in bloom in the courtyard pools. The reflection of the conservatory in the pools added an element of grandeur and a vintage look to the photographs of the water lilies.

The New York Botanical Gardens, including its many historical structures, is a National Historic Landmark.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She spent a glorious afternoon visiting and photographing the New York Botanical Gardens, and highly recommends a garden visit if you are in the New York area.

Almost Daisies

Almost Daisy Time

Almost Daisy Time © 2011 Bo Mackison

The garden is ready to explode with flowers.

We’ve had the rain. Now we just need a few hours of sunshine to get these flowers to pop! The coreopsis, my ‘Loraine sunshine’ plants which are called false sunflowers because they have variegated leaves, the wild geranium, and the Shasta daisies — all are on the verge of blooming.

My garden will be transformed from a garden of few flowers — a couple of iris, the blanket flowers, and a few coral bells the rabbits haven’t yet found — to a flower riot of yellows, whites, and purples.

This is the time of year when I love to take a break from my computer in mid-afternoon, pull my Adirondack chair under the shade of the maple tree, grab a good book and a glass of iced tea, and “set for a spell” as my grandma used to say.

Summer heaven!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. When she is not admiring her flower garden, she is photographing the flowers and getting ready for the Spring Green Art Fair this weekend in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Sailboats, Evening Rest

Lake Mendota

Lake Mendota

Bobbing sailboats, moored for the night, in a natural harbor on Madison’s Lake Mendota. The last vestiges of the sun before it disappears beyond the horizon gives the water a shimmery appeal. Summer evenings can be a bit of heaven when there’s an easy breeze off the lake and time enough to relax and appreciate the end of a good day.