Mother Nature’s Art

Welcome back to The Expressionist Magazine

Art is more than just paint on canvas, or pen on paper; art transcends the realm of the canvas and appears right before your very face, seldom seen because we take it for granted.  The art I am talking about was not created by a mortal human being, but by the hands of the lovely Mother Nature.  Mother Nature’s majestic art is prevalent all year long, but in the fall she paints a spectacular picture on display for a short time only.

I love Mother Nature’s fall art; growing up in Connecticut I got the privilege to see it year after year.  What amazes me so is there is such beauty in death because as the leaves slowly die and fall off the trees, they turn a magnificent array of earthly tones: brown, orange, yellow and red; soon to die and fall to the earth to create another picturesque scene.  The scene I am talking about comes on many calendars. You know the pumpkin patches with the piles of leaves next to them or maybe a child popping their head out of that pile.  The colonial stone walls with dead leaves laying in piles waiting to be picked up by the town leaf sucker, with magnificent toned trees and soft blue skies painting a picture of peaceful serenity.

For those that like more landscape type pictures of Mother Nature, take the rolling hills of the northern states. They are donned with yellow, orange, red and brown leaves filling the gaps of the eyes’ perspective, with maybe a patch of grass visible showing a bale of hay or maybe a rickety old fence. There might even be a classic church with a huge white steeple penetrating the horizon of the trees.

Do you like still life?  Well, Mother Nature has something for you, too.  There is nothing more picturesque then a pumpkin and a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables surrounding it, you know: apples, gourds, carrots, and other fruits of the fall sitting on an old wooden porch where rocking chairs blow in the breeze.  How about the stone mailbox with its red flag up, leaves all around it and a silhouette of a scarecrow looming in the background.

Yes, Mother Nature can create paintings in nature that can suit any art lover’s fancy; but you can’t buy her art, that’s the only downfall.  Mother Nature isn’t like most artists; she wants you to take her art with you by taking pictures of it, and reproducing her work with your brush and canvas.  See, Mother Nature doesn’t need your money, she gets paid when you sit in awe over her work and smile when you realize how good it is.  She gets paid when you say, wow, what an amazing scene. I am so glad to be alive to see something like this.  That, my friend, is worth a million dollars to her; that just bought you a print of her work.

What’s sad is most of us are too busy to take for granted the art around us. We complain about the cold or the weather in general to the point we don’t appreciate the amazing splendor you have in your own back yard.  I, too, took it for granted till I moved to Florida and realized that the leaves don’t change color here; there are no more leaf piles, there is no change of seasons.  Mother Nature’s work here is always on display and it,s always one theme.  Don’t get me wrong, her southern style of art is just as magnificent, except we don’t have limited time exhibits that we can enjoy like our northern brothers and sisters do.

The whole purpose of this article is to help you appreciate the work that Mother Nature dishes out to you, take it in and enjoy it. You don’t always need changing colors to open your eyes to your artistic surroundings; you should see the beauty in our world every time you walk out the door.  It is nice to see something different, and that’s why cars and planes and other forms of transportation make it convenient to go see some of her other works of art on display throughout this great world.  We also hope that you realize that art is more than just paint on canvas; art is in the living world. Humans and animals are art just as much as our surroundings.  Don’t take it for granted and look to the beauty inside. Fall is Mother Nature’s wake up call not to take her work for granted.