in pursuit of a good and delicious life

I’m on the hunt for my “Color Muse.”  I have a feeling she’ll be a fickle muse…subject to seasonal whimsy and the changing light.  For instance, like now (I’m pretending it’s spring) the skies are pale, wan, often watery but glistening with light.  So my color muse calls out for PINK, pale yellow, lime green, and more PINK!

8 months from now when light gilds everything with a glowing burnished bronze, I can’t get enough brown, olive, ORANGE, and gold.

How does the same garden that’s perky pink in spring carry off burnished bronze and olive green in autumn?  Ah, the gardener’s time-space continuum.

For many artists, color makes them tick.  Bay Area artist and garden designer Keeyla Meadows is the Queen of Color.  Meadows works with plants  in a living, breathing, dynamic, and very personal expression of her unique artistic vision.  Her kaleidoscope, rainbow-hued gardens may not be for everyone but they sure get my sluggish, winter-worn blood quickening.

One of best parts of participating in the NW Flower & Garden show this week is being on site to catch all the amazing seminars being presented along with the 23 display gardens, crazy marketplace  (garden clogs – show special $15!!!), plant market…yes I “need” more lilies and educational booths (Have your picture taken with plantsmen extraordinaire Dan Hinkley & Cisco Morris at the Northwest Horticultural Society Booth)

It’s a horticultural circus come to town.

I got to hear Meadows present “Fearless Color Gardens, a Guide to Jumping off the Color Wheel.”  Her new book from Timber Press by the same title is just out.  Those of you trying to get through these last dark weeks of winter, or blinded by a snowbound landscape absent color – here is your cure.

The book, her talk – even Keeyla herself – is a visual feast and sensory wild ride.  A few years ago I was visiting  the Bay area to take in the San Francisco Flower Show.  My girlfriends Debra Prinzing and MA Newcomer and I were out to breakfast when we ran into Keeyla at a way cool breakfast joint in Berkeley.  Both Debra & MA are brilliant, witty garden writers themselves (go back, click on their links and take in their blogs, really, go…I’ll wait)

Anyway, fortunately Debra & MA are also outgoing and chatty and utterly brave individuals.  MA marched up, introduced herself and offered Keeyla praise for her work.  (What artist/writer doesn’t want to hear that?)  And that’s how Debra, MA & I got invited to Keelya’s garden for a quick tour and delightful morning of inspiration and a huge color “fix”.

Keeyla was just starting her book project and while we were allowed to document our visit we were not to publish any photos until the book came out.  We ogled and clicked and chatted and drank it all in.  Being that it was March, the garden was a riot of fresh pink, fleshy apricot, peach, primrose yellow and chartreuse.  I…was…in…HEAVEN.

These experiences stick in my memory and carry me through many a dark rainy day; I’m sure Meadows talk will linger in the same way.

For those of you in this area, I highly recommend a field trip to downtown Seattle.  The Flower show runs until Sunday (9am-8pm Fri. & Sat.; 9am to 6pm on Sun.)  The color, smells, sights and even sounds of SPRING are all in one place offering entertainment, inspiration and some heady communion with other like-minded folks.

For everyone else – here’s a scrapbook of images from my visit to Keeyla’s garden on that magical day.  Hopefully you’ll find a little visual refreshment to get you through another February day:

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