Kinney Azaleas - and Paradise City

Kinney Azalea Path

Oil on canvas, 12x48

Available at Center Framing and Art, West Hartford Center, CT

Just down the road from the University of Rhode Island are the Kinney Azalea Gardens, a paradise of color and bloom and the sweet promise of spring. 

Lorenzo and Elizabeth Kinney started the gardens in 1927 at their home on Kingstown Road. According to a website about the gardens, Lorenzo's father - the first professor of botany at URI (then the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts) - helped launch the project, with plants from the Lowland Rhododendron Farm. 

These days, there are more than 800 types of azaleas and rhododendrons on the property. They come in all sorts of colors, orange and yellow and white and of course the amazing pinks and reds that are more typical. 

The bushes bloom generally during the middle of May, and while I haven't been there this year yet, it is possible that the gardens are still in bloom. You can also buy azaleas and rhododendrons there, too! 

There is no fee to walk the gardens. Donations and plant sales provide the funds to keep the gardens up and running, so if you go, please leave them a little something! 

For information and particulars, please click here. 

***

THE AZALEA PAINTING IS one of the ones I will have at the Paradise City Arts Festival this weekend, Saturday through Monday, at the Three-County Fairgrounds in Northampton, MA. You will find me in the Morgan Barn, the smallest of the three buildings at the fair. 

This is a wonderful show, filled with top-quality art and craft, including paintings, sculpture, jewelry, clothing, furniture, glass and lots more. Local restaurants are part of the show, too, so you can count on having a good lunch! 

There is a fee to enter the fairgrounds, and you can get a $2 discount by printing a coupon you can find on the Paradise City Arts website (http://www.paradisecityarts.com/), along with lots more information. 

Hope to see you there! 

***

 Dog of the Day 

I met these chow mixes at the art festival in Arlington a couple weeks ago. They were as cute as can be! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

***

A Final Thought

"Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better." 

- Andre Gide

Azalea Afternoon

Azalea Afternoon

Oil on canvas, 8x24

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

The other day, I felt compelled to go out and rake the streams of tall cut grass that littered our yard after Peter mowed, two weeks too late.

I grumbled and grrrrd and thought plenty of dark thoughts until it occurred to me that, instead of just doing this one stupid task and letting myself slide into grumpiness over it, I could make it part of a plan.

As soon as I got that idea, the task lightened immeasurably.

So the plan is this: Get up, do my morning dog, cat and dishwasher chores, and then, before I do anything else, before I open the computer, before I have breakfast, I will go out and work in the yard for one hour. Set an alarm, start a task, and stop at 60 minutes.

Every year, I do my yardwork and gardening in big, unhappy gulps. I am always late, always weeding a patch that is so weed-filled that the task is impossible, always planting a month late, always tackling the impossible. No wonder it makes me crazy!

Today, I spent nearly an hour weeding my little shade garden. In the remaining time, I transplanted a couple little evergreens that I felt sorry for, after yanking them out of the shade garden.

Tomorrow, if it's dry enough, I will begin enlarging my new rose garden. If it's still wet, I will prune the overhanging branches that keep slapping me in the face.

Meantime, the Kinney Azalea Garden is still in bloom and lovely.

Thanks for reading!

Azaleas

Azaleas

Oil on canvas, 16x20
Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

Yesterday, on my birthday, I went to paint in the Kinney Azalea Gardens, in Kingston, R.I., near the University of Rhode Island.

This five-acre space is filled with azaleas, rhododendrons, pathways, beautiful stonework, lawns and benches and twisty handmade fences. The garden was started by Lorenzo Kinney in the 1920s. Kinney's father was the first professor of botany at URI.

Dr. Susan Gordon, who manages the garden and worked with Kinney for years until his death in 1994, told me that he opened the gardens to the public in 1956. He didn't really have a plan, she said. He just kept taking the next step.

The azaleas are a little early this year (because of all the rain last year, Gordon said, and because of the warm winter), but the rhododendrons are just coming out. If you live in New England, this is a marvelous day trip. It's a great place to paint, for sure, and is also just a cool place to visit. And you can buy azaleas and rhododendrons there, too.


Gordon (and I am assuming here that she is, indeed, the woman I spoke with at length while I was painting) is an interesting person. She's probably in her mid-50s. She is blonde, rail-thin, strong. And she cares for two three-legged dogs, who accompany her in the garden. The younger (12) can get around fine. The older one (15) who could get around last year has gone downhill. She has a degenerative spine disease, and spends her days on a raised bed in the shade near Dr. Gordon. 


"I'm not throwing her away yet," Gordon said. The dog was sleeping on the clearly comfy bed. There was a bowl of water by her side, and a sign explaining that she is paralyzed, but loves to be petted, as long as she sees you coming. 


It takes a special person to adopt a three-legged dog, and to tend to one who has such dire trouble. But Gordon and the dogs seemed happy, and made me think again about love and its healing powers.