Image of the Week: Lovers' Garden
© Durga Yael Bernhard
Here's a brush drawing I did in the summer of 2015. A brush drawing is a tonal image, done in ink wash or diluted paint. I did this one as a quick study for a future painting – which has yet to find its way to canvas, but surely will when the time is right.
The concept is twofold: first, a garden as a metaphor for committed relationships. It's well known that in a marriage, we reap what we sow. If you're a gardener of either vegetables or flowers – or both, as I am – you know an abundant harvest depends on good, rich soil. In a long-term partnership, it is up to both people to nourish and replenish that soil. Then we must loosen it in the spring, plant our seeds, and patiently tend those seeds while holding the faith that they will germinate. We must water and weed and deal with whatever comes, whether cutworms or slugs, drought or floods, rabbits or moles or mildew – every year it's something different, and every year something withers while something else thrives. A garden, like a marriage, is alive and constantly changing with the seasons, including many small births and deaths along the way. The metaphor goes on and on.
The second idea is that of shared sleep as a precious resource in intimate relationships. These lovers are the soil of their garden, growing into one organism, the fine roots of their hair intertwining as they breathe and dream and rest together. What better pillow than your partner's leg? This couple is growing not only plants, but also closeness, acceptance, and trust.
None of that is easy, of course. Both gardening and relationships are a lot of work – and need a sturdy fence around them to keep intruders out. But if you've ever tasted your own home-grown vegetables, or watched a sunflower grow from a seedling, you know how satisfying it can be. So too the sweetness of a love well-tended.
It seems paradoxical that an image of a garden, which would normally be colorful, would work in tones of grey. Yet it does work, at least to my eye. Perhaps the uniform color allows the lovers and plants to appear more related, as if made of the same basic matter. Should the final painting be monochromatic too? I'll have to ponder that some more – while waiting for that right moment to come along, when the seed I planted three years ago may finally come to fruition.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard