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L O I S   D e L U C A                Violet, 2008, Pastel on Gray Paper, 19 3/4” x 23 "
 
from H i G H   W A T E R M A R K   S A L O [O] N  volume 2 number 3

 

from BARN HILL DIARIES

March 6, 2007 0 degrees. I’m looking at a delicate, serene white flower I want to paint. The sound of wind outside fills my head. White snow, whiter than the flower, icy, blinding in the sun, overpowers my senses.

April 9, 2007 26 degrees. I take the dog out. Everything is cold, still, grey. A few flakes of snow are in the air. There are no birds. Not a sound. The sky is empty. I miss them more this morning than I did all winter. A few days ago they filled the air. Now, nothing. I don’t take a walk, I go inside

April 20, 2007 50 degrees. The path through the field is pale green. I see a bird`s nest in a small tree near the stone wall behind the house. The nest is at eye level. Even though I often walk by this spot, I never saw it before. It hangs, like an oriole’s nest but it is too low and too small to belong to an oriole. It is woven of delicate soft grass and is carefully suspended from a forked branch. I don’t know what bird built this nest. I call my daughter, Diane, a wild-life biologist. She tells me the nest belongs to a red-eyed vireo. The nest is built of bark strips, fine grass, spider egg cases and is lined with plant down. John Borroughs wrote “To find new things, take the path you took yesterday.”

 
B I O

 

Lois DeLuca is a graduate of Syracuse University School of Fine Arts. She studied drawing with Hans Hofmann, woodcuts with Antonio Frasconi, and etching with Stanley Hayter.
Lois has written and illustrated, with woodcuts, the children’s book “How Big Am I”. She illustrated “The Butterflies of the White Mountains of New Hampshire” written by Warren J. Kiel, for the New Hampshire Audubon Society and published by Globe Pequot Press. The butterfly paintings have been exhibited by the New Hampshire Audubon Society, at the Bright Hill Press Gallery in Treadwell, New York, at the Kirkland Town Library in Clinton, New York, and by the Big “D” Art League in Hancock, New York. Nature and nature drawing have been lifelong interests. She currently lives with her husband in Hancock, New York, on a hill, surrounded by the old fields and woods she loves where, every day, she can “caress the details.”