Sprouting Bloody Butcher Corn

 Sprouting Bloody Butcher Corn

Sprouting Bloody Butcher Corn

Oil Paint on Canvas

16 x 40"

$1,500

Whenever I go into a store that sells seeds I can't help myself and I spend a few minutes perusing their offerings. Sometimes I'm looking for something new to add to my garden and sometimes I'm looking just for the sake of my art. When I came across a packet of Bloody Butcher Corn seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange at Earle May I knew they were a must have. The name grabbed my attention and the color sealed the deal, plus I love supporting the Seed Savers Exchange. I picked them up, brought them home and tucked a couple into a wet paper towel to wake them up. 

According to the information provided on the seed packet Bloody Butcher corn was known to settlers in the Virginia area since 1845. The plants can grow up to 12' tall and have at least two 8-12" long ears per stalk. It is typically used for flour, cornmeal or corn-on-the-cob when it's young and it has good drought tolerance. 

I've never actually planted it in my garden since I only have a small city garden and it is a very large plant. One day if I get my country wish, I will be excited to not only sprout the seeds for art-making, but I will plant and grow them as well. 

The seed packet didn't provide any information about why this variety is called "Bloody Butcher," so I turned to the internet and I found this awesome site for a distiller called Jeptha Creed:

https://jepthacreed.com/

Here they explain why they use Bloody Butcher corn and where the name came from:

https://jepthacreed.com/news/why-we-use-bloody-butcher-corn/

"Why is it called “Bloody Butcher”? It’s not as dismal as it sounds. During the corn’s milk stage, when we would pick cobs to eat with dinner, Bloody Butcher is white corn. Then, a tiny red dot appears on every kernel of the corn. About 15 days later, the cob is shot through with burnt oranges and reds in a splotchy pattern, said to resemble a butcher’s bloody apron. By the time corn reaches maturity, it has a deep purplish cast. It’s a grisly name for a truly lovely (and lovely tasting) corn!"

Visit the above link to read more about how they work with it on their farm. It's so cool. 

Christmas Lima Bean 2

I love heirloom seeds for several reasons, but one simple reason that I love the Christmas Lima Bean so much is because it is so pretty to look at. They are big seeds, and I love the mauve and burgundy patterns as well as the small, pale vein-like lines than run up and down the seed coat. They are really fun to draw and paint. 

Here is a great description of the seeds and beans from Shiloh Farms in PA:

https://www.shilohfarms.com/heirloom-christmas-lima-beans-organic/

See my previous Christmas Lima Bean paintings here: 

http://plantingseedscultivatingart.blogspot.com/2013/02/pair-of-christmas-lima-beans.html

http://plantingseedscultivatingart.blogspot.com/2013/01/christmas-lima-bean.html

I found the frame before I made the drawing. I stop fairly regularly at a nearby thrift shop to look for a few specific items that I have been collecting. On one stop I happened to walk by the section with frames and saw this one on the shelf. It caught my eye because of the shape and the warm tone of the wood. It felt so nostalgic. The frame originally showcased this message in cross-stitch:

"Of all the joys and blessings

In a long and happy life

There's none more precious than the love

Between a man and wife

Happy 25th Anniversary"

I picked up the frame to look at it closer and turned it over in my hands. The cross-stitch fabric was wrapped around a piece of cardboard and taped in place with yellowed and brittle scotch tape and then that packet was nestled into the opening of the frame. 

The edges of the frame around the opening are really rough and uneven. The varnish application is also uneven on the back side. 

I love that this must've been an entirely handmade gift for someone special. Was it made by a kid for their parents? Was it made by one of the spouses or was it a joint effort by one cross-stitcher and one amateur woodworker? What became of the people it was made for? 

I love that the frame has awkward edges and corners and a misshapen opening in the front. It's perfectly imperfect. It has a story that I will likely never know, but I wanted it to be mine anyway. My plan was to re-purpose the frame to display a drawing of a Christmas Lima Bean. 

I don't know what to do with the cross-stitch. The message doesn't speak to me personally. I love my husband, but I think we both agree that this isn't our style or a message that accurately represents us or our feelings about marriage. And even though it makes no sense, there's a part of me that feels like I shouldn't throw it away even though the original owner obviously no longer needed it. It must've meant something to the person who turned it over though, because they chose to send it out into the world instead of into the landfill. If the cross-stitch means something to you, reach out and let me know. You can have it. 

The drawing of the Christmas Lima Bean was made with graphite and colored pencil on toned paper. It is 8 x 10" and also has slightly uneven edges. 

The vintage frame cuts out a lot of the corners. Since the drawing is a standard size it still fits nicely into a 

conventional frame. 

I think I may hold on to the original for a little while, but giclee prints will be available. 8 x 10" prints are $25 and half-size 4 x 5" prints are $17. Message to for more info/to purchase. 

 

Sprouting Yellow Corn

 

Sprouting Yellow Corn

Oil Paint on Canvas

40 H x 16 W x 1 1/2" D

July 2019

I finished this painting in the summer of 2019. I had a great time painting it. I was in the middle of taking an unofficial break from working in oil pastels. I felt the need to work with brighter more vibrant color for a while. This composition is a close up view of most of the action.

I always start my images from a picture I took of a seed I sprouted.

The series of oil paintings that includes Sprouting Yellow Corn, are meant to emphasize the candescence of the occasion, focusing more on the spectacle than the reality. So I only use the picture to help make sure the composition is based in reality. After the initial layers of the painting are blocked in I stop looking at the picture and start trying to rely more on how I am feeling about my subject as I work. 

Giclee Prints are available for this painting. Full size - 40 H x 16 W - $160 + tax and shipping - and half size - 20 x 8 - $85 + tax and shipping, both prints have a one inch white border around the image. In the photo below the original painting is on the right and the print is on the left. 

kimmelion@yahoo.com or DM through instagram @plantingseedscultivatingart

How It Started, How it's Going

 

A few years ago I started making line drawings of the sprouted seeds I photographed. I wasn't sure that I was trying to produce finished work. It was something that I could do while my kids were playing and it felt like it was helping me see better. 

I drew beans too but I was most often drawn to images of corn.

I worked on these drawings for a couple of months. The first drawings felt busy so I worked to distill the images to more and more simplified forms. I would often cross section my sketch book page into four equal parts and work with one image of a sprouted seed at a time. I started out by drawing almost every line or change in the surface that I saw and from there I drew progressively simpler images until all the spaces were full and I felt like only the most important lines were used to communicate the image. It was a really fun exercise. I even bought a stack of frames for my favorite drawings. 

Then one day . . . 

                            I set my sketchbook on the shelf under my work bench.

                                                                                                                    And it sat there for 5 years.

                                                                                                                            

I don't know why.

Recently, I dug into the now piled high shelves in my studio in a fit of pandemic cleaning and pulled out the sketchbook and rediscovered loads of these line drawings. I was so happy it almost felt like a reunion. I stopped what I was doing and spent a lot of time looking them over again. I even cut the sheets up and put some of them in the frames I purchased.

Shortly after that day I was on a long drive, taking in the countryside, and thinking about my work. In the tranquil space of my car the images in the line drawings united with the landscape. I started to see the lines in the corn drawings in the same way that I was seeing the rows in the fields. 

I decided to experiment with adding color. 

I loved these colored images, but wavered on whether these vibrant colored pencil drawings were a finished product or another step forward. I decided that it was time to use some of the barn wood that I had been sitting on for a few years. I hadn't been able to use it yet because I had been waiting for the right idea to come. 

Three Cornscapes

Oil Pastel on Barn Wood

Three separate panels 9 x 12 x 7/8" 

March 2021

Sprouting Green Bean 2

Sprouting Green Bean 2

Oil on Canvas

40 H x 16 W x 1 1/2" D

$1,500

This is a conventional Blue Lake variety green bean.

Detail

Studio Night

I enjoyed a wonderful spring night in my home studio. This is an early sketch of a new painting. It is a detail of sprouting Black Aztec corn. The windows were wide open while I worked and every breeze carried the heavenly scent of lilac. 

Sprouting Green Bean 1

Sprouting Green Bean 1

Oil paint on barn wood

11 3/16 x 27 15/16 x 1 1/16"

 I finished this painting in September 2017. It is a closely cropped view of a sprouting green bean. The bean I sprouted was a Blue Lake variety of green beans. It's my favorite variety and its the seed packet that is most likely to be open on my gardening shelf when I'm looking for something to sprout. The flesh of the bean is actually much, much lighter, but the warm color of the barn wood was too beautiful to cover completely.  The way the seed coat of a green bean seed rips open when the bean is sprouting is a little more dramatic than seeds like corn, pumpkin or even lima beans. It usually rips from top to bottom, exposing much of the inner flesh while the root pushes through at the bottom.

Detail, Sprouting Green Bean 1

The wood came from my friend's acreage in Ohio. It's beautiful place and it was nice to think about her and her beautiful family every time I sat down to work on this painting. 

Detail, Sprouting Green Bean 1