Pointsettia !!!!

I signed up for a mystery holiday tour with a tour guide who has gained some reknown for excellent local tours. As I am still a stranger in a very strange land, I grab onto these things every once in awhile. This one started out with a fairyland of reds and pinks. MILES of reds and pinks. It was amazing. Every variation you could imagine and then some.

Some looked as if they had been splashed with enthusaiastic splatters of paint, some were artistically edged in contrasting colors. You could certainly play interior or exterior designer to your hearts content. My own heart was won by a tiny red lovely with whirled and and deeply folded hearts called "winter rose" that did look more like a rose than a pointsettia. The tale was told that these were Southern transplants from faraway Mexico. I remembered seeing them growing outdoors in huge bushes in South Texas and thinking how wonderful they were. Last winter I received a few as gifts and thought how sad they looked trapped in pots. Like me.

They appeared pretty darn impressive in the green houses. RED just seemed to go on forever. RED seemed to fill your eyes and heart. One of my most favorite scenes in a play was in a production I saw in Santa Fe in a play about my beloved Georgia O'Keefe. In the scene, she is hacking away at a huge canvas in her studio, working the paint. REALLY working it. Steiglitz comes in. She steps back and he wanders in front of the canvas. she collapses into a chair, wiping her hands on a rag. She looks at him, looking at her painting. He is silent. Finally she asks him what he thinks. He says "Well. it is very RED. Why is it so RED?". She stares at him like he just arrives from Mars, shakes her head, straightens her spine and head and answers (you know I LOVE this) " It is RED because I was feeling RED"Of course he looks astounded. She hardly painted at all when she was at his upstate NY home, she had to escape to New Mexico. I UNDERSTAND !!!!!!!!!!

So I escape when I can and paint when I can and these babies are calling for cadmium red, alizarin crimson and all the quinacridone colors on my palette. Bouncing all those reds off some yellow greens and deep rich blue greens. Ahh, good enough to eat. Well ,it will keep me from eating. Look at those creamy white ones. Yummmmm