Daphne Anne(p110 $24.00
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Daphne Anne is never quite aware of the conversations around her, for she is always absorbed in colors and forms and the way that the light plays around them. She sees it all, but she often misses the words. Kathryn Ophelia, who records words, and Peterjon Thomas, who loves stories, cannot understand Daphne Anne and consider her shallow. But those who take the time to watch her and look at her paintings know that she just processes life in a different way. Conversations with her are often interrupted by abrupt changes of topic, and I have heard more than one Pip say that she never listens. Yet her paintings (for you see Daphne Anne is a painter) record the truth of a daylily in full vibrant color with each speckle proclaiming its presence. Her series of dawn paintings captures the changing glory of light as it breaks up the shadows, and her dusk series can make one silently melancholy at the descending darkness.
Daphne Anne has a sense of humor,
too. I suspect her in the mystery of the daylillies. One day the
lilies by my studio gate were plain orange and true to type, and the
next they were as brilliantly spotted as tiger lilies. On another
occasion the striped Zucchini that I brought in for lunchm became
plain green cucumbers when placed under the faucet (I'll bet rubbing
off all of those spines was a chore!). And once I watched a
chickadee at the bird feeder for 5 minutes before I realized that it
was just painted on the glass. Hawthorne Pete carved a paint case for Daphne Anne that, except for the hinges and clasp, looks exactly like a green pea pod. It fits her sense of humor, and it reminds the rest of the Pips that one misses a lot by just looking at life. Taking the time to see opens up a whole new world.
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As
told by Maureen
©
1994, 2006 by Maureen Carlson