Of Vipers and Foxtails print


8.5"x11" with border, ready to frame
$50.00 CDN.
13"x19" with border, ready to frame
$90.00 CDN.

 		17"x22" with border, ready to frame
$135.00 CDN.
Of Vipers and Foxtails Print

This impressionistic image of a prismatic pasture should invoke cliché feelings of joy or romance in those who aren’t colour-blind and who have been at least moderately exposed to TV and movies.  Add to this visual the sensation of a warm July breeze and the innately understood value of an adjacent body of open water and most people with real hearts would, while standing in said location, experience a rejuvenating calmness and a less well perceived drop of a millimetre or two or five in their blood pressure.  No doubt most people have their own scene or scenario that accomplishes the like and, oh that we could draw upon them in an instant when stress and emotions need mitigation.

But, as always, there is another side to this coin.  NOTE: In Canada we have both one-dollar and two-dollar coins which could, conceivably, predispose us to frequently seeing two sides to everything.

The two main plants in the picture are Viper’s Bugloss (purple flowers) and Foxtail Barley (pale brushes) and in amongst these two are a few stalks of Bladder Campion (many thanks to Walter Muma of wildontario.com for help with the names).

The “other side” to the Viper’s Bugloss beautiful colour is that it’s covered with little spike-like hairs.  Don’t handle without gloves.  It’s a noxious weed and is therefore controlled in many areas.

For Foxtail Barley, the brushes are soft and silky until the seed head matures.  When the seed breaks away it has a sharp point at the base that also has small barbs on it.  Combined with the actions of the four to eight now-stiff brush hairs still connected to the seed, it will work its way into either the ground, or your socks and pants, or the snout or eye of a foraging animal, ending up in the blood stream.  Dogs have apparently been killed by the accumulation of these bristles in the heart.

Here are a couple of links worth checking out:
re: Viper’s Bugloss:  http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artfeb04/bjbugloss.html
re: Foxtail Barley:  http://www.ecclectica.ca/issues/2004/1/smith.asp

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All photographs will be sent unmounted and unframed.  For help in visualizing what this image would look liked framed, we have these examples:

1.  with a simple black frame and white matte

2.  black frame white matte on a wall

3.  with a colour-coordinated matte and frame

4.  colour matte and frame on a wall


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