regarding ferns

Here is a new piece for the Old Town show that hangs next week. I am doing the stitched portraits attached to wood blocks with painted backgrounds. This one is the late poet Stanley Kunitz regarding some ferns. He is ninety something in the photo I used.
We have had a week of cold sun and it has been a challenge to go to the studio to create these images of gardens and gardeners when my own land has been calling to me. With frost decorating the yard each morning it is too early to plant anything, but I feel compelled to move soil around, dig up more lawn and create more space to grow this year. Even just an extra foot around my existing spots seems so important. All the talk of the failing economy and hard times ahead, the call for a return to responsibility and sacrifice, to me it says grow more food, tend herbs for your health, walk the woods and find the wild foods. I am feeling a return to more of my good hippy ways,to follow through with wild notions from my Fairhaven sustainability studies. My problem is that I like to research and start projects more than I have been able to relax into the patience and daily practice of really nurturing a garden at home. To say I want to grow more food is to say I want to produce more than a handful of sungold tomatoes and garlic. I do alright with the herbs because once in, they take care of themselves. This art project of seeds and gardeners is as much an inspiration and lesson for myself as it is a display for others.