According to Wikipedia, "A cactus (plural: cacti, cactuses, or cactus) is any member of the succulent plant family Cactaceae, native to the Americas."But...according to me...that's way too stuffy! To me cacti are the "Personality of the Desert." They give their arid homes character, and life, and a sense of identity and history. They give me, as an artist, "food for my sketchbook". They decorate my imagination. They become actors-role playing scenes from life...statuesque saquaro transform into guards standing watch over huddling bouquets of prickly pear...fleshy, juicy, ready to burst with color...sensual night blooming cereus coyly flirt...and tempt the creatures of the dark with their charms. Images like these dance in my mind and energize my pen and my keyboard.
Cacti are complex and wise, yet fresh and spunky. They are survivors. They deftly plant seeds of nostalgia deep into my being. Like old souls, they wistfully tell me stories of times eternal...Stories of Days...blazing with fire, and heat, and agony...and... Stories of Evenings...blanketed by endless stretches of soothing magenta sunsets...and...Stories of Nights...dark...with an inky blackness pierced by eternal pinholes of starlight and the ebbing sounds of wailing coyotes. They tell stories of their "home turf"...immense and vast and expansive, cloaked in antiquity, buzzing with life, yet serenely quiet, solitary, and remote. They share their desert world...their environment...with each of us on this planet. Their very essence flavors the art journals, the sketchbooks, the photographs, and the canvasses of artists across the world.
To me...my art...and my words...give cacti some real definition.
Happy Cactus Monday! WooHoo!
"Cactus Monday"
