A Few of My Favorite Things: Poetry, Painting and Gardening

“Poetry, Painting, and Gardening (or the Science of Landscape) will forever by men of Taste be deemed Three Sisters, or the Three New Graces who dress and adorn nature.” Horace Walpole

For a number of years, I’ve been blogging about “Living Well in New England” at TracyLeeKarner.com

This blog is part of my creative process as I write a novel. The main character is a landscape designer. Her company’s name is 3 Sisters Landscapes–the name of this blog.

This blog will be my musing place. Here, I will explore Lena’s world–her work in landscape design, her influences and inspirations,  her passions and pleasures–as I play with the backstory, try out ideas, indulge my fancy and assume the character and habits of a landscape designer named Lena, who lives and works in Providence, RI in the 21st Century.

Before I began writing novels, I studied and practiced Method Acting (a technique in which actors use “their imagination, senses and emotions to conceive of characters with unique and original behavior, creating performances grounded in the human truth of the moment”). That experience turned me into something of a Method Novelist. I need to live/experience my characters’ worlds so that their lives and motivations become true to me. I can’t write about a world, even a fictional one, that doesn’t feel authentic.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) assumed that poetry, painting and gardening all stem from the same impulse to dress and adorn nature. Perhaps we have different assumptions today, but his quote inspired me to bring together three of my favorite things into one project (my novel, for which this blog will serve as a playground of inspiration).

Did I mention that I’m having the time of my life writing this novel?

I hope you will be part of my process. Feel free to comment, to ask questions, to explore Poetry, Painting and Gardening–in other words, Nature, Beauty, Art and Life! Let’s have fun together!

“All gardening is landscape painting.” — Alexander Pope

Have you  tried to get inside the head and heart of a character–in writing/reading, theater, work, or every day life? What has worked for you; and what has not?

Featured Image: “The Narrow Way” by Ken Karner; oil on canvas, 1998.