Summer Hollyhocks

Description

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When it comes to painting you could say that Dempsey Essick is a man of all seasons. His snowy winter scenes make you want to put on a sweater and turn up the thermostat. His fall foliage makes you long for a thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie. His spring scenes are reminiscent of newly planted gardens and the sound of lawn mowers. But it is the weeks of summer that he loves.

Summer is warmth. It is a time when the trees are green and all the flowers are in bloom. It is a time when migrating birds, like the ruby throated hummingbird, in one of the most remarkable migrations in the animal world, return to decorate your back yard. When the nights turn cold this tiny, and most remarkable bird, will head south by stages, eventually crossing the Gulf of Mexico, to spend the winter in warmer climes. In the summer the miniature bird will return to the exact same back yard and expect to find the same feeders and flowers in the same places.

The hollyhocks in this latest Essick painting are flawless. Each fold, petal and shadow is faithfully recorded. Dempsey’s friend and Welcome, NC botanist, Kitty Craver, was reminded of her childhood days when they would trap honeybees in hollyhock blooms by quickly folding the leaves over the bees then they could hold them up to their ear to hear them buzz.

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