Finding the Spring solstice in books and art

Background image by skoeber

Each season has its own hallmarks in our minds, particular to our concept of the physical experience of the season, paired with a complex set of associated feelings and abstractions. Spring is bright, energetic, and warm; Summer is hot, still, and sultry; Autumn is blustery, cooling, and dramatic; winter is cold, bracing, and stoic. While these associations can be very personal, one of the most wonderful and noble achievements of expressive forms are their ability to capture and represent a common human experience. Our individual and collective experiences of the seasons are timelessly popular in various forms of expression, available at the Armacost Library.

Chasing Spring: An American Journey Through a Changing Season, by Bruce Stutz

North with the Spring: A naturalist’s Record of a 17,000-Mile Journey with the North American Spring, by Edwin Way Teale

California Spring Wildflowers, From the Base of the SierraNevada and Southern Mountains to the Sea, by Phillip A. Munz

Painting the Seasons in Watercolor, by Arthur J. Barbour

Thoreau’s Seasons, by Richard Lebeaux

Seasons of Life; The Biological Rhythms that Enable Living Things to Thrive and Survive, by Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman

This Friday, March 20, 2015 marks the annual vernal equinox, the day of year when we receive an equal measure of night and day, officially launching us into the spring season. Enjoy celebrating the arrival of the new season through a medium that speaks to you. Perhaps take in a performance of Spring Awakening at the Glenn Wallichs Theater, followed by viewing the solar eclipse!

Spring Awakening, a new musical; book and lyrics by StevenSater, music by Duncan Sheik, based upon the play by Frank Wedekind