Some things take living long enough to do

This title is a quote from Molly Peacocks's book "The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins her Life's Work at 72" that my book club discussed today. I first learned about it (and was definitely intrigued) from Kendall on blip, then I gave the book to my friend M in our club because she is a gardener and I knew she would love it. She decided it should be our book for this month. One gal had already read it. M made this arrangement on her fireplace mantel in honor of Mary Delaney so that is the blip. :-) Couldn't simulate cut paper so much so settled for watercolor. Mary Delaney lived a life in the 18th C. doing many different crafts but it wasn't until her second husband had died and been mourned that she came upon this original idea of what she called her flower mosaiks. She prepared and painted the papers and cut out small exquisite pieces for 985 intricate flower mosaiks that are now housed in the British Museum. She only stopped short of her goal of 1000 because her eyesight at over 80 was failing..she lived to be 88. It's a good story. You can learn much more from Molly Peacock's website, both about her and Mary Delaney and "the Paper Garden"and even a link to the British Museum where you can see some of the incredible flowers.

We all relished reading this really lovely book with it's simply wonderful illustrations, but most agreed that they would have been happier with less about Molly Peacock and her own life which she clearly felt to be somehow mystically linked with Mary Delaney. M had read Molly Peacock's memoir so could tell us about some of the similarities, but this group could still do without. :-) I did like reading the trail of how she fell in love with Mary Delaney. What we all loved is the idea that "age is the sum of all we do". And "some things take living long enough to do" . Could it be because the average age of our group is perhaps close to 72? Who knows what we've yet to create?