The Simple News That Nature Told
April 27th, 2026
A few words from a poem, ‘This is my letter to the World’ by Emily Dickinson set me on an unexpected journey. Resonating ever so deeply in an unknowing way the words had a lasting effect on me. It is not unusual for a passage from a book to guide me on a journey at a particular moment in my life. This Emily Dickinson poem was noteworthy, more than any other poem of hers at this time in my life and it wouldn’t leave me. Thus I kept the poem in constant reach within my mind, reciting the words often. This is how I came to make paintings from the quiet within the landscape establishing a body of new works and subsequently a solid artist practice that fits my lifestyle.
Over time words of the poem began to resonate more clearly and joined me as I took walks around the land surrounding our old farm house. I felt a kinship with a woman similar to myself in many ways, from a very long time ago living in a much different world to ours. Specifically, the words ‘The simple News that Nature told’ holding much weight in my mind. The landscape began to talk to me from within its quiet stillness, sharing simple news. Beginning with the seasonal and weather news, like an easy reader and progressing to much more subtle conversations which only I seem to be privy to. I understood this language and it had a much more resolute meaning living here on this land in rural Ontario. I was beginning to develop a relationship with the land which by this time had become home, a place for me to be. Through this relationship with the land I was given renewed life which I found within moments of quiet. Although the news was coming to me in soft whispers, the dialogue had begun and I was listening.
I listened to nature when I was out on walks and followed my curiosity which began offering me a quiet path in life and art. I was very curious about a great many things, simple things most people don’t pay attention to, nevertheless it was news that the land offered to me. Soon my conversations with the land were daily, telling me to come out, take a photo or make a drawing as a record of the moment. Wonder began to accompany on my walks, I had so much wonder and time to devote towards it. It wasn’t long before my curiosities and wonder began to inform my paintings, art projects and everyday life. I realized Emily Dickinson too had been driven by curiosities and wonder. Below is the poem ‘This is my letter to the world’, which has informed my works for this series.
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me –
The simple News that Nature told –
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
For love of Her – Sweet countrymen – Judge tenderly – of Me
This is my letter to the World
by Emily Dickinson
C. 1829
441
The land is my preferred company, its quiet from within and the ever changing moments, I am more at home in my life. I liked my experiences having less human connection, becoming more solitary my experiences with nature were undisturbed, a phenomena that is quite rare today. Before long, intrigued by the simple news that nature tells. I began to take record of my experiences for painting references and happened rather naturally in truth. The seasons have their own quiet language often through colour and light, which gives me great pleasure to pay witness to. With time the seasons turned and I began follow this rhythm in my daily life. The ever changing seasons and constant forward motion of the natural world became my clock, my sense of time changed and I became one with it. Finally, I could just be. Thus began a relationship like that of a kindred spirit through one moment at a time, the more I embrace the quiet into my life the more the natural world offered me.
However, I could never find the words to communicate the essence of my experiences with nature and I began to capture these moments through the language of paint. A painted journal, perhaps my letter to the world from the simple news that nature told. Emily in her poem reminds one of the limitations of human language in capturing the essence of nature. The language of paint is my preferred form of communication, I haven’t found the words that can communicate in depth the same way as I do with paint, that is why I make paintings. Not a new phenomenon this has been true since childhood. Paint has no limitations for me, it offers simplicity in my life and it’s a way of being within the quiet. Painting is my way of being in this world, expressing myself through paint is who I am. “The simple News that Nature told” words written by Emily Dickinson, becoming words to describe my everyday life.
My walks in nature is my own news channel, a reality t.v. that I can enjoy, always playing highlights of the weather quietly. By this time the poem spoke to me almost if Emily was writing about my own journey in life and art. Thus it seemed fitting that I would honour her words, poetry and memory in the title of a series of paintings that I was making for my first solo exhibition. In many ways she guided me in how I experience looking at that landscape. The experience of looking at the landscape intrigued me greatly, I began to wonder how I could translate the landscape into my work.
The making of paintings began to guide my days, I simply followed. I like looking into the distance at places, having no intimate experience, where the forms are almost unreadable. I have to sit with them for a while to decipher what I’m looking at, forms that change with light and seasons. Looking into the distance I am reminded of the vast open space which surrounds me, this is comforting to me. Identifying that I notice and perceive distinctively through values of colour I use the language of colour to translate experiences with the landscape into paint, making paintings that embody the essence of the landscape. Exploring my relationship within the landscape informed the foundation of my art practice. Establishing an archive of landscape photos taken from my everyday began to inform my work. I began to explore ways that I could translate the landscape into my work and make paintings that would embody the essence of the landscape through my vision.
Bringing these experiences back into the studio, there is a quiet rhythm which I experience when I paint similar to my experience with the natural world. The quiet has found me here in this place and I love being within quiet and weaving the quiet into my paintings, this is the essence of what I paint. My life and paintings are interwoven now, one and the same. My art practice was evolving into something made of genuine experiences of looking, mixed with an enchanting process of making paintings and evolving into a original body of work in my name. Life and art were treating me well in my simple quiet life.
What began with words of an Emily Dickinson poem turned into a journey that has become my everyday, in life and art. I am left with indescribable feeling of which I feel being in my place, perhaps for the first time in my life. I genuinely feel the world differently from others and there is no language which can describe these experiences for me, only the language of paint can do that. I have dedicated my days to exploring through paint my relationship with the natural world and sojourns into the quiet through simple quiet musings. The simple news that nature tells is part of my everyday now, I have a much deeper understanding of what these words mean to me now with everyday giving me something new to experience, the landscape is ever changing. Just yesterday I saw an otter running the laneway from our natural fed pond over to connect to the creek on the other side, what wonderful news of spring. I wonder what other enchanting moments I will experience. For now I will continue following my curiosity and the ever changing, making paintings from the quiet within the landscape.
PUBLISHED BY Jane Holden
Writing about paintings from the quiet within the landscape.
Jane Holden | Contemporary Painter 