Cotton print rings the blues

Samantha Lanier of Live Laugh Lanier did a guest post at Spoonflower to share how to – without fancy software – take a pencil drawing and turn it into a repeated pattern, ready for print. When I first saw her sketch, I thought it was a funny looking flower until it hit me. It’s a cotton boll.

That this blogger, Mrs. Lanier, picked the cotton plant as art-worthy, brought forth a lament in my soul. If you’ve read my bio, you know I grew up (in my formative years) in the Delta (U.S.). My family had(s) a farm where we grew cotton, soybeans and rice. At harvest time, the sides of the roads looked like snow. It was dreamy. A longtime city dweller, when I visit the place now, I never see cotton in the fields. Where cotton was once king, it’s now corn.

A Google search later, I’ve learned there are many folks writing about their Delta experiences, including cotton-growing. One blogger who stands out is Joseph P. Dempsey, who writes for CornDancer. In a post dated July 11, 2010, he talks about a typical Delta community, the very town that sits closest to our family farm – Cornerstone.

Click to read Green and Gold Cornerstone, Besides a great story, you’ll see his artistically shot photos of a store and church there. He and Samantha Lanier have something in common in seeing the beauty in the soil.

If you are curious about cotton in all it’s phases, from seed to mature boll, see Janice Person’s Cotton 101.

{Image credit: Chris Bennett at DeltaFarmPress}