Over cof­fee last week I was rem­i­nisc­ing with a friend who’s pas­sion­ate about music, par­tic­u­larly Bob Dylan and other artists from the folk-rock era. While sip­ping lattes, Dave told the story of what inspired Dylan’s song, Tan­gled Up in Blue — a recent foray into paint­ing. Appar­ently Dylan adapted a remark from his art teacher: that begin­ners often get “tan­gled up in the blue” sec­tion of their palette.

Dave was enchanted by a recent biog­ra­phy of Dylan, writ­ten by a his­to­rian and Dylan fan, result­ing in a fas­ci­nat­ing explo­ration of the polit­i­cal, social and cul­tural milieu that informed Dylan’s art. Some­how we kept return­ing to the “tan­gled up” phrase dur­ing our con­ver­sa­tion.

Since then the phrase, snatches of the song and images of blue have been rever­ber­at­ing in my head. A pleas­ing form of blues obses­sion…

And now the con­cept has mor­phed into “tan­gled up in green,” sparked the visual explo­sion of spring green every­where I look here in the Pacific North­west.

After a long grey and insanely rainy win­ter, this ver­dant fire is a feast for warmth-starved eyes.