Gardening

More appropriately I should say "leeching from the bounty" because the folks have done all the work and we have simply taken advantage of the harvest. The garden reminds me that I have to lighten up...rain comes when it does, one year has zuccini and one has none...this is my zuccini year!

My parental Master Gardener likes summer squash better so I have been lobbying for a zuccini plant for a couple of years. I am sure anyone who grows vegetables knows that you can't plant just ONE. What would you do with the other 5 plants in the six pack? How long will leftover seed keep? And what about the extra one that the bugs or woodchucks or other pests need?

So it all grows up and the vermin leave it alone and suddenly we could open not just a farm stand but a full zuccini-only organic grocery store.

Mom has been a constant supplier of delicious, moist zuccini bread. Turns out the whole compound is having the stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack time! It seemed only fair that I take my turn baking. After all, I have whined about the zuccini. And we should share the burden of oven heat in the summer kitchen. Theoretically... but this is a perfect example of what a great baker I am. The recipe I used was exactly the same as Mom used, except I decided mini loaf pans would make it easier to share. So cute! So fun! So yummy!

So RAW.

The recipe said that if you used the small loaf pans the bread would need 30 minutes of baking time, instead of the hour the big pan takes.

So I set aside the raw loaves and started over.

I wanted to be SURE they weren't raw, so I baked the little buggers for the full hour.

Now I could build myself a little wall out of cute little zuccini bricks.

Of course there was enough zuccini to try another batch. I am a bright girl...what else could go wrong? Live and learn, right? Here's my problem...I can't taste test the last loaves. Turns out I can't even look at the fruit of my labors, nevermind taste it.

Maybe I will go look for some tomatoes in the garden. Wait! I don't have to. Fa has made a batch of one of my all time favorites...garden stew! His tomatoes, peppers, onions,celery...most anything harvestable all simmered together. It's the only "stew" I eat.

Good thing I can draw. Being away from the computer can be good. After a little while I pick up the pen or pencil or pastel and get going. I clearly can't make a living as a baker. I am hoping we can all laugh about it and relax while floating a bit in the pool. I will draw another one of these after dark.

Summer is fleeting.

Website setback

I am racing the severe thunderstorm warning, so excuse typos or rambling. If you have seen the blog before you know I have altered the look to make it easier to read and added the "new" logo that is included in the unpublished website. All of it is done except the display of the actual work for sale! A problem with my directory tree has to be resolved and I lost the edits on nearly 400 photos. Each set of photos has to be imported again into the two programs I use to make them web-ready.

Barbette's partner Nate has his daughter here now and perhaps her nimble young mind and sophistication might lend me another viewpoint. Mia is a great budding artist and reminds me of myself at that age with all of her extra projects and interests. Both Mia and Grant, Nate's children, are very impressive and enjoyable. We had a great family dinner over at Barb's though we opted out of croquet. My favorite lawn game is bocce ball and perhaps I can persuade them another time.

All this computer action has kept me from making more artwork and these deadlines are looming. I am going to work on the photo situation, but I will not publish the website this week so I can catch up on production.

Perhaps you can relate to my dilemma as the summer flies by~ to spend a spectacular day out of doors instead of holed up in here. Balance is required. Donna helped set me up in the sunnier portion of the house and we are going to savor the summer while we can.

Bad weather is upon us now. Soon I will share the fall show schedule and I will be patient with myself as I sort out the photo thing. At least I lost none of the originals. Time to get an external hard drive to protect the computer catalog.

Let me know what you think of the logo and I will publish new work here on the blog. Donna is having her lathe repaired so we are stalled on more than one front. We are pleased with our 2008 progress and we will keep you up to date. Thanks for the kind words and feedback.

Networking

I really have to get out more, it is time to build a network of artists in this area. I have worked in isolation since moving to Broad Brook from ArtSpace Hartford. I miss the collaboration, the spur-of-the-moment critique~ and political and philosophical debate. Music drifted or slammed into the hallways and we traded work for theater tickets, or simply dropped a friend's name at the door, hoping for a seat.

Perfectionism has transformed the studio into a spider hole. Cassandra (kitty) is vocal about how much time I am spending here so I have brought some kitty toys in. This morning she crept behind a stack of canvases and meowed, then ran down the hall at full gallop to flop down on the rug. Then she walked over to her box of toys and just stared at them, hoping a person would animate them. How could I resist?

Enough. I am working with one eye closed again. No rest for the wicked.

Rain and rain

But we aren't having a hurricane.

Cassandra the kitty is not liking Day 2 of thunder and lightning so I won't tarry here at the computer. She will urgently claw everything we own until I settle in to comfort her discomfort. Cheyenne was the same in a storm. I miss her.

Is it only Tuesday?

Maybe I am just having a week of Mondays. 4 hours ago work was taking a good path. A few years back one of my students told me his martial arts trainer had passed along a new point of view, some sage advice. When things don't seem right, change the channel. It sounds simplistic but part of its beauty is the simplicity. I have adopted the words and practice for my own and now is a good time to practice it. Everything I am working on seems like it is written in a different language, as if I need to wade through some sort of thick slime to make sense of it.

So I am off, changing the channel.

Is it only Monday?

I have always liked to believe that I broke the rule on "spacey" artist types. Clearly after today I may have to admit I might be a member of the stereotype after all. My sister, Barbette, views me as the Van Gogh type, quick to turn tragedy to epic proportions. Though it has never occurred to me to slice off my ear and send it to the local prostitute as a demonstration of love, I must admit I have come close. Today's absurdity takes the cake; whatever cake Van Gogh might have been eating whilst asylumed. I looked for angel food but the store-baked version would feed 60. I tried the idea of a Marie Callendar's pound cake and lingered quite a while over an Entenmann's butter thingy. No cake was suitable, but there was no denying I flaked out in every other respect.

As I drove away from Enfield, talking with Donna via cell phone with the speaker on (it IS illegal to hold it up to your ear, which makes sense), I yelped in disgust! I thought I left my glasses back at the lab or something. I had gone about 1/10th of a mile and I panicked. I told Donna I did not have my glasses and I was going to retrace my footsteps to find them. Sianara sweetie! I abruptly hung up, made a U-turn, and then suddenly drove right by the place I thought I left them. Another U-turn (not in the street~ in a parking lot) and I automatically punched the center of my nose. There they were, more clean than usual, on my face the entire time. I AM AN IMBECILE!!!

I headed home, tail between my legs, all the while laughing at my moronic behavior. The humilation is not just forgetting the glasses were on my face, it is knowing that I rely on them now for distance as well as reading. I am still adjusting to the idea that I will see better if I keep them on while looking through the binoculars. Figuring out that fractal truth is near impossible to me, kind of like Captain Janeway and her despised quantum mechanics on Voyager. Not only am I dim-sighted, I am such a Star Trek groupie that I see my problem in the fictional space/time continuum. So so SO very sad little geek girl.

By the way, I loathed the series prequel. What was that called? "Enterprise"? Or something equally unimaginative. I used to cook dinner to Voyager reruns, but now that TV has died and I have to live with merely with my own thoughts as I cook. Good or bad? Remains to be seen. Where is that nano?

A stormy night kept all of us restless, at least the 4 of us Northward. Time to sleep. I HATE THESE DAYS. I HATE THEM.

Of fear and alligators

In just a couple of hours we here at the compound will have a visit from one of our long-time closest friends. We don't see her often, she lives quite away, but she still has friends and family near us and this trip she has time to stay a little bit here at Mulberry Hill Farm.

I am trying to figure out if it is rude to pack up my current work and haul it over to my sister's, where dinner will be. She has not met Donna or Nathan yet and the last time she was in my house it was for my sister's surprise 40th birthday party. Barbette's cancer treatment was done and her hair was growing in.

Her visit is important to me. Mandy is 4 years older than I am and it is not an overstatement to say I worshipped her. She was kind and didn't mind little girls following her around like a puppy dogs. My sister and I would share her room on visits up to her family's Vermont farm and the only time she was ever frustrated with us was when we sniffled and snored kept her awake when we slept in her room.

We all had something we collected. For me it was butterflies. Barbette collected frogs and my mother collected owls. Actually, we all still do. Mandy collected mice, and I drew and drew and drew mice on everything. I had different mouse formulas, a certain way to draw the heads, bodies, ears and tails. Then of course I drew them doing different things. Out of fear that my childish works might be discovered and embarrass me I do believe I threw out any that might have accidentally survived. I pictured myself dying, like some artists and poets, and in the throwing out of my things these would accidentally be discovered with other hidden artwork, art I made that I never expected to sell or be seen. Other secrets I could tolerate reveal of, but not artwork that was inferior or childish. Yet, I would be dead. The idea of fearing judgment post-mortem is ridiculous...still, it lurks.

Every time she liked something I drew I was encouraged more, and I am grateful that I was encouraged by everyone, from the moment I put anything down on paper. I could go and go and go and have all kinds of compliments. I copied all of the images of the late sixties and early seventies. I drew fashion designs, imagining that I might someday be able to have my own fashion lable. I thought I might have a future designing album covers. They were the dreams of a child and I carried notebook after notebook, and drew on scrap paper my father brought home from the data processing center at Travelers. When we went to the dump we would scour the piles of trash for discarded office supplies or paper I could use. One of the best trips yielded a variety of ink pens and my affair with ink drawings began. For Christmas and birthdays I always had the latest art supply and I squirreled them away, afraid to use them up. Recently I discarded a box of pastels my father gave me when I was in my early teens. There were only very small pieces left but those pieces had moulded a bit and I knew I would finally have to part with them. The company that manufactured them is gone, and the pastels I was required to purchase for college art classes were inferior. Just over the last several months I have begun collecting and using pastels that finally, finally measure up to the intense pigments of long-ago, and I am very happy with the work I have done with them so far.

Back to Mandy...I only shared elementary school with her for a couple of years, but when her class line passed ours in the halls on the way to lunch or another class she always waved to me. Imagine! A fifth grader waved to me! She taught me to ski and once we needed to get down the mountain fast, so she skied me down the mountain road tucked beneath her. All four of our skies road aligned together, faster than I had ever gone. I have no idea who carried our poles or why we had to get down fast, but the feeling of that speed has never ceased to be alluring. I have only had cross-country ski equipment for years and Donna and I have adopted snowshoes so we can track the local critters. No speed there.

Mandy invented a trivia game that we would all play when we were inside. I can't remember what the subjects were and I vaguely remember something about a radio station contest. A close guess would prompt her to say, in a very official way, "be more specific please!" and the contestants of the moment would keep guessing until she declared a winner, though she was winner when we couldn't guess it. She always kept an eye out for my little sister and me. She taught us how to horseback ride but I preferred motorcycles to horses and still do. Horses smell my fear and I have never been cured of it.

So here is the quandry. Should I haul some of my current work along to show her? When I sent her the rabbit moon card it came back to me and I found I had an outdated email address. This is where I stumble. In my mind it is rude to ask for such individual attention when everyone catching up. That is the purpose for the gathering for all of us. Should I simply ask her to come by the studio and take a look while she is here? My only hesitation there is that the house is in upheaval. I have been single-minded to build inventory, to get the word out with the new business name, finish designing logos and website. I have barely tended to anything else...Donna will periodically set a meal in front of me, or lure me out for a little time. In my imagination my home will be substandard due to my neglect, somehow invalidating the artwork.

How pathetic am I? So much worrying what others think...so hard to set aside the fear of disappointing, the stigma of underachievement.

The pit of alligators I thought was next to my bed as a child yawns open yet again. Then, as now, I am afraid to put my foot down on the floor lest I might be eaten. But the imagined yawning alligator jaws are my own fear come to feast.

silly troll!

I have felt like the troll under the bridge, waiting for someone to trip-trop overhead, like the three billy goats all name Gruff. My father used to read the fairy tale to my sister and me and he made the best noises and voices, completely different for each character. Do you know the story?

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0122e.html#gruff

Barbie (we must use her given name now, Barbette) and I would poke him and climb around him or jump on him to get him to make those funny noises. Just a few months ago we regressed to play one of our favorite tricks...we would each grab one of his stocking feet and tie a knot in his socks at the toe. He grimaced and growled and squeaked and roared, the same as when we were little, and we laughed hard at our triumph, both socks firmly knotted at the toe.

Well, a lovely person is coming to trip-trop over my bridge and I am going to emerge and enjoy some sunshine and splashing and good company. There will be lunch of treats made from the garden plenty. It would be just silly to miss this chance! Already the days are short enough that we need lights on when we get up for work. It is always a bad sign when I am reading with one eye closed, reading and computer fatigued.

I hear the trip-trop now and I am off to play.

Overly Optimistic? I think not!

Optimism is always good. In fact, optimism has helped me slog through some very difficult times. Eternal optimism can go too far, blinding one to danger or difficulty. I also know a couple of self-described "realists" who are plagued by negativity, always poised for the worst possible outcome. Their realism is blinded by pain and the past, rendering them unable to see subtle shades of grey.

I like to think I live on Middle Ground, a little known island paradise off the coast of anywhere and everywhere. But apparently there is no Middle Ground off the coast of the World Wide Web. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, the fish with eternal optimism, I must "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming".

We are swimming, and I have been known to carry a metaphor off the map, so I will not say we are "treading water" or "riding the wave". Instead I will not tell you that something on the website will appear by such-and-such a day. Donna and I will e-mail links and announcement directly and privately, to our mailing list customers and other friends.

We expect the best but prepare for imperfection. For now I can be found in the studio at my computer, on hold for my technical support person in India.

What to tell?

Again I come back to blog and struggle with the idea of conceit: what could I have to say that is unique or important enough to post? But the creation of both fine art and crafts requires interaction. By making art I show you what I saw or felt. I feel most successful when the thing I have made is meaningful to a viewer in some way. It is like an invisible strand of thread, reaching out of my experience into yours; something I experienced is similar to something you once experienced. I am not there, with the piece, but you know something about me anyway, and maybe it reminds you of something that is unique to you. There is common ground yet perhaps we never meet.

I used to use the words "organic" and "dynamic" when speaking about change, about inevitability, and about evolution or destruction. Any art I see brings me to the brink of understanding SOMETHING, and is worth looking at, even for a split second. In that split second I can love or loathe, I can be moved and look closer or I can be angry, irritated or indifferent, and dismiss it. Maybe in another few seconds or other interval I will change my perception. Maybe I will take the art home, or revisit it. Over time I will have changed, and I will see something new even if the thing itself seems to remain static. All of that is organic, changing, living even if lifeless, unique and yet similiar.

Currently the word "organic" is being beaten to death, overused and at the same time undefined. How can a massive organization like Wal-Mart suddenly have found or created a source for all types of produce grown in soil that has no chemicals in it, without processed fertilizer, without the use of pest control? Even my local farmer has to do something to enhance crop production, to prevent being robbed of income by birds or bugs. Here at home I can pluck the damaging insects off, leaf by leaf, plant by plant. Anywhere else I have no expectation of such vigilance. It is in nature to act in self-preservation. Birds will pretend they are wounded and limp about, dragging a wing, to lure you or any other predator away from its young. They will lay their eggs in the nest of others and let others raise their offspring, offspring who will shove the smaller out of the nest to die. Butterflies lie and so do people, for simple self-preservation. I won't be able to use the word "organic" any more to describe something that is in the midst of change, moving toward something different, to an unseen future.

Okay. I got carried away by "organic". I won't go there with "dynamic". Although consider, for a split second, that fire breathes and continents move and heave, and water wears away anything and everything to be at the bottom, to be even with the sea. All that is true regardless of what temperature the globe is.

I am sure no one questions how I get lost in my head.

How important is it to find a way out?

Evolution

So there is a new incarnation in this business of art. My lovely "wishhorse" served me well for a decade but we put the sweet mare out to pasture after she pulled up lame on the web. It was just too confusing. In person, with an artist statement, the meaning of the granted wish horse was clear, but it was hard to find us on the internet.

So here WE are, newly founded as Broad Brook Art.

Donna and I have been together a little less than 5 years. When we met I was sure I would never make my own art again...I will skip the indulgent sob story. An old friend of mine came to our house for the first time and asked me where all my work was. Slowly I started to excavate pieces I hadn't shown in a very long time. Donna also had photography worthy of display. Unearthing all of those artifacts was inspirational. We took a seminar class at Maine College of art together a couple of years ago and we really loved it. We needed to find a way to do more.

I think most would agree that it is easy to get sidetracked. Flowers, trees, neighbors, gardens and grass are distracting enough. Add in a periodic crisis and the next thing you know another day and another week slips by. Discipline is the key. I feel a little like a troll these days, indoors all the time to build inventories for Fall shows. I will post the specific dates and places shortly and I am very happy with what I have to show. We have secured the new domain name and within the next week or so we will unveil the website. I have a new mailer in the works so look for us in the mailbox too.

It is thrilling that Donna will continue to do her wood-turning. We already have ideas for pieces we can collaborate on and this week we are expanding the workshop area, downstairs from the studio. A lightning strike last week had consequences in all three houses on the compound. I was so grateful I had all the equipment upstairs shut down and unplugged, smug even, but I didn't think about the downstairs. We are hoping to have the casualties restored this 4th of July weekend.

It has been great to have the ongoing support from friends who have encouraged the works in progress and offered sympathy when Cheyenne died this Spring. I feel very fortunate to have these friends who are willing to read my lengthy e-mails and set aside any pressure to type back, picking up the phone instead. I feel blessed.

Anything is possible!