Divided we fall, united we stand

This is when that old phrase "the personal is political" and so the political must also be personal comes into play. No matter where you turn there are lessons in freedom of speech, the health of the and wealth of a global community and when a local economy can be altered in an instant with the departure or arrival of industry.

I firmly believe that each and every citizen should exercise the sometimes hard won right to vote. There are three homes on this family farm turned compound and each home has a different political mix. I am not sure what my parents intended as we grew up but time with family friends meant spirited discussions with many points of view. Recently I remembered a moment I had at my mother's knee...literally, her knee. The neighborhood women were having a spirited discussion over coffee about the politics of the day. I preferred the company of adults at the moment so I sat under the table at my mother's feet. In our neighborhood people with very disparate views seemed free to present any viewpoint. I have no idea how old I was, but I fit easily under the table without coming into contact with anyone. I knew the posse did not all agree, that was clear. The thrill for me was hearing all the sides...the disagreements that dissolved the second any one of our neighborhood crew of children needed something, anything. Every mother was on hand to dispense band-aids or advice and would call your won mother well before your arrival on your own front step.

As children will do, we tested our boundaries. We rode our bikes well outside of firmly defined areas. We read things we were not supposed to know about, and with glee we shared the greatest discovered contraband. Our games were of our own design, with rules that changed as needed. You might guess that the rules changed to ensure the success of our playground-style picked teams, but the opposite was true. We would change the rules to ensure that we were all equally invested in the outcome,

Full Production Gear

Donna has been busy finishing the set-up of her production area, mostly the wood lathe. We don't have much...Norm Abrams wouldn't consider it a "shop" at all, but it has been a labor of love since February and it is easy to spend time there. There has been a lot of finessing setting up areas. We are trying to avoid needing to change the power outlet locations...one of those "if I knew then what I know now..." situations.

A guaranteed gorgeous weekend will most likely keep us outdoors. There hasn't been much time for that and sure enough weed monsters from the ground level are creeping up through the deck, a full 8 feet above the ground. I kid you not!

I have finished another set of scrafito pieces based on birds and trees. I am using a magnifier to make the smallest lines and the detail of the work pleases my obsessive tendencies. Within a couple of days I will have the new pastels photographed and ready for purchase. They are currently unframed although I will offer them framed as well.

Donna did win a local contest with her fledgling owl photo and we have had some great luck with new photos of wildlife. We have a compound-wide wildlife alert system~ simple phone calls telling what and where...no time for chit chat...fast fast fast to cameras and binoculars. Often the alert includes our neighbors to the North. Fred and Helene's yard and gardens are the epitome of the English countryside they love and I can see all the best parts right here out of the studio window.

This doe and her twin fawns have visited a couple of times. The meadow grasses are too tall to spot them and it is nice when the fallen fruit in the orchard lures them into the mowed areas. I am quite sure Fred is torn between the love of the wildlife and the love of his gardens. Often his best heritage specimens serve as lovely meal to the deer and chipmunks and woodchucks. They can undo countless hours of work in one evening. I bought a special variety of tomato this year and it was eaten~ fruit, blossoms, and stem~ by the chipmunks who would like to rid themselves of the pesky humans in their home. They chatter indignantly and loud enough to attract the attention of our indoor kitty Cassandra. She would like just a minute outside...the regular yips and howls of coyote, fox and fisher assure that will never happen. We know the predators are helping us with the garden pests and the kitty does well patrolling the downstairs for mice. That will have to do.

Often we view things that fully demonstrate the cycles of life and death up and down the food chain. A cooper's hawk has been using the top of this bluebird house and a branch in the hackamatack trees as a place to enjoy a meal. The bluebirds and swallows are long fledged but the relentless house sparrows have been spooked away from this particular box.

I have taken several weeks away from the website to edit and organize photos of art work. We have well over 500 images and the cataloging and editing have taken more time than I anticipated. I finally decided I needed to spend as much time on art work as on the computer and that has worked out better all around. I hope this all will lead to faster editing and uploading.

To that end we are adding a new backup system. I suppose we might be called too cautious but it's easy to lose something or everything. Mom's computer bit the dust last week and we were not able to salvage the folks pictures from their Audubon tour in Texas. The new computer should be in any day and when we set Mom up she will have a sure-fire way to back up those photos from their trips. They added plenty of new birds to their life list and hopefully the other travelers can share some of their photos so all is not lost.

Soul Bared, Soul Barren

We have been away. Not physically away, but far off. For me there has been a struggle to find the boundaries. What do I share here? This venue is about publishing the art fast...the learning curve on some of the web tools is steep, and I have not had the the time (or focus) to tweak each line of HTML in the way I want. Now I remember a conversation I had couple of months ago with my father. The business end of our art needed attention and I was consulting him about how to manage it best. He listened to all of my analysis, my endless myriad of options, leaning back on the chair at his computer. At the end of my detailed explanations he quietly urged me to "keep it simple".

That may seem like common sense, knowledge I should have acquired already. But those who know me understand this is my greatest challenge. I made a collage a 15 years ago that included and image of Thoreau's "simplify, simplify, simplify". I had read an article about a man managing his property and one piece of it had an outbuilding. He carved Thoreau's words into a rugged slice of granite, kept in a building next to his pond. In spite of this man's wealth the outbuilding was spare. The interior was painted completely white and every wall had an attached bench, nothing more. There were no doors to close, just sizable openings, so I imagined perching quietly inside, observing every detail of the teaming life surrounding the shed. The stone was perched on the bench inside, and its bold presence seemed noble to me. I transfered a photo of it in the middle of my chaotic collage and always kept it where I could see it while I worked. I put it away when it seemed I would never make another piece of art again.

Just now, as I ponder all of these VERY serious philosophical questions, baring my soul, Donna has been playing games on her computer...a game we are both addicted to. She was sure she had leaped over the last hurdle, completing the final puzzle. But NO! She had been betrayed! I was having a sip of soda and sure enough I could not contain my laughter...I spewed a mouthful soda all over my desk, keyboard and monitor. I walked into her office with soda still dripping from my face. These are the laughs that save me. Donna frequently laughs in her sleep. How can life be any better? Well, my monitor could be cleaner.

So there is the boundary, the outer reaches of what is real. Some higher power intervened and I was rightly pulled back to what is real, what is not barren, what will never be barren.

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.