Spring Night

Hey me, remember this: the first night in spring in Vermont when the frogs woke up that day and the Peepers are peeping and you're hanging out of the bathroom window looking at the fuzzy full moon behind some light clouds and feeling the warm spring breeze blow.

Making Sticks

A Stick

I don't think I've mentioned the collaborative installation project I'm doing with my gallery-mate, Denise. It's looming. We show December 6th. The only parameter we set was that we were going to make vertical elements. I'm at the point now where I just call them sticks.

Denise is really cranking on the sticks. We've met at her studio to touch base once each of the last two months. I've brought either nothing but photos (the sticks were drying and not transportable) or just a handful of stuff. She's got dozens. Dozens of really good sticks along with handfuls of truly amazing sticks.

I'm lagging in the numbers. My contribution has been more in the area of going off into left field. I was the first to make a stick with offshoots. Not like the one above, but one that has stars shooting off of it on long, bendy wires. I also started stringing things on wire to hang from the ceiling. I had beads I wanted to use.

Hell, I have a lot going on right now! Plus, my studio's a two-and-a-half hour drive away. There's no room to make a mess or dry anything in our apartment where I have to be five days a week so I had to think of ways to make sticks that didn't need to dry. These beaded things (which I'm still calling sticks even though they're more like giant necklaces or bracelets) just pile into a bag which I could stash under the sofa if I felt like it.

I also have some industrial twine in a bunch of different colors that I want to crochet sticks out of. How much time do I have? NOT ENOUGH. Between the travel, the death, the dumb things I thoughtlessly said I'd do, the party I want to have because I love my friends and I want to see them, and - let's just call it - the LIFE, I feel like I'm falling behind. I don't want to let Denise down.

Well crap. I just have to do the best I can, right? So that's what I'm doing. I really don't want to get into some anxiety-based, all-nighter pulling, no bathing, monastic existence of cranking out sticks like an underage Chinese factory worker. Now is not the time. Things are hard enough. I want to keep my eye on the big picture of where my life is going. I want to remain mentally healthy. I am so grateful that I naturally wake up at 4:30 - 5:00 AM these days. I get so much more done that way.

This project has been really good for me. While I do feel I'm not holding up my end as far as numbers go, I'm really enjoying making these things. I'm working happily away in my studio (or my living room) for hours. Working in my studio has often been torturous in the past so it's nice to be getting hours of practice of just honest work under my belt. You know, wearing down a passage in my brain where I enjoy working for hours in my studio. Hopefully erasing the passage in my brain where I force myself to go to my studio and relentlessly prod myself to just do something, anything, just do it and it hurts and it's horrible.

Eh, art. It is what it is. Like everything else, some days you got it, some days you don't.

Alrighty, I'd better go make some more sticks now. Later!

October Weekend In Vermont

Morning view from the patio

I had big plans this weekend. I always seem to have big plans. This time it went pretty well. As you may be aware, I can't shut up about my garlic. Garlic is so easy to grow that I kind of became hell-bent on getting some in this year. Below is yet another shot of the extremely neglected vegetable garden where I intended to plant the stuff.

Vegetable Garden, Before

I got a nice, early start by previewing the site and getting intimidated. Since it was a beautiful morning I thought I'd warm up by taking a look around. Some bright blue caught my eye and I was delighted to see that the equally neglected (possibly even more neglected) aconitum was still alive.

Heroic Aconitum (blue)

We still have honeysuckle. This variety smells like a trip to paradise. I have no idea what it is because I didn't plant it.

The hydrangea petiolaris looks very stately this year. I didn't get a good photo of its overall shape. Instead I tried to give you an idea of what it feels like to be standing inside it. A beautiful, golden, peaceful spot.

Hydrangea Petiolaris

We still have quite a number of raspberries. Still no frost by October 21! Unusual. I'm so glad for the fruit.

I spent the rest of the day working in my studio on a project which I will no doubt share with you later (unless I get hit by a bus or something) 

After a number of hours in the studio I was relaxed enough to attempt the vegetable garden.

Part I

In about an hour I managed to make a pretty good first pass. It went far better than I'd imagined it would. The chipmunks made it easier by tunneling under all the weeds and keeping their roots loose. Thanks, little dudes! I rewarded them by eradicating their cover. Maybe they'll forgive me when I get the mulch down, hopefully next week. 

After a surprisingly perfect day of accomplishing my goals, Pete and I had cocktails (well, Pete had beers) on the patio. The vegetables, except for the celery, are from Marc's garden. Pretty sweet.

The next day was, of course, Sunday. You don't get to stay in Vermont all of Sunday so you have to get a move on! I put a little bit more time in in my studio then headed back to the garden. The results:

About 100 peacefully tucked-in garlic cloves settling in for the winter. My ambition was to get them mulched on Sunday too but... No. Hey, you can't have everything. Most of the time. Sometimes you can. I think.

Noise

I'm at the airport.

They have the "news" on an inescapably large and loud monitor. I'm listening to my iPod and trying to ignore the hullabaloo by telling you about my garden. 

So here's where I intend to plant my garlic:

Looks promising, right? "Sure Mel, you can plant garlic there. Next year."

I'm going to do it. I will find a way.

Evacuate!

Look who's hiding under the garage door right in the path of my car:

Garlic Festival Liveblog, Final

Adieu, picklebacks! Bonsoir, tout le monde!

It Has Been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG Time

I am in a really great mood today and it has been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time since that's been the case. Long time.

I think it might be the weather. It was forty-five degrees in Cambridge yesterday morning and forty-five again this morning in Vermont. I, myself, am absolutely shocked by the improvement this makes in my mood.

I know I hate summer. I've never liked it, now I hate it. I know this. I just didn't realize how demoralizing it is to me. Joie de vivre completely eludes me in the summer. Without my being aware of it, day to day life becomes about endurance.

That sounds so dramatic. It doesn't feel dramatic when I live it, it just feels like ordinary life. Until it stops and I feel like a bird released from underneath a black plastic tarp. Glory! The sky! The air! I can soar again!

How often do you go through your day wondering "why am I like this?" I do it all the time. (Not just about summer.)

I am very excited about today. I'm going to do laundry and make stuff in my studio. Then I might garden and I might dye my hair. No doubt I will wash the kitchen sink. Maybe later I'll drink some blackberry moonshine and have a fire in the fire pit. These are not exciting things and yet I am so excited.

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Raincloud

I am in a bad mood today. Quite annoyed with myself.

I'm tired of monitoring my behavior. I'm tired of having an opinion about things I've said or done. I do not want to analyze and grade myself, my thoughts, my actions all the time. Gah! Annoying.

Maybe I'm just doing it today. I'm giving myself low marks. Some days are like that. Those days that you only remember the stupid things you did. Those days that you just want to put yourself in storage in a closet somewhere for twenty years or so. Just turn yourself off and take a break for a while.

These are the days when the escape fantasies kick in. Here's what appeals today: I catch a bus to Tucson, change my name, magically become a twenty-eight-year-old brunette with long wavy hair, a hot bod and the ability to tan, get a job as a sassy waitress and smoke and cuss in the alley behind the restaurant on my break. I'll get big, elaborate tattoos on my right ankle and my left shoulder. No clue what they'd look like though. Incomplete fantasy. I'd drink a lot of tequila.

I think that fantasy appeals today because it's forty-something degrees and rainy here in Vermont today. That's getting old. At least I can do the tequila drinking part now if I want to.

So much for my new attitude.

Boston Area Winter Plus A Note From Vermont

I drove out to Wellesley today to go to my sister-in-law's Stella and Dot open house. While driving on Route 2 I was amazed by how ashy everything looks on a day in January when it's supposed to snow but it hasn't started to yet.

When I left Wellesley I took the Mass Pike from 128 to Prudential Center. As I drove under the city I looked at the gritty, blackened, concrete ceiling above me and thought "By God I love this filthy town." I really do. It's filthy and freezing and I really love living here.

Meanwhile, Pete is in Vermont, warm and cozy in his studio, looking out the window at an owl hunting:

Photo by Pete.

Sorry Fellas!

I think the guy on the right looks disappointed with me. The other two can't be bothered. I've been neglecting my tequila. How will I ever make it up to them?

This Is What I Thought I Could Do

Hold on to your hats! "Creative" punctuation ahead - and a lot of gobbledygook. But then this is a blog.

One big thing that happened this year is that Pete and I entertained the idea of selling our place in Vermont and moving to Durham, North Carolina.

This was traumatic for me. It forced me to face the fact that I'd been undervaluing the things that weren't working in the way we'd been living our lives. It showed me that my dreams had turned out to be just that: unrealistic and impractical. I wanted to do too much with too little time and no help. Nuts!

In Vermont I have an artist's dream studio: plenty of square footage, a sink, a deck (! What artist even dreams of having a deck off their studio? For many artists even a sink is a dream) near but not in my house, safely accessible at all hours, very few distractions, surrounded by wildlife and incredible views. It's probably the best studio I'll ever have. How could I think of giving that up?

Because it's frigging lonely up there! We're too far from our friends and family. We keep having to travel so we can fulfill our family duties and charge our social batteries.

Every time I leave it upsets my creative rhythm which takes days to re-establish - a problem I couldn't figure out how to get around. Thanks to list-making I have been able to keep producing work I'm proud of. My dreams were rosier though. I thought that if I had a great studio and dedicated my time to my work that my productivity would take off. Maybe it would have but in all the years we've been there I have rarely been able to devote the unbroken stretches of time to my work that I thought I would.

Ultimately that's life. Nobody can just be an artist. Everybody has family and needs to eat lunch and gets interrupted by the details of life. Everybody knows that life is where art comes from.

But it wasn't just my art-making that got interrupted. I wasn't around enough for my garden either. I had dreams of turning our property into a verdant paradise of multiple garden rooms, fruit trees and a potager.

I also thought I was going to decorate the house beautifully and cook gourmet meals made with vegetables we'd grown ourselves.

What an insane fantasy! Look out - here we go... I'll whip up some pear and ginger scones to have with home made yogurt first thing in the morning for breakfast! After an hour's walk in the woods with Fay, it's off to my studio to paint and sew and sculpt and create installations that are in demand the world over! With Pete's help I'll spend a couple of hours tending to the weeding, pruning dead-heading and other garden maintenance. Then it's back to the sparklingly clean and tidy house with the flowers I've picked for an arrangement to decorate the entry room table (we don't have an entry room table) I'll make us a lovely cucumber and green bean salad with fresh dill from the garden and poached fish for lunch! Then back to the studio for more brilliant creations! Then I'll work out for an hour (gotta keep in shape!) then go to the mailbox to pick up the multi-thousand-dollar checks that arrive there daily and then play with Fay in the yard for another hour. Then it's back to the house to create a delicious gourmet dinner with fresh baked pie for dessert! Satisfied, Pete and I will share a nightcap on the patio by the fire pit, under the stars and I'll knit while we discuss the arts, culture and the latest issue of the "New Yorker." Then we'll retire and spend an hour or so before sleep catching up on reading those "New Yorker"s and about physics, philosophy, history, movements in art and technology etc. Then off  to a peaceful night's sleep full of fascinating, revelatory dreams (G-rated version)

Uhhhh... Smoke much?

In fact, no, that ridiculousness was the product of my own, unaltered mind. I did that all by myself! That's like a month-and-a-half's worth of activity I imagined I could pack into every day, not to mention my plans for Pete's assistance that I didn't consult him about. Not to mention expecting Fay to remain young and healthy. I mean, it took about a week to just read that paragraph, didn't it?

So yeah, that wasn't working out at all and I was FRUSTRATED about it. I was a FAILURE for FAILING to accomplish the IMPOSSIBLE. But I kept trying! It was like I was trying to live in a Thomas Kinkade painting or something - a literal, two-dimensional painting. I clawed into that dream for everything I was worth. It took me traumatic months to begin to release my grip on that baroque tableau.

You know, when I look at it that way I see that I actually accomplished a lot, all things considered. I just was never able to complete even one aspect of that fantasy. We're so backed up on the "New Yorker." I mean I could chip away at things. I did bake and grow things and make art and learn (A LOT) I just don't live in my own wet-dream of aesthetic/intellectual/domestic productivity. I don't have Hermione's time turner. If I did I'd probably use it to nap anyway.

So we may still move down to Durham somewhere down the line. I've been trying to spend more time in one place. I've been in Cambridge for the last couple of weeks trying to catch up with friends and figure out a rational plan for moving forward. That's hard for me. I still don't want to give up any of my activities and I want to get a full time job. Clearly something still has to give. I do think my expectations have changed though.

The number one thing I've come to terms with is that I can't provide myself with enough mental stimulation all on my own. I'll need to be around more people which means I should be based in the city. I'll have to trade the company of the critters for my sanity. I love the critters. And the beauty and the solitude. Something has to give.

So please wish me luck!

I Felt Pretty Lucky

Today I bent to look at a dead caterpillar on our walkway:

As I stood up again a reflection in a puddle on the walk caught my eye. It's very subtle:

A rainbow:

I've seen iridescent spots around the sun before  but this rainbow arced away from the sun. That's something I've neer seen.

August Wrap-Up

These ornamental grass seed heads are a beautiful, silky red this year.

So August turned out not to be a vast improvement on the end of July. Pretty painful month, all in all. Most of the things that made July and the rest of the summer so fretful haven't really improved. I'm just more accustomed to being unable to do anything about them. I did get a bit of work done though.

Tropical storm Irene knocked our power out for five days. That was just an inconvenience. The worst part was seeing our neighbors' houses in the river and the land the houses were built on gone. Yes, their land is gone. A number of roads we use all the time are also gone. That's pretty shocking to see. You see natural disasters on T.V. and you think "that's horrible" and it is horrible but (sadly, human nature being what it is)you feel the punch in the gut more when it happens in your neighborhood, it's right in front of you and you're not seeing it from the comfort of your sofa.

One major thing is a lot better though: my dear friend who underwent organ transplant surgery a few weeks ago is on the mend. He and his wife are two of my best friends and it was scary and hard to see him in danger and suffering and to just see her suffer. It was very familiar from watching my mom take care of my dad when he was dying. Same time of year too. This time I could remind myself that my friend was likely to get better. Still I'm probably always going to hate mens' loungewear and the end of July/beginning of August.

I'm not going to try to call September.

So far this month I've had an art show. I'll post photos once I get them off of Pete's camera. His camera is currently locked in a cooler with a large bag of desiccant because, due to an enormous and uncharacteristic brain fart, he left his camera bag outside over a rainy night.

Some other good news is that I'm chipping away at my major art endeavor. I'm calling it an endeavor because it's the single largest project I've ever taken on in my life. Well, I'm not positive that it's larger than being married but it is up there. I know I've mentioned the novel/comic book/art pieces. What this really means is that there are characters, figurines, art pieces that the characters make, drawings, several comic books, photographs, paintings, possibly film, possibly animation, possibly performances in the works. There's a lot to figure out and a lot to learn. I'm really excited about it. I'll be working on this for years.

With all of the hard things that have been happening lately and making it difficult for me to enjoy anything, it's nice to have something positive to focus on. It's nice to have something to do that feels like progress.

Of course, with a project this large I could get bogged down and lost. Somehow that doesn't seem likely though. I feel like there are enough stages to work through and small parts to complete that I'll keep feeling like I'm accomplishing something. I'll have examples of progress made, areas completed and work to show that will keep me on track. Some parts could go way off in their own wild directions but there's nothing wrong with that.

Some highlights from August:

I love bees.

Fay snoozes in the laundry

It was a great year for lilies

The roses looking good before Irene

I know I was bragging about having time to think but it turns out I need more before I have anything worth telling you about.

In lieu of sharing my "interesting" thoughts I will give you a little garden tour, successes only:

A volunteer Balloon Flower (I love volunteers)

I believe this is Bibi Mazoon but I'm not positive

This guy's teeth light up at night. He's solar LED!

Butterfly bush doing its thing

Charlotte?

More tiki fun plus purple coneflowers. Hey Mel, it's not too late to set up the bird bath.

Crown Princess Margareta

Darcey Bussell

The sign says "It's five o'clock somewhere" and is accompanied by little metal sunset, hammock and fruity cocktail.

This is the grocery store rose from back in March. I'm so relieved that it's still alive.

Lady Emma Hamilton

Our so-called "walkway"

The irrigation system I set up actually works!

Aside from the grocery store rose all the roses are the ones I planted back in May. You wouldn't believe how fragrant they are. So far all the plants are alive and flowering but not all of them were photogenic today. I HOPE TO GOD I CAN KEEP THEM ALIVE THROUGH NEXT YEAR AND AFTER THAT!!!! I'm scared - can you tell?

HUGE WHITE SPIDER!!!

Starting the day after tomorrow I'm going to have time to think. I know - can you believe it? Hopefully this will lead to some very inspired blog posts. Fingers crossed.

Today, however, will be all about wildlife. I found this spider in our vestibule, hanging over the front door. I wonder how many times we've passed below it without knowing it was there?

The face on its back looks pretty friendly.

I'm very glad that no one at our house has arachnophobia. We'd probably need to move. Actually, when you think of all the spiders that routinely live in our house this one wouldn't be an issue - we'd have moved already.

Update: Our friend and wildlife expert, Don, says he thinks this is a Barn spider. So exotic. It's latin name is Araneus cavaticus (slightly more exotic) According to wikipedia, it is the same kind of spider as Charlotte in Charlotte's Web.

A Little On The Random Side

My friend Jenn kicks ass. She sent me an awesome tote bag with this image on it. Thanks Jenn!

I felt very proud of myself yesterday. It was my last day of a short course of antibiotics and the day I figured out that certain of the possible side effects were affecting me: I was depressed, disoriented and drowsy. Despite this (sorry about the alliteration) I was very productive. For example I set up this automatic container watering system for when I can't be home to water the plants:

I also did a lot of other dumb junk that's too boring to mention here. The end result was that when bed time rolled around I was pretty satisfied with myself. I re-read a little "Mindfulness in Plain English" and hit the hay.

At three AM Pete woke me up saying, "I think Fay's out in the hallway." He turned on the light and Fay was, in fact, in her bed. "Something's in the house," he said. We got up to investigate. Have you ever seen a flying squirrel? They're really cute. About the size of a chipmunk only grayer and they have the most adorable big eyes. This one was sitting on the windowsill in the upstairs room Pete uses for his office. It looked calmly at us when we turned on the lights. 

I eased over to the next window, opened it and removed the screen. We probably should have watched what happened next but we didn't. We just shut the door and checked back in five minutes. We think it left. We hope it left. We hope it doesn't come back with other family members.

Here's a photo of another peony in my garden. I love the intense color. I read the plant label yesterday. It's named after some lady but I don't remember who. (Note that there's a decorative "head" in the background of the photo)

Not to be confused with Paula Fay. Picture a bumble bee in there. Nice, huh?

 

Finally, I like these shoes:

They're Doc Martens.