tiny tool

On the Norwegian side of my family, I had some gay uncles, brothers, Teddy and Jolmer. They lived by a lake in Minnesota, down the road from their sister Ruth. Teddy played rousing, dramatic songs on the organ and cooked, and Jolmer carved and fixed things. All three of them fished. They are who I think of when I hear Le Tigre's Les and Ray, even though they lived in the country and didn't share walls with anyone.

I guess it's only speculation that they were gay, but they lived together, both single, for their entire lives, two gentle men. I think Ruth had a husband and children at one point, but would have to ask my mom to be sure. She lived alone when I knew her, and mainly just spent time with her brothers.

I only have two tidbits of Jolmer's carving remaining: a tiny basket and a tiny monkey, both carved out of nut shells. For many years, my favorite piece, now lost, was a pair of tiny working pliers. It may be the OCD inside of me that loves so much care put into a tiny nut shell, but I like to think it's just appreciation.

Jolmer's pliers plus my love of hand tools were the reasons I had a little bit of weakness for "tool" jewelry when it became popular. But when I saw these tiny tool carvings by jeweler Laurie Brown, I was way more excited & sentimental.

I'm obsessed with craft that is useful, but apparently I can be excited by fragile work that only hints at usefulness!tools from aesthetic outburst.
sporks from andothersuchthings.

sky. light.

My new car is just over a decade old, and it's the newest car I've ever had. I'm still adjusting to strange phenomena like levers for moving side mirrors. I'm used to shouting instructions to passengers with their arms out the (crank) window: in just a bit, up a touch, down half that.

The very best thing about this new-fangled vehicle is the sunroof. I get to feel like I'm outside when I'm having to drive.
I've always driven with windows open, ridden a bike without a helmet (gasp!), left the doors and windows of my house hanging open. The more light and air the better. For some reason, it improves things exponentially to have that light and air above you.

This, I realized belatedly, is what I like about Dia:Beacon. I can do without the bulk of the artwork. It comes as no surprise that I believe the best parts of the museum are the gardens and the bookstore. AND the skylights. It is a lovely building. But any spacious industrial building would look lovely bathed in tons of natural light. It feels good.

The entire main floor is lit by daylight. The artwork is lit by daylight. When the skylights are buried in snow, Dia:Beacon is dark, and closed. This bit of information makes me appreciate the museum much more.
Then, the artwork. I can be really grouchy about modern art, especially massive, macho, public sculptures. There is a lovely response to that kind of work in the museum, and that is the holes, or negative space sculptures of Michael Heizer. They're still lined with steel, lest he be too femme about it. Let's re-line those suckers with some nice cotton canvas for a good lesbo aesthetic, shall we? Or just go upstairs and visit all those artists' removed testicles in the Louise Bourgeois room.

*Cloud fabric from Repro Depot Fabrics

leaving the body

As a kid, I was obsessed with Lois Duncan novels and the concept of astral projection—willing your spirit to travel free of your body. [There was the thrilling story about Navajo twins separated at birth, one good, one plotting vengeance for her unhappy life. When the lonely girl's body dies her baaad spirit shows up and takes residence in the body of the happy one while her spirit is out running around. What could be more exciting for a pre-teen?]

And, the unruly winter weather has me admiring snowshoes for runners that have springs in them, turning otherwise boring ground-bound humans into snow kangaroos.

But neither of these examples are the body leaving I refer to: Rather than worrying after my soul, I'm pondering where the old bod will go when I die. Cremation seems like a waste of resources. Burial is good, but chemicals and makeup and expensive coffins are yuck, and not what we ought to be planting in the earth. In other countries you can be same-day buried without all the chemical pollutant fuss, but in the U.S., that's still rare. There are new eco-cemeteries, but somehow I expect they find ways to charge you an arm and a leg. I'm into the idea of simple home burial. Plant me with my cats in the side yard.

This is the best thing I got out of Six Feet Under. [Some slack here, please: I was sick delirious dying, and the gfriend rented full seasons to distract from the agony.] Annoying funeral director Nate buries annoying vegan chef Lisa au naturale, no box, in the woods. No rows, no markers, no mowing or plastic flowers. The idea seemed so lovely, and so illegal.

Heard the rumor that Tennessee is the only state where you can bury your human loved-ones in your yard. Go to town with deceased cats, dogs, snakes, rats, rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, deer, and birds, but it's gonna cost you to lose your humans.

I thought of leaving my body to the faeries at Short Mountain. They'd get some good compost, and would likely have a ritual involving drumming, which would make my hovering spirit happy. Mom fiddled with the fantasy by bringing up the difficulties of legally transporting a human body across state lines. I guess I'll have to get old on communal lesbian land in TN, and, if at all sick or feeble, will have to be restricted within state lines. (Turns out Ohio and Vermont will work, too.) Preferably, I will expel my last breath within dragging distance of a good-sized compost heap.

Or, the gov could chill and let us have our dead in every state.

Note to swimmers: Ocean dumping is legal!

The beautiful GONER tag is by Jonathan Berger, from his Founder, GONER, Seer series of shows in 2007.

radish sculpture

Several years ago, I carved radishes as holiday ornaments. It just made sense, with the beautiful red and white and the nice smell. They shriveled after about 10 days, but were lovely while they lasted. Well, I've been outdone. Check out Noche de Rabanos in Oaxaca!

Photo thanks to Skull a Day and Planeta.

new takes on igloos

All images are from The Snow Show. Doesn't it make you want to build one?

mudpie

cob oven and rocket stove on stone base, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

I have experience with mud. As a kid I participated in a race through an obstable course built in a foot of mud (and loved it). As a young adult I trekked to sulpher mud baths in the Northeast of Brasil, and relished the mosquito relief my full body mud coating gave.

Now comes the earth building chapter! I've been interested in cob for a while (a building material made of clay, sand, and straw or wood chips). I'm inspired by wonderful adobe buildings in the desert, kept cool by their foot thick earthen walls. I dream of living on radiant heated earthen floors, but understand the importance of starting a little smaller.

I was thrilled this weekend to participate in building a cob oven and rocket stove for Phillies Bridge Farm Project in Gardiner, New York. It was a wet weekend, so although we got the oven and stove built in two days, we'll have to wait for drier weather to cut the oven door, remove the sand, and fire up. You can see the all the steps from base to plaster here. You can learn about cob ovens here and rocket stoves here.

The short and sweet is that the rocket stove is the super efficient element, while the earth oven heats slowly then stays hot for a very long time, baking incomparable foods and bringing people together to enjoy breads, pizzas, etc. They are both a pleasure to use. And, I must say, a pleasurable project to spend the weekend on. How often do adults get to play in mud for two days straight?

tumbling weeds

Always homesick for the Sonoran Desert, but far, far away in the northeast, I consider myself a bit of a tumbleweed, blown far from home. The tumbleweeds pictured are by Patrick Dougherty and can be found at the Desert Botanical Garden. They are actually made of willows, not salsola. I often think of "tumbling" back to my beloved desert home, but can't justify doing so: The population there grows in leaps in bounds, far more people than the land and its aquafers can support.

I was thrilled to learn about Desert Harvesters, a grassroots organization that teaches Tucsonans to harvest rainwater; plant local food trees; and harvest, process, and store that food. Pictures of happy people eating mesquite pancakes with prickly pear syrup abound. My favorite grocery ever, the Food Conspiracy Coop is participating in the eat local challenge with other respectable groups like the Community Food Security Center, who help people learn to identify existing wild foods and how to "glean" them. These efforts make me want to be home to learn more about thriving (lightly) in the desert.

I'll be good, and instead go looking for lamb's quarters and burdock growing around my current home. As the temperatures drop, tonic teas have an allure of their very own. A good Leslie Marmon Silko or Barbara Kingsolver book can give me a taste of the Sonoran Desert, while I tune my senses to the specific smells and flavors of the Hudson Valley.

hide

Animal architecture is fascinating. As autumn begins, the cocoons of moths impress, and prolific spiders build complicated funnel webs. All the spinning and weaving makes me think of another wonderful fiber artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz.

A Russian-Pole who lived under first Nazi rule then the Soviet Occupation, Abakanowicz bristled in art school when forced to reiterate Stalin's socialist-realist aesthetic values. Later, without the academy to please, she gathered abandoned ship ropes from the shores of the Vistula River, split them into sisal string, and wove huge, abstract cloaks, that double as safe cocoons or blankets and death shrouds or stripped animal hides. She needed to make flexible work to fit in her tiny apartment. These enormous bodies came forth from her cramped life in Warsaw.

Abakanowicz always works in multiples, mobs, swarms. She refers to unique qualities appearing within herds, even when the "brainless entity" takes over. Because of the drone and press of crowds, she says she prefers solitude, at the same time being acutely aware of needing to belong to a tribe.

When I was an impatient 18 year old in a weaving class, I was completely taken with Abakanowicz's work, slowed, made thoughtful. I still am made silent by it. I can see wanting to be enveloped in it, then feeling smothered by it. Both comforted and aware of some kind of violence, trapped.

tenuous connections

Artist and ecologist from South Carolina, Danna Ray quietly reminds us that we're attached to one another, to our surroundings. That delicate moss and tiny sprouting plants are of great importance. That in our world, devastation and beauty occur together.

The way her work makes me feel reminds me of my first trip to Staten Island.

This NY borough is famous for it's enormous garbage dump, visible from space. I first went to Staten Island when in art school, to see a collection of Fluxus work that included several feminist and queer artists I respected. I was transported from my by-the-side-of-the-freeway New Jersey existence to beautiful old buildings, built by the navy, in a large and lovely park. I didn't see Fresh Kills on that trip, but was thinking about garbage canyons anyhow when I saw the Yoko Ono piece that has continued to resonate for me. Her piece consisted of smashed teacups carefully pieced together and glued, placed on a table and chairs, ready for the ritual of having tea together.

Sitting down with another person for tea is such a small act in the face of something as horrible as the Vietnam War (about which the piece was made). Small but critical. Sitting face to face. Seeing one another, acknowledging one another's value. And connection.

It's worth cobbling together our broken lives, our broken spirits, our broken earth.

guerillas

Guerilla Gardening means all kinds of things, from beautifying neglected public spaces, to growing food in those spaces, to harvesting unused food on public land, to making political statements with shrubbery.

Years ago some friends and I had fantasized about delivering a public message to a homophobic religious group who happened to have a large, freeway-facing lawn. We planned to write our message in vinegar, letting the grass die over a number of sunny days. (It's just a less toxic version of leaving a message in glass etch on a shop window.) This project never happened, alas, I still look at horticultural messaging with longing. A teen friend showed me up by mowing "fuck you" into her parent's lawn when pressed to do chores. They thought their lovely daughter was so brilliant they had a hard time being angry.

Sometimes, the plants speak for themselves. Other times you need to deliver a botani-gram. Here are one|two|three! methods for moss graffiti that are very enticing. I'd stick with beer or soy yogurt instead of buttermilk to keep it vegan.

grow my art and sculpt my bush

A few of my favorite things are coming together at P.S.1: art, architecture, activism, and food. Public Farm One is on view through September 15th. It's an urban farm created in cardboard, compost-able containers, meant to educate New Yorkers about the possibilities for growing food in the city, even in concrete courtyards in Queens. I haven't been yet, but rumor has there's a water feature (this means POOL to me) and swings.

Several years ago I thoroughly enjoyed the swimming, sunbathing, misting installation outside P.S.1, and I fully intend to visit this show, pluck some eats, and stick my feet in the pool. There's talk of the installation looking like a flying carpet, which I hope I'll understand when I see it.

Tomorrow night (8/8) Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma) is speaking about "taking the plant's point of view" when considering the environment. Probably just a cute way of pointing out that we all need to be more aware, but potentially interesting.

And a bonus, the Horticultural Society will be exhibiting live plant sculptures in conjunction with the show. Get out your clippers!

the sound of long island

Ran away camping and to the beach for a few days, which was wonderful and relaxing. There's always something to jar you out the peacefulness, however, whether it be another camper killing squirrels and birds with a bb gun in the campground (right there, in a state park!), fisherpeople hooking and killing fish, and leaving their hooks and line lying around to injure anyone else who comes by, or people removing rocks from the beach by the barrel full (are they selling them to Pier 1?).

Checking out the area yielded some charm, and we stumbled upon two of those old structures that are shaped like what they sell. The first was a duck, thankfully now selling trinkets instead of ducks and eggs, and the second, the more benign ear of corn. People on Long Island take their gardens seriously, and there were many, many beautiful outdoor spaces. There was the pleasure of living simply for a few days. And, of course, there was the never ending lulling of the beautiful ocean.

moving out

When working on my big, old, needy house and worrying about money, energy consumption, and the like, moving into the garage sounds better and better. I'm a longtime fan of tiny houses, and think I'd be perfectly happy living in someone's pool house with a composting toilet and a garden hose solar shower. Other people have taken it further. Read all about it at Shedworking.

chair distress

Is it just me, or can spilled chairs indicate emergency, desperation and resistance? The first image is Doris Salcedo's, the second is a detail of one of my prints.