Missing the Memo

Last night, I had dinner (on the porch in spite of the record-breaking heat here in the mystical MidAtlantic! Of course, we did have shade, the ceiling fan, and a bottle of icy grand cru from Arnould & Fils, recommended by my brilliant friend Stoat) with a beloved magical Sister. I asked her, "You'd tell me, right? Mercury didn't unexpectedly go retrograde and I just (in retrograde Mercury fashion) missed the memo?" Because it would explain a lot. (Blogger, you fickle, evil BitchGoddess, I am looking, inter alia, at you.)

And speaking of missing the memo, I'm not sure why I am just now finding out about the amazing sculpture of Fidelma Massey. If I'd known about her sooner, I'd have planned my garden around one of her sculptures. As it is, I'm going to have to sit down w/ Landscape Guy and see where we can work one in. There's a spot he's been pointing to along the Southern boundary for a few months and saying, "Something needs to go there. You need to figure out what."

And, in true if-Mercury-isn't-retrograde-who-is? fashion, I'm not sure where I first found Ms. Massey's work. I thought it was at Sally J. Smith's site, but now I can't find it there. (And I'd love, someday, to get Sally to build one of her fairy houses in my garden for G/Son, too. He's so fascinated w/ the fairy door on the big maple in my woodland). Whoever brought Ms. Massey to my attention, many thanks!

Which of her works do you like best?

Pictures: Google "Fidelma Massey" and click on "Images".

Creating Beauty

Did you create some beauty today? For my part, I put together an elegant legal argument and spent some time teaching young lawyers how to think and write about the law (which is as beautiful to me as the sand is to the artist above -- and almost as malleable a medium and certainly as susceptible to changing tides). And now I'm going to spend time knitting a sweater to keep G/Son warm next year. Tell me about the beauty you created.

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Update: I see that SoBeIt and I are reading from the same book today.

I'm In

Co-Creation with the Landbase Requires Deep Attention

Here's a great post by artist Sally J. Smith that shows what it's like to pay deep attention to your landbase. In a recent interview, Smith described how her art reached a turning point when she realized that she wanted to be out in nature, co-creating art with it, rather than inside a studio, making pictures of it. You can see in her post how this requires her to enter into relationship with her landbase, rather than simply live on it.

I don't know what it has been like where you live, but here it seemed winter would last forever. It was just last week that I was bundled up and huddled along the ice-bound shores of the lake waiting for the sun to rise. I still had the chance to make ice sculptures it was so cold here. The snow was deep in the woods, but it was crystallized and granular. The delicate flakes long gone, but now a coarse sugary texture. Difficult to make sculptures with as it does not stick together well. So this time of year is tricky in terms of making sculptures. But the sun is so strong now that the snows do melt, even if the temperatures can only rise to the low 40s which was all that could be managed last week. But the emerald green mosses are emerging and letting me know that soon, very soon it will be time to play with this exquisite green once more.

The combination of melting snow and icy nights makes for some fascinating sculptures to be found however! One day, while walking in a nearby field, I found these delicate polka dot creations creating an exquisite lace effect at the edge of the snow. The day was grey and the wind was cold, but the day before had been sunny. Just warm enough to create the droplets on the underside of the paper thin ice... which re-froze in the chill and still night air.

You should read the whole post for great discussions of her close connection to some local birds and the control that nature exercises over her work.

How deep is your attention to your landbase? How deep is your landbase's attention to you? Who's leading the dance?

Picture found here.

Garden Dreaming

Cairns

Synchronicity, You're Soaking In It

I love the artist's discussion of how her childhood spent in Nature influences her art.

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[H]ealing the broken bond between our young and nature—is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the [E]arth is at stake as well. How the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes—our daily lives.

~Richard Louv
More here.

Hat tip to Margaret Roach, in A Way to Garden.

Air

Art, especially sculpture, has always spoken so deeply to my Younger Self. And I've long been a huge fan of Andrew Goldsworthy's work. Lately, I've been getting a lot of inspiration for things in my own life from two artists whose works contain echoes of Goldsworthy. One is Patrick Dougherty. Here's a short video about how he creates interesting spaces from tree branches.



Dougherty has an exhibit at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden that I'm itching to go see; like most sculpture, his work doesn't translate all the way into two dimensions.

The sculpture at BBG is woven from nonnative woody material that was collected from Ocean Breeze Park on Staten Island. The harvesting site was chosen by BBG's director of Science because of its proximity to the Garden and its large population of nonnative willow (Salix atrocinerea), which is designated an invasive species in New York State. Removal of saplings of this species helped protect the site's excellent assemblage of herbaceous plants. The park is owned by the City of New York and is targeted for restoration under the City's PlaNYC sustainability initiative.

. . .

When asked about some of the words that came to mind as he contemplated what he wanted to build in Brooklyn, Dougherty smiled and said "lairs; a place for feral children and wayward adults."

Maybe I can borrow G/Son and we can go one weekend this Spring.

The second is Sally J. Smith who blogs here. I especially like how Smith's work honors the changing seasons. Here's a short video showing some of her works for this time of year:



And here's another, with ice sculptures for the coming Winter. I love the way that Smith intentionally incorporates the Sun and Moon (yes, the real ones! and she's not alone) into her work.



What inspires you right now?

Picture found here.

I May Have A Friend Or Two Who Loves Beautiful Shoes

Regular readers are well-aware of my periodic "Declutter!" declarations. (Speaking of which, here are some amazing and counter-intuitive suggestions. Hat tip: Christine Kane.) And since the beginning of 2010, I've been on an even more major "I'm not spending any money" campaign. The economy's crap and, sadly, the current administration shows zero understanding that it needs to actually stimulate the economy (hint: It's spelled W-P-A, not B-A-I-L-O-U-T-W-A-L-L-S-T-R-E-E-T). My current investment strategy is: horde cash and pay off the mortgage (which, at a bit above 4%, is way more than I can make anywhere else) in about triple time. And, a few years ago, I took a look at my shoe collection and realized that, other than a yearly new pair of walking shoes, and the occasional new flip flop (which is what I really live in, anyway, everywhere outside of work), I can probably live the rest of my life w/o buying any new shoes.

But I would pay good cash, tomorrow, on the barrel head, for these Tara hightops by Amanda Yoakum. Check out the soles!!!

Dear Ms. Yoakum, hie thee to Cafe Press or Zazzle or etsy.

Picture found here.

Religious OR Pagan?

The NYT has an interesting article about the impact on art viewers of security alarms that beep when people get too close to a work of art, in this case, the famous Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters in New York. (And these tapestries -- likely created by women -- are amazing; if you ever get a chance to see them, take it!) Fair enough, until you get to the article's description of the Unicorn Tapestries.

Each of the four tapestries depicts an episode in the story of a lone unicorn that is hunted in a forest and eventually killed — a visual narrative rich with religious, pagan or mythological imagery (depending on which scholar one asks). The ambiguity of the imagery, and the vivid details of the weaving — one tapestry shows the unicorn surrounded by a thousand little flowers — explain why visitors to that display want to get near it.

Religious or [small "p"] pagan? Really? Come on.

What the author means to say is that the symbols are seen by some as xian and by some as Pagan. Paganism has always been a form of religious expression, and was so when xians began adopting many of Paganism's symbols, holidays, and sacred sites as their own. Sad to see an otherwise intersting article marred by flat-out ignorance and prejudice.

I'm not even going to start in on calling other people's religions "myths."

Picture found here.

More Like This

Sometimes
- Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Sunday Feminism Blogging

Stone

All The Art There Is

Artemis

Rather pricey, but quite lovely.

A BRONZE sculpture of the Roman goddess Artemis fetched $US28.6 million ($A34 million) at auction, a world-record auction price for a sculpture of any period, Sotheby's said.

Artemis and the Stag, dating from the first century BC to AD100, was bought by London art dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi on behalf of "a European private collector", according to Sotheby's spokeswoman Lauren Gioia.

Picture found here.

Things That Make Me Smile

But America is a "xian nation" they keep telling us.

Picture found here.

Nothing Comic About It

So instead of Peter Parker it's Pavitr Prabhakar. Aunt May becomes Auntie Maya and Mary Jane Watson is Meera Jain.

Even better,

It's another Virgin Comics cover, this time spotlighting the story of the female divinity Devi, the Sanskrit word for goddess. Clad in skintight black leather from neck to boots, the contemporary version of the mother goddess has been transformed into a modern-day superhero. Only unlike Wonder Woman, Devi can also be seen (albeit in more modest attire) immortalized in a ninth-century sandstone sculpture in the adjoining Gallery of South Asian Sculpture.

"This would probably be on the outside wall of a temple in a niche. It's an icon that's worshipped, but it also depicts this climactic scene in the Devi Mahatnya, the origin story of the goddess, where she conquers the evil demon Mahisha, who takes the form of a buffalo. In a way, this is like the first comic-book story," Ms. Romain says, laughing.

More, here.

If you're anywhere near LA and care about Goddesses and/or comic books, this sounds like a great exhibit. I may try and swing by if I get out there on business.

Online collection here.

And, girls, getting into the act.

Picture found here.

Nicholas

Out And About

A number of Pagan artists will be participating in Artomatic in DC this weekend. If you can stand to go inside on a weekend like this, you should check it out. Look especially for Angela Raincatcher and According to Us - A Parabolic Musical - created by Pagan playwrights Charles Butler Neto and Rosanna Tufts, Saturday, June 10, at Artomatic, from 6-9:30 pm.


Image found at Angela's site.

My Favorite Artist