The Soft Dimension

Looking back at a drawing I did of myself here… it makes me look about twenty years younger than I am, about the same age as my students. The best age, around seven to ten years, before puberty when something remarkable and regrettable happens. Up to this point best friends are best friends – boy or girl – and there is an eagerness to learn about life that is completely intact. What happens? Having run the gamut of school experiences; public, private, and home schooling I sometimes contemplate how little it seemed school sought to help me discover the best version of myself. My private and public schooling experiences were much more about passing tests and proving competency in subjects, valuable skills in an orderly world. However, a long way down the road for making me an avid learner or impart the sense that I was building competencies towards a greater goal.

I often thought I liked learning in spite of much of what I was taught or how it was taught. I held tight to what I thought I had some say in, which sometimes meant I had to do it on my own. If it’s any comfort to examine mistakes it has at least encouraged me to want to go back to that age I liked so much and see if I could revisit it. Smile and high five the kids that rock it and sit with the quieter ones and hear about their interests. I teach part time because I like going back and finding myself again in the context of another age. It’s like time travel, but better, cause you don’t need the machine.

But if I were to experiment with sci-fi and a little time travel though… I’d like to see what school’s would be like for kids in twenty years. Will they still have physical education or art classes? (Certainly not these beautiful hand revised booklets I made…) What about the public and private school dialectic? I hear people talking about radical changes and they aren’t anything like what I would have wanted for myself as a kid. Who wants radical change as a kid anyway, just give me my mac-n-cheese the way I like it pleeease. It’s the little things that count. One of my most memorable times was actually sitting in the car on the way to school, listening to NPR, hearing my neighbor talking to his mom about politics or economics. This was that transition point between school, family, and life that felt the most vital – because of the friction – the small differences that set your mind to thinking. These types of conversations on the way to this or that – regardless of the school you belong to – are where it’s at.

calluna vu. 'robert chapman', spirea bum. 'gold mound', bronze fennel, delphinium 'guardian blue', existing lillies, perovskia 'little spire', daphne ordora 'marginata', calamagrostis ac. 'el durado', sedum 'autumn joy', agastache 'summer glow

So sorry… a few more seasonal pic me ups here… writing in late winter certainly requires imagination. I’m convinced garden magazines with their big glossy spreads are really best appreciated as a winter activity. After all the true pleasures of summer can only be compared adequately to the unique misery of its absence. In winter I imagine myself like an infantry man in trench coat smoking his rationed cigarette and looking at a favorite pin up. There is nothing so life affirming as imagining where you would rather be… Pay no head to my wheezing laugh, it is the picture of healthy. Besides… imagining where you’d rather be is part of how you get there. Sometimes the grass really is greener.

Yet, in the kaleidoscope of memory how do you keep track?

If enjoying the garden is the mathematical fine line you tread between your expectations and the difference in outcome what about the slippage the mistakes and the surprises? How do you account for them, can you even learn from them? What has been problematic for me over the past ten years of gardening is keeping track of all the changes. My dreams become faded by the present reality and I wonder how I actually got to the current design and the problems I presently face. Case in point this last year I decided to spend more time following my own footsteps in the garden. I had always kept track of the emerging new cultivars in a list of favorites. I also drew up an original plan for my clients gardens and usually took plenty of pictures of their seasonal color for myself some of which I share here on the blog. Still there was that undefined space between what I thought would work in a plan and then what actually occurs.

Sometimes these changes were a good thing, new combinations were discovered or a plant that I thought I loved slipped from memory into obscurity, was it wrong was it right? What exactly constituted my style, how could I employ it most favorably, and why had I made those choices? These are the ramblings of a designer but not entirely without merit for the beginning gardener. With all these lists of plants I had no actual comparison over time of how they changed the garden plan. And thus could not with real authority set about improving the process. The vague half life of memory was how I was making my choices, and although it seemed to serve me well I knew I could do better. So I have started to keep more regular maps of the gardens to record the subtle changes. A sort of objective counter point to the familiarity and appreciation one naturally acquires for a garden and its culture.

A chance to play the complicated role of the artist.

In the first image you see a painting I made of a neighbors garden and then below the photo I took after the gardens completion. Sometimes my drawings take on a more informal character rather than the typical birds eye view of a designer. Which style best suits a garden calender? Already you might notice some of the drawbacks of photo realism, it’s much more difficult to convey a complete idea. Sometimes I will make a panorama of photos and do an overlay of tissue for a quick accurate sketch of a planting. There are many angles of approach.

fennel, delphinium, lillies, astilbe

Recently I read somewhere that Kathryn Gustafson – an acclaimed landscape architect – often uses sculptural clay models for her garden designs to help fully realize the spacial relationships in her gardens. I know that working in clay helped me to learn the alphabet backwards when rout memorization proved tough (memorization was always a challenge for my brother and I, we had to create alternate models). And then I also remember hearing that Richard Haag got his commissions at Bloedel Reserve because of how he engaged his clients with markers, artist easels, and large gestures, as apposed to the scientific dilatantism that can come with architectural drafts. There has been talk lately of how the Gutenberg press changed Christianity simply by printing the bible for everyone to read. Yes I admit this is a streach, yet if participation of all the senses is proven significant then gardening would be no exception to this rule. It would follow that the garden which is meant to delight all our senses could be made more ‘real’ by a process that embraces all of us.

I’ve certainly been casting about trying to find what worked best for me, having experimented with ARC and other programs for mapping over the years. Every new generation of software and computers does make me wonder how it might change the horizons of gardening. Yet the key board model does limit the way the body connects with a program as does a flat screen. Gardens in contrast are often compared to rooms with multiple walls and everything in-between. The computer add that makes me want to get to work ironically is the one with break dancing and transformers as the base theme. If only the screens could fold like origami, had pockets for a stylus, or maybe project another dimension you could draw onto! But then again maybe I’ll just try playing with clay, it feels so good in the hands anyway. Besides the fact that it is earth, like a golem, is no small satisfaction.

This question of space and time represented takes us back around to the initial problem of recording change and creating a way of understanding what happens to a garden as it evolves. The other evening I was studying the stars and their constellations and wondering what it must have been like to reference the stars for what day or month it was. This sense that everything was related to where you stood on the earth could evoke nostalgia from someone encased in a cloak of gadgets, and yet this is where the market has driven us. A resource depleting model, yet a participatory one where we vote with extended hand waiving a paper dollar.

What are the new models?

I certainly never thought I would see films get taken the way of the cloud and yet there are examples. In fact I was watching some delicious BBC nature porn, (I’m sorry but you’ve got to call a spade a spade) and going completely gaga when they started talking about the people in the landscape. What this could do for conservation models is only a guess but one that kept me up when I couldn’t sleep that night. I for one have so many memories of what it was like living with the hill tribes in Thailand as a child that continue to give me a sense of freedom as an adult that I often wonder what it would be like for more people to be able to share in this type of experience. Of course believe it or not in the 80′s the only thing the tribes really wanted from my family was medicine for the chiefs daughter who’s skin had become infected with something that could only be treated with antibiotics. At that time the cost was high for an essentially migratory people – who had existed before the borders of China, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand rose up – that still traded with beads rather than coins. For this basic penicilin treatment they would had to leave all their traditions behind and set themselves on the path to become Thai citizens and urban dwellers. Dear Le Pastur certainly would have been surprised by the social and political implications of his science.

Back to the experiments at hand, hopefully this map making will help refine my creative process, that is only conjecture. If anything it will have been a test to see how savvy a gardener I was before I got started. When I think about garden history aesthetic changes are a fascinating thing.  I’m looking forward to seeing how a design model or two unfolds based on these explorations. I’d certainly love to check out some of Jekyll and Lutyens garden plans at the UC Berkley archives some time. When I think of any great designer like Jeckle or our own dear Olmstead, or any plantsman for that matter – today we might look to Chatto or Oudolf since we have no real American equivalent – you can see how important their plant bent early on was. There is something greater informing their choices than we might try to quantify or capture with discourse on design, yet I will say it looks a little like faith.

When appreciating the quality of a place we are often not alone. Walk a few steps and usually you will find some kind of shrine nearby. Nestled in some rocks, hidden in a tree trunk, off to the side of a waterfall. Maybe it’s a gathering of figurines, gems, flowers, a stash of little gifts that say to you, and this place here, you are treasured.  It says this place is hollowed, this place is sacred, observe and be reverent and you will be rewarded. I suppose we don’t need the treasures to tell us this, we already feel it, and yet we still feel inclined to make an offering. This might be the urge from which sculpture first arose, a karn on the side of the road marking a spot that in time becomes something much more. It seems a far cry from a Alexander Calder or a Noguchi which may occupy or even over take a spot, and yet they are of the same family. As a girl I remember tramping about the woods to come across shrines and being truthfully frightened. The forest felt deep even impenetrable and here were signs of life that seemed to exclude me if not purposefully at least practically. There was a very dangerous edge I could feel – not unlike like the edge of a knife – treading on somethings meaning. Even ordinarily gentle objects like a doll could take on a new character or disguise depending only on which side of the circle you stand.

Having built some of my own shrines now the black magic of such places seems to have lifted. I see a shrine like this and I know that someone else cares as much as I do about the spot. The old religions know something about who we are in this regard, you can see it and feel it in the high desert country of a place like Mexico or perhaps also in Nepal, where resting stops and shrines are near the path. There’s a language of walking in these places that accommodates a hand held out to touch a stone.  Taking note of the spot in your mind and body and then moving on. This orienting of self to place, of soul to place is more difficult in a car. We have to strive to be more like the machine than ourselves – keeping our eyes on the road – in order that it function smoothly. We make our language about ourselves also to be about our cars. And yet there is some disconnect, my body is more like a tree than a machine. The veins, the nervous system, the reproductive organs, the pollination… “Filling  up my tank” doesn’t quite convey all the subtle needs that are experienced when I sit and have lunch with friends. A car certainly doesn’t need a glass of wine, or does it? On a fine walk home I contemplate whether alcoholism might not have been singled out as an issue unless cars had entered the picture. They really have changed so many facets of our life in this way.

Therefore gardening today has a whole new set of problems than it did only a century ago. It is often the one opportunity in a hectic life of running to and fro to actually say and feel “I am here”.

Several years ago someone tempted me into going for a walk in Discovery Park and I eventually found myself drawn off the beaten path. An extensive park so close to the city it is surprising that you find areas that are quite uninhabited like this spot here. What was once the domiciles for army men and their families, the homes had long been removed and the cul-de-sac road slowly over grown. I fell for the spot immediately. There was a kind of echo of the past in the landscape that played upon the senses. Strangely you didn’t miss the houses entirely… the view was somehow more grand with the gentle nod to hedges and topiary, the wild seeding of achillea, dandelion, and long grasses, and the warm sun on the back. A sort of memory gone to seed… wild mixing with the cultivated hybrids of past gardens.

This park is a place with unexpected history. You find all sorts of buildings that suggest a past out of context in a lazy ramble about the hill side. You turn a corner and find a lighthouse on the beach swept up on a spit of sand, army barracks and a water tower as you crest the first of several hills in a row, or a small church hidden in the crease here between body and arm of earth on your way back down. Sometimes a walk through history is just what you didn’t know you needed. Just writing this makes me think it’s about time I make it over there again. I salivate a tiny bit at the thought. Do they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away? It should be a ramble… In fact “A RAMBLE A DAY” could be the prescription on a bottle of pills sans the pills, spelled out in caps – “TO BE TAKEN WITH MEALS” and kept in the bathroom as a choice reminder. Or maybe a picnic basket by the front door full of wine glasses, napkins, and a small piece of paper with the name of your favorite park written upon it in cursive.

Ah… to have a picnic basket packed and ready to go, if only! A walk of this sort requires provisions, no sense in not having all the delights of life there at you side. Short walks are good too, and little jaunts out and back between this or that – it’s just that this park is the size that begs for discovery and the time to do so. If you go a little deeper in you may find yourself ambling down the road to the United Indians Center as I did on my last visit. A little parcel of land with a big heart, that reminds me of what several dedicated activists can accomplish if their timing is right. Here you can see the path through the trees, native plants make themselves visible from the masses in pools of light, this one is medicinal, that one stings if picked clumsily, yet another over there is wonderful for flower arrangements. A park this size contains whole sweeps and transitions of ecological niches. Perhaps it is also special because it has large areas that are still open to sunlight where perennials and flowering shrubs can add color to our pallet. “Take only pictures’ leave only footprints” comes to mind as I want to reach out and pick. And yet it seems that there might be some middle ground here where stewardship and economy could hold hands. I ponder the huge blackberry canes – with no great self interest – at the very least they could use a nip by some unnamed avid pie baker.

So an already colorful history almost begs for new levels of expression upon the landscape… Opps! A painting by Delauney, how impertinent of me. Orphist or Cubist?. It does defy catagorization. I’m charmed by it’s eccentric personality.

And look at these funny body pillows on of the land… You could almost curl up in one of their dreamy smiles. When I got back again last year to the cul-de-sac of wild flowers it had been re-landscaped in a vision of the sustainable. All the roads and most of the topiary had been removed. Wrapped swales like these made of jute and hay had been placed to slow erosion on slopes. Sun shy little cedars were turning golden in the wide open. As you can see below only one or two of the original trees was remaining. Not that this bothered me or anything… after I made several turns around the property and murmured how “Wasn’t the landscape always changing?!” I’m sure I sounded oh so very sage… This little parcel that had become my ticket to memory lane was now finding its own story. Rather than being a memorial gently rendered in a sketch book of someones mind the place was now on its way somewhere. With time I’ve accepted that I am often more enchanted by possibilities than actualities, and yet in my favorite gardens this is not the case. In these one continues to be delighted by their many facets and angles of approach, they are sources of inspiration seemingly without any end.

Looking forward to spring already! It’s rare to need a pair of sunglasses like these, this time of year.

Also, not the time of year you would expect to do much flower arranging. And yet this is the time I find I wish for it most. I’m not as busy frolicking in the sun light and celebrating the bounty of summer at markets or on road trips to my favorite places in state. Rather I’m looking at what’s close around me, the small miracles of a quieter season.

These arrangements came together last spring and are a good example of some of the materials I will get to be working with soon. Hellebores towards the end of their bloom turn pink and scatter their seed, heather is tipped in red from the frost and cold, ajuga in plum and chocolate hues brighten and glow once set near a window.

It’s good to have a few unfinished projects like these pictures here to go back to and clean up. Living the four seasons means that you can always revisit and refine it.

For several years now I’ve been meditating on a number of fashion photos from Vogue. First off look at the hair on this model! Only love and a genius at the trade can get it that big! I keep trying to tone down my hair but it gets whipped around by unexpected weather! Another reason global warming is a bad idea.

Perhaps it’s time for a make over. New years wish, find me a good stylist so I get to look like the woman I imagine myself to be.

It’s no big confession I’ve been contemplating this for a long time. I actually have a book of fashion clippings…this is not some evolved form of paper dolls exactly its more like doodling in the high school year book and drawing on top of what I need to change to fit my particular reality, yearnings, and preoccupations. I’m a gardener to the bone, obviously, and this has presented itself as a problem. I seem to want a little digging in the dirt, pruning plants, or moving materials sandwiched between getting coffee with friends, volunteering at the conservatory, or having a meeting with clients. The wardrobe necessary for all this doesn’t really exist. Our city does do the casual thing, say wearing a fleece or a Patagonia jacket and jeans to an art opening, a sort of cool zen shorthand for a way of life in the northwest. Yet in my version of living, where I support the arts, my business, and non governmental organizations dressing down doesn’t speak to the kind of effort I like to make. For me creative moments are everywhere – our world is tumbling and twittering with new ways of seeing and doing and yet I find inspiration for how to dress much farther back… Ironically the country gentleman has become my style icon, durable pieces that can be dressed up with earrings and a necklace at the last minute. It must have started at the Gentlemen’s Consignment years ago when I first chose items for my brother and quickly figured out that I couldn’t beat the prices for a size small cashmere sweater anywhere.

Shoes of course become the biggest issue, even if I found something I liked, men’s feet were usually bigger. And I can hardly toter around in heals while working, let’s be real. In nearly 20 years of shopping the shoe was always an issue. The best is maybe a Blundstone but the support isn’t great. Clogs slip on and off easily but are difficult on uneven ground. I just returned two pairs of well crafted men’s work shoes to an department store because no matter how many pairs of socks I piled on I still slipped around inside… and I’d bought the smallest size they carried! What’s a girl to do? One of my favorite actresses said that when developing her character the first thing she always imagines are the shoes, the rest follows. So… certainly we can look attractive while doing what we enjoy, no? Winston Churchhill’s mother broke her ankle while descending some stairs in heels, and died of gangrene, no thank you.  I think Coco Chanel understood the conundrum facing women at the time. She wanted the good life and wasn’t born into it so she fashioned it for herself. I think of her whenever I’m at the thrift store choosing items. She started her carrier in fashion by cutting and snipping her boy friends clothes. Later on she even created new fabrics based on knits from men’s underwear that helped define a work suit for women that was flattering and comfortable. Imagine our world without the womens’ suit? Now take a deep breath…

Feeling better, okay, check out those pants above.

Notice the three little button’s at the ankle, helping to secure volumes of comfort above. (Necessary accessory for these pants: magic carpet.) The problem with skinny jeans is they don’t always fit the whole woman.  I’ve decided a pair of these, and a warm skirt are a feminine necessity. The problem with most skirts is that they aren’t warm.  I recently accidentally felted a long pleated cream wool skirt while dying it blue. Later I cut out some of the fabric, stretched the pleats out and now it’s a wonderfully warm short blue skirt. I find myself wanting to wear it all the time, when other skirts have sat untouched for years. You’d think I’d found the key to the Rosetta Stone or something, I’m that excited! Keeping the feet covered and warm is of equal importance. I’m glad shearling lined boots are spreading far and wide, like a women’s right to vote, (the world is a better place if women aren’t practically barefoot) but UGGs are made in Australia… and those things are not rain boots. To think that in such civilized places as Switzerland the womens vote wasn’t gotten until 1983, I digress maybe, but I shouldn’t be so surprised about the shoe thing.

My ideal winter boot would probably be something sleek like a Hunter boot and lined and accessible like something by Sorel, waterproof on bottom and leather on top. Multi-colored and easy to clean. In the mean time the tennis shoe with the slightly raised heal is always what I revert to for comfort, stick that into the soul and I’d be off and running. Now what in gods name does any of this have to do with pictures of persian sets designs? The French are one of many cultures to have had a long romance with this style of architecture. And it’s on a stage like this I can almost imagine the author Isabelle Eberhardt walking by with a book in hand. Born Swiss, a country that speaks at least three languages in as many regions, Miss Eberhardt seemed to transition easily when her family relocated to the Mediterranean near Istanbul. Once there her own fashion sense started to transform according to what allowed her the most freedom as she moved about often alone on the streets. Later separated from her family she traveled the landscapes of North Africa fully dressed in the flowing robes traditional to men of the region.

Taking a mans name she assumed the life she had always dreamed of for herself, eventually even finding a loving companion despite her disguise. She wrote some works that are haunting in how contemporary they feel. I have to remind myself that she was writing at a time when women still didn’t have their own bank accounts, names, legal recourse, or vote. Odd clothing choices or not, this pails in light of the freedom of thought she created for herself making her style quietly seductive to many women besides myself… I may have tamer aspirations as a gardener, after all I’m only trying to navigate between the urban and the wild, but I’d still like a great pair of shoes…  Need I repeat the cliche? ” These shoes are… !”

Imagine yourself cupcake in hand, a little Hong Kong Garden playing in the background as if you’re a princess casting about in her palace. Since it’s pouring outside… what will you wear?

It’s hard to believe this garden is so young, a little over two years. I attribute it to the twenty yards of soil and mulch that we laid on top of the preexisting lawn. The planting had no trouble getting its roots established. You can see the initial plan for the garden above. The exiting patio on the left and the outline of the house frame a space that was sunk into a deep rockery and tall fence. Rather than let this shape define the garden I created hills to rise above the stone work and carefully placed trees to soften and frame the garden.

Now the morning view from the breakfast nook is not a lawn, rockery, and fence. Rather you see a elevated display of perrennials, and multiple levels of trees that smoothly combine the once boxy elements. The landscape rises up around you at times hiding a destination by displaying something, then leading the eye to search for a resting place. You find yourself drawn to a spot under a tree arching from a small hillock built to help you enjoy its fall color to best advantage, like stained glass against the sky. Down near your fingers… blueberries and edibles adorn the path to make the walk fruitful, and each new view as you turn suggests a new angle on life. Having easy access to the garage, the main purpose of the path, becomes forgettable after all the delights that are found on the daily visits to the garden.

Even with a well thought out plan there are always seasonal changes to keep us fit and active in the garden and make these living-rooms really come alive. Above you can see some of the editing I do visually, a grass needs to be moved that looks too hairy cascading down a rockery in back and replaced with a oakleaf hydrangea, an opening between two grasses on the side needs an annual to fill the blank spot temporarily, and the sedums that were planted along the path have grown enough to be split up and divided again throughout the garden.

While busy here and there in the garden doing maintenance this is when I contemplate if there is enough seasonal interest. I stop for a moment to consider the shape of a tree, if it will need winter pruning. While at the same moment I admire the arch on the tops of the sedum autumn joy, and then remember a fantastic species of yarrow that I saw at the nursery who’s shape would fill in for the sedum that I don’t want to over use but want a match to in another bed. Gardening is full of these types of reminiscence, connections, and satisfactions difficult to enjoy as freely elsewhere in life.

Below you see I’ve taken a picture in late Spring of one of the perennial garden beds at the entrance to the garden. Spring in all it’s excitement! I can almost feel it. Everything is new and either a little pert and small or droopy from rain. The sedum in the bottom right corner has not yet started to open up its buds, hiding under pink eye lids. The ferns in the distance are standing upright with their new orange fiddle heads and fronds adding a musical note. The scented lavender is in full bloom, as are the lupines off in the distant ‘blue room’ against the stone wall. On the left in the foreground the fennel is covered in drops of water mirroring many minute worlds. Even a small picture like this one tempts me now to wash my face with it’s dew.

By mid summer the buds on the sedum have begun to bloom and open their white hearts, the ferns have lost their orange and the fronds have fallen more to reveal a yellow cross hatch or lattice pattern throughout the garden. The heather flanking the path has put on new growth and filled out, the lavender has deepened its blue, and the grasses in the upper right corner have turned more yellow and gold. Then light pink yarrow and yellow cone flowers were added to reflect the shape of the sedum in the foreground and add seasonal color.

By fall you can see the russet tones of the sedum and the agastashe is in full bloom almost raspberry colored with minty silver green leaves in the upper right corner. The heather is turning more orange with the heat before it blooms late as an autumn surprise.  The grasses that I wait all summer for thinking always they will arrive earlier have finally sent their soft seed heads up. In this picture you can see the fennel is also ripe with seed branches droop with their bounty, almost touching the ground, but not quite.

The tone of the garden continues to change from season to season! The same plants take on new disguises. But this isn’t only a seasonal phenomena. As you walk past the rise in terrain a planting you saw one way now looks another. I’ve added two pictures below of a bird feeder as the focal point. Here at the entrance to the garden in summer the white hydrangea and pink and purple sedums predominate, you don’t even notice the fennel off to the right.

But if you turn to look again once you’ve gone further along the path the hydrangea recedes in the distance and creates a bright foundation from which the fennel can echo it’s shape with yellow umbel forming flowers. Effects like these depend heavily on the angle of the light dictated by the time of day and seasons. So when planning a garden I always leave room for these sort of spontaneous associations, that you can continue to layer with each new observation and visit you make.

Now that I feel that the garden is satisfactory. I’ve started to think about artistic embellishments… And have made a new plan for the garden that includes all the changes that have been made. The revision is mostly for myself but if I see anything interesting I’ll be sure to share it, like these pictures, they are a key to being able to remember where the garden needed to evolve. Marty and I have been chatting actually about how to incorporate some of his work in the garden.

At first I wanted to do some kind of trade, since I wanted to have him make a vase that reminded me of the garden. I brought some books to share about Ikebana or Japanese flower arranging, and we settled on a boat form that is typical in the Chabana style. Usually these vases are like a macrame hanging planter, but I suggested that it have an additional piece that it could rest on. Like the arc on the mountain, so that it has a transformational quality.

This of course has gotten me wanting to make more art myself… And ideas that have been sitting are beginning to stir. This is always when there is time and an inclination for creation, fall. Of late I’ve been reminiscing on my visit to Spain several years ago and wishing I could follow a path there that I did not take. That whole region around the Mediterranean is reminiscent of the Northwest with all our water ways and cultural connections. The trade of the best ideas breaking things down and like stones in a mixer smoothing them to perfection.

Here’s a little something I did to experiment with the garden so as to break free of how I usual see it. Typically I can get a little precious about the plantings being natural and unpretentious but lately I’ve started to feel hemmed in by how perfect that had become. I’ve been hungrily waiting for this cross roads for what feels like longer than a lifetime. Without making too much of that, I’d say I’m looking forward to making some time for art over the winter.

Every museum has something to say to its collection. Imagine Santiago Calatrava’s Quadracci Pavilion and Reiman Bridge in Milwakee, WI with it’s high wires, wings, and wind swept contours housing the Gee’s bend collection. Years ago this is, yet completely unforgettable.

As if walking among the quilts and bed things of Gee’s bend you felt the museum it’s self was a huge clothes line. The weather and elements of the bay pouring through the windows and sweeping up the sentiments of an artistic community… Gee’s Bend, one of the most impoverished towns in America, creating some of the most jazzy, heart felt, and visceral art that you wanted to literally wrap yourself up in.

These quilts created during a period of history (1962-2006) when ferry’s were ended between the isolated black town and the more affluent white town, of course, just as voting was opening up and being encouraged by activists in the government. No doctors or professors lived in the bend, it was home to sharecroppers just a generation from living on the plantation down the road. Thus you feel the jazz radiating off of the mix of African and European that swirls together creating the quilts.

Calatrava who with swiss precision and a spanish flare for feeling often creates structures that will take you somewhere. And this exhibition was a perfect match. A structure burning for light feeds the flames. These echoes of design licking the edge of understanding.

Seattle Sculpture Garden, Beverly Pepper, Pierre's Ventaglio

Cubism rushed onto the scene through the door way of the conversations and paintings developed between two friends… Picasso and Braque. Since I was young I often day dreamed about having friends that I would create private worlds with. Art always had my heart and I’d imagine myself older, living in Pioneer Square near the Foster and White Gallery or walking past what was a landscape design firm at the time, and later became a satellite for Microsoft’s old creative teams, right near the Zeitgeist cafe. Let us not forget these are the dreams of the young that don’t have words for what they know.

Degas squared

Of course I didn’t study art, it was always my lover, I played the scientist in school. But I do remember in one of my art classes we were asked to take a painting we liked and transform it into something cubist. I remember holing myself up in the stacks in the art history library for days and discovering this one painting by Degas that I kept coming back to and sketching… and enjoyed so much I wanted to recreate it anew.

Looking at it now it reminds me of some of the earliest cubist painting where the plains haven’t separated and taken flight on the page, and the composition still feels whole and grounded. I think my teacher was maybe a little disappointed I didn’t take the exercise further, she at least didn’t say much, yet to me I felt like I was inhabiting the subject, the artist, and the observer. I could talk about it for hours it was such a fulfilling experience.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

It’s a fantastic exercise really, to crawl inside another artist and try their style on, or re-imagine it. Eventually I gave it to my mother, explaining to her that it wasn’t an original, that it was based on a Degas I’d found. She was really listening to me intently… It was one of those moment you never forget when she said she knew the original he had done. Wait… really? It had in fact been one of her mothers favorite drawings.

Art work surrounds us everywhere and yet to think out of it all I could have known, loved, and revered, the same work as the grandmother I’d never met, this opened my mind to whole new understandings and possibilities. This was also the first piece of mine my mother had framed, and when I helped her decorate her new place a few years ago I suggested that she turn her extra room into a library… then we hung the painting right next to her reading chair.