The Contractor

“You will have only one story. You’ll write your one story many ways.”

The twisty round about way I came to that quote from a character in Elizabeth Strout’s novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, was by catching on to it in a thread of conversation which Mary Chapin Carpenter was having with poet Sarah Kay in a podcast, One Story, where they had an in depth discussion of her album, The Dirt and The Stars.

There’s a basket full of accreditation in that last paragraph and I’m sure to have left out some of the weft, alas one’s weaving gets lacier after 65. I now know. But hearing MCC say those words in her smokey weathered road warrior timbre and in relation to the decades long trail of her song writing career…well… it clanged my bell.

Upon hearing that… that kernel of wisdom that we all have only one story…the totality of my own compositions snapped sharply into a perfectly ordered row.

I’ve only been telling the same story
my one story
in every painting
all along the way.

I’ve reflected recently in these blog posts about the paintings and even the Painter’s Notes as being breadcrumbs. Notes left in the margins which I suppose could be used to follow my way back tracing milestones to find what…the origin? I appreciate knowing the trail is well lit and documented but right this second I’m not really interested in going back there thank you. It feels much more important now to think about what I’m picking up from where and who I’ve been and choosing what is worth tossing into that basket nestled on my aging shoulders moving forward.

Seeing those breadcrumbs collectively as my “One Story” helps me make sense of the feedback that has come from patrons and viewers along the way who tell me they felt a personal connection to the paintings. Because when it comes down to it, it is really “Our One Story” isn’t it.

To draw upon another overheard podcast conversation I listened to this week, Joni Mitchell told an interviewer that (years ago and I paraphrase) I never wanted people to see me in my songs. If they see themselves then I’ve done the thing I set out to do…or words to that affect.

I certainly didn’t start out all those decades ago to tell anybody anything. Still not my thing. But like all lovers of mysteries, I enjoy connecting up a row of dots. And I have learned above all to listen to the Muses. They seem to have been throwing the voices of coveted musicians and story tellers in my path of late. It has lead to some wonderfully nostalgic evenings in the cavernous studio where sounds and whispers love to climb into the moonlight filled vault and dance.

Stopping here for a bit of reflection, I’m gathering those newly connected dots and I’m folding them all in origami fashion along crisp clean lines into a tiny paper crane. Light of weight and simple of beauty it will fit nicely into my basket. Leaving room for new paintings of old stories going forward and the promise of grace in the spaces in between.

In that context dear readers…here is the very next painting to be put into our basket…

The Contractor – 33 x 24

Sitting in the new studio loft
with Paul Winters’ joyful clarinet
dancing in the rafters
and Maggie asleep in the sun…

I am writing these notes
roughly a year after coming upon this tool belt…

It makes my heart soar
to remember back to that time last year
when a tired but smiling Dan and Skippy
were closing the latch at the back gate
after a week of celebrating the first walls going up.


I had turned to unclip Maggie’s harness
and she was free to make her daily inspection.

Each afternoon she would roam the construction site
and find one piece of wood
which, when properly gnawed,
became that nights’ symbol of a job well done.

I had followed her to step for the first time
“into” my new studio
only to once again step aside
as the Muses broke loose
and flooded the scene with their favorite light.

Dan had set up a new work table
to lay out the plans which had been folded and refolded
and sat upon and mulled over
a thousand times already
as each new stick of wood went in
and each new tradesman looked for direction.

But for the first time
with the walls up
and a roof on
it was safe to leave the loose sheets open
with his trusty toolbelt to keep the summer winds at bay.

With the windows and doors yet to go in
and just outside
the Ruth Stout garden fallow for the season
only the wren’s song was in the air
to remind us of harvests to come.

Today it is in a full blossomed mess of glory
with potatoes under that blanket of hay
dozens of tomatoes finally ripening
one or two last peas hanging on for Maggie

and this artist’s heart is wild with delight
to realize that this glorious new studio was built
right in the middle of her garden.

My most favorite part of this painting
was Dan’s reaction when I first showed it to him
“Hey, that’s really my handwriting !”
Yes it is Dan,
you have left your mark all over this magnificent building
…and our hearts.

And Skippy,
the coffee stain is for you.


Last of the Season

Last of the Season  –  12 x 18  Available at Gallery 1261 in Denver

I have a few NEW PAINTINGS to begin posting…the one above has headed out to Gallery 1261 in Denver.

But it reminded me of today since I spent the morning making an addition to the Ruth Stout bed.

It is mostly Matt’s fault because he keeps texting me about how well his “undercover” veg are doing and because he is my go to garden buddy. It’s so nice to throw ideas and new gurus back and forth and he is a witty soul who takes his garden very seriously.

Here are the rapid fire pics of the process begun early this frosty morning…

A chance to finally use all the cardboard I have been saving for the entire year.

Even threw in the Quarantine Box…awe Finn

Then it was time to haul all the leaves I had corralled into a bin on the other side of the yard.

I filled the spaces in with the stash of Vineyard Gazettes…minus the crossword puzzles.
It was heart wrenching to track the Covid headlines as the island has joined the nation with the out of control surge heading into the winter. These aren’t in order but they give you an idea…

Herself arrived in time to lend a hand and it took two bales of hay to cover the new 11 x 14 foot annex. The Ruth Stout bed now boast 960 sq feet of gardening space.

So, as I feature the “Last of the Season” it feels good to be laying the foundation for the season yet to come. May we all stay safe and healthy to be here to enjoy it.

Mask UP people and I mean it.

Postcards from the Ledge – 8

These are the Glory sisters.
They greeted me fully open to this stellar morning…even though I was later than usual.

New Rules…

1 – We can only watch two episodes of any given series at night.
I can’t expect to get any painting OR gardening done if the first number my eyes see in the morning starts with a 9.

2 – I can work in the garden with absolutely no guilt, rationalities or apologies of any kind all morning.

3 – IF I agree to stop at noon.

4 – Where upon I will eat breakfast AND lunch in one meal.

5 – All other work, including blog posts, bill paying, business stuff, and random google searching will be ceased at 1pm.

6 – Where upon I will show up at the easel and begin to paint.

7 – Only two pieces of Easter Chocolate per day…Until Easter…writes the Atheist.

8 – I will put down the brushes by sunset…currently around 8pm.

9 – Going forward I will use only two olives in my Quarantini…s.

10 – This year I will break all records for time spent in the sky chair.

It is now 2:29.
So the rest of this blog post will be a dump of photos showing progress on Rule # 2…

Yesterday was potting up day…
The Dill got new digs…

I am figuring out a recipe for my own potting soil since this is the year of stay at home ingenuity…some sieving required…

A prescription for heartburn pills makes for the perfect tamper downer when seeding flats…

Teeeeeeny seeds…wedding ring for scale…

This morning’s glorious sunshine was perfect to plant parsnips…

Ruth welcomes all seeds…so the last two feet of this parsnip run will have carrots, those white dots are pelleted seeds, Ruth preferred scattering over rows and it was much easier to try that here. The ground was rich dark brown and amazingly…in this the wettest part of the yard…and after a torrential storm in the middle of the night…was well drained and easy to work. I did add a thin layer of peat moss to help keep the seeds under some cover, then added a thin fleece over that to keep the light peat from blowing away, and the netted tunnel over that to keep critters out.

On the other end of the RS garden I’ve got the squash tunnel set up.

Last year, you may remember the loofah insanity, lots of leafy growth, some late hanging fruit, a total of exactly one three inch loofah… was harvested and that was by accident when I found it walking around the yard in January. 

Yeah…she’s adorable.

And I was able to move two more straw bales to complete the entry gate…The bales will have flowers planted in them for the pollinators.

And now it is 2:54…

One of the changes in our lives with this stay at home deal is that we, who do not have a washing machine, are doing our laundry in the sink. The drying part is no problem because we have an umbrella line in the studio yard.

I noticed this morning that my new method of brush wiping…when using the tiny brushes they tend to hold more of the turpentine in the ferrule when I wash them out…which I do more often than usual when rigging boats…hint as to current subject matter…the ferrule is the silver part of the brush pictured below and the paper towels rest on my knee to wipe that excess off.

So this is how I noticed what I noticed…

I guess that my right elbow is resting on…all that excess wet paint.

My uniform wears her battle scars well don’t ya think?

So of course…today’s painting is…

Bringing in the Sheets – 2014

I know people,
ok, two people,who hang their laundry out all year long.
My laundress is not a fan of this.

In our next house there will be a washer and dryer.
I have promised.

For now, and for the last quarter of a decade,
that weekly chore has been done up to town,
next to the local pizza joint.

Herself is on a therapists basis with the owner,
and most of her best stories have originated
between the spin cycles.
The characters join her there,
making entrances and exits
worthy of the bard Himself,
with the odd parrot  or two
on the shoulders of the jester stage left.

So, when it came time to pose for this painting,I actually had to search the studio for the clothespin.
It’s Ted’s, and that elegant swan shaped clip at the end
is the perfect balance of classic style and Yankee ingenuity…
just like Ted.

I hung the line at sunrise,
between the greenhouse and the grape arbor
and waited.
The first rays of sunlight caught the top of the sheet
and I quickly called Pat over from the cabin to pose.
In the initial sketches, done a few weeks before,
the shirt was to be white,
so I figured I could fake that part or pose her again later.

We played around with the angles and then I sketched
and took some photos and went inside to work.
When she called to let me know that Herself was headed up to the laundromat
I walked outside to stretch my legs and whammo…
a whole new light was cascading across that sheet.
I made her run back and,
in very short order,
I had what would become the final composition.

You can see that the white shirt,
which was still crumpled in the unwashed laundry bag,
when the light changed for the better,
stayed hidden there…
and the striped shirt of the laundress
which seemed to echo the uniforms
of those hard scrubbing for-bearers…
remained.

I believe fundamentally
in paying homage
to the women
upon whose shoulders we rise
and to the makers
of clothespins.

Postcards from the Ledge – 6

The last few days have been grim.
The siren calls from hospital workers,
the mounting numbers of casualties,
the criminally incompetent leadership from the oval office,
the crippling anxiety that washes over us…
wave after unrelenting wave.

The last few days have been sparkling.
The return of the indigo bunting outside my window,
flats of winter seedlings getting their first feel of wind,
Finnegan laying peacefully in the sunshine,
lazy conversations over the morning kitchen table with my love,
and the glorious unrelenting waves…
of that brilliant new green.

While I admit to finding myself frozen in my easel chair,
not able to summon the creative energy to pick up even the tiniest of brushes,
I am showing up every day.
I know the Muses are here and I’m listening,
but it sounds like static now…loudly buzzing and confusing.

And what I know about that
is to get up outta that chair and go outside.

The glorious gift of having Herself by our sides
during these stay at home days
means Finn and I are at our happiest in our happy place…
wallowing in the brightening colors of the studio garden…

My organizer using her superpower…

Anyone who needs or wants some of this plastic just holler…

While she sorted…I planted…

Two rows of peas planted in Ruth…which is a bit spicy to read back…

And…at the end of that glorious day…a bit of well earned sky chair rest…

So today’s painting will be a very early work which honors another of my love’s superpowers…

The Folder – 2000

This is quite simply inspired by my friend Rex. He is a poet. Our histories have walked side by side for over forty years. Our paths have criss-crossed over most of them. Our souls have always been as one.

And it is for Pat, my folder.

The Folder

Folded things speak well of you
when you’re out of the room.
They hold the near future captive,
like children about to go on recess
or sexual pleasure at the brim of control.
I think of the pressure of your hand
smoothing over the cloth napkin,
the bedsheet, the piece of clothing
that signals the meal to come,
the lovemaking, the spent day —
and how you stack the bath towels
as high as they’ll go, as a driver
well keep the fuel tank near full
during times of shortage. I step out
of the shower looking to the center
of my life, where you have folded it.
Creases will have nothing to do
with edges: It’s no accident
that ledges are ledges and valleys,
so far removed from any real
horizon, where people most often
choose to put down roots and grow.
I like to imagine that God, who,
faced with formlessness, folded
the world into manageable corners,
sent me you to repeat the gesture.
Rex Wilder

Postcards from the Ledge -2

The apprentice patiently awaits our next delivery…

I’m a bit behind.
Been putting out insurance fires,
medication issues,
juggling tax documents,
cooking perishables,
and monitoring the stock market.

No, are you kidding
I don’t know squat about the stock market
but apparently I like to watch disasters in the making
or the ticking
I actually gave over dozens of minutes of my precious life
to watching those numbers bounce around in free fall this week.

Mesmerizing, I was interested to learn about the internal brake thing
which automatically stops trading. That stopped my heart when it happened in real time.
And, because we have a tiny little bit of our savings tied up in those numbers some how…

I quickly took the advice of experts…
and snapped right on out of that window.

And went outside.
The distractions and emergency shut downs that have shaken our worlds
have also put me a bit behind in the gardening department.

I keep a running journal to help me remember what to plant and when.
Last year I dug deep, as it were, and invested, with Kory’s help, in building new beds and starting my Ruth Stout Garden, and now I have a journal full of useful information to be going on with.

As we saw in the first ledge post, there was good news to report about the soil under all that hay. Some pics from last season show how I used boxes filled with compost to provide some fertile growing medium while the ground beneath, which had been lawn, was slowly being converted, by the creatures within, to something more conducive to garden ready soil.

Made me happy in this lock downed moment to see all that green again…

At the end of the season we raked all of the remaining organic matter flatish, and made a footpath of wood chips then covered it all with a fresh foot or so of hay.

Where we had compost, roughly chopped up plant material and cardboard…the soil is now beautifully decomposed. There was one area in the back where I only had hay on top of last year’s soil and that is still anaerobic, sticky mud. We’ll see if the potatoes object because I planted some of them in that muck.

Yesterday Herself and Finn and myself enjoyed the ridiculously hot weather…76 degrees…and planted the Greens Bed.

This is what remained from the winter under cover. Beets in the back are probably not going to form but I’ll give them another week. Carrots are in great shape. Spinach which I’ve been enjoying all winter looks better after a heavy cleaning but I’ve got new seeds starting in other beds so this batch, which is very leggy, may be retired.

With 6 typed of lettuce seeds planted and some radishes as well, the whole thing got a blanket thrown over it.

Because…squirrels.

They are just fine as painting models… but seem to be unsatisfied with the sunflower seeds I have been providing them all winter. They found the pea seeds which we had planted on St. Pat’s day and ripped that bed up. So…I threw more seeds in and put up the dreaded tunnel.

Hopefully they will get the message.

In October I noticed they were spending some time in the herb bed. I thought it was to bury nuts but no, they were eating the Chard. Since I had planted that for winter harvest I decided to cover it over. The plants didn’t produce much so I lifted the fleece and let the sun rain down.

The squirrels rejoiced and this is what is left. Eh, it’s time to start new plants anyway.

In that same bed, on the farside, is a magnificent crop of Cress.

It grew uncovered all through our mild winter-that-wasn’t and now it’s feisty and fiery flavor of pepper and spice is a brilliant addition to every dish. Somewhere I read it is one of the most densely vitamin and mineral rich plants. Double the benefits. This is a land cress variety which likes shade. It loves hanging out behind the grape arbor. I’ve got extra seeds if anyone wants to try some.

And so far, the squirrels don’t seem to have cottoned on to this delicacy.

Later on today we will start another flat of the seeds I need to catch up on and some of the hot weather lovers like tomatoes and peppers.

But as for my day job.

Making Art…

I guess it is appropriate to pay homage to some of my more squirrely Muses…

Stay frosty out there everyone…and be kind.

Squirreled Away – 2016

Last year it was the Cardinal,
His Holiness Wolsey
the basher of windows.

This winter,
it was Sir Squirrel,
the chomper of walnuts.

He who kept me company,
through the snowy storms,
perched on the air-conditioning unit,
just outside my easel window,
flaunting his propitious,
hoarding prowess,
and watching.

We watched each other actually.
Watched out for each other may be more accurate.

When we got that Nor’easter,
which dumped 4 feet of fresh snow,
on the already whitened studio yard,
it took me three days to dig out a path
for Finnegan to get to her privy.

I noticed that Sir Sq. had been a no show
and made a wee annex to Finn’s run
from the arbor vitae to his window perch.

The mere work of a teaspoon,
but it sufficed for him to re-surface
and check back in
to make sure I was ok,
and able to lift those tiny brushes
after all that shoveling.

Sitting there,
sporting new pairs
of both snow shoes
and sunglasses,
and chewing
on a particularly prodigious nut,
he must have noticed
I was looking ever so slightly famished, because,
after devouring a full three quarters thereof,
he reached out to offer me a nibble…

See,
that’s what I’m talking about…

it takes a village.

AND…

A Little Night Knitting – 2018

On those long winter nights
alone on an island
pining for her captain

the rhythmic click click clicking
of the long metal needles is heard

as they catch the moon beams
dancing over waves

that somewhere
oceans away

have lapped along the starboard side
of a weathered wooden ship.

As she knits
and purls
and knits
and purls

the tips of those needles
wave a tiny patter of light

a private message
in a language of their own
sweet and sacred semaphore.

The big hay day

Well dear readers…

Today was the day.
After a couple read throughs of her books,


and heading down a few you tube rabbit holes…
and waiting for the weather to thaw…

Today Kory and I created our very own Ruth Stout garden bed.

Complete with a Ruth Stout memorial archway…

With the ground thoroughly frozen at the start of the day,
and mother nature shining a record breaking 65 degrees down upon us by mid-afternoon,
everyone was in high spirits to be spending a February day in t-shirts.

I laid out some cardboard and newspaper to define a border
and the stories in the Vineyard Gazette will be whispering to vegetables for years to come.

 

Let the deliveries begin…

After an early morning spent bearing witness for an immigration trial at the jail, my human rights hero, joined us to help supervise…

And one of the best parts of the day was watching how much fun Finn had playing in the hay. I didn’t get a good picture but she had such a big smile on her face…as if this fluffy soft bed was just a big gift for her.

 

Early on Kory could see that the ground was thawing rapidly so he made a lovely path…

By lunchtime we had almost two thirds completed.

Ruth recommended a good 8″ of mulch. She used spoiled hay because it was cheap since the farmers couldn’t feed it to their animals. After trying to find a ready source of that around here I decided, as you will recall from my last post, to use the regular bales available at our local supplier…thank you again Homer.

This chronicle is not meant as a how-to, interested gardeners will get much more pleasure out of reading Ruth’s own words of wisdom. I CAN report that there has already been much eyebrow raising, and not a little “mansplaining” from those who have heard of my plan.

Ruth had much to say about that…

“Naturally the neighboring farmers at first laughed at me; for a few years they doted on stopping in in the spring to ask if I didn’t want some plowing done. But, little by little, they were impressed by my results, and when they finally had to admit that the constantly rotting mulch of leaves and hay was marvelously enriching my soil, they didn’t tease me anymore. On the contrary, they would stop by to “have one more look” before finally deciding to give up plowing and spading and to mulch their own gardens.”

Originally I had planned to use straw bales as a border, which would provide some structure to run wire rabbit fencing all the way around and then available, directly upon disintegrating, to be tossed onto the mulching bed.

But we had much more hay than we needed to start out with so Kory used hay bales along the back edge and Him and Herself fetched another couple truckloads of straw to line the other sides. The straw is cheaper and won’t break down as fast as the hay, but all of it, as I repeat myself, will eventually be tossed onto the bed to provide the continuous mulching required to build the soil.

Fun fact…In the past years, when I was experimenting with strawbale gardening, it was quickly discovered that a fully grown studio rabbit is just the right height to reach up and nibble the tenders growing at the top of a bale.
A bit of wire fencing was enough to decide them that there were other delicacies requiring much less work elsewhere in my yard…and several of them have been quite happy enough with that arrangement to pose for me in between noshes…

Ahem…

Some tossing techniques…

It was simply a glorious day to be outside making those January dreams come alive..

Even though our entire yard is on a sloping angle, this section of the studio yard is full of underground springs and is a devil to mow because it’s a swamp on all but the driest days. One of the benefits of this mulching method is that there should no watering needed. Ruth described setting out a small lawn sprinkler only to give seeds a head start.

Time will tell if the mulch will be happy as happy as the rabbits with this arrangement.

By three o’clock we had finished the large bed, hay mulched a nearby flower bed as an experiment, put straw down between all the raised beds to make muddy spring passage a bit easier, in addition to Kory tackling all of the chores Miss Pat had on her to-do list.

The finished bed…

Kory replenished the firewood stack on the log cabin porch, and now we can sit back with our feet up in front of the fire and wait for winter to rain and snow on this creation and for all those lovely earthworms and critters to wiggle their way into Finn’s fluffy bed.

I figure we made a loosely consistent 18″ or so blanket of hay and built a 15 x 50 foot bed.

I also figure there are more of these warm weather breaks ahead, and I have a large pile of leaves which we can chop up a bit with the lawn mower and toss on the RS bed (that pile is frozen now). And from now on all of the garden waste and grass clippings will go on there as well.

I’ll still keep the compost piles going. We had great success last season sifting many wheel barrows of that home grown gold. The existing raised beds were put to bed with that gold in the fall so should welcome rotations of deeper root crops this year, and most of the leafy greens and such.

Our next project is to replace one of the first raised beds I built, the bottom boards are rotting away. So it will be just the place for a keyhole garden. Oh yes, I am. I’ve designed it to use the same galvanized corrugated aluminum which we used to repair the walls of the asparagus bed last year. With some tweaking and design updates I’m hoping to improve on our first attempts and make a more permanent structure that can double as a cold frame for winter greens. Stay tuned for more on that.

Expectations for the RS bed this year are low because of the time it will take to break all that hay down and begin to build a nutrient rich soil. Others who have tried this report it took a year or more to begin to have soil that would support deeper root crops. OK, so I will be planting potatoes. Ruth just pulls back her mulch and throws them directly on the ground and piles the hay back on top. Pretty much the way I’ve been growing them for a couple years so there ya go.

Gonna also try onions and leeks, brussel sprouts and kale, shell peas and edamame, and a big section of squash. I sow all the seeds I can fit in the studio and the greenhouse so I may start most of the RS bed plants by pulling back the mulch and adding a couple of inches of composted manure and peat before planting the seedlings.

And don’t forget that strawbale border can be planted in as well. Maybe with marigolds and nasturtiums with onions and turnips in between.
And a cascade of morning glories for the memorial arch.

Ahhh, what an absolute bliss of a gift this day was.

Thank you Kory for all that you do for us.
These two old ladies are so grateful.

Prowell Lawn Services at the ready…

And lest you think I have retired from my day job…

the greater irony of spending an entire day throwing hay around…

is that I have spent the last month doing my best to paint it.

No no, you will have to wait for those pics.

Suffice it to say,
I got PLENTY of up close and personal reference material today.

Now go and make your own dreams come true.

 

 

 

Late to the party

I’m getting a late start today.

My frantic mind had settled enough to let the sun come up without my help,
which gave the overnight coating of sleet enough time to begin to melt,
and sorting the box of newly arrived garden seeds was a most pleasurable task to begin with, then a walk to the compost pile turned into a bike ride in the greenhouse,
which lead me to Ruth…

(photo credit Mother Earth News)

Ruth Stout.
The other party to which I am late in coming today.

Arriving at this sixtieth decade I seem to be only just now stumbling across the paths of quite a few amazing humans. This week it is Ruth.
Or was, as she left the planet after 96 years of living here, back in 1980.

I’ll bet that most of my hard core gardening friends are smirking as they read this having known of Ruth and her simple ways well before my stumble…Ruth Herself didn’t throw away her tillers and pesticides until she was 60…so there ya go.

The evolution of my own gardening life saw me give away a brand new tiller a few years ago after learning about building better soil by letting the critters do the work..and I know many of you followed along as I adopted Joel Karsten’s Strawbale method which I have been experimenting with for about 5 years now… and that has morphed more recently into my latest guru Charles Dowding’s No Dig compost only beds which Kory has been helping me build and tend.

Well move on over and pass the hay…
it’s time to quit working so hard and strip down to the essentials.

I’ll let you enjoy this introductory video… for those who are not smirking,
and you can google down this rabbit hole to your hearts’ content…
because it’s time for me to lift some brushes…
but before I go…
here’s a little teaser of a nod to my favorite part…
she gardens in the buff.
Yes.
Yes.