Bring It Home

I used to know some little boys whose mother told me they thought China was Toyland because all the toys were made there. Well, the dream of cheap goods is starting to get a little gunky around the edges. Just read that China has shut down 180 of its factories because of the discovery that ”Formaldehyde, illegal dyes, and industrial wax were found being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood”! Well, okaaay. That’s according to an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, responsible for food safety. Not isolated incidences, they say. First melamine in the pet food, then antifreeze in the toothpaste and now... What more?

Even the quinessentially American Twinkie is outsourced, it turns out. (That’s a story to give you chills). I have to admit, I’m not surprised really. I’ve been suspicious of Made In China junk for years. Not only is there no knowing who made the stuff (prisoners, slaves, kids) but where are the safety regs? Metal stuff especially makes me wonder uneasily. I get creeped thinking about contaminated metal streams and bottom line priorities. That's probably our own hot stuff sitting pretty on Wal Mart shelves. I mean, how do we know otherwise? Assurances, please.

Not a pleasant line of thinking so I'll turn it around. This news just gives a nice push in a better direction. Local, local, local. Seems location matters in more than real estate. It makes me happy that we're growing food in our backyard, support our locally owned stores (Community Market, Copperfield's Books, Stanroy's, Western Farm, thrift shops, local boutiques and restaurants) but of course we could do better. We still don't go to the Farmer's Market and that's a big one. We still patronize Trader Joe's and when Yardbird's became Home Depot we hesitantly continued to shop there just because it's up the road as opposed to miles away (less fuel). So there's room for improvement, as always. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for red plums hanging over my back fence, homegrown tomatoes and this fertile Sonoma County.

Photo by Wetpaint Designs

Annie Irmer

This one fascinates me. My great, great grandmother Annie Irmer, my Mom's Mom's Mom's Mom. It's easy to project into these old images but, my, she looks grim. Like she means business. Maybe just work worn. Who knows. She seems to have a grip on that unidentified towheaded boy. She's got those, well, they look like wide leg work pants on, her plaid shirt and sun hat. Like she's been or about to be busy out of doors. He looks uncomfortable, sort of half in half out of that frumpled white shirt. Unusual white stockings. Is it a special occasion? Is that a tie or maybe the strap of a bag. Is it the first day of school? Why was the picture taken? The two of them standing there in a leafy yard in front of the flowering yucca. Curious.

Passing Away

Looking up Barnes Road flooding during a heavy rain. My mom grew up in a house my grandpa build out on this road which is north of Santa Rosa and west of 101. I like Grandpa's perfectly hand lettered name on the mailbox (he was after all a sign painter by profession).

Kin

I haven't had much juice for blogging lately. Besides working daily in the studio, I've been steeping in personal history. The memorial stirred a lot of emotion as well as interest in the past. There have been boxes of old photographs in my folks house for a few weeks now and it's easy to start rummaging and ruminating when I come in from the heat. I have taken numerous "nab shots". I don't know why I call taking photos of photos by that term but I do. I guess it feels a little like stealing or cheating because it's just so quick and easy. Nab shots, whatever, are not ideal but still pretty great. When I'm sitting with dozens of poignant photos, original prints mostly with no negatives, I can't help wanting them. Some are very old and infinitely interesting. Almost all local shots. I've been gleaning tidbits from the Sonoma County Genealogy Society about some of my family history. This is the George Tyler Trowbridge clan (that's my great grandmother Alice, the pretty one sitting up on the wagon). George was a successful businessman, landowner and developer. So what's with the ratty chair? Ranch life, I suppose. There's more at my Flickr.

For Sylvia

Grandma's memorial was this Saturday past. Mom had asked if maybe I'd get up and read my blog post about her. I was torn because, as anyone who knows me would agree, public speaking is not one of my strong points. But this was my grandma and my Mom had asked me (she doesn't ask for much). I said I'd mull it over and I did. For days. I pretty much didn't want to read that particular piece and thought maybe something else would come. Well, come Friday evening....nothing. Mom said no pressure. OK. The next morning it came in full. I typed it out and did get up the nerve to read it at the podium. I barely did it, being choked up, nervous, eyes in a teary blur, but I did. Here's what I read:

When the sun fell that morning on your empty chair, I cried. Ancestors and guardian owls peered out from the niches in your room and spoke so silently. I felt all your things begin to whisper and hum a story, filling the space you left. Stray thoughts and memories, scattered back through the years, began to gather like birds to sing about you. I remember you, Grandma. Full and soft and strong, sometimes stern. Raising six children is work and, though I was the first grandchild, I was also one more in a long line of girls. Being underfoot at times is how I got to see you and know you, vigorous in life. The little joys of my childhood were probably no nonsense practicalities for you, just the necessities of running a large household. A self-serve gum drawer that smelled like cinnamon, a chalkboard in the washroom to draw on, the Little Garage stuffed with mysterious things, a pool, a hammock and at least six kinds of cereal to choose from in the morning. I remember your sure hands always doing. Peeling the Gravensteins into pie and crisp and sauce, the best. Rolling dough. Cookie cuts. Thumbprints and jam. At Christmastime the table groaned. Embroidering birds and flowers onto pillows and endless white linens. I still have the dishtowels you stitched us for our wedding 21 years ago, grayed and fraying but still beautiful to me. Hooked rugs, candlewicked runners and those glittering sequined calendars. Precious now, just because you fastened each shiny bit. I remember camping with you and Grandpa in the redwoods, hiking to the falls, screaming at the banana slugs, eating wood sorrel and making Jiffy Pop in the camper. Birthday cards, faithfully sent with your curving cursive, looped and graceful. Seeing you at my school, volunteering, first grade and feeling like I was home. That Halloween when you insisted I wear something (an orange Charlie Brown sweatshirt) over my Red Riding Hood costume because it was so bitter cold outside. I was mad but you were just looking out for me. I will always remember your softness. Your giggle. I liked it when you laughed and I tried to say amusing things to make you. You grew an enormous zucchini too tough to eat and I wrapped it in a blanket to be my baby for a week. That got a smile. I was smitten with your full-skirted square dancing dresses and was transported when you gave me one of your old ones complete with crinoline, a gift that was good for months of pretend. You were enamored of things fine and beautiful and really settled into enjoying them in your last years. Beautiful food, opals and pearls, handsome hats, a particular color of turquoise, these will always make me think of you. Grandpa painted and drew the redwoods but you planted fuchsias and drew the hummingbirds. I have a vision of you from some years ago, sitting in the backyard, in the sun, your blouse covered in a bright flowered print. Suddenly a hummingbird flew right up and hovered before you, heart high, contemplating you as a flower garden. You held you hands up, cupping the space he held. Just a few seconds and then he flitted away but I like to remember you that way, like a flower, bright and strong with a center of sweetness.

I love you, Grandma.

OurMoney Fair

It's taken me a week to recover from the Harmony Fair. Strangely, it was difficult for a number of reasons. I hesitate to rant (law of attraction and all) but I was strangely affected. Dealing with a health issue that kept me in a steady state of physical discomfort colored my lenses, surely. With that in mind, I give myself some slack for writing the following:
Sometimes I just get so tired of commerce. I love energy exchange, the give and take pulse that charges us up but I felt more of the take and almost none of the give. My fire was not being kindled. The vibe sucked. Literally, it milked me. An incongruent materialism dominated. If you aren't into spending then you just aren't in. I definitely wasn't. A lot of my people didn't even go because of the prohibitive cost. At the gate a day pass was $37 adults/$20 kids age 6 to 12. Yow! In fact, I didn't see as many local folks at all. Who were all those people? The music was so loud that often I couldn't talk to my friends out on the grass, which has always been one of the key pleasures, hanging out with my community. We had to migrate to beyond the bathrooms to put a physical block between ourselves and the sound waves just to be able to hear each other. A lot of booze. Redundant imports. Too much cool. Not enough community. Bottom line was, I wasn't nourished by the experience and will have to contemplate long and hard about attending again. End rant.

The highlights were being inspired by some fellow artists at the Transformational Art Village, hanging out with dear friends, touching base with folks I hadn't seen in awhile, deep conversations about art, watching the kids play and seeing Ricki Lee Jones. Poetess, radical visionary and epitome of true cool she, who I've been listening to for over 25 years. It was great to see her live though the sound system screwed her over, fuzzing out her whimsical nuanced voice. Oh, well.

Grandma Sylvia

This morning, at a little after seven, Sylvia, mother of six daughters, grandmother and great grandmother to many more of us, passed away swiftly and peacefully at age 86. She had struggled with her heart and her bones these past months but was a lucid trooper 'til the end. She left many sad ones behind, family and friends old, new and dear. As many of the daughters as could (my aunts) gathered in her little apartment at Brighton Gardens among her curios and keepsakes, all which struck me suddenly as poignantly ephemeral and precious. I felt blessed to be among them to say goodbye. Grandma looked serene in the soft light and we all felt relieved that her pain was over at last. Still, it's hard to accept the finality of death. Her body that bore six beautiful women is now outgrown. She left its weight and became light. Her particular softness, strength and smile is no longer tangible in the physical world and that is true sadness. Worthy of grief. Only heart and memory and the faces of grandchildren now hold her. Her earthly story is ended. Secret dreams and struggles, unspoken experience, joys, pains and intimacies are lost to us. That ruthless severing is the sharpness of death but the brightness outweighs. She is free from pain. She lived a long and full life close to her family. She was loved and will be remembered by many. Lastly, I happen to believe she has gone to join up with her love, my Grandpa Albert and that's a happy thought. Reunion with the beloved is a good good thing.

Adopting Adaptogens

The hottest topic at The Herbal Symposium for me was adaptogens. The term was coined by Russian scientist Nikolai Lazarev during the 1940s while researching substances that produce a "state of nonspecific resistance (SNIR)". Seems the Cold War military wanted something to give their boys an edge. To qualify for the moniker a substance had to meet three criteria: 1) It had to be harmless 2) It had to increase broad spectrum resistance to stress 3) It had to have a normalizing effect on all system functions. Is there such a substance? Many, it turns out. And all natural, too.

There is a long list of herbal adaptogens but my first experience was with the humble rhodiola rosea. My friend Amy invited me over for some tea, a porch sit and a chat. We ate pineapple guavas and drank cupfuls of fragrant rhodiola tea. The most pleasant effects followed. I felt mentally alert and full of ideas. Everything was striking me as quite lovely. We talked for a good long time and then I practically danced home. I just felt so gently alive. It was reminiscent of the last vestiges of a psychedelic mushroom trip. High vibes. I thought maybe I wouldn't be able to sleep but indeed I did and deeply, too. This was all something because I tend to have bouts of insomnia (especially moon related) and I have always been a slowish sedentary type (I'm a zero without my java). Being hyper-sensitive, I cope by energetically holing up. What was that stuff?

Well, my other friend, Karen had the answer (herbalist she) Oh, rhodiola is one of the adaptogens, the herbs for our time. Rhodiola (or golden root) grows in barren high mountain environments and the cold regions of the world...Siberia, Arctic, Scandinavia. It has adapted and learned to thrive in the harshest conditions on Earth. The Vikings, the Sami and peoples of Siberia have used it to cope with these severities for centuries. Not surprising that this plant offers a gift to modern humanity with our unique "harsh conditions".

So rhodiola ranks up there with the many others, all with their particular qualities and subtle differences (warming, cooling, calming, stimulating, feeds the brain, the liver, etc.) so that anyone can find the perfect match. Here are some others we learned about in our outdoor classroom: ashwagandha, reishi, american ginseng, asian ginseng, bupleurum, bacopa, shatavari, coryceps, eleuthero, schisandra, gotu kola, holy basil, astragalus....the list goes on.

So, what's your adaptogen?

Photo: Rhodiola Rosea growing high in the Ural Mountains. Photo taken from the University of Lapland website.

Blue Moon June

Last night, beyond the unseasonal fog, rose a blue moon, meaning the second full moon to occur within a calendar month (this being the youngest definition though not the only). It is also an extra or thirteenth full moon to occur in a year (an occasional but inevitable event due to the discrepancy of solar and lunar cycles). A May moon for us Western time-zoners but if you live east of the Greenwich zone then you get a full blue moon in June. How poetic. Add it to the lyrical list of moon tags: wet moon, sturgeon moon, sugar moon, sap moon, cheshire crescent, waxing gibbous...on it goes. What to do with a full blue moon in June?

Wild Women

E and I returned home on Monday evening, full and tired. The Herbal Symposium was as renewing and transforming as I remembered from five years ago. It's really a unique experience to feel so safe, nourished, supported and mirrored. There were guesses that the weekend was attended by 400 women and 100 children. I don't know about that. I can't really guesstimate. All I know is there were a heck of a bunch of us, as various as water crystals. A full spectrum array of beauty and power. What potent creatures we all are! And I love taking classes about herbs and natural healing out under the trees and sky. It's what I pined for as a kid, stuck seemingly forever in stuffy crackerbox classrooms. I came away with new info pertinent to my family about sugar metabolism, adaptogens and energy medicine. We ate love food three times a day until our bodies were humming. Eden did really well with the food. She became so independent in the short time we were there. Off to the creek, packing a picnic, getting herself showered. Our dishes lived on a mat near the fire ring so she could grab her plate at meals, get her own food, wash up and tuck it all away without a word from me. A revolution. I did great at market, making back my fee and more. I usually find it surprising but always gratifying to get so much appreciation for my work. I'm such a recluse, I forget how what I make touches people. It felt really good and was completely validating. Being there with the Tumbleweed women was perfect for me who tends to go satellite when groups gather. They grounded me and made me feel part of something. Thanx, you gals. By the end, lazing by the slow river in the waning day, we all pretty much agreed it was great and we will be back.

Women In Art

Off North

I'm heading north this morning with a faction of the Tumbleweed women and girls to spend four days camping in the trees on Wavy Gravy's ranch in Laytonville. The event is the Northern California Women's Herbal Symposium. I've attended before but not for maybe five years and it was sans children. Eden's coming this time. It's a great place to hang out with inspiringly wise women and commune with plants. Good company all around. I painted this little piece along with a few others to bring to the marketplace, though I am not going for business. I want to reconnect with the green beings and dance around the fire with my girlfriends. I've been feeling a bit slumpy so I'm hoping to wax light and just enjoy.

Wink

I am gearing up for summer festivals and my open studio so I'm cranking on lots of work. Frustratingly, I have multiple works of all sizes in various stages of completion (a lot of initiative energy there with much less sustained follow-through). So it's nice to just go in and complete something in one go. I work best when I am "just playing around". This is painted on a piece of cheap canvas covered 12 x 12 board. No pressure filling it. It could end up garbage. From blank white to this took about 3 hours. I really get off on just messing around with a multicolored patina and then letting an image emerge from that with some white paint and a small brush. The strokes came out almost calligraphic- short and succinct. I just let it become how it wants to, an approach that's been exciting since it offers the chance for surprising odd bits to surface (like that eye fish and that splash-like shape around her breast). As I've said before, I am enamored of shapes that "flip", embodying more than one thing at a time so it seems to have something to say. I liked how her tail looks also like a fish, and her scales become moons in phase and those little star darts remind me of the movement of the silver sardines we saw in the ocean on Moorea (Tahiti). All connotations of the ocean, the feminine moon, waves and dissolution. The happenstance wink sort of made me think of the fickle movement of water and the changing tides.

I recently had a realization that I have worked hard these past 7 years expressing some (for me) pretty potent imagery about power, potential, emotion, essential truths... I used do deep intentional imagining and lucid dream capture toward masterminding some of my images. Now I want there to be less head and more hand and feeling movement in my work. I don't need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, every single time I sit down to paint. I'm more into fooling around with different expressions on one narrative that holds a lot of juice. So, more like this to come.

Mother Hike

Nothing like celebrating Mother's Day by getting out in nature and enjoying the the biggest mama of them all. After a crazy delicious brunch in Duncans Mills, we spent the day Sunday hiking Pomo Canyon Trail with the Tumbleweeds (an inspiring bunch of moms, dads and kids who we're lucky enough to know and hang out with). Gorgeous weather, cools folks and unbelievably spectacular landscapes made for a primo day. It was somewhat strenuous and my kids whined a bit but were soon won over by wildflower meadows, shady grottos, troll bridges, fairy holes and other mysterious wonders.
I took a ton of pictures but culled them and posted the cream on my Flickr.I especially like this photo which kind of summed up the feeling for me. What a life! Zoie making flower rings, Dave beyond awash in green and the earth stretching out all around to the river and out to sea. We live in such a beautiful place.

The Party's Over

And a good time was had. Eden declared it "better than last year" which is a surprise since that shindig was a bigger affair. Even though we contemplated doing something big, our small digs and an amped up calender decided for us. We so adamantly want to throw a big bash with all our dear friends, far and wide, that we will make it happen next year for her 10th. We thought we could slide by with a more modest event for turning 9. She liked her cake (chocolate buttermilk with pink cream cheese honey frosting and lotsa berries), she liked her gifts (art stuff, clothes, gift certificate to make pottery, groovy girl doll and bed, a book, a CD and a promise of a poncho) and we had her fave foods, quiche and pizza which I was up late last night and early this morning making along with the cake (boy am I tired and my stomach hurts). Yow. I posted a few pix on flickr.

Tallest Tree

It's exalting to discover that the new tallest tree in the world has been found deep in one of my favorite places on the planet- Prairie Creek Redwoods. We often stop here on the way up or back the 500 mile journey to Oregon (a trip we've made countless times through the years) to gape in awe at the enormous ancient trees. If you ever want to get lost in the depths of a profoundly silent and alive virgin old growth redwood forest, well, this is a good place to do it. Stunning.

This clip was like a flashback to the days of Julia Butterfly's sit. India and I read her book together back when and then went to hear her speak at the Sebastopol Vets. She even stayed a night at our home once. Sadly, she had food poisoning and spent the hours getting intimate with our toilet bowl. (Boy, talk about being hyper aware of the kind of toilet paper we were using, yikes!) It felt good to nurture her with ginger tea and hot water bottles. We got to have an interesting conversation the day after. She was an amazing person, really clear and focused (and a veteran homeschooler to boot!)

Worm Poop Bugs Goliath

Goliath picks a fight with...worm poop?

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, a $2.2 billion assets giant which has at least a 59% share of the relevant market, has sued tiny TerraCycle, Inc., an inner-city company founded by college students to create an eco-friendly business. TerraCycle manufactures all-natural garden products by feeding organic waste to worms and bottling the resulting worm poop compost tea as ready-to use plant food in soda bottles collected by schools and other charities across North America. TerraCycle is located in the Urban Enterprise Zone of Trenton, New Jersey.

It's apparently an issue of copycat packaging (the yellow and green) and false advertising (how good can it be-it's garbage!). Hmmm. Is somebody feeling a little threatened?

Song to the Siren

Only in the incomparable Sixties could you tune in to a Monkees TV show and catch this soulful performance by the unearthly Tim Buckley (1947-1975) who died too young of, what else, a heroin overdose…the siren’s final embrace.

Open The Door

When I’m hanging out on our back deck in the mornings watching seedlings suck up radiation, pushing out of their small pots, intent on becoming a jungle, I like the heat. When I’m walking through the warm air in the evening, under Venus, drinking in honeysuckle smells, I really like the heat. But when I’m in my studio, so charming and rustically uninsulated, I definitely do not. I’ve been putting in some decent hours in studio since I got back, gearing up for the summer festivals but Monday was intense.

I got an early start and put in most of a day. I really sank into the work. Sometimes I get in that zone where I’m unaware of my immediate environs and get lost in what I’m doing. So I didn’t notice the swelter at first but when I finally called it a day and oozed home, I was in a poor state. I probably didn’t drink enough water so dehydration was added to my low blood sugar (I forget to eat when I’m in there). As I was flopped almost catatonic on a chair at home, mumbling, “ Shit, it was hot out there today. How hot was it ?” Oh yeah, 91 degrees ?!! Oh, boy. And that was outside. What about inside a hot box enclosure. There was not a drop of animation left in me. I was completely baked.

I’m funny about stuff. I read into things. That heat was like a little voice, a gentle nag, saying: open the door. Well, I did have the doors in the back of the studio open that day but it was urging me to go all the way. See, I had an epiphany recently about opening my space to the public. I work in this neat space (old redwood walls, skylights, old windows and French doors) in a great neighborhood (the old JC) and the only thing that separates the two is a big sliding door. I’ve been entertaining the idea of opening it up once a week on a regular basis to offer a place to peek in, have a seat, sip some tea, look at art, browse through cards and prints, talk awhile or whatever. So, “opening the door” is symbolic as well as literal for me. I'm getting ready to be seen.

Ironically, I had spent some time a few days earlier moving things around with just that in mind. I’ve already got a sitting area, a tea table, some canvases on the walls and my altar set up on the north wall. Boxes of junk still clog the “gallery” area but I’m making progress. Already hatching a plan to make the portal inviting with plants, paintings and a shingle. Who will cross my threshold when it opens ? I'm curious.

Photo: Painting currently on the altar-Truth, the Seed of Intimacy or maybe just The Kiss.

Santa Fe

Mom and I touched down in San Francisco last night after our five days in the city of “holy faith”, tired and full. Tired because we walked ourselves to exhaustion nearly every day through the web of little streets that make up the heart of town. Full from the sheer generosity of color, art, texture, architecture, culture and history our eyes absorbed in the singular high atmospheric light (not to mention all the food we ate). So we arrived sated on brown adobe walls, hot chilies, blue corn, chocolate, sopapillas, pinon smoke, turquoise, silver jewelry, clay vessels, woven rugs and art, art, art.

We lucked out on the weather since the winter there has been long and cold, ending with bitter winds on, well…Tuesday. We arrived Wednesday to find crabapples and gorse in full bloom, cottonwoods budding in a chartreuse haze and the sun high and warm. It couldn’t have been more conducive to browsing shops, gallery hopping and café idling.

We went to relax and explore and shop. We’d each brought a small bundle of cash in anticipation. It began to loom a little inadequate the more we saw. Awesome silver and stone jewelry, hand tooled boots, Navajo rugs, pueblo pottery. All of it tempted until we tipped the tag. Such a small white snip, such a big number! $500 seemed the to be the average low, quickly rising into the thousands (even tens of thousands). Oh, well. We soon fell back on simple pining and just enjoyed the beauty. I did “splurge” on a few modest pieces of hand built Black Chamba burnished earthen cookware from Columbia since I know I will get years of pleasure out of them and they didn’t cost so much (under $50). So much for buying local. I am pleased, actually, that the Native American arts of the Southwest can fetch such high prices. I like to see artists well compensated and traditions encouraged.

The galleries of Santa Fe were a primary draw for me. There are over 250 of them tucked here and there though most line the two-mile stretch of Canyon Road. This little town (pop. 65,000) supposedly ranks as the third largest art market in the US, trailing only NYC and LA and has attracted international recognition as an art center so I was curious. Besides, Rob had breezed through with the girls a few years back and was persistent I should see it. So we spent a day winding up the road, popping in and out of space after space.

There sure is a full spectrum of art represented. There are at least two foundries in the area so there is a substantial sculpture population-bronzes aplenty. Of course, paintings rule supreme and there is a multitude. Everything from skillful color saturated landscapes to naïf scribbles, Native American and Wild West scenes to whimsical, even weird, visionary styles, precise still life realism to dynamic abstract expressionism. It was all there.

One thing I felt pretty keenly was the general receptivity for art that expresses a spiritual feeling. Chalk it up to the deep Native American connection to the earth or maybe the strong thread of Mexican Catholicism that stitches through from the past but there is a palpable sense of appreciation for work expressing deep sentiment, ritual and the sacred that sat well with me. I resonated with the symbols and patterns decorating the Native American art as well as the Old Mexico influenced silver repousse, milagros and retablos altarpieces. I just had a sense that the images I make would be immediately embraced there, unlike wine-obsessed Sonoma County or urban edgy San Fran. It was a good feeling and a change.

Needless to say, I returned encouraged and inspired. Oh, and happy Beltane.