A Beautiful Bed Ad

It is amazing and heartening to me to come across this Spanish ad for a bed featuring a peaceful powerful home birth. How potent advertising can be when advocating something truly worthwhile. Too much ingenuity is wasted on pushing corn syrup sodas and gas guzzlers.

Making Waves

Same Planet, Different Worlds

Oh, the crazy imbalances on this planet just tears me up. I know there are endless plights of woe crying for attention but this got to me. When I was first pregnant and wanted to have my baby at home, the challenge of being female in a modern world became a medical issue. Living in a society where technological innovation is the guiding star and our connection to the natural world is pinched off at the root, I had to work my ass off to keep my body and baby from "medical intervention". The key unspoken word here being unnecessary. For those uncommon life-threatening situations that can occur despite careful prenatal care and screening, living in a developed nation is an unequivocal blessing. But I wanted to start out trusting, expecting the best and allowing Nature to do her thing unencumbered. For me that meant saying no to many well meant but overused medical trends.

No artificial induction. No Pitocin drip to jumpstart contractions, relentless against an unripe cervix, perhaps causing fetal distress and thus requiring, voila...an emergency cesarean! An all too common scenario. No demeaning shave/enema, no hookups to machines that restrain free movement, no laboring prone, no drugs to cloud my experience and my baby's brain, no routine episiotomy, no separation of mama and baby, no formula, no bottles. None of that. This translated for me as no hospital. I wanted to walk through the tall grass in the orchard while laboring and give birth on my own bed, quietly, in the natural light with the windows open. Insisting, intuiting, educating myself, choosing wise support in an experienced midwife, staying grounded and vigilantly slipping out of the grip of cultural fear was a full time effort. I ultimately had my daughter (both of them) naturally and safely at home but as a white American woman of the industrialized West it strikes me as deeply ironic that I felt compelled to resist the medical service that is a symbol of my privileged life. What I saw as meddling in my healthy process could have been a godsend to a women living in desperate conditions halfway around the globe. And that gets to me.

I recently stumbled on a hauntingly poignant documentary that moved me to action. Nova's A Walk To Beautiful deals with the devastating reality of obstetric fistula in Third World countries. If it's not enough being born a woman in a place where hard physical labor is your childhood duty, food is scanty, marriage comes early and childbirth too soon, add another brutal layer to the mix. Physical injury and damage from obstructed labor is common in countries where women are undernourished and thus stunted, their pelvic bones too small to allow the birth of their babies. So not only are their babies often stillborn but the physical outcome is often obstetric fistula, a deterioration or hole between the birth passage and internal organs (often those of elimination) resulting in permanent incontinence of urine or feces. It is an epidemic and literally millions (WHO estimates 2 million) women worldwide, primarily throughout Africa and Asia, suffer from this. Shunned by their husbands, families and communities only because of their foul smell, most exist in heartbreaking isolation, living in tiny makeshift huts or begging on the street. They suffer terrible depression and a debilitating sense of worthlessness. Not surprisingly, many commit suicide. Absolutely tragic.

All the more so because this condition can be remedied in most cases by simply stitching closed the fistula. A $300 medical procedure. The film focuses on the work of Dr. Catherine Hamlin, an Australian woman who in 1974 co-founded Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia, the world's only hospital exclusively dedicated to offering free treatment to poor women suffering from childbirth injuries. The camera offers an agonizingly intimate view into the lives of a few of these young women as they struggle with utter despair, then discover that thread of hope and follow it (sometimes hundreds of miles) to this hospital haven at the heart of Ethiopia, burgeoning with flowers, bright spaces, clean linens, accepting faces and kindred sufferers. Both harrowing and buoyantly joyful, the film is a beautiful invitation to help our less privileged sisters. I was moved to contribute money to The Fistula Foundation and am now inspired to tithe a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of my artwork to further this needed work.

The film can be viewed in chapters at the PBS site here.

Photo: Wubete, one of the young women in the documentary.

Two Bees

Or not two bees, that was the question. (Sorry, couldn't resist). Nevertheless, this was the case. Last year I painted a wee juicy bee that attracted a little buzz. Even after the original sold, the image held its allure and I considered painting more eye/heart/bees. Last week I committed to the contemplated continuum and produced two more in the series. Bee 2 and Bee 3. Each now has a home but there are more in the works.

Blurry shot: two 6 x 6 canvases, Bee #3 and Bee #2

Happy Birthday, Theodor Geisel

Old Stories New

I've heard my brother say more than once that years ago he had intentionally sat down with my grandpa, tape recorder in hand, and interviewed him about his early years and our family roots. The tape was subsequently lost in the shuffle of multiple moves and I never heard it. Until today. Jonathan came in from an afternoon out with a strange look on his face. Guess what I found? We popped it in an old player and sat back to listen. It was eerie to hear his good-natured voice from years ago, before the stroke that changed him so dramatically and those last difficult months before he died. Thus was the Grandpa of my childhood: easy-going, always amused and a little distant, like he was resigned to being a bit bored with the goings-on around him, contentedly eyeing some distant horizon. An inventor, an artist and self-made man, he must have always been thinking, wondering, working things out. So here he was, game to the questions and telling his story so matter-of-factly. "Hello, my name is Albert Scott..." We learned that his oldest sister, the pretty Miriam Ruth, died at age 20, not of consumption but of a thyroid disease, wasting away suddenly within six months and that had plunged my great grandfather into a deep depression just as the world was entering its. Grandpa had worked beside his father in the sign-painting business for years. Their place was located literally blocks from where we were sitting listening to his voice tell about it. His older brother, my great Uncle Byron, was a boxer during the Depression, even working the carnival at one point taking on "comers". We heard how Grandpa had actually enjoyed boot camp, that it was "kinda fun" because he was "strong and light on my feet". He'd gotten his pilot's license as a young man out of casual curiousity but had better things to do than fly planes which he admitted was "kind of boring". He wanted to tell about his grandparents, his (great?) Grandpa Flint, a successful business man who had bought abandoned ships out of the SF Bay during the Gold Rush for pennies on the dollar. His great grandmother, who was a Tyler, related somehow to the tenth US President of that name. It was a relatively short tape, thirty minutes all told but full of intriguing threads leading off into the mist of forgotten stories. It made me realize how much is lost when an ancestor crosses over. We take too much for granted and don't realize how rare the familiar things around us are. When Laurie Andersen whispers in her song "When my father died it was like a whole library had burned down. World without end remember me," I understand.

Photo: President John Tyler, 1845 by Brady

A New Day

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

Amen.

The words of Reverend Joseph E. Lowery in his delivery of the benediction at the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of our United States of America.

(AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) A US soldier observes a moment of silence during the inauguration of Barack Obama, at the US camp Phoenix base in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday Jan. 20, 2009.

Grief and Beauty

Strange days these. Sifting through the weeks since the Election, I cannot put my finger on this mood that has settled on me. It's a loose-lashed assembly. The final dregs of my despair at the wreckage of the world, the ashes of our collective bankruptcy, all the shards of annihilation pieced together into an empty bowl, open to any sweetness, buoyed up and riding an illogical elation and hopefulness. After the climax of Obama's win, I haven't wanted to keep my head in politics at all lately. The fine-toothed speculations, endless doubts and dire predictions, the picking of nits. The last machinations of business as usual. It all exhausts me. I'm wrung out and fragile and too spent to keep my vigilance. So I've abandoned it. I've become the empty pieced-together bowl. Hungry for life, beauty, warmth, vitality, sap, joy. Tomorrow begins a fresh page, a new leaf, turning, accumulating, dancing together, a multitude, like a forest of trees...and I want to say yes for a change.

Photo: Combust by Binh Danh- chlorophyll print and resin- from his current show at Haines Gallery The Eclipse of Angkor.

Harper and Scout

Just finished reading Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" and I enjoyed it so much that I'm baffled why it took me decades to get around to it. As a kid, I loved the black and white film when it aired on some rare Saturday via cable TV. The box of finds from the tree hole. The mad dog. Calpurnia. The trial. Racial tensions. Small town taboos and traditions. Boo Radley. I always watched it. Since I generally tend to opt for non-fiction when I read, it's not too surprising. When I do pick fiction, I want real. I'll read to feel steeped in an atmosphere, a place or a moment in history which is why I love Willa Cather, who wove stories out of threads of her own life, peopled with characters who seemed to have actually existed. Now, like thousands of readers before me I'm sure, I am fascinated with this book's reclusive author, Harper Lee. I wonder about her life story. Is she Scout? Did she know an Atticus? How much of the picture she painted grew out of her own experience? In the book store yesterday I saw a hardcover the words "I Am Scout" blazoned across it. There's an answer. A biographic work about Lee by Charles J. Shields written with young people in mind. I think I'll have to read it or his "adult" version "Mockingbird".

Goddess Faire

Herbs, tinctures, soaps and lotions, cordials and elixirs, amulets and talismans, bee sweets and candles, velvets and soft galactic armor, beautiful medicine, powerful prayers, sensual dancers, strong-throated singers, maids, mamas and crones, goddesses and their lovers...all shimmering under one roof. There is really nothing like the annual Goddess Faire in Sebastopol. Nourishing on many levels. I haven't done it for a few years and didn't know what to expect with the ailing economy but I was surprisingly overwhelmed by the deep appreciation and support of my work. It was a pleasure to share with kindred souls. Eden and her friend Zoe premiered their Bollywood dancing on stage before a loving audience and performed with grace and aplomb despite a mixup with the music. Countless prints, several small canvases and a large giclee found new homes. I did my part as well to keep the wheels of commerce humming, which is easy to do when there are so many seductive offerings. A born patron of beauty, I want to buy it all! But I was moderate (for me) and contented myself with small plums and generous trades. The best was a tiny bottle of rosolio d'amore from Luna Fina...an oil infused with Cecile Brunner roses, my totem flower, a drop of which Annabella rubbed into the skin over my heart. Hello! (Dab the soles of the feet before bed and sleep like a baby-which I did) Copper hoops, honey truffles, jasmine cream, cacao cordial, vintage rhinestone earrings...sigh. So, my dry well was filled. Thank you all kind and generous beauties. You satiate me.

Photo: Young Goddesses: Eden, Zoe and Paisley.

Black Eagles and Angels

I am publishing here, with permission, two poems by my collaborator and creative cohort, Amy Trussell. We were fellow travelers on our recent trip to New Orleans where she was runner up for the Faulkner Society literary prize for poetry. Glimmers of our experience thread throughout both of these and I am flattered that one of them, Erzulie's Protégé, was written for me (!)

Black Eagles and Angels

Their throats always remain open once they decide to come forth-
The angels' trumpets that graced our door,
Our temporary holding place, halfway boarded up
When last we dipped into New Orleans.
These white ones are kin to the more state-altering blooms
that hold their seductive skirts and quilled pods
in vales of the Wild West.
Plots are there for the untameable and the cultivated too.
Even if you are in a place with opaque windows,
say in a dive waiting for Mardi Gras Indians to practice,
or a house that almost succumbed to hurricanes,
you can sense what is out there anyway, blue police light,
people on the streetcar full of desires, thinly veiled,
people making love and dying all over town.
This essence is what we drop under the tongue
when someone is going over the threshold to the other world.
It helps them row the light-flooded water back.
The African seer had told me there are ancestors
waiting to drum you into the other side.
So when you hear the Black Eagles call Indian Red,
you understand that this is the energy that could take you
over the edge, out past the bayous to heaven
where the shell games are played.
But it's also that which might bring you back,
down the funnel of the channeled flower, as deep
as night is long, waiting to turn itself out.
Some tribes say that zero is magic, the place to start over.
So if you get there and find yourself lost in a shotgun
apartment, you must turn to the creamy perfume
of the death-easers, then go inside, down the dark hall,
though your reptilian brain wants to flee your own grief
and the grief of the village too.
Pick up the dead lizard and wrap it in the kerchief for the altar.
Then twist on the water and let the sadness pour from
all that had begun to kink up the smooth muscle of the heart.
Cover your wounds in red earth and smother your pulse
points with come-to-me oil.
Blow out the candle, the hawk rests in a yard tree,
another refugee from the vortex.
I don't know what would happen if you dropped angels'
remedy beneath the roof of your mouth and kissed someone.
Are you willing to give yourself over that much?
After you make your X, will you stand in a crumbling cemetery
with arms outstretched, waiting for one or the other to set you free?

Amy Trussell, November 2008

Photo: A white Angels' Trumpet outside our "temporary holding place" in New Orleans.

Erzulie's Protégé

Erzulie's Protégé

For Krista Lynn Brown

The ritual party tray is out for Dia de los Muertes
with love potion and heart opener cordials.
We drink some of both, and the rims of
our glasses pulse in the black light glow of the dance parlor.
Historians say that Marie Antoinette had a mold
of her breasts cast then made into wine cups.
The royal glass blower tonged them out of fire
then held the curved vessels up like a satisfied God
placing two moons in the pitch night.
My sister would take a lantern and find her way to the barn
to milk the goats before dawn arched across the horizon.
When she got high enough, Sally Ride could see meteorites
burning out below them and now there’s ninety percent proof
that once there were bayous on Mars, warm and moist.
Looking at her lunar paintings of jungles and the women
that dwell there, it seems that she has been a cosmonaut too.
Or has at least seen a crash site retrieval conference,
launching crafts from her drawing pad.
Whenever you are down she will morph into "Space Girl"
and hit you with a love ray.
It’s two a.m. and she sits at a black canvass, wells of paint
before her at the left hand, brush loaded with burnt sienna.
Earth opens to the ink of heaven pouring in.
This is the season when Persephone fell into the opening
to come up later, stealing away pomegranate
seeds from near the molten core.
Venus rises in the skylight of her studio,
illuminated too with candlelight from her altar where
photos of her grandfather, Frida Kahlo, & her outbound cat
open the gates and keep the pulse.
She leans in, unafraid to travel the trenches, the ruins,
to be there on location spelling out the names of the
beloved dead with a sparkler.
If you write it backwards it will come out forward
to the Heyokas galloping by on their dark horses.
All night she dips into the face of lunar deities, her eyes
searching the craters for the unseen ones.
What ferments in the caves can be good, and shows up at
the reception, a vision of Erzulie with a catfish,
wines from the Valley of The Moon, wheels of pungent cheese.
Whoever said white Russians, paint and magic
can’t issue from the same hand at once?

Thanks to Melissa Weaver for the sparklers.

Amy Trussell, November 2008

Photo par moi: Altar to Erzulie. French Quarter, New Orleans

Peace Y'all

Back home from the Big Easy, weary and full. So many experiences pressed through a window of time that words can catch only a fraction. Here's my long streaming stutter of highlight fragments in various tenses…Dusk over a crimson horizon, the Mississippi a snake of fire. No lights on the runway. Circle off to Baton Rouge under Jupiter and Venus, eyes of good omen. Test of nerves, tired and done, waiting. Touch down at last. Greeted by Dennis, friend poet sprite. Avenues graced with magnificent homes. Over arched with oaks, taken by vines. Home base near Magazine Street. Angel Trumpet flowers at the porch. Datura air. Slow churn and stop streetcar each day. St. Charles to Canal Street. Reading faces and tuning to the lilting drawls and brown skin. Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter for the Faulkner Society conference. On my own for hours at a time. Galleries. Peter Max originals. Royal Street musicians. Ragged jug bands. Sleeping dogs. Horn players. Blues guitar. Harmonica. Stogies smoldering in the Begonias. A man painted gold. Diamonds and dripping chandeliers in the window glass. Antique stores and cafes. Beignets and café au laits. Triple story balconied facades laced with iron filigree, burgeoning with ferns. Gaslights burn perpetually. Clopping horses pulling carriages toward Jackson Square. St. Louis cathedral, the Cabildo, the Presbytere. Surrounded by history. Looking toward the river in the midst of card readers, painters, jugglers, tourists, a trombonist. Find Pirate’s Alley, Faulkner House, browse the books. City of Refuge. Relentless line of stuffed souvenir stops along Decatur, source of those cheap shiny strands of Mardi Gras beads that dangle from trees throughout the city and break apart into bits like colored dew. Pilgrimage to the voodoo shop. Not VooDoo Mart or the Disneyesque stops with shivering plastic skeletons but Voodou Authentica. Gris gris supplies for the practitioner, illuminations from Louis Martine and altars to the loa. I covet a Haitian metalwork veve to Erzulie Freda and make an offering at Marie Laveau’s altar and then Erzulie’s, laden with pink soaps, perfume bottles and jewelry (she’s akin to Venus). “Perfect success for The Painted Tongue Flowers”. Walk to the brown Mississippi. See the steamboats. Lunch and Literature with the writers from the conference at Muriel’s. White linen and china. Turtle soup, puppy drum with greens, chocolate mousse and three glasses of chardonnay. Moved by the speakers on the importance of place. Julie Reed, Tom Piazza and Ken Wells, warm with a twinkle. Funny and articulate. Left laughing. Hazy afternoon alone and wandering. Feeling game and open. Find myself in another voodoo store lured in by masks, bones and violet oil. Accepting an invitation from a South African woman to have my cards read. Predominately positive spread about victory and fruition with flickers of temptation and warnings about staying vigilant and grounded. “Make contracts.” she said and “Grow a backbone!” The Devil appeared and the Hierophant. Understood both profoundly. Poetry reading in Slidell. Over Lake Pontchartrain. Amy’s heart-catching words about Katrina. Seeing the high water mark. Night spent at Patricia and Dennis’ home. Kindness, marigolds and a hot shower. Bitter wind. Not enough clothes. Strategizing against the sharp cold slicing in from the river. Buying a black wool scarf and hugging the sunniest walls. Holed up in various shops. Hot coffee. Feeling gutted, tired from hauling my satchel, heavy with indispensables. Reading about Katrina in the bookstore, adding to the weight. Dark thread that stitched so many together. Refuge in the sumptuous Monteleone lobby. Hungry for something regional and full of pepper. Settling for quiche and onion soup. Sifting through trays of strange treasure, jewelry and snuff boxes at Joan Good’s. Pirate plunder. Buying a pair of Afghanistan silver shoulder dusters for a song. Shaped like poppy heads with tiny bells ringing. Walking along Bourbon Street in daylight, admiring handsome African smiles flashing out of bar doorways. Starving. Evening reconvening. In Pat O’ Brian’s, mesmerized by the fountains on fire. Devouring crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice washed down with hot toddies. Bourbon Street in full swing. Pounding music, neon flashing persuasion, throngs of rowdy revelers with huge drinks. A streetlong party for the world. Sex shops plastered with fleshy photos and flashing girls in red lights giving way to full throttle Karaoke dance parties and further on to gaping bars with thrumming interiors where ladies are pressed with free shots to encourage abandon. City of sin, yes. To Frenchmen Street for good music. At d.b.a dancing furiously to a Cajun band into the night, fueled by Abita Amber on tap. Spurning pick-ups. Sweet encounter with Matt from Chicago who sells pharmaceutical equipment but harbors a fine-grained poet's heart. A gentle new friend who reminded me of a dear old one. Talking reincarnation with the taxi driver. Gratitude for thick down covers and dreaming of hot water and coats. Double espressos. Long talks with Rob. Meeting with Gordon Walmsley, editor of the Copenhagen Review, about our book. Astute observations and helpful feedback although I quietly disagreed with him about “flamingo expectancy”. Sensitive to our project. Encouragement to self publish, which we will. Lunch at Arnaud’s. Oysters in variety on a bed of salt. We save our shells. Shop for boots for Amy of the broken shoe. Afternoon panel at the conference. The Aesthetics of Literature: Reality vs. Imagination with Jason Peter, Tom Piazza and everyone’s fave Tony O’Neill (Down and Out on Murder Mile) who is a delight to listen to. Sounds like Bobby Kennedy, looks like a heartbreaker and talks about his underbelly past as a heroin addict with easy humor. Stepped out early to get to the Louisiana Music Factory to catch The Iguanas live. Head for “home” to get ready for the evening Gala. Run, run, run to catch the streetcar…going the wrong direction. Back finally, exhausted. Washing hair, preening, black velvet and suede, tired tears of overwhelm, powdered noses and hollow cores using the last juice to get back to center. Late arriving. Everyone seated and satiated, dinner being cleared away. We stand there awkward. We need a gracious integration. Jose of the Keys to the rescue. Agent of Legbe the gatekeeper? Brings us red wine and stays to talk. Joan with the Pink Rose steps in to ask “Are you girls here to crash this party?” We assure her we are and she scouts out two seats for us. We get the last two plates of food in the place and eat voraciously as Ted Turner talks at the podium. I don’t remember what was said. No dessert for us and the music ends too soon. We stay just long enough to get bored and then dash away. Out onto the streets, Royal to Bourbon in our long skirts, clutching the fat roses we rescued from the gala. Meander up to Lafitte’s, the oldest tavern in the Quarter where Jean Lafitte reputedly once stashed his pirate booty. Now it is a dark bar with a constellation of low burning candles throughout and a big black piano deep inside being played diabolically by a man with a whiskey voice. We sit right at his elbow. A new world experience for me, leaning into an instrument as it vibrates right into the belly and bones. In a trance for hours that culminates in a kiss from the devil himself. Sunday dawns warmer. To St. Louis Cemetery to make an offering at Marie Laveau’s grave. Gates locked so we knock thrice and leave our rose woven into the bars. Up Rampart to the Voodoo Temple to meet Priestess Miriam whom Amy knows. She leads us back through her gris gris kitchen of jars and herbs to the temple festooned floor to the ceiling with icons and offerings. Loa visages erected and draped , laden with gifts of money bills, candles, cigarettes, flowers fresh and old. A feast for the eyes. Three chairs before a low table. We sit and listen as she slips into the other realm, words spilling from her like so many silver fishes. We catch what we can with inadequate nets. Laughing and nodding when we make the connections. I give her three pictures to add to the profusion. Later we emerge on the sidewalk, smiling and chatting. Saying goodbye, we jump in a cab. Our driver talks southern cooking all the way home. The secret to red beans. Frying green tomatoes. Smothering meats. He’s making ten ‘can pies (pecan) for Thanksgiving. He likes telling these recipes so much he wants to take us to the airport the next day so he can share some more. His card says Fear No Evil. We take note. Dennis scoops us up for the reading at the Maple Leaf bar to be held in the eye of the second annual Po'Boy Festival. Last year 10,000 folks attended said festival. Needless to say, no poetry was spoken in that throng. If Amy had read one poem she could have claimed it the best-attended poetry reading in history. We had a beer instead. Later Dennis took us out to Central City's YIP to watch the Black Eagles Mardi Gras Indian "practice". Like nothing else I've ever seen. Empty at first. We sit and sip, then dance quietly. Sucking on free cherry bombs. Folks arrive. Some good dancing unfolds. Then an all girl brass marching band complete with tuba gets everyone really moving in the small space. Then more men arrive. Drums and more drums. Pretty lady with a tamborine. Damn good dancers. Kids shaking it. Dapper older gentlemen. Families. The energy begins to build. Circling, dancing, singing, call and response, call and response, layer upon layer. The energy shifts and circles as groups of spectacular black men move in dancing, singing, calling out, challenging. The circle splits and dips and then a group leaves suddenly and new faces step in. An eruption of cultural richness from this place of urban decay. I am blown away. The energy waxes, swirls and finally peaks. It's over and Dennis says "Hey, it's 8 o'clock. Let's get something to eat!" and all I could think was "Eight in the morning??! My God!" It felt like hours had transpired but it was still early. We went for a plate of jambalaya, red beans and a bowl of gumbo. All done before 9 o'clock. Saying goodbyes. Last night dreaming in New Orleans. Morning browsing the shops along Magazine Street peering out brightly from a general dilapidation. One catfish and one grilled shrimp po'boy with fried green tomatoes and remoulade . And iced tea. Ballast for the flight home. Buying french pastries and wee pecan pies for home. Taxi to the airport. Boarded. It begins to rain. Homeward bound.

President Elect!

Oh, what a contrast to (S)election 2004! Tears of elation, shouts of joy and, I admit, swells of good old-fashioned patriotic pride. Yes, I was moved. By the faces of young black people crying and smiling. The cracking voices of news anchors. Wet eyes in old faces. By the power of our collective voice. By the sheer historic significance of this shift in the tide. All signs point toward a world I want to live in. It's the end of, as Paul Krugman called them this morning, "the monster years". Well, the beginning of the end, at least. There is a hell of a lot of damage to heal and it won't be a cakewalk but if any one can bridge the divides and galvanize a united effort, it's "That One".

Vote!

Poster by Shepard Fairey

Marigolds

Chiliquin (Chili Cat) 1989-2008

Dear furry friend and familiar, Chili Mama, slipped free of her body this morning and went to frolic in kitty heaven, where I hope the mice abound in tall grasses and the air smells like tuna. It's been a long time coming but we knew this day was close at hand. She'd been getting more and more physically frail and was obviously extremely uncomfortable in her body but we kept putting off the hard thing. It's a deep knife to the heart deciding to put down a loved one. Chili's been with us a long time. Nineteen years ago I picked her from a batch of cardboard-box kitties outside a Safeway in a moment of weakness. She sat up on my pregnant belly all the way home, looking out through the steering wheel. I snuck her into the house under my shirt because Rob and I hadn't talked about any plans for another cat but she charmed him right off by standing up on her hind legs for a full minute looking about with intense curiosity. So she slipped into our life and hearts. She became my snuggle baby during the final weeks of my pregnancy and she curled quietly on the bed for the whole labor and birth of India. Things got a bit touchy then, when she realized her prima status had been ursurped by this new kid in town . She broke alot of nice stuff and made herself a nuisance for some months as she worked out her jealous feelings but she never scratched India and was surprisingly tolerant of being tugged and bopped by a baby. She's been through alot with us. Interstate moves, illnesses, other kitties, another baby. She's had a long life full of nuzzles and coos, wild romps and explorations. I like to think she had it good and was happy. Finally, the decision was made and we called our long time vet Sandy Nelson who has served us so well all these years. She makes house calls and came out this morning after the kids said their goodbye and were dropped off at Grandma and Grandpa's. We spent the last hour holding and comforting her. Sandy arrived. A sedative, a delicate needle and she was gone. Goodbye, sweet Chiliquin. You are loved.

Top Photo: Chili's grave with marigolds. Buried under the tree we were married beneath in Crane Creek Park.

Photo: Me and Chili, Summer 1989

Altared Space

After an insanely ambitious push this past week to finish my list of just-not-humanly-possible projects for Open Studio, I had to admit I am not a super being and must cut my losses. I am always dismayed by the discrepancy between my creative ideas and my energy to realize them. My physical focus and stamina never seem to be enough to bear the fruit I want. I was unusually tenacious this time and got tantalizingly close to making it all happen but dangerously close to illness, too. Luckily, I came to my senses in time but spent most of Saturday really wrung out. Nonetheless, the studio looked great and people showed up which made it all worth while. I built my artistic ancestor altar upon the teak Indian temple window gifted to us. (Thank you, Thalia! You must come pick out a piece of art). I felted and formed my Mictecasihuatl (Queen of the Dead) doll out of wool and paperclay for the altar, though her bony forearms weren't finished and attached until Sunday. (She's pictured here sans hands). I did get a small batch of elxirs done, labeled on Saturday and the little elixir bar assembled on Sunday. My dad, true to form, was culinarily inspired and made two beautiful loaves of Pan de Muertos (bread of the dead) and traditional pumpkin candy for the table. We had sweets and nibbles set out on the altar for the beloved departed and also for general consumption. The kids plundered the ofrendas early on and had to be reined in. Various friends and fans dropped by from far and wide and some twinkly folks wandered in from the nooks of our wonderfully ecletic neighborhood including some fellow artists, Sunday meanderers and a particular elderly gentleman who shared a story about the mythic Catfish and gave me a very fine compliment. Various bold and curious children lead their adults in for a closer look, including a Bible-toting family who admired the work and sampled the fare. (Kids are some of my fave critics. My own 5 year-old nephew, Zephyr, pronounced me a "big" artist. It doen't get any better than that!) So, there was atmosphere, people enjoyed it, strange paths of conversation were followed through some diverse territory and I sold a tidy bit, too. Always important. So, I didn't finish all the new small paintings I'd started and the several dolls in the works lay unfinished. I want to offer more large prints than I currently have, as well, but I am excited about paperclay sculpture, painted forms and abstract colorplays. Now I just have to decide if I can rejuice my battery enough to make it real. Will I have another open studio in December? Hmmm...that's a wait and see.

Seeds and Shadows

This weekend, October 25 and 26, I'm opening my studio from 10-5 both days. I'm calling it Seeds and Shadows, partly to celebrate the Day of the Dead, which has grown into a deeply meaningful holiday for me but also to honor the confluence of opposites that naturally emerges at this time of year...bright/dark, growing/waning, living/dying. There is a reflection as well on the palpable transformational spirit of these times....change, the turning wheel, the swinging pendulum, the fleeting shadows, seeds of hope for the future. I will have new paintings hung, both large and small, as well as prints, cards, altars and, of course, there will be magical atmosphere, sweets, savories and sippables of various kinds. I hope I see some of you there.

Bimbo's