A ball of wool

I hadn't felted anything in a very long time. Years. And I have so many sculptures stored in my attics and basement that the prospect of making more sends my head spinning and turns my stomach. I don't intend to show it again, the work is over for me, and I keep it because, I don't know, because an artist is supposed to, I am told. 

So for my friend SF's birthday, I went rooting through my stash for the rusty scissors I had found long ago in a junk yard and set aside with a mental note that I would make a sculpture with them for her. She has a wonderful collection of scissors and this seemed like a fitting gift. 

Over the years, SF has gifted her art to me - several drawings and a painting on paper. More than that, she has gifted me with her generous mind and soul. Every conversation I have with her is thoughtful, thought-provoking and fruitful. Her discipline and dedication toward her own art practice is inspiring. Her support and insight into my art-making process has touched me deeply. Energized me. She is a valuable colleague and mentor.

I have never given her any of my art. I struggle with gifting my art to people. It is a conundrum for me. I find it awkward to pick out a piece (that I made) for someone else. Aside from the fact that much of my work is described as creepy or morose (and is a lot to assume that a person would want to live with a piece of it), choosing art is an intimate thing. I dread bestowing a gift that someone might not want, is polite to not reject, and then feels obliged to not only keep, but to display. It feels like an arrogant maneuver. Unless. Unless, it is someone whose admiration of my work I can absolutely trust and I am close enough to know their sensibility and aesthetic. And of course, it is also handy if they tell you directly the pieces that they absolutely want. Then there is no mystery. The exchange is transparent. (Boy, do I love transparency.)

I was deeply satisfied as I sat on my patio in the filtered sun, working the tiny wool fibers with the tips of my fingers and feeling the slow but inevitable shift from an almost gummy, wild, mop of wet woolly tangle into a snug, smooth piece of felted cloth. As I worked, I reflected on the many years I spent making art with as little as my hands and a ball of wool. To work today, I sit in front of an enormous monitor hooked up to a G5 and tap at a keyboard.

I long for more work with my hands in my video work. Shooting with a camera is very sculptural to me and satisfies this physical need to a large degree. Even then, you can shoot hours of footage, but eventually you have to do something with it. Still, the connection with the body - the sensual, the haptic, the touch - is buried with the product when you make video. I've been trying to reconcile this, to merge these sensibilities, with the sculptural video. And at times, I just accept that they remain separate... I either make a sculpture or I make a video. Finito.

Anyway, I think it is appropriate that a gift for SF was in turn a gift to me: a reinforcement of what I know and who I am, and the certainty that it is enough for now, and that all is still shifting. Like felt over a piece of rusting metal. 

I think she liked if very much. 

Scooters at Matlock's!

Apparently they sold two yesterday. Go Piaggio!

Visiting Vandys

Hanging with Calliope and Rufous

Last weekend we saw an amazing little hummingbird when we were hiking in the Rattlesnake Wilderness. It was super tiny (between 2 and 3 inches, depending on which of us tells the story). The little guy lit on the very top branch of a young (12 footer) Ponderosa Pine while we were sitting on the grass. Since I looked up at the tree at such a sharp angle, his little silhouette popped against the blue sky backdrop. He moved between a couple of trees landing on the tippy-top each time. He was a beautiful green, with a red throat and white belly. This little dude made me so much more thrilled with what was already a really great day that I named him/her, Thimbelle.

I get Rufous hummers in my yard a lot. In fact, I saw one on my front porch enjoying the hanging basket of orange Nicotiana just the day after we saw Thimbelle. So, Thimbelle could have been a Rufous, but was probably a Calliope, and in the story that I insist is possible, is that he was a Bee hummingbird which are only in Cuba. But what if we spotted the first one in Montana? What if he came all of this way? It's possible, you know. It doesn't matter to me so much that it is true. Just that it is possible.

We also saw some other birds that come to my yard: a Western Tanager and a Downy. We have been getting so much rain that they were fluffing and preening, trying to dry out their moppy feathers. And the wildflowers were out in full force - even some Indian Paintbrush on the slope facing the river. My own garden is very showy right now, too.  Something about taking the hike and making the discoveries that you don't pass each day, adds a little extra thrill somehow, I guess. And I took more time to enjoy it. Having been reminded, I'm appreciating my own yard more now, too!  (All it takes is a few drops of sun and I am a better person. Or I think I am, anyway. Glorious sun, thank you!)

Moving to higher ground

This past weekend, it rained 10 inches overnight in my hometown of Franklin, Indiana. "I haven't used the word torrential in all of my life," my seventy-seven year old father said over the phone. It hit the highest mark since 1931. "We had the meanest looking clouds you have ever seen," my sister, Pam, claimed.

My nephew Travis is Assistant Service Manager at our family  car dealership. He called Dad because water was now standing in the shop. My parents couldn't get up there from their house downtown because the roads were closed, so they had to stay at home and wait out the downpour. Travis called Pam, his mom and the General Manager, who was out of town but driving back to Franklin. She and her husband, Norman, barely made it back to town before the Interstate was closed. My sister, Denise, and my brother, Rick, also work at the dealership. Denise couldn't get from her house in Morgantown because roads, as Pam describes them, were "warshed" out.

Travis said the water was up to the bumpers in the front row of the lot. Employees hustled moving cars to higher ground.  

The largest park in town, Province Park, is a small valley downtown Franklin with a creek running through it and, as the town watershed, filled up to the back door of all the houses that surround the park. (BTW, this park is across the street from my parent's house.) Bridges washed out or were blocked, roads washed out and the cemetery filled with water. People couldn't get in or out of town.

When the rain subsided, my parents made it up to the shop. Six to eight inches of muddy water stood throughout the building. Everyone came together for the clean up. My brother, Rick, his wife, Julia, Dale Williams, the Service Manager, my sister, Pam, her husband, Norman, their son, Travis, my nephew (Denise's son), Nick, Paul (Norman's brother), clerks, mechanics, salesmen, their wives and their friends. Kids were everywhere. My father could not get over how everyone helped. Some of the people were strangers to my father. 

Armed with mops, buckets, squeegees, hoses, carpet cleaners, and vacuums, they pumped and hauled the water and mud away. Then they rinsed with bleach water and vacuumed more. Travis told me that it mostly took a lot of elbow grease.

Dad bought lunch for the emergency clean-up crew. When Dale picked up the fifty roast beef sandwiches, people still waiting in the fast food line were irritated because the roast beefs were sold out and they were being offered substitute selections. Dale recognized some of them were dealership customers, so he offered them a few of the crew's roast beefs. They declined with jokes that I'm sure will run for years to come.

Pam said that when moving cars, Dad backed into a sold vehicle and damaged it. "He was hotter than a fire-cracker. But, it was comical." She went on to tell me, "Dad didn't want to wear everyone out and everyone else was worried about him."  He sent people home at 5 o'clock and also went home. After he and Mom left, Pam, Norm, Rick, Dale, Travis and Paul re-parked all of the cars in line so they would be ready for business in the morning. 

I told Pam that it sounded like in spite of the crisis that everyone rallied and worked well together. For a family of bossy sibs (myself included) I thought this might have been a test, but in the end they worked it out. Literally. "Yeah, we did, we had a good time. A really good time," she reported.

"We are a lot luckier than some," Rick told me. Some people in cars were swept away and drowned before rescue workers had reached them. Local kids who had seen all of the water as an opportunity to swim, had nearly drowned in drainage ditches, saved by hanging onto felled tree branches until help arrived.

A car dealership in Martinsville was in the news as a huge loss. Dad had observed that no one had saved the vehicles at the local police station, now under six feet of water, "and they have a hundred employees, at least."

On Monday morning, they were all back together at the dealership, with the doors open and fine-tuning now that the mud was out. The temperature was in the high 80s but the humidity was the real killer. The nearly invincible terrazzo show room floors were dusty but workable. Drywall was damaged but minimal. "Just fried computers and stuff like that," Pam said. The monetary loss was small, which was good since the insurance wouldn't be covering a flood. Travis hurried off the phone because the Service Desk was so busy.

"Hell, we got it made," Dad choked, touched by the experience. He was at the grocery store picking up lunches for everyone. "I always knew we had a great crew. Once again, they proved it." 

Uncomfortable with all of the emotion, he changed the subject. "Your Mom is almost over her cold. You know, she buys a cold every year."

"You mean she gets a flu shot?" I tried correcting him.

"Yeah. She buys a $70 shot and gets a cold every year. Hell, at least I don't pay nothing for mine."  He paused waiting for me to laugh.  

Two more inches are expected in Franklin tonight. 

 

Slurpy Back Home

I went out to post 'Missing Rabbit' signs and found the neighborhood up in arms over the bunny-napping.

Mark (two doors down) was hounding Animal Control. Betsy (on the corner of the next block), happens to work the news room at one of the local papers and was calling me for the story to post on the paper's blog and also hung up signs. Gladys (tidy house on the corner) saw Joe (across the street from me) at Walmart and told him all about it. John (next door) was bummed.  The woman trimming Elsie's yard suggested that the people caught him to eat him. I decided that she was not my friend or Slurpy's. But she is in the minority. 

The guys at Gary's Gas Station (next door) said that recently they had sent the pound away.  A call had been put in about a crazed rabbit. Gary and the guy from the pound stood over Slurpy in the parking lot and discussed the situation. Gary asked The Pounder, "I don't know, does that rabbit look like a problem to you?" Slurpy sat all balled up, enjoying the warm pavement. Gary went on, "He is harmless. He lives next door. We all like him. Leave him alone." The Pounder apparently agreed and went away. Had the Pounder come back?

Eventually, I went to post my "Lost" notice on Craigslist and read a "Found Rabbit" post. A woman (ahem, with a California area code) had picked Slurpy up to 'help' him. I wish she had knocked on some doors and asked before scooping him up. I guess it isn't as easy to overlook as a loose cat, but she would have learned, like I did, that Slurpy lives a great life here and has many fans. And they would have sent her to me. Which I was pleased as punch about.

When Ms. Helpful dropped him off, finally, Joe ran over and knocked on my studio door to make sure I knew. He had a note and tape in hand in case I wasn't home. (I love my neighborhood.) 

Slurpy is losing his winter coat and he looks a bit mangy for it, especially in the rain. It also made him look grateful to be home again as he gobbled a handful of treats. I can't really tell. He hopped back to his routine pretty quick. 

From what I learned, John hand-feeds him raw almonds at 5:30 every morning.  He eats snacks under the blue spruce that the girls across the street leave for him. He naps under Gladys' weeping birch in the afternoons. Slurpy also gives the cats and squirrels that harass him a good spanking now and again so they mostly stear clear of him. And all that adventure is before he gets back to my house! 

He spends most of the day here.  And especially the nights, hunkered down in the middle of the grass in my back yard. When the college kids in the hood throw big parties, he stands in that spot, on his hind legs, his ears upright and separated at odd angles like TV antennae. He stands like that and listens, I guess. For hours. And I watch.

Anyway, the neighborhood is happy and relieved to have Slurpy back. There has been talk of having a party for him, but for now, I am satisfied with him roaming and following me around again.

Slurpy kidnapped!

Slurpy Alberto was born January 2005 at my house on Central Avenue.  I held him in my hands when he was a few weeks old.

Slurpy has survived the cars, cats, dogs, squirrels and people for almost four years. His parents, siblings and cousins have not.  

Slurpy roams this block freely.  He sleeps here, eats here and plays here.  We all take care of him and adore him.  Children visit my home in hopes of catching a glimpse of Slurpy, to feed him treats and maybe pet him.  He ventures this block with certainty that he is safe because it is his home.

 

Slurpy was kidnapped the evening of June 1, 2008.  A neighbor saw two women corral him into a shrub and put him in their car and drive away.

Free Slurpy! Bring Slurpy back!