arting and sweating

Saturday morning I went out to find the dish of the birdbath on the ground again. I may just leave it there for now and filling it with water for whatever creature that keeps pulling it down in it’s effort to get water.

I finally got out and did some serious work in the yard. Beside moving the sprinkler around every 30 minutes (we need rain desperately) I started on the far back flower bed which I have basically ignored since spring and the poppies went to seed. Haven’t pulled a weed or watered it except for the two clumps of crinum lilies and the dirt is dry dry dry. The first thing I tackled was digging up the dead stump of the confederate rose on the end that didn’t come back this spring. There is something that attacks my confederate rose bushes. A new one will grow fine for the first few years and then one year a branch will start growing deformed and every year after more and more will be deformed until it doesn’t bloom and dies. I have no idea what is happening, everyone I’ve showed the deformed leaves to have no answers. I’ve planted them in different parts of the yard thinking maybe it’s something in the dirt but if it is it’s not just one spot. 

Before, the dead stump/root ball is hidden under the desiccated crabgrass (that’s how dry it is) on the left.

After an hour or so I got out about two thirds and was so hot and sweaty I had to go in and cool off.

Went out again once that area was in the shade and another hour later the rest of the stump/root ball is out and I’ve cleared about half of the weeds. 

The plan is to dig up the clump of pink crinum lilies, which did not bloom this year, there in the middle and put them on the end where the confederate rose was.

I didn’t work back there on Sunday, it was in full sun when I went out so I opted to work in the shade. Years ago I built two small flower beds at right angles to the oak tree by the driveway and planted six azaleas, three in each. Only one of the azaleas lived so I divided the red crinum lilies and replaced the dead azaleas with small clumps. Making those flower beds turned out not to be a great idea because I think they prevented water from draining from the side yard so I decided to take them out and spread the dirt to the low spot. I’ll leave the azalea and make it a small bed with the fringe flower tree next to it but dig up the crinum lilies which aren’t doing well there anyway. So Sunday I started on the arm from the oak to the preexisting bed of ferns at the base of the enormous white crepe myrtle pulling up the landscape blocks and stacking them in the barn. We finally got a little shower later, less than an inch but grateful for anything, and when I went out after to go feed the cats I was surprised to see this small arc of a rainbow since the sky overhead was mostly clear.

Yesterday I got out there, pulled up the rest of the blocks, dug up the crinum (spell check keeps wanting to change this to cranium) lilies

and used the shovel and hoe to spread out the dirt. Need to work on that some more but was hot and sweaty and came in.

I’m working on another card but the mad rush to sit down and get it done is over. Now it’s a few minutes here, a few minutes there, less invested, though walking the dog after yoga yesterday I broke a few willow leaf clusters off the tree at the end of the street and brought them home so maybe I’m not quite done. I’ve already prepared to be done, have transferred two drawings, one for a watercolor painting and one in my sketchbook for a colored pencil drawing. And I’m thinking more and more about a more ambitious watercolor painting. It’s a piece I sketched to do in the pate de verre cast glass but never got to it (that's supposed to be cotton at the bottom).  

the sublime and the absurd

Mainly pictures today. Yoga classes were gone to, a couple of dog walks happened, an uninspired dinner was made, a moderately busy day at SHARE was had, cats were fed. That about sums up the past week.  

Oh, I did have a visit with the great grandson who is 8 months old and crawling if that’s what you call it. More like half walking, hands and feet.

Cotton ready to be harvested last Monday which it was a few days later. 

The sky about 5 PM on the way to yoga Wednesday (photo through the dirty windshield).

Two more of the watercolor cards, tried a few leaves. I like the ginkgo, the pecan is ok. Took me all week to lazily get the pecan done. I might get a few more done but I’ve worked through the flush of an idea being executed. I’ve done 14 and while a flight of fancy had me doing all 30 by a particular point in time, that was never realistic. I’ve done all that deadline stuff, the reality of creating art on a timeline.

There are things blooming like the purple Philippine violet, the pink trumpet flower just beginning…

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This was going to be my first paragraph because this is how it started, what got written down first. But I didn’t want to start with that.

Once again I have deleted about three days worth of emails with only cursory perusing. A lot of it is repetitive, different people reporting and talking about the same goings on. I just…can’t. And obviously I was incorrect in my assessment that the Kxxx thing would blow over just like every other ‘breaking’ thing. Txxxx has seized on it as an excuse to crack down on any and all dissent, even people who correctly quoted Kxxx because it goes contrary to the saint they’re making him out to be. A fucking Day of Remembrance? Monuments? A respectful moment of silence in the House? Presidential Medal of Freedom? Seriously? Is sainthood far behind? Most people had never even heard of the guy. Nevertheless people are getting fired, lawsuits are being filed, shows are being canceled, the Thought Police are in full form. One senator is even promoting a bill that limits the nicknames we can legally call Txxxx and I guarantee none of them will be the Orange Turd. And what the fuck King Charles? What was that disgusting display of fêting of the OT and his disrespectful behavior.

Since it seems the Thought Police are sending their bots to scour every printed word online looking for those to cancel and punish for having ‘unacceptable’ opinions, even unacceptable true statements, I will no longer, for the foreseeable future (unless I forget or I decide it’s being overly dramatic and paranoid which, you know, is a possibility) spell out certain names, hence the Xs. I’m sure you can fill in the missing letters. Thus ends my political commentary for today.

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…and the oxblood lilies are popping up.

the circle of life turned

Our world got a little smaller last Saturday morning. If you’ve been reading here since before covid you likely remember me talking about our glass blowing friends Kathy Poeppel and Dick Moiel and how every November was spent getting organized and working out my display for the open house they sponsored at their studio the first weekend of December. It is with great sadness that I report Dick passed away peacefully last Saturday morning at home. His health had been deteriorating for the past several years and his bout with aspirated pneumonia a few months ago depleted his already tenuous strength. 

We first met Dick and Kathy one year when they called the studio and asked if they could come visit. That was sometime in the mid 90s I think after we had started doing personal work in the pate de verre cast glass technique (the whole precise timeline is lost to the past). Dick, a neurosurgeon, and Kathy, his surgical assistant, had retired to reduce the stress in their lives and were looking for a new activity to fill their days. They were avid art collectors with a focus on glass art and were visiting the few art glass studios in town. They took their first glass blowing class in 1994 and built their glass blowing studio in 1995, Houston Studio Glass. We started getting a postcard in November about a glass blowing open house in December. Who the hell is this and tossed it aside. Maybe the third time we decided to check it out. When we walked in Kathy was demonstrating and Dick was explaining what she was doing to the crowd and when he saw us he stopped and introduced us to the audience as fellow glass artists. We stayed a short while and then left. In the year 2000, Dick called and invited us to participate in a hot glass casting workshop by an artist from New Orleans he and Kathy were sponsoring at their studio, inviting not just us but non glass artists whom they knew as well. It was a fun three days and that was really the beginning of our friendship with Dick and Kathy. As art collectors they participated in the Houston art scene, inviting visiting artists to stay with them, gave dinner parties, had visiting glass artists give demonstrations at their studio and included us in these events and so we started to become known locally; inviting us and other budding glass artists in Houston to participate in their open house every year. While we had a gallery in Houston and Oliver sold a lot of work for us, it was Dick and Kathy who, as Marc put it, made us popular. My joke was that they dragged us kicking and screaming out of our cave and into the light.

They were big promoters of glass art, took classes and workshops every summer at all the prestigious glass and craft schools; Pilchuck, Penland, the Corning Museum of Glass to name a few, and then worked in their studio in the fall and winter perfecting the skills they learned over the summer and were friends with many of the big names in glass art. On a state level Dick worked to arrange exhibitions showing their work and the work of the local glass community in which we were included.

The last open house was the first weekend in December 2019 and then covid shut everything down for two years. Dick started having health problems though not from covid and they worked in the studio less and less. We last saw Dick and Kathy in November. He was looking a bit frail but in good spirits. Dick went on hospice care Tuesday, September 9th at home and took his last breath the following Saturday in his 90th year. 

We owe Dick a lot, not only for his friendship but for his generous support and all the work he did to promote not only his and Kathy's work but our work and that of other local glass artists as well.

Fly high Dick. You will be missed.

 

political violence

As we are all aware, Charlie Kirk was assassinated a few days ago. Trump immediately, with no proof or evidence at all since the shooter had not been caught much less identified, claimed that it was fanatic leftists, democrats, and was the result of democrat violent rhetoric and the MAGAt spin machine was off and running. Of course. We have learned since that the shooter was a young white Christian male from a Trump supporting republican family big on the gun culture, the kind that poses for pictures with all their semi-automatic weaponry, who was radicalized by social media (big surprise) and a follower of Nick Fuentes and his Groyper movement who thought Kirk wasn’t radical enough. Apparently there is an internecine conflict between the two groups. While the kid was personally unaffiliated politically with no record of recent voting, there is a donation of over $200 to a Trump Make America Great Again Committee in his name made in 2020. Has the right wing corrected their violent rhetoric against the left and Democrats with this new information. Of course not. They have instead whitewashed Kirk into a popular young man with an adoring following who was just exercising his right to free speech frantically removing as much of Kirk's hate speech online as possible.

Do we know which group lashes out with violence? We do.

Charlie Kirk was a dangerous man even more so because he cultivated an image of reasonableness and calm debate. But there was no debate that would sway Kirk from his positions because they came from his religious convictions. It was all just a sham, there were no facts anyone could present that could convince him of the wrongness of his vision for this country and culture. He was a Dominionist and used the debate format for the sole purpose of radicalizing young men in particular to his far right racist misogynist patriarchal view of what America should be refuting facts with religious dogma. 

For all the calmness and reasonableness he tried to project, his words and intent were hateful and cruel. He was just fine with children being killed by an angry person with a gun as the price to pay for their unfettered access and possession of whatever gun you want interpretation of the 2nd amendment. He thought empathy was a made up new age term and does a lot of damage. Empathy, he thought empathy was a bad thing. He thought gay people should be stoned to death. He said women should marry young and have babies, stay in the home and be submissive to their husbands. Any woman or person of color was automatically a DEI hire and unqualified for the job. He specifically said black women did not have the mental capacity to be intelligent. 

So the big debate on SM is did he deserve to die because of his beliefs, for exercising his right to free speech, was his murder justified? I don’t know, maybe. I’m against murder and violence to achieve selfish goals, don’t even own a gun, but I’m unmoved by his murder. The white right wing Christian nationalists don't want a multicultural nation where we all just get along. How do you 'get along' with people who refuse to compromise, whose goal is to rid the country of everyone not like them; to impose through violence, brutality, the law and government, to force adherence to their narrow and extreme religiously based social culture? We've seen the logical conclusion to that in Nazi Germany and the Inquisition in Spain. Eventually you fight or you let them kill you. 

So, did Kirk get what he deserved? Had one of the assassination attempts on Hitler been successful would it have been justified knowing what we know? I’m not exactly equating Kirk and Hitler. We don’t know what the future would have been with Kirk still in it but we do know where that kind of repressive and violent rhetoric leads, we see it unfolding in real time. Whether or not Kirk’s assassination was justified, whether this nation is better off without him, is something each of us will have to decide. And we really don't know what motivated the shooter. I think it’s possible to be morally against murder but at the same time not be upset that someone who was leading a movement based on hatred, violence, and repression was a victim of the very violence and hatred he espoused. 

While the MAGAts are crying foul, blaming liberals even though it was one of their own that was responsible for silencing Kirk, people are losing their jobs for exercising their own right to freedom of speech on SM or in the workplace, for expressing their opposition to Trump and all things MAGA or their refusal to let the whitewashed martyrdom of Charlie Kirk go unchallenged. 

Regardless of Kirk’s influence or lack thereof, he was just one of the many right wing christian nationalists spouting their hate against women, POC, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, liberals, the educated, and ‘woke’ on SM and in podcasts marching this country straight into religious authoritarian fascism. Dissent is punished. The bounty hunters formally known as ICE recently shot and killed a man they were trying to apprehend who resisted. Brian Kilmeade on Fox said homeless people should be euthanized, “involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill them.” on live TV and was not fired on the spot. How long until they dig a trench with a backhoe, line people up and shoot them in the head and people just shrug? 

a hint of the possibility of fall, two more, object #9

The flowering senna across the street at Pam’s house. It definitely has not minded the dry weather. I think I’ve watered it only a couple of times all summer.

Monday and Tuesday have been so refreshing and this morning also. In the 70s when I got up Monday, in the 60s when I got up Tuesday, highs in the 80s, blue sky days with no humidity, AC is off and doors are open until it starts to warm up with highs back in the 90s. 

I made gumbo last night because I wanted to use up the last of the okra I bought from the guy at the Easy Lube that sells it from his garden, also I like to have fish at least once a week so I put catfish and shrimp in it. I’m not great at gumbo but this was probably the best so far, not that it was great, so I guess I’m getting better. And no I do not make my own roux, I use instant, just add water. Friday I plan on stuffed shells. 

I took advantage of the cooler weather this morning and pulled up all the zinnias. It’s been so dry I couldn’t keep them watered and just quit trying last week and besides they were at the end of their ability to produce flowers anyway.

Two more cards. I’m starting to wind down on this project though I think I still have a few more in me and then I want to start on a new colored pencil drawing for a friend.

I have no desire to comment on the continuing fuckery of this administration today.

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My Life In 100 Objects - #9

Objects really. Favorite items of clothing. I wear them until they are rags and still wear them until every time I do family members are all ‘I can’t believe you are wearing that ragged thing’. The previous favorite was a lightweight green long sleeved pullover shirt that I bought on the marked down several times rack for $1.99. It was surprisingly warm for its weight and also the first long sleeved shirt I would pull out when the weather finally turned cool enough. I wore that thing until the front was almost in shreds and only reluctantly threw it away. My current favorite item is a purple plaid flannel shirt with western style yokes front and back and pearl snaps. 

It had a big tear in the front that I mended years ago and now the elbow on the right sleeve is torn out and a spot on the left sleeve has opened up to a small hole, destined to get bigger and bigger. It’s gotten to the point where I probably won’t wear it out in public anymore but I’ll definitely still wear it in the house and in the yard.

 

more art cards and Object #8

I suppose I’m due for a post since it’s been a week. What have I been doing all week? Just the usual; yoga class, SHARE, dinner on my two nights, errands around town. The AC is out on the car again so it’s been hot going anywhere. 

I got the two little watercolors framed. The small frames were just too tight, too crowded. 

The larger frames I had bought I discarded because the opening in the mats were smaller than the paintings. So I changed my mind again and used them after all, cutting the mats to make a larger opening. I took the zucchini painting to Hesed House on Friday but had to have a new mat for the pomegranate cut at the frame shop here because I cut the one that came with the frame too big. So here’s how the pomegranate looks in its new frame (the zucchini flower/fruit looks similar, just in a rectangular frame). Much better.

And I’ve done 3 more of the watercolor note cards and am almost finished with a fourth so I guess that’s what I’ve been doing this week.

Speaking of note cards, I got my first check from the Market at Hesed House. They sold three packs of the note cards of my colored pencil drawings. They also sold one of the framed prints but I guess it will be on next month’s check. 

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My Life In 100 Objects - #8

The staghorn fern.

After my father retired he acquired a small staghorn fern and turned his interest to some plants, gardening, but not gardening like flower beds and all that, just certain plants. Roses, the staghorn fern, plumerias. The staghorn multiplied and multiplied and multiplied until it was a huge ball, so heavy it could not be moved and he had a structure that he hung it on. After he died my sister acquired it. At some point she cut it up, gave away parts of it, kept some, and gave me one of the individual ferns. I had an old wire hanging basket, got one of those coconut fiber liners and put the fern in the basket and hung it under the magnolia tree, bringing it in every winter. That was, I don’t even remember, eight years ago? Maybe. Maybe more, maybe less. It was finally too heavy for me to lift and carry in and out last fall so now my grandson moves it in and out for me. 

I did not have a good relationship with either of my parents for different reasons. There were several years in my 20s when I refused to get a phone for the simple reason that then they couldn’t contact me. This isn’t the place to go into the history of my relationships with with my parents but my father had a stroke when I was in my early 30s and it changed his personality. He was forced to retire and he sort of disappeared into himself. When he emerged again about a decade later we began to have a more cordial relationship. Anyway, having this stag horn is a small connection to the short time when we weren’t always at odds. Few things make me think of him but this is one, every time I walk past it.

still hot but changes in progress, annoyed Cat, more cards, and maybe a ray of hope

I’m happy to report my reaction to the second shingles shot was minimal. I woke up about 4 AM the next morning feeling achy and a little chill. Not having chills but I turned the fan down from high to medium, took some ibuprofen and I’m fine today (Saturday) though I do have a red and sore area on my arm in the vicinity of the injection site. The All Knowing Oracle tells me this is a common reaction.

Things are happening that denote the start of the changing season even if our highs are still in the 90s albeit the low 90s. Of course the ‘real feel’ temp is always over 10 degrees hotter. The tallow trees have been dropping leaves for a couple of weeks now, 

I noticed last week that the snow-on-the-prairie was blooming with it’s tiny flowers and white leaves, bloom plumes are emerging from the clumps of pampas grass, 

the beauty berries are purple, foliage all around is looking tired, and it’s dark by 8:30. Yesterday (Sunday) and today, a bit less hot staying in the high 80s but will zoom up high 90s this week before dropping back to low 90s. Still, it’s September and the summer did not seem to drag on. I don’t think we had an actual temp in the triple digits this summer.

Cat always wants out in the morning and back in by noon or earlier and then spends the rest of the day inside. This morning (Saturday) I let her out as usual and as usual when I venture out after breakfast and emerge from the garage she runs up to me from the deck in the front where she spends her outdoor time and I let her in. This morning I didn’t pause waiting for her but went straight to the backyard looking things over when I heard her meow at me from the driveway. Instead of going and letting her in right away I continued my meander around the yard and when I was over by the zinnias she came running towards me and let out this long indignant howl and when I looked at her she ran back to the garage. Hey bitch get your butt over here and let me in.

I’ve done three more cards but I’m starting to get carried away. The azalea took way too long and is too big, well it’s not too big just too big for the purpose of these cards which is why it took so long plus I kept making adjustments to the colors (not to mention I painted the wrong side of the card). The point of these cards is to minimize my time investment, small fairly simple designs, two hours or less. The black eyed susans took a little over an hour so I’ve decided to keep the azalea, send it to one of my friends. I’ve done seven so far. If I do at least two a week I’ll have them all done for the little expanded market day. It’s more likely I’ll only get 15 or 20 done by then.

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There’s been some question the past few days about whether or not Trump had died or was whisked away to the mini hospital in the basement of the White House, if he had had a stroke or heart failure because he had not been seen for about five days. Being the media hog that he is who loves nothing more than to talk about himself to the press and air his grievances while claiming to be the best at everything this is highly unusual. Finally a pictured appeared Sunday of Trump leaving the White House for one of his golf clubs, of course since that’s all he does except for when they hand him more EOs to sign or he’s indulging in one of his cabinet ass kissing sessions. Looked pretty bad as he ignored the press. No telling what’s going on and the White House certainly won’t tell us the truth but if he is getting more incapacitated people are starting to speculate on what a JD Vance take over would be like. Some people think it will be worse because Vance is smarter than Trump and I thought so too at one point. Now, though, I’m thinking maybe the whole MAGA movement might unravel quickly. MAGA is a cult of personality, without Trump, there is no cult. Vance may be smarter but he is also unlikeable, has no people skills, no charisma, has basically been side-lined since the election; he may be a willing puppet but I don’t see him inheriting Trump’s following. I think maybe that while Trump’s core refuses to blame Trump for the deteriorating conditions in this country they will have no problem blaming Vance. And with Trump gone, so will be his hold on congressional republicans, at least the more moderate ones, and we might start seeing some push back from them. One would hope anyway. It’s one ray and I think I’ll hold onto that for now.

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A few random photos:  I noticed this spiral of green lacewing eggs,

Another praying mantis, this one on my sister’s Mexican bird of paradise (pride of Barbados),

which is still in full bloom. She has a different variety than mine. Her's comes out later and fuller, blooms earlier than mine and blooms longer. Mine is already done blooming.