Author: Sandy Webster

My yardman came this week to check out my new trees and make recommendations to maybe stay out of nurseries for awhile as I wait to see old plants come back to life. The redbud he put in two years ago is lovely. It gets nice fat leaves that will help block out the neighbor on one side. He put some new mulch around the new trees and top dressed where needed for now. I think he was relieved that I hired someone else to do the weeding so he could get on with pond cleaning and bamboo spigot replacement.

The dogwood over the pond is in full bloom and makes the back yard a picture of Spring. Nice to see it through the windows. I will wait a while before getting more of these lovely late blooming grasses to add to the backside of the berm.

It seems the extreme low temperatures did my rosemary plants in. I shall buy some more to plant by the end of the month. My front yard snake was disappearing under a bush so I moved him out into plain sight.

Cooler weather is forecasted for this next week. I just need to remember to water the new plantings and watch what comes back in the white pots along the front entry. When something shows up, I will pull out the birch sticks and save them until fall when things die back. No ferns that get so large and hard to dig out of pots. I no longer have the strength for that.

I am still thinking of writing another story. Something that will supply characters to keep me interested and in good company. Yesterday I finished the last of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley stories. I went online to find more authors who write similar mysteries and have them in audiobook form available at my library source, Libby. Unfortunately there are not that many. Ms. George is not English as I had assumed, but an American writer. The narrators of her books all have the best voices to make her characters come to life. I would love recommendations for similar authors. Audiobooks work best for me because I do not have the patience to just sit and turn pages when I can be getting steps in as I listen.

It is a dreary day today. So good for writing poetry. Or stitching on my shawl/scarf. Or baking something. Or finding a movie since I only watch TV on weekends. The news is depressing as it gets here in the US. Nothing seems bad enough for a demand to change our downward spiral. We all wait for the next shoe to drop and clarify that we have become left behind by a world that has managed to keep its sanity and integrity.

I have more of my Easter chocolate rabbit to eat but the Lindt dark chocolate seems more bitter this year. I could use it for a hot chocolate to have with a biscotti. But first a bit of lunch of smoothie with over ripe fruits in the bowl.

Til later….

 

Very early morning off to have breakfast at the grille. I was reminded this week while listening to the men show pictures of broken parts of their cars, or other things that they repaired, of my under graduate and graduate work about this generation of old men. How they are likely the last of those who can pass on how to “fix” things. They say it is because most everything is computerized nowadays. I also think it has to do with a lack of interest in repairing when we live in a throwaway society. Just buy a new one. I also wonder if we are witnessing a decline in common sense….certainly here in the United States.

Which brings me to the No Kings Protest here in town. A small town firmly sitting in a red district. I picked up a neighbor who feels that at her age, late 80s, it is most disheartening to know so many still support the most despised president this country has ever known. My job is to drive through the street where the rally is held and honk and wave support for those protesting. My companion returns home feeling a bit less hopeless after she smiles, waves and takes pictures of the locals who have a clear understanding of how much we are losing of a country we took for granted. Neither of us will live to see the repairs that must be done. Nor will we see the support for the man destroying our country waver much. There is simply no way to penetrate blind devotion to their corrupt leader. He is their man and he will lead them anywhere he needs to be.  But not these brave and kind people.

Once home, I pulled out this old desk tool for piercing notes needing or having been taken care of and added the image of the biggest deplorable on several sheets just for the thrill of piercing through his midsection.  Very satisfying. I look forward to the day when I can stamp “PAID” on each one and pierce them again.

The making of this has inspired me to design an artwork where each of his most hated sycophants can be marched past with their swastikas firmly displayed on their upper arms and then move on to appear behind bars dressed in orange prison garb. I will need a shelf hung in the garage exhibition space to house these new works.

In the meantime, Spring continues to lift the saddened spirits of those of us who need to find ways to lighten the load of what has been foisted on the world at large. Apologies to almost every country out there and the next generations is woefully inadequate.

Now for a bit of British drama….

Til later…

An early start to the days this week. My cleaning lady helped me find her favorite nursery and just one hour later they had my two new trees planted in the yard. A weeping plum and an October Glory maple. More privacy in the view from my sunroom.

We are having beautiful Spring weather right now, so I am looking to freshen things up a bit around here. This morning I mixed up my bug deterrent to spray around the foundation. Mainly to keep out the occasional centipede and those pesky crickets. They have no resemblance to Jiminy Cricket or I would welcome them in. These look more like the ones a person would buy at a pet store to feed their lizards at home trapped in a glass aquarium staring back at kids who just had to bring them back from a trip to Florida.

Last night was the annual call from friends in Australia that finished their workshops at Grampians Texture in Halls Gap, Victoria. For over an hour I got to see the amazing work they did and were continuing to work on in the house we all rented together for many years. They are so talented in their embroidery, drawing, building of books and boxes. I miss being in the middle of that, helping by tossing out more ideas on how to say what they are expressing. They also brought along other greetings from other students I’ve had over the years. It was wonderful! I sipped an Australian wine as we caught up. After we said goodbye, they sent images of a cockatoo and kangaroo who came to visit.

Speaking of extraordinary students down under, I woke to see the news of one that continues to leave an impression on me. Charlotte Drake Brockman passed away a couple of weeks ago. She was the subject for an entry for the Archibald award portrait in Australia. I stayed with her and Inga Hunter in my early days of teaching down under and Charlotte was a favorite to share a scotch with when we were at the same venues. Here is the portrait entered in the Archibald.

She and Inga colored my hair orange and pink one morning after eating a breakfast Charlotte made me of scrambled eggs and those dreaded (at the time) fried tomatoes. Not fried as Americans think of fried, breaded and deep fried, but simply tossed in the frying pan next to the eggs. You did not say no to Charlotte. She lived to be 92 and I hope she had tomatoes and scotch up to the end. I loved her company, her independent thinking, her self-assuredness and her style.

Anyway, I promised my friends down under that I would get busy and make something to show them next year and in our frequent emails. I think something mechanical in nature…something that moves and tells a story would be fun. I told them it is hard to be joyful in a country that produced the kind of people who support Trump. They told me of their not knowing if there will be gas at the stations in the small towns they must drive through in their long trip back home. We are so ignorant and self-centered here in this country that we have no idea that the war Trump has waged on Iran and their response has caused a backup of trucks waiting for gas to come into the country and be delivered into these small towns. My country makes me embarrassed and sick for what we have let a deranged leadership get away with. I will disappear into my studio and busy my hands.

I do continue to stitch the shawl.

And now with Spring arriving, I have found more leaves to draw and paint into my book.

I might go get a bit of lunch. After this morning’s breakfast of French toast with Greek yogurt, maple syrup, and strawberries, I am not that hungry.

Okay, I need to have a bite to eat then thread a needle.

Til later…

 

 

I had a quiet week. there are no pictures because the sky was uneventful and the food matched the level by being boring. My cats are still cute, so no new pictures there.

I went to a very small neighborhood party. Took a bottle of red wine. Drank some to answer the question, “Sandy, what kind of art did you make?” I went through a couple descriptions of exhibition work…Former Yugoslavia, Expedition to Elsewhere, etc. Then told of hiring a backhoe to bury it all. Puzzled looks before returning to the weather and the hostess’s beautiful cat.

I also went to a poetry meeting and read the following.

I Saw Her in the Laundromat

She folds the underwear carefully, hers and her daughters.

In doing so, she holds them out in front of her body – chest high –

gently pinching the waistband’s elastic between forefinger and thumb,

trying not to notice, too much, the vast difference in size.

These simple garments are a condensation of their differences,

their almost total unlikeness of each other.

She becomes agitated all over again with the senseless longing

for what she no longer is and probably never was.

Amid the smells of laundry, softeners, and soaps,

neatly piled stacks of plain white cotton and colored silks,

she remembers to smile.

There was a short discussion about where a comma should be and a woman wanting to point out how thick her waist has become. Other than that there was complimentary comments about my ability to point out the importance of the mundane. All of which made me read the one line from Thomas Wolfe that inspired me to make a small edition of books with relief print illustrations of clothes on a line stitched to each page. This quote was my inspiration for the artwork done about my comfort in being with a group of men and the feeling of belonging I continue to recognize.

“”And this utterly familiar common thing would suddenly be revealed to me with all the wonder with which we discover a thing we have seen all our lives and yet have never known before.” Thomas Wolfe

I will be taking a break from this poetry group as well. Both groups have more attendees reading poetry with very little, if any, time for discussions beyond the use of commas.  And to be honest, some of the poetry is very far over my head. If I have to look up the meaning of words that just seem stuck in to be an example of knowledge that takes the reader away from what is being said, then I lose the plot as they say. My inspiration and lessons in writing poetry will be learned in the words of Ted Kooser, the over-used Mary Oliver, and pre-snarky Billy Collins. And maybe use some of the characters in my poetry as being worthy of a larger story. I need to listen more to what else these characters have to tell me.

And I need to stitch. Just thread a needle and poke it into ratty old cloth that wants to be mended and used as if it mattered.  I also need to draw more. Go back to painting stems and leaves. Concentrate on making something look like it is.

The other night I had an annual visitor come for dinner. Judy, a basket maker from Washington state who is in town teaching at the folk school. I am grateful that someone brings her over here for scotch and dinner while we talk about old times. She was recently in Australia teaching and caught me up on old friends. It was a delightful few hours.

So that is all I have. Just words. No pictures.

A wine I poured is now mostly gone. Perhaps a refill…

til later…