There is a bit of snow on the ground. I am in and out of the studio. Working on ideas that take me to Lee’s shop to borrow his time and tools. Cutting through books, using his torch, using my new burning tool, using watercolors from Australian soils. In the middle of several days just getting “to it”, I wonder just what is it I am doing. Is all this work saying what I want it to say? Am I wasting precious time on these things?

And then I pass by the wine bottle fish hung over the holidays outside my studio window.  The light catches on them and their wires have all rusted and still hold the fish as they swim in the cool winter winds. Then I think to myself that when I thought of doing this thing (hanging every fish wine bottle I could find under a porch with wire and rocks that were once a very long snake in the yard) I thought it might have been a dumb idea. But it is not. It amuses me. I like that my daughter and a friend helped with all that twisting of wires and hanging them just so.

The problem is that a person needs to have someone to ask. Someone who just might have a handle on how you think and can rein you in when you go too far. Someone who will say without equivocation that maybe you should rethink that idea and maybe even something like, “For god’s sake, clean up this studio. It’s all looking a bit muddled in here.”

I had someone like that once and then not. Years later I wrote the following poem about that loss. You read while I go pick up the studio and pretend she is still here looking over my shoulder.

Lost

 

It happens slowly – seldom just one instance

often a comment, a look, a difference of opinion.

 

Then a chill will seep in and work its way around

making a hollow that slowly fills with wariness, distrust.

 

And then its gone – the friendship, the companion,

the one person that you depended on to answer

“What do you think – what do you really think?”

 

S. Webster

 

 

This past week I have been making very special boxes for gifts as well as finishing the last of my two travel boxes for other countries.  The one pictured above is not of my own travels but of an imaginary wanderer.

This is a box that opens in the middle on one side only. It sold several years ago out of an exhibition. The top left window holds this writing I did that inspired the work.

“Once he returned from his travels there was so much to sort through. Where to put it all – especially the memories. Which ones would they replace. What and who did he have to let go – what forgotten and what not.”

I think I was fascinated with the idea of whether there was a maximum of space to hold memories and did we make somewhat conscious choices to let some go just to hang onto others. How did we say goodbye and close the door on some and open it to others.

Anyway here is the inside of the Traveler’s Box. It is filled with the things placed in his pockets along the way and his journal full of already fading memories.

 

This is one of those ideas that as an artist is just so rich, so full of potential for expression. It seems to recur over and over in my work.

I am glad that someone bought The Traveler’s Box. It makes an artist pleased that it mattered enough to someone to do that. But I would like go through his journal again and hope that somewhere in my files I have images of everyday he was recording, remembering and then forgetting all that he saw. I’ll have to look.

So back to this week. Since 2010 the mementos of France and Italy have been waiting for their boxes to be made. And here they are.

France.

Some of the shopping bags are folded in the bottom. A book of tied together pages of itinerary, tickets, wrappings and small papers is placed on top. Then a tray made that holds a small translation dictionary, lavender soaps and tea bags, buttons from a potter in Rustrel, a notebook from Sennelier and a baguette bag. The inside lid has another bags paper covering the insert.

All of my sketches from France and Italy are in a separate leather journal I made for the trip so no drawings are in these boxes.

Italy.

Italy is a much smaller box covered with the shopping bag a book binder used to hold purchases. Another journal of tied pages for tickets, etc. Wine corks and a small bundle of cards the book binder made still in their leather wrapping. In the inside lid is a pocket to hold prints purchased from street vendors and postcards.

These two boxes joined the other five on a shelf of contained memories of places not here.

Below are pictures of those other boxes that hold Australia, Bali, China, Japan and New Zealand.

Australia is my first and fairly large box of mementos. I like the sketches hidden inside.

Bali. I added the lotus from my water garden at home. There were so many of these everywhere in the gardens of Alam Jiwa near Ubud.

China.

Japan.

New Zealand.

It occurred to me that I have been to an eighth country – Canada – and only did sketches while there. Such a close neighbor; I never really saw it as a foreign place. Maybe some other time.

Next year back to Australia and maybe someplace new.