One of the joys of gardening are the little surprises that happen when nature asserts an opinion over whatever I've planted deliberately, like the wild violets that sprang up all around my tulips or the red and yellow mystery flowers growing up under the lettuce bed. I don't even know what
those are. I always listen and work with what I am given. It's a delicate balance between cultivation and chaos that makes a garden come alive and so much more interesting than the neat little rows of widely spaced heavily mulched alternate color annuals that landscapers seem to love. It is also the best way to slowly build up a healthy eco-system.

Herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables are all planted together using deliberate companion plantings and working with volunteers. Everything eventually works out, as in who which plants compliment each other aesthetically and practically. Two of my favorite books on companion planting are "Carrots Love Tomatoes" and
"Roses Love Garlic" by Lousie Riotte.

I have all these little alchemical miniatures that have never quite dried until now. They have been sitting on the drying rack for a year or more. I didn't have the right varnish formula. All it takes is a single missing or mistaken ingredient and all goes awry as far as drying time. I could be like a cat and claim that I did on purpose as an experiment but that would be telling tales. The little devils just would not finish. I waited and waited but they were tacky (or should I say sticky) for ages. Then I forgot about them. This is the first one I scanned. New work is coming up too. First, I'll post the minis. I suppose these are sort of new. Old to me and new to everyone else. C.P. also likes to make icons when he fixes up my pictures.

Cetus


  

A lovely way to start the first morning of May is with a reminder of Lord Whimsy's post about David Brenner's moss garden. l had missed it the first time around. He also posted a link to a new article about the same garden in the New York Post. I think this is brilliant since I love moss and don't care much for water hogging cultivated lawns or obsessively hedge trimmed blandscapes. I do still miss my established wildflower and moss garden from the old place. I am still somewhat patiently waiting for something similar to develop here and it will...eventually. There is a small cottage up the road with a moss path to the door with a big stone at the end in front of the door. It's like an anti-welcome mat. I love that. We've turned up every stone with moss attached and tucked them under shaded places. I dream of a bed of soft green moss like the one I napped on in an old growth forest in Oregon or a mossy stone path.

Lack of mossiness aside, the rest of our garden is thriving and the micro-climate we created has held up well to the elements. We are still working on the dry laid stone wall that will go all the way around the garden and up the hill. Last night we had an unexpected frost. It's an ironic May Eve gift for gardeners, a sort of literal "May Day" for the seedlings and bulbs just beginning to bloom. I put tomatoes, peppers, and basil in the potting shed and lit all of the votive candles I could find. After the mad dash to rescue my pesto and salsa, I finished up my first solo recording experiment just in time to be included on Webbed Hand's ambient strings compilation. Mine is the first track (nepotism?) and is called "Beltaine Frost". Can you tell I came up with the title at the eleventh hour? I used my banjolele and a ukulele for the string instruments and my voice as a drone. Nemo sneezed while I was recording. This is how I discovered that cat sneezes sound like maracas when looped. There is also a Djinnestan track on there called "C plus A". I've had two full weeks of bright sunshine. The brain fog is lifting. Here are more garden pictures because I am obsessed as you may have guessed.

I'm still floating in the mist. I think it's called a brain fog. The signs of life I refer to are (unfortunately) not mine. Not yet. They are outside, here on the coastal homestead among the flora and fauna and wildlife. Spring flowers, mint, oregano, garlic, purslane, parsley, dandelions, sage, spring onions, rhubarb, and asparagus are all peeking up now. My fig tree and wisteria survived the winter and have new buds. There are signs and indications that I will join them soon. Last week began the long slow tease of a spring which never quite arrives. Then it will be summer. We'll sneak in gardening days whenever the sun miraculously appears (usually mid morning to early afternoon) and try to have as much done as possible before the "inexplicable" 10-15 degree temperature drop and whiting out of the sky (usually around mid afternoon) or the whip winds of a sudden storm off the Atlantic. I love it though, living and gardening on a cliff by the sea, challenges and all.

This is our first season of a completely self sufficient system of growing, with enough of our own organic compost, leaf mold, and saved seeds not to have to purchase anything. I was tempted by spring chicks but we are not ready for them yet. The compost came out better than I had hoped and there is plenty of it. Rich and black. I've been working in the studio all along but there is that floating thing. Nitty gritty down and dirty with the earth is what really wakes me up and gets me going. Solar power also helps. My cozy by the fire evenings and lazy daze of winter woolgathering are over though...until December. This year's projects are to finish developing the other side of the garden, build our new improved greenhouse, and possibly construct an outdoor studio for me.

Book arts, particularly book cut sculpture, is one of the more interesting new genres of art to come around in awhile. I've previously posted about Sue Blackwell but for those who haven't seen her work, here it is again. The other artist is Brian Dettmer. A little inspiration is always nice.

I tried to resist. The movie quote thing sucked me in at last. It's too much fun and I love movie quotes. Here are 15 of my favorite quotes from 15 movies I like.

Leave a comment if you know which movie any of these quotes are from or just want to guess. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb/Wikiquote search functions. That would be cheatin'. There could be a prize. There probably isn't. You just never know.

1. Clothes make the man. I believe that. You say to me you want to go shopping, you want to buy clothes, but you don't know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I'm going to fill in the blank, that to me is like asking me who you are, and I don't know who you are, I don't want to know. It's taken me my whole life to find out who I am, and I'm tired now, you hear what I'm saying? - Joe Versus The Volcano guessed by allats_daughter

2. I've been driving this route for 15 years. I've brought 'em out here to get that stuff, and I've drove 'em home after they had it. It changes them... On the way out here, they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me; sometimes we stop and watch the sunsets, and look at the birds flyin'. Sometimes we stop and watch the birds when there ain't no birds. And look at the sunsets when its raining. We have a swell time. And I always get a big tip. But afterwards, oh oh... - from Harvey guessed by Dr. Chumley aka chordam7

3. I get sick of being asked for good old Indian wisdom. I ain't got none. So get the hell out of here! - from Pow Wow Highway guessed by ricecricket

4. "Sometimes they have to kill us. They have to kill us, because they can't break our spirit. - Joe Versus The Volcano guessed by hotel_jewelweed and allats_daughter

5. "In fact, very few Jim, Jim, very few of us here are actually mentally ill. I'm not saying you're not mentally ill, for all I know you're crazy as a loon. But that's not why you're here. That's not why you're here, that's not why you're here!! You're here because of the system." - from 12 Monkeys guessed by mojo_iv

6. "Do you see any Teletubbies around here? Do you see a slender plastic tag clipped to my shirt with my name printed on it? Do you see a little Asian child with a blank expression sitting outside in a mechanical helicopter that shakes when you put quarters in it? No? Well that's what you see at a toy store. And you must think this is a toy store, 'cause you're in here shopping for an infant named Jeb. Now one of us has made a gross error and wasted the other person's valuable time. This is an art gallery my friend. And THIS is a piece of art." - from Unbreakable guessed by mojo_iv

7. "The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything." - from Fight Club guessed by mojo_iv

8. "It's easy to be a holy man on top of a mountain." - from The Razor's Edge guessed by astrokaiju

9. "Lincoln said, "With malice toward none, with charity to all." Nowadays they say, "Think the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights outta you." - from You Can't Take It With You guessed by lifeismagic

10. "No questions, no lies. No truth either... "

11. "Well, if some people get upset because they feel they have a hold on some things, I'm merely acting as a gentle reminder: here today, gone tomorrow, so don't get attached to things." - from Harold and Maude guessed by rivertumbled

12. "If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead." - from Fire Walk With Me guessed by rivertumbled

13. "It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes." - from Repo Man guessed by astrokaiju

14. "There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there is nothing left to do, and nothing else to pursue." - Ghost Dog guessed by beatificdreams

15. "That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." - from The Matrix guessed by prader

No. I surely ain'nt, as Granny Weatherwax would say. I can see how people might think so. I've been up to the same kind of nonsense except that I'm not quite talented enough (yet) to borrow the bodies of small animals. This winter has been less like hibernation and more like floating around in an abstract mist. It isn't a terrible thing. It's just confusing and not all that constructive. I did float around the studio long enough to take inventory. That killed about three months. I am still hoping this is a chrysalis sort of thing and that I will emerge as a beautiful new butterfly and will not just have killed a lot of time contemplating my navel and practicing headology. Since I have no completed or coherent projects of my own to post about, I think I'll advertise the creative work of one of my friends.

This is a recent acquisition, a gorgeous necklace made by velvetgarden. It's unusual for me because I'm frugal, annoyed by too much extra stuff, and don't usually wear jewelry. I have a few personal talismans that I made for myself. I doubt they would be mistaken for jewelry. I've been wearing this necklace and receiving many compliments instead of the usual funny looks. I think it has a bit of mojo and is unique. It has the extra added benefit of being an attractive shiny object that distracts people from the other thingies. The website is called Velvet Mechanisms and the merchandise is here It's all one of a kind and that's my favorite kind of anything

Happy New Year!

I'm a little early but I probably won't be online much this weekend.

So I've been a busy bee and I'm still buzzing. C.P. and I took a lovely mellow Christmas break from our many and varied creative endeavors. The winter scene in Plymouth Center is quite nicely done. I love the Christmas lights and decorations in Plymouth and on Cape Cod. I wish I had better pictures and more of them but night plus lights equals blurry and photography is not my best thing. My favorite displays are the old fashioned window dressings. Those photographs didn't come out at all because of the window glass and the street lamps behind them. The smoke shop window is filled with old fashioned wooden handmade toys and the usual vintage cigar advertisements and boxes. I also like the view from under the lighted trees because they look like giant glowing spider webs.

Now we are back to work but it is work that we love. In celebration of the coming new year and in continuation of the theme of renovation and renewal in all areas of my life, I've been updating and upgrading my web presence. After practicing on webbedhandrecords.com I redesigned both of my own web sites. The old blog at arianadii.com is no longer broken and has been transformed into a searchable and easily updated catalog of recent and available work. The entire site has had a major facelift. It's simple and clean. I like it. I wanted the navigation to be seamless and the focus to be on the art and on easier faster updates. I moved the personal blog to wildmuse.net which is supposed to be the hub for all of my projects and collaborations but it was dusty and static for too long. It has a new look and uses the blog format so that it's more dynamic. Now I won't have to mess with html, ftp, and all that jazz every time I want to put new work or announcements online. Have I mentioned how much I love wordpress?

I have the green light to sneak preview the latest Saluki Regicide track from an upcoming release. Saluki is one of C.P. McDill's most popular recording projects, sometimes described as soundtracks for weird dreams. I made a small contribution to this track which is why I've posted here. Left click to play. Right click to download. It's 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. I don't happen to have 55 monstrous pictures to illustrate with so the photograph of a boy with his accordion, reminiscent of C.P. will have to do.

Saluki Regicide - 55 Monstrous Pictures

Two recent works on paper have been donated to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts December Exhibition & Sale that runs from the 5th through the 9th of December. Proceeds from the sale benefit the SMFA student scholarships. These are different than anything else I've done, subtle abstract landscapes made of hand stitched composted paper and embellished with embroidery. The titles are "Os Sacrum" (to the left) and "Heiresis". Both pieces are 9 x 11 inches.

So where have I been and what have I been doing? Reinventing myself physically, artistically, and spiritually. Dramatically so. Again. I seem to have to do this every five to seven years, especially if I am getting too comfortable or when I finally get into a flow with something creative. I just have to shake it up. Denny Crane instructs that the secret to life and success is to pull a rabbit out of your hat. I've decided that since everything in this current life seems to be reversed (as in upside down and backwards) that the secret to health and happiness is to follow the rabbit down the hole and through the looking glass. You don't necessarily have to take the rabbit out of the hat first. I usually forget that part and it always works out just fine.

C.P. McDill and I just finished completely gutting my workspace and the creative process along with it. The "crow's nest" that I use for my studio is the attic of our tiny cottage. It has a low ceiling of only 6' at the highest point. The previous owner had installed a hideous drop ceiling and glued down wall to wall carpet which made it seem even more cramped and office like. We ripped out the drop ceiling, liberated the wooden rafters, exposed and sanded down the lovely hidden wood floorboards. C.P. installed all new full spectrum lighting, and then we painted the walls and ceiling a warm brilliant white. Now it's cottage style and the difference is amazing. It's so bright and warm as well as feeling much larger than it actually is. Then we created a more open floor plan with two work tables and switched over materials from oil paint to textiles and paper. Now C.P. can stand up straight if he stands between the rafters.

I decided that at least for now and the foreseeable future I'll be working completely "dry" almost exclusively in reused paper and textiles. All paint, chemicals and other wet media have been banished from the workspace and stored until their judgement day cometh. This temporarily solves my conflict over the toxicity and environmental unfriendliness of the materials I've been working in. It is something I've been thinking about for awhile. That is certainly not the only reason for the switcheroo but it is a factor that weighs in heavily. If and when I work in "wet" media again, I am seriously considering switching to egg tempura, something I am trained in, which would solve my dilemma over what to do with my continuous supply of extra egg whites. The shells go into the compost but what to do with the whites? My family can only eat so many coconut macaroons in a week.

Now I'm feeling fantastic and ready to work again. I've packed away or thrown away all of the old projects. There were just too many unfinished and unresolved thingies filling up the space and junking up my thoughts. I have absolutely no clue what I am going to do next and no expectations. This should be fun.

"Know that all of Nature is but a magic theater, that the great Mother is the master magician, and that the whole world is peopled by her many parts." - UPANISHADS.

I am against the idea of the suffering artist. I keep running into this persistant attitude that happiness or a generous nature are contrary to the artist's image. I thought this was a tired old cliche but it isn't. Many artists really do still believe that happiness makes a person shallow or less interesting, as if bitterness and cynicism assert some kind of creative and intellectual superiority. I am not referring to black humor or sarcasm. I have an apreciation for both. I am talking about self sabotage. I know that I have, in the past, received a kind of seductive validation and praise for intellectual sophistry and snobbery. I have fallen for that. I hate to admit it. It may have made me feel hip or (superficially) popular at the time but it didn't do a damn thing for my art and it dampened my spirit. I have also felt ostracized for expressing sentimentality without irony and for failing to suppress my inner goofiness.

I suppose one can float on the angsty persona for awhile and get a lift from the peer support and sympathy that comes with it. Eventually though, it comes up against a wall. An artist needs the ability to self renew and I think that requires some connection to an inner source for creative ideas and inspiration. Apparently, my favorite film maker agrees with me. I just picked up this little book called Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch. I found it inspirational and helpful, the kind of thing that I'll read again and again. According to at least one reviewer, this makes me a simpleton, which strikes me as being wonderfully ironic.

I was aware that Lynch, for all the dark weirdness of his films and paintings, was basically an optimistic and oddly wholesome sort of person, known for his creative generosity. There is a quality of pronoia about him. The book mentions TM (Transcendental Meditation) frequently. I basically agree with his encouragement of meditation as a useful outlet for artists. However, I am not so into TM for various reasons like it's rich guru leader and borderline cultishness.

TM is really expensive and makes questionable claims about the importance of "special" and secret mantras. There are other ways of approaching meditation that are just as effective and don't cost anything at all. For the most part, the book is a collection of amusing anecdotes, thoughts on creativity, and those trademark wise and wacky Lynch metaphors. His praise for meditation is more about his personal experience and are not a promotion of TM. There is also an audio CD of this book. I might have to pick that up too because I just can't get enough of listening to this man talk. He cracks me up.

"Stories are always going to be stories and the worlds that we can go into where there is suffering, there's confusion, there's darkness, there's tension, there's murder, but the film maker, the author, doesn't have to suffer to do that, In fact the more the artist is suffering, the less creative he or she is going to be, and the less likely he or she is going to enjoy their work and really do good work."

"Some artists believe that anger, depression, or these negative things give them an edge. They think they need to hold on to that anger and fear so they can put it in their work. And they don't like the idea of getting happy - it makes them want to puke or they think it would make them lose their edge or their power."

"If you're an artist, you've got to know about anger without being restricted by it. In order to create, you've got to have energy; you've got to have clarity. You've got to be able to catch ideas. You've got to be strong enough to fight unbelievable stress and pressure in this world. So it just makes sense to nurture the place where that strength and clarity and energy comes from - to dive in and enliven that. It's a strange thing but it's true in my experience: Bliss is like a flak jacket. It's a protecting thing. If you have enough bliss, it's invincibility. And when those negative things start lifting you can catch more ideas and see them with greater understanding. You can get fired up more easily. Then you can really go to work and translate those ideas into one medium or another."

http://www.meditationiseasy.com/

Other useful links:

http://www.meditationsociety.com/
http://www.meditationcenter.com/
http://www.wildmind.org/
http://home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook.html
http://www.gnosticteachings.org/courses/gnostic-meditation/

I've had a few people ask me about using my paintings for user pictures so cpmcdill and I made a page of icons. I've posted a few here because they look pretty in a grid. I do like making grids. I have no problem with people making their own icons out of my pictures but I know how difficult they can be to work with and these are made from the original high resolution scans. They are 100x100 pixels and optimized for the web to a small quick loading file size. I didn't really waste a whole day on them but I tried. I can sort of gimp around without the stilts now. That's exciting. I'll probably get back to into the studio this weekend.

So here I am, off my feet for a few weeks. One of the tootsies had an argument with a rock on the beach and lost. It's nothing serious (just a contusion not a break or sprain) but I'm "energetic" so it's kind of frustrating. It gave me a chance to catch up on my reading and web surfing. I do like that part where I ask for things and they magically appear before me. I usually spend most of my time either outside and/or immersed in the creative process and sometimes forget to look at what is going in the arts. I've usually just followed the Endicott Redux and the artists on my LJ reading list. Recently, I discovered Fiber Arts at the local book store and I'm impressed enough to subscribe and order back issues. It encompasses a lot more than "fiber" and the editor seems to understand the arts in the same "interstitial" sense that I do.

Not fiber but kind of fun is The Tree Hugger Project and the work of Jennifer Angus gives new meaning to the expression "fly on the wall". I find Angus' work aesthetically pleasing but I really don't know how I feel about it, which is part of the reason it fascinates me. I think there are several elements combined here that are interesting; perception shifts using displaced natural elements (like the paintings of David Lynch) and the ability to rearrange space in an evocative manner. Insects are simultaneously beautiful and terrible, alien and familiar. These exhibits also shift me a little sideways and that is always a welcome if disconcerting experience.

"Western culture in particular has a certain hysteria when it comes to insects. They are symbols of dirtiness, disease and decay. In other cultures, insects hold religious significance or at least a measure of respect, be they food, medicine, embellishment or pets. " - Jennifer Angus, Artist's Statement

  

"I am an ant wrangler. And ants are, as we all know, tireless workers. So if you get a project that they can do, they'll do it. And there's no questions asked. No unions. I had ants in my kitchen, and they are little, small what they call I think sugar ants, but they are coming in I think for water. I made a small head of cheese and turkey. I put a ball of cheese and turkey together and then cased it with clay, and mounted it on a small coathanger. I made an opening in the mouth, I exposed some turkey in the eye and in the ears. Now the ants found the coathanger, began climbing in for four days and nights non-stop and emptied the entire head of turkey and cheese." - David Lynch

We keep seeing a little fox wandering around here in the middle of the afternoon. Is that unusual? I thought they were nocturnal animals. She (I think) snoops around the garden and then runs up the hill and into the brush across the road. In the evening, the fox looks in the lower windows and provokes my cats. This morning I stalked after her for awhile and managed to get a picture. It isn't the best shot but the fox was fast and my camera needed batteries. She jumped over the fence and into foreign territory. Finally, the foxy creature turned, looked right and held still for three seconds. So kind. Here she is on the neighbor's infamous lawn looking like a wee bandit.

Fall came early this year. It's already sweater weather. The tomato plants are losing their leaves but the rest garden is still lush with flowers and fruits and vegetables. The pumpkin patch has taken over one half of the garden and is making giant pumpkins. I think it's not bad for my first year here, especially considering that we started late and had a short season with too much rain. I'm still getting to know this piece of land and what will and won't grow on it. The greenhouse I have always wanted now seems like a possibility and a good practical investment toward self sufficiency. I think we will also invest in a claw foot tub if we can find one. Other than that, the cottage is now fine just as is.

    

( end of summer garden pictures )

Damn it is cold here, much colder than it was in Boston. Somehow though, the winter here is less depressing. As intimidating as it is, dealing with the elements and having the ocean right there is energizing and inspirational. I feel so much more real here, more connected...more human. The beach changes so dramatically in the winter. It looks like some remote primordial landscape at low tide. Beautiful and abandoned. These photographs are of high tide in the morning just after it snowed. I love how the mood and the landscape shift from month to month, hour to hour.

There is something uplifting and wonderfully sentimental about this time of year. I don't really get the obligatory Giftmas thing but I don't see the need to feel oppressed by it. I just say no to the madness and enjoy all of the other Christmas traditions and the winter lights. I love the white lights all over houses and trees. Someone put Christmas lights on the beach landing! I love that. I have a fire roaring and Bing Crosby Christmas tunes playing. The puppet animation "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" narrated by Fred Astaire is coming on the TV. All those old classics give me the warm fuzzies. Is there anyone else left who actually likes "It's a Wonderful Life" and doesn't get tired of seeing it on TV? We even got a very small living Christmas tree. It's about two and half feet high and smells fantastic. We can plant it outside after the holi-daze if Nemo doesn't eat it before then.