The Requisite X-Mas Post

Well, here's the tree:

I think it looks exactly like last year's tree- although the needles are the longer variety. And this one cost $13.00- half price at Lowe's! (We're boycotting Home Depot as they apparently supported The Orange Menace). I'm glad we scored a tree only a couple of days before Christmas; it lent a modicum of "cheer" to a relatively cheerless holiday! (I mean, the world may soon erupt in a radioactive fireball when The Orange Menace blows us all to Kingdom Come. Heaven help us!)
I know it was this lack of hope and general despair that inspired this year's card.

(Caption inside: "Let's put the X back in Xmas"... who first used that weird abbreviation, anyway?) The image was a nice way of negating this holiday season, if not the rest of the year. Somehow we wound up with 120 cards, not the 60 we had ordered, so we slaved away in our little factory decorating a lot more than we needed before we realized our mistake. I guess we can use this nihilistic greeting as thank you cards or something.
I've had the week off and Bob and I have spent it lurching from social event to social event. I feel fat, logy and generally in hibernation mode. I've been playing an inordinate amount of video games and am surprised at just how easily enthralled I am by them. (In fact, the sillier the better!)

 See? Oh boy! I got to level 35! And I "bought" a Dragon Castle! And more fish! I do find these games relaxing and it sure beats crawling back to bed to sleeping for the next four years. (I've considered that, and I'm sure I have company!)
Don't worry: I have also spent time in my studio and am having fun with that. I have a few new projects in the works- one that I have been dallying with for three years or so involving a World Atlas sort of thing... and more seditious fabric pieces. Something to live for!

My Gift to You: More Free Art Ideas

Latest piece to erupt on that famous studio wall. I guess I'm (not so subtly) addressing the commodification of, well... everything! And certainly art and artists. I generally riffed on the Coca-Cola* style of font with a bit of personal tweaking (gotta make it my own). I especially enjoy playing with typefaces and fonts because my own handwriting is atrocious. (And if you're going to make big long words labor-intensively sewn onto fabric and embellished I think you'd better be able to read what's being written). This piece is about 70 inches long and about 38 inches tall. The edges are decorated with a half a million of those little white plastic tabs that come on the top of milk cartons. (We've been saving them for years so it's nice to finally have a use for them). I don't know if you can see it in a small picture like this, but the background fabric is pictures of International Harvester and John Deere tractors with cozy farmstead buildings and farm urchins thrown in for good measure. Obviously, Big Agra Inc has seen to the commodification of our food industry (thank YOU Monsanto!) and generally in this, the season of Xmas, everything is truly a commodity. Go ahead and commodify me!
And in the midst of all that commodifying, it occurred to me that this is often a great source of inspiration: a single word or phrase that gets caught in my cerebral cortex. I hear a word and maybe hear it again (or sometimes they just spring suddenly onto that TV screen inside my head) and then it sticks and I need to do something with it. The "do something with it"is to make it into an art project and I recommend this to you, if you're in need of prodding or encouragement. Find a word that resonates and illustrate it or illuminate it or just use it as a point of departure. For me, words that catch my fancy are most often political or economic in flavor. I did a whole series of collages that presented Economic Collapse vocabulary: things like Sub-prime Mortgage and Credit Default Swaps. Not only was it a good mental exercise in that I needed to research what the devil these things were but it was a way of making sense out of a pretty depressing scenario. (And then I sold a bunch of them which was good for my personal economy). A large fabric piece from two years back featured the lugubrious "Sequestration". (Anyone remember that?) You can even make a word up, which of course borders on poetry which is (obviously) creative in it's own right.
So for the holidays, contemplate words that reflect the edge of cliff feelings that we're all experiencing right now. "Unpresidented" is a good place to start...

*Probably the single most recognized font in world. I read a really interesting essay on line about how carefully that font was designed. And how it "shouldn't" work, as it has internal inconsistencies and odd spacing etc.

Full Moon

I can't deny it, and the full moon isn't helping: sleep is sometimes a fleeting occurrence. Talking with others has corroborated the clear fact that since the election, sleep disturbances are on the rise. I've been delaying posting to my blog because I didn't want every post to be dominated and preoccupied with recent historic events, but inevitably, the swirling spirals out of control and back towards the election results...
I am still in denial and recent revelations as to Russian hacking doesn't inspire confidence in the November outcome. I have signed so many petitions that I risk carpal tunnel and my inbox overflows with solicitations for donations to fight off the assaults on our freedoms, our resources, our sanity.
Troubling appointments, bizarre twitter rants and refusal to participate in security briefings... all of it adds up to a rather rocky start to the next administration not to mention the Holiday Season. Not much to celebrate here!

(Another omen! A dead mouse appeared at the top of the stairs; I'm not sure whether it's a victim of Robin's developing hunting prowess or a message from the gods!) Suddenly it's a cold dark season and it reminds me of that things are only going to devolve into even darker places. We have no Christmas tree yet, I'll get fatter if I bake Christmas cookies (and I read a story that said people are putting on weight since the election- stress induced overeating) and all my friends and I do is discuss how this happened. So much for Yule Tide cheer!

Oh, and as addendum, some of you will remember that the Bush Administration (Dubya incarnation) was a cottage industry for me. I created what I called "The Presidential Library"- three volumes inspired by the shenanigans and malapropisms of George W. They sold quite well. It says something about the incoming Orange Menace that I have yet to have a single idea or artistic response to his soon to be coronation. Heaven help us!

Robin's First Birthday

Our Lil' Robin! All grown up! Robin celebrated her first birthday in fine style yesterday. Her actual birthday was on Monday the fifth of December, but we had in mind to throw the party on two-for-one pizza night. Several friends- under the weather- couldn't make it but the friends in attendance had a wonderful time and Robin couldn't be happier.

I spent the previous evening decorating and cleaning. (Poor Bob was laid up by the unexpected extraction of a sideways wisdom tooth and was reduced to eating mush and retreating back to bed with a heavy dose of Advil to keep pain at bay. And while we dined on pizza, Bob consumed eggs, squash and mashed potatoes...)

The house looked festive with all the streamers and balloons and our friends were approving of the results (They even noticed the rug as being cleaner than is typical for our somewhat slippery standards. I pointed out that this was due to the fact that I had removed all the semi-chewed logs from the floor.)
So Robin is a smarty pants and realized that the packages I had snuck into my studio were for her. I had to take the presents to work to wrap them! She made out quite handsomely, with our generous friends Sheldon and Louise giving her a new dog-bone motif collar, cookies and a braided rawhide chew bone and there was a delightful rope toy from Bob and Bill:

Look at her haul! She likes every one of her toys. She had a dog food cake with a Pupperoni candle (not lit) while we enjoyed adult drinks and cup cakes. We also serenaded Robin with singing and noise makers... it was quite a lovely event!

 

Robin also received thoughtful cards with an emphasis on her status as a little princess. She looked quite pleased with herself this morning, carefully revisiting all of her new toys. I have told her we will spend part of the day composing "thank you" cards!

A Suggestion

(Attention! Something else to take our minds off of the Ascension of the Orange Menace to the Presidency! I must keep busy for four years...)
In light of the overwhelmingly positive response I've had to my (occasional) postings on art, artist's blocks, creativity etc etc, I decided to provide all my many readers with another foray into the workings of the creative mind and another exercise to pursue.
First, a suggestion- or if you wish, an assignment. This will sound really simplistic but it can be very effective. You may find yourself sort of stumped or stymied or even a tad weary of what has been occurring in your studio or work space, and what seemed like an effortless flow last week suddenly seems to have screeched to a halt and you're cosmically constipated. I know when I find myself occupying this cramped and awkward state, I often keep bulling ahead, as if forcing things to happen will make it all work out okay. (And sometimes it does!) But more often than not, it just makes you feel worse.
My suggestion? Do something entirely different. See? I knew it would sound simplistic but I mean REALLY different. If you paint, make a sculpture out of modeling clay. If you make sculpture, try making a video or hell, just draw on the computer and alter a few photographs, like I did in the above (heavily doctored) picture of a vase of flowers. The idea is to rearrange your thoughts so they're not so serious, but you're more available for play.
Often that's all I need to get things chugging along in the right direction. Let's face it: sometimes, I'm super fired up and ideas are pouring out so fast I can't keep up with the thoughts I'm scribbling down. But there are definitely periods where doing something/anything is tough. I can also find it helpful to divert myself by doing an activity NOT art related, like gardening or raking leaves or going for a walk. But that not art related activity can become an excuse or a dodge and take you away from the very real (and hard!) work of making art. I know that many people think making art is "fun" (and mostly for me it is. I'm pretty lucky...) But it's also lonely, isolating, and can be crazy-making.
And now a plug for an artist's book presentation (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy!!!) that I'm giving in conjunction with the inaugural Collector's Club meeting at Odetta, the gallery in Brooklyn that I have been showing with.

Now, this should be fun. Some friends and I are going to read selected excerpts from my latest opus, "Rita Valley's Guide to Collecting Art". I- like most artists- am always on the look-out for new collectors; maybe this is the chance to jump on that gravy train!

Fussy Eaters (A Diversion from Politics and Art)

In an effort to buoy our flagging spirits and to prevent an erosion of my last bit of sanity, I decided to write about other dramas erupting at the BauHaus Chicken Coop. F'rinstance, both Maggie the Mexican Pony (hope she's legal or she'll probably be deported) and Lil' Robin the Good have decided to stage their own versions of hunger strikes.
In Maggie's case it started with the advent of true cold weather. Inevitably, at this time of year, the grass stops growing and a horse begins to consume more hay. Maggie loved the hay I supplemented her grazing with this fall. I mean, there was never a stray piece of hay in her hay rack; she ate every last bit. The man I bought the hay from ran out- which is a shame not only because Maggie liked it, but he gave me a good price because I bought a truckload. So I picked up 10 bales of hay from a dealer in the next town over, paying a higher price for their second cutting hay. (Horses generally keep better on second cutting; it's mowed in August or early September and is typically finer and greener and higher in available nutrients. Especially for a horse that's a bit "longer in the tooth", like our friend Maggie. Don't tell her I said that!) Bob and I liked the hay. It smelled nice, had good color and was in a bigger, heavier bale. We thought we were getting a good deal. But Maggie decided otherwise and turned up her long striped nose. She voiced her disgust at this (apparently) sub-standard hay by pulling it down from the hay rack and stomping on it. Just look at that picture- nose out of joint and very grumpy!
I called the woman from whom we've purchased our winter's supply of hay for the last four years and to my dismay I was told their second cutting had been a very small yield due to the extreme dry season and worse, it was all sold out. I went over and bought one bale of first cutting hay to tide us over and while Maggie is eating it, she didn't seem to relish it. I have subsequently ordered hay through a woman I work with who's husband is a farmer. He produces small batch, artisanal, hand-crafted locavore hay. Maggie better like it or Bob and Robin and I will be eating Mexican Pony burgers all winter long.

(Robin's personalized place mat. I apologize for the dark photo but I was rushed for time).
And meanwhile, Lil' Robin seemed to catch the spirit. She began turning up her rather long pointy nose at whatever we poured into her dish. And because this is 2016, she is not being offered some nasty dried out, artificially flavored and colored gravy train. 

No, Robin has been feted with uber expensive salmon tenders kibble with sweet potato sides and special large breed, grain-free blueberry chicken flax seed sliders. Frequently, her dinner sounds better than ours (and is probably more expensive!). She has also demonstrated a remarkable ability to determine when the bag is half full. That's when she expresses boredom with the offering and we have to buy another bag of a different flavor to mix into the first bag. And to boot, I mix in chicken broth or pre-browned turkey crumbles to make meal time all the more appealing; but Robin has perfected ways to pluck the meat morsels and leave the dry food behind...

(Note the "Super Premium" label and the statement that "... your best friend deserves nature's best ingredients!"And of course, the name of the brand is "Evolve". Lil' Robin's on her way!)

Maybe it's the election that put us all off our feed. Bob came down with a bad head cold, I bruised my butt (on a slippery pile of decomposing mushrooms concealing a tree stump) and several other friends and relatives reported injuries and illness, ranging from broken shoulders to odd bumps and rashes. Everyone I know is reporting sleep disturbances. I think I had promised to not discuss the tragedy of 11/9 but allusions to that date are inevitable. There are dark days looming.
Me? I can't help it and have been overeating in compensation for all the misery. I'll be fat and unhappy when the End Times come.

Warning: A Most Political Editorial

Yes, Satan himself makes a guest appearance in my despairing, dispirited post. Election day is only two days away and my stomach is clinching at even the remote possibility that Trump could win. I am old enough to have been through many a presidential election but this one is definitely the weirdest!
I am among the many Americans that finds her/himself wondering... "Just WHAT are people thinking?"* How can anyone ever consider voting for the republican offering? (I mean, I wonder that in years where (groan) people like Mitt Romney or Dubya were presented. But Trump is obviously an even stranger choice!)
 And there is a distinct possibility that Trump could win... the polls are saying how close this election is. And (we all know) it shouldn't be. As you may be aware, Hillary Clinton was not my first choice but she is so obviously head and shoulders better qualified, better prepared and just all around BETTER a candidate than Trump. (And yes, I miss Bernie Sanders! I am wearing his name on my tee shirt and my bumper sticker still shines.)
AND I miss Barack Obama already! A good president (if racist, obstructionist Congress people hadn't prevented him from doing more- like appointing a Supreme Court justice!), a good man, a good dancer, a happily married, non-philandering man with a lovely wife and two great kids; the Obama's even have two swell dogs! Too bad he couldn't have had a third term and let the country come up with more time to sort out dilemmas, such as how Donald Trump became the republican nominee...
So, let's all cross our finger, toes, tails, hooves and whatever other appendages that we have that sanity prevails and Hillary Clinton is elected. And it would be nice to have a woman (nasty or otherwise!) president!

* And I am not going to start listing all the ridiculous and relevant evidence proving that Trump is an appalling and legendarily awful choice to "lead" the country- lead it straight to Hell!

Free Ideas

I couldn't help by remark that I received tons of page views when I chronicled the subject of "Crabby Muses", in which I addressed artist's blocks. This leads me to meander back to an idea that I originally had for a blog, before I started this one, and that was to offer up an idea a day for any aspiring artists to use.
I think (sometimes foolishly) that ideas are cheap. There's lots of them- and (obviously) not all of them lead to the Garden of Good Art. Some ideas are simply good for that momentary "Hey! That's a good one" flash that evaporates a few minutes later, and probably for the better.
On the other hand, it dawned on me years ago that I have so many ideas and inevitably will be unable (and disinclined!) to execute them all. There are only so many days and years in an artist's life! This is where the idea of a blog  which I generously make available fresh ideas for anyone to use.
I know that sometimes you can spend hours in your studio (or garret or where ever you go to make art) and nothing seems to "click" or come easily. Sometimes, you just have to slog through a few uncomfortable, prickly hours (or days or weeks!) before things flow again. But my first rule is: stick it out. Just be available for your muses to visit, should they decide to deliver inspiration. Bob and I were just remarking that sometimes you need to rearrange shelves or clean out cluttered corners or tear up old work in order to be ready for the new stuff. It can feel like some cruel celestial constipation when you try and try and nothing happens but I subscribe to persistence ultimately will triumph.
I also offer the useful (or not!) suggestion that having several pieces going at once is a good way to avoid stuck-ness.  If the impetus to work on one piece dries up, this means there's always another to turn to. I have three, four or five pieces being simultaneously being worked on (or ignored) at any given time. This allows me to quit an artwork temporarily and come back to it later- or never.
The above example illustrates that. I started to work on "NIMBY" thinking it was a great phrase for me to translate. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good challenge to make fabric read as graffiti, as I like to play around with inventing/corrupting fonts and typefaces. (Rarely are they "real" ones; mostly I mash up several ideas.) But I got to a point and was stuck- the word looked good and I liked the back ground- which is actually to distinct different shades of red in rays- but I couldn't get the transition between the yellow behind the blue/grey of NIMBY and the red just right. It looked too harsh and I kept trying out various shades of grey and blue to echo the lettering. Still no luck. I almost tried painting on the fabric in between (glad I didn't! What a mess!!) Then I hit on using this striped material I had left over. I chopped it up every which way and ta-DAAA! It sang!
But importantly, while all this hemming and hawing was erupting in my head and my studio, I was at work on another couple of pieces that required really mundane chores. (F'rinstance: I am painstakingly sewing a million dimes all around the edge of the piece that says "Monetize Me". Pretty repetitive but needs doing and it allows all the subconscious parts of me to do other things.) So, I guess the point of this blog is keep up the slog.
And the free idea for the day? Start on a project that I swear by: Face-A-Day. Everyday for an entire year, make a face collage. Seriously. Whatever you're doing- going to work, being sick... whatever!- make a collage of a face. Do not edit or over work it, just commit to doing it. You'll be surprised. At the end of a year (which passes remarkably fast!) you will have 365 new collages. Some will be good, some will be bad and some will be ugly (hear that music in the back ground?) but it will get even the crankiest of muses going.

Robin the Good- Super Model

Ooooh! Our Lil' Robin is all grown up and quite the stunner. I call her "Super Model"* because she has these high cheek bones and very long legs. And she's slim. What a looker! (She is actually still a teenager at eleven months old).
I'm thrilled to have been able to snap these pictures because Robin is either running full tilt around the yard, in hot pursuit of falling leaves or she's conked out in some upside down outlandish, tongue lolling deranged sprawl. The other day, though, her guard was down and she just kept posing.

I did annoy the hell out of her by following her around with my camera at the ready, trying to document her canine magnificence. She didn't hold most poses long enough for me to take a picture but I was wilier than she and finally managed to capture her in that coiled muscle moment, just before she sprang into motion again.
Even if she weren't beautiful she'd still be a great dog... responsive, affectionate and smart, smart, smart. She does have her endearingly persistent interests in socks, eye glasses and ball point pens but in general she's a good canine citizen.
Here's a doctored Robin:

(Nothing like a bit of Photoshop to enhance the most jejune of surroundings!)
I am entertained that while on our morning walk, people we encounter often ask what kind of dog Robin is. They have frequently mistaken her for a Flat Coated Retriever and one person thought she might be a Belgian Shepard (although they have definitely upright pricked ears... but she's black!) I guess that mixed or mutt designations often bring to mind scrappy lab or pit bull mixes so frequently seen nowadays. When people see an attractive dog, they just assume it MUST be some purebred. I tell them that Robin is the best kind of dog- a happy accident between two (not so common) breeds. (Just for the record, Mom was a Long Haired Weimaraner and Dad was a Llewellin Setter, which is the field or working variety of the English Setter (although that apparently has some controversy as to what denotes a "real" Llewellin. Dog breeders are nuts; way crazier than artists!) We are fortunate that both of these breeds tend to be healthy and not over bred and inbred. Don't get me started on the perfidy of the American Kennel Club and their desire to breed to (something they call) "type". Give me a good mix any day!



*In reality, Robin has about a million nicknames: everything from "Klondike Bar" to "Wicket" (because she's so leggy and thin that sometimes  she arches her back and looks like a croquet wicket).

More Autumn Color

As previously reported, Bob and I have been very busy ministering to projects around the BauHaus Chicken Coop. With the help of the new chain saw, Bob's been gathering fire wood (I helped a little...) and the pile is already growing appreciably. It scares the hell out of me (and Maggie and Robin) when Bob fells a tree as it lands with an impressive THUD but it does mean our house and studios will be warm this winter and Bob knows what he's doing (I hope!) so the more wood the merrier!
The above picture is our scabby front door, soon after I spackled it in advance of a good paint job. We have been threatening to repaint our many front (or side) doors for ages and even had a color in mind. Recently, we went on a very successful shopping spree; I think we hit 6 stores- certainly a new record for us. Bob got clothes and I got socks and we got blue paint for the front door. Yay!

And that's after only a single coat. Isn't that spectacular? It looks so clean and (in keeping with the BauHaus Chicken Coop theme) MODERN. It's the color of the October sky and definitely more cheerful that plain brown like the door frame. This has inspired us so much that we plan on hitting the other doors with a coat of paint before the snows fall...

And here's another bit of fall color that I couldn't resist. Around Maggie's field, there are several tree stumps, both large and small, that have sprouted glorious blossoms of mushrooms. Mixed with the pine needles, they're beautiful (and to my mind) more interesting than chrysanthemums!

Crabby Muses

Bob carved this Tiki mask from an over grown cucumber (maybe it's a squash?). I found it a charming emblem of the "crabby muse" phase that both Bob and I are experiencing.
For those of you who are not artists, crabby muse is when you sort of (but not really) feel like working in your studio but there's always something else to do. Or somewhere more distracting to go. And when you do plop yourself down in your studio, nothing seems to "click" or fall into place. That project that seemed so compelling just the other day now seems trite or complicated or just unnecessary. This stage passes (thankfully) but it can seen to drag on interminably. (I think a few really unlucky artists exist in this funk land for months or years! Then it has progressed to a true artist's block!)
I think my muses are simply a bit tired. I was in a bunch of shows this year, not to mention finishing a whole pile of sophisticated and engaging art work to populate those shows with! The artist's book, "Rita Valley's Guide to Collecting Art" alone would have been a good years production, but I also made a slew of fabric pieces- some finished under deadline for all those shows I mentioned! So possibly my muses are just taking a breather.
Don't worry: I have loads of ides and phrases jotted down on scraps of paper in my studio. They lie in wait for just the right time when I enter my studio and find myself re-immersed in art projects and I complete some of the many half-done masterpieces that hang near totality on my studio walls.
For the present, though, I'm happy to play with Lil' Robin the Good and enjoy the lovely fall weather.

Projects Bring Rewards

Oooooh! Look what Bob did! He's been so industrious this late summer/early fall. Bob made a brand new sill for our (sort of) front door. The old one was beyond rotten and there were some serious gaps for the cold to seep in... Yes! It is becoming that time of year that the cold wants entrance to the house- just like us after being out of doors for a while.We're going to repaint this door soon, probably a delightful shade of blue. It will be cheerful, but also keep the evil spooks away.

Bob also spent time constructing nifty metal handles to not only make lifting our capricious and quirky windows easier, but to prevent them from falling apart. The bottom edge of the window (not sure of the technical name) is almost gone on quite a few of our windows, so Bob devised clever metal plates that screwed in and gave structure and strength where there was none. Not only are they easier to lift, they just make the house feel so much more secure. (I confess that I had an old purple sock shoved into the bottom of this window last year. How's that for stop gap?) Additionally, Bob replaced the actual sill in several really compromised windows. It's my job to sand the spackle and paint them. I need a couple of warmer sunny days; not this weekend.

(This is a rude plant, apparently giving us the finger. You've got to appreciate it's cheekiness!)
I don't have a picture of the truck but it's pretty much the same color as our rude plant friend so that's a stand-in. Bob also found time to have friends come and tune up the truck by installing new spark plugs as it had been running rough. After the plugs were changed, it still ran badly so Bob went and got a new distributor and installed it himself! I was very proud of him and the truck is now running great. There's no stopping him; he also weed whacked the fence line and bought himself (as a well-deserved reward) a brand new chain saw.

This was a real treat because Bob's old saw (also as Stihl) was purchased when Bob was 18. I can't even do the math: that's something like 45 years ago?!?!? Is that possible? He had the same chain saw for so long that it probably belongs in a museum. But this is just in time for the colder weather as we need to start gathering fire wood. Maybe it'll be a warm winter. We can only hope!

A Day at the Beach

Bob and I are not beach goers. I believe we set a record for sheer number of years not going to the beach; it was something like 25 years. Last year, we out did ourselves by (shockingly) going three times, all within the space of three weeks. We rested easy, thinking we would probably not go again for another twenty years or so. But then we attended my sister Cathy's birthday party and it was... at the beach!
I actually brought the camera and in a fit of late summer, salt water inspired enthusiasm, I took pictures to prove that under duress, we actually do the whole beach thing.

That's me, shadowed on a boardwalk, still wearing socks and shoes. I never did remove them (an aversion to sticky, sandy feet? Unlike my reckless sibling pictured above!), but we did have a remarkably good time. It was a nice break from work, studio work, gardening, household projects etc, etc. We all know how that goes: Winter ends, spring happens and then poof! the summer is gone and you never did get to do all those fun and exotic day trips you had planned.

(Is it me or all beaches look sort of the same?) But it was nice and the weather agreed with us and Cathy got to open gifts and we all ate sandwiches and pie.

And after eating and walking up the beach for just long enough, we visited a Nature Center that was entertaining and informative. (For example, after viewing a (safely glass tank enclosed) copperhead snake, we learned that said snake is venomous, not poisonous. Who knew?! And here s/he is to tell us all about it:

(Confession: this is a different snake as the copperhead was just sort of laying there and this was one was much more animated. But it's a snake!) And then there was this delightful flat fish that kept putting his head above the water in the tank, as if trying to escape.

So the day was a success. Who knows, maybe next year we'll go for broke and destroy our record and go back to the beach again!

By Popular Demand...

I have been urged- due to popular demand- to post pictures of the completed closet in use. Yes, it is a stunner; from the bottom of the stairs, it looks like... a destination! Hello! It could be the doorway to a very exciting venue.

And it is! Organized clothing, resettled shoes... a real closet achievement, resulting in the ability to find and put on items from a wardrobe previously unhappily separated from it's user.
(Weird sentence, that!) But you get the idea. And my amazement that this has come to pass.

Look! Clothing on hangers and shoes on the floor and only a few feet from where I get dressed in the morning. Oh, happy day!

Bob did such a good job with these shoji screen doors... I feel like I'm getting dressed in Osaka or Tokyo. It's inspiring! The big plus here is all that extravagant storage space above my closet. There's room for hats and luggage and travel bags and winter blankets. I could go on but I'm already overheating and raving; I love my closet!

End of Driveway Excitement

We now have this at the end of our driveway. Such progress! For the past six months, we realized the inevitability of construction lapping at the end of our driveway as the town crew moved slowly up Jeremy Swamp Road. They seem to be hopping all over the place: first one end, then a centerish (disconnected piece) and then our end- skipping the middle... Promptly at 6:30 every morning, the booming and beeping and pinging and LOUD GUY TALK would filter up the driveway from the street. We're fortunate that our house is set back from the road! (We hear it anyway.)
This greeted me when I attempted to leave the driveway yesterday morning:

I could barely squeeze past, and this was in addition to both of our next door neighbor's cars (waiting for the school bus) and a large dump truck and the aforementioned bus. Quite the busy intersection! I had remembered to bring my camera along so I snapped these pictures. As I said to the amused town crew guys, "How often do I have this much activity at the end of the driveway?" Everyone seemed busy staring into the big hole...

(That's the police officer bending over. Nice shorts.)
In any event, I don't know that we needed a wider road or so many attractive drains and pipes added to our lives, and as a friend suggested, it will only permit more traffic and people and their cars to attain higher speeds. It's already dangerous walking up our road to the dirt road where I walk most mornings. Here are the drain basins:

This was the right side of the driveway. It was like this for the entire Labor Day weekend. I guess the chains were there to discourage us from stealing the cement forms.
The weird upshot of all this construction was that I chose to take lil' Robin the Good on an alternative walk. I bundled her into the car (good practice for her auto-phobia!) and drove her three minutes up the road to the State Bridle Trail, where we've been walking every day since. And it's beautiful! Wide and quiet and winding through some amazing properties. Robin seems to enjoy this walk more than the dirt road, so it's our new routine.
One last shot. Y'know, this equipment is really big!

Labor Day, Minus the Hurricane

It was hard to capture the light that was pouring through this particular stretch of woods: almost "Thomas Kincaide Bizarrely Highlighted by a Master Highlighter". I don't think I achieved the hallucinatory quality (drat!) but the scene is certainly still pretty! All the wild asters are crazily in bloom and you can't top them for flowering in dry shade, competing with poison ivy. Tough little bastards. This path is right behind my newish shade garden...
A rambling post! Bob and I entertained our good friends Don and Elizabeth for two days. They left early this morning, trying to stay ahead of Hurricane Hermine who doesn't seem ultimately destined to make much of an appearance. We ate and drank and hung out for two days; taking a long walk, going to a flea market, playing with Robin the Good. It was restful but we're still tired and I have to go back to work tomorrow! (Bummer!)

Here's a shot of the Clematis arbor that Bob made me for my birthday. The Clematis paniculata is just coming into bloom: also white and close by another large drift of those woodland asters... quite the nice, effortless spectacle! This arbor looked amazing even before the flowers started to erupt, but now it's really beautiful. Bob painted all those little silver dots on the web so they resemble dew. It's hard to photograph but so detailed and delicate. It surpassed my initial request (a couple of years back) for "some sort of structure; maybe like a spider's web". I had imagined a pretty basic bit of metal work, but Bob imagined a lovely piece. This photograph doesn't do it justice.

I'll try again in a few of days when more flowers come out. But in the meantime, here's abigger picture to show how it embraces the tree trunk:

Not much better, I'm afraid. But the shadow underneath was nice...

Late Summer Color

There's still some color happening in the garden, despite the sudden onset of that slightly sad end of summer feel. Lots of things are simply falling over and imploding; lots of smells of vegetative rot. But there are still some good moments to be had, like the above border nearest the horse barn.
The small zinnias, specifically Zinnia linearis in a nice mix of orange, white yellow and golden are just great this year. In fact, all of the Zinnas were terrific. I was waxing super enthusiastic over Zinnia "Benary's Giant" that I planted for cut flowers. The plants are big and clean (like no mildew) and just keep producing nicely formed flowers in good clear colors. Spectacular in a vase in the house! And I can't help but love how the big stripey grass (some variegated Miscanthus) is a foil for the chunky canna foliage. You can't really see but there was a nice Veronicastrum to the left that had another type of white spire-like bloom. I've been very happy with this bed.
A couple of close-ups:

Yup, there's those nice small Zinnias. You don't even need to dead head them. This hot dry season has suited them perfectly; they'll sulk during cool, wet summers. And here's a shot of the arbor that is in behind the grasses and cannas.

It's funny because these were supposed to be the variety "Blue Star", and yes, there are a few. But most of these seem to be "Tie Dye"; that would be the darker blue, striped ones. You never can tell what you'll get. I think there must be the occasional mix up at the seed companies! I'm not complaining as they look pretty good and are blooming like crazy.