When will I ever learn? Do not walk away from the nuts. I hope you enjoyed some moments of lightness and gratitude this Thanksgiving. I had a nice one too, thanks (after roasting more pecans). We were a smaller group this year; a fine variation, cozy and intimate.
My friends/extended family hosted again. So I got away without making a turkey another year. Yay! I know it's just a big roast chicken but it's daunting. See what happened to the nuts?
I saw a girlfriend the next day and asked if she enjoyed the gathering she went to. "It sucked", she said in her proper British accent. "I felt so alone, but I wasn't alone". We commiserated about lost family and friends. Yeah, tis the season for feeling overwhelmed and sad, maybe missing people and feeling left out if you were brought up in a Christmas centric family- or weren't and wanted to be part of the magic you thought everyone else was feeling but you.
It's okay. It's okay. Only 5 more weeks to go. Take this holiday season and plan your strategy: full embrace, leave town, dedicate yourself to doing something, anything that lifts you out of your frame of mind. You know where I'll be; trying to work my way through it with flowers and creating beauty/flower medicine with and for others.
Sadly, there are a lot more flowers on the streets of Paris this week. Flowers procured and offered to signify that people are bearing witness to a terrible tragedy. My singling out of the terrorist attacks on French soil starting with the attack of cartoonists and staff at the French Satirical Magazine, Charlie Hebdo nearly a year ago is personal. As an artist, a fundamental contribution to my aesthetic sense has been in studying the history of French art and design. On French soil, many movements brought forth paintings we think of as beautiful today, but were at times visually jarring and revolutionary at the time they were created, often challenging the way people thought about art. And it is the present day freedom to challenge and question other ideologies that I hold essential for a democracy. Whew, enough politics for a little flower blog.
I'm not on the streets of Paris to lay these flowers down (and breathing more easily because of it) but the desire to contribute a personal offering lingered. The intention sat brewing in the back of my mind as I went about my business which took me into a store that might have a few vases now and again.
I kept returning to this pitcher. It is crude and beat up but has intention and was oddly compelling in that ugly/beautiful way. What function would dictate a front spout that looked like it had been smashed in, compressed? When I turned it over and saw that it was MADE IN FRANCE, it seemed incongruous- not very chic, not very French- really? A little delving proved that it is indeed French and made in the early 1900's.
While it's maker can't tell me the story of how it came to be and what function it's served, I am grateful for the opportunity to repurpose it back in honor of the peace loving citizens of France, whatever their ethnicity.
What a great workshop!
Serious students (including myself- so much to learn) continuing to practice the art and craft of floral design in this flower community. Sorry to those who couldn't make it. You missed a good one!
Gosh, it's been a long time I've been running around on hyper-drive, not to mention I have olives rolling around on top of my car. That 's how I know it's fall. The non-fruiting tree I planted about 10 years ago decided to be free, free, free and became a fruiting variety (can I uproot and return a 20 foot tree?) I love olives but location doesn't lend itself to walking on smashed fruit. Yeah, one day I'll learn to cure them- on the list, waiting for planetary alignment.
So my driving ritual for the last month or so is this: start the engine, accelerate away from the house, then olives accelerate and start hoping around. They fling themselves off the top of the car as I drive down the road (I'm talking maybe 3 or 4 at a time, but as I write this I feel guilty now. I'm an olive litterer). My fantasy is that they are planting themselves. Soon there will be baby olive trees sprouting up all over. In years to come when I drive away from the house, I'll be driving through olive groves that my car helped plant. Did I mention that I've been on functioning on hyper-drive? That goes for my mind too.
Winter's coming and a lot of garden projects were waiting for the right confluence of planets to line up and give the word go. Projects like organizing the sheds, building a bench (my new photo shoot location) and laying a patio. All projects are ultimately making it a lot easier to work with flowers and give workshops at my home studio.
Ah yes, the flowers. My upcoming workshop at College of Marin is called Celebration of Fall. We'll be working with metal pin frogs in pedestal type vases to make a tall arrangement for your mantle or sideboard or a shorter one for the table. This is how you use heavy branches in shallow containers. This is how you keep all the buggers in place. Working on this type of arrangement really helps work on composition, color and movement in a big way.
Celebration of Fall:
Class ID 664
November 14
Time 10-12 PM
Location College of Marin, Fine Arts 312
Fee $79.
What to bring: see course listing.
http://marincommunityed.augusoft.net/
