Thursday, July 23, 2009

Garden Variety

I took these Bears into the garden after I finished them. It seemed to be the thing to do, since I divided my time this morning between snipping herbs, picking tomatoes, watering flowers, knitting, stuffing, and "facing" Bears.

I wanted the first thing they would see to be a sunny world, a world of beauty and of growth. So often the things we see and hear about are those of loss, of shrinking values, of shrinking resources, and of shrinking opportunities.

I believe that in the face of shrinking values we have to stay strong.

In the face of shrinking resources we have to replenish and redistribute what is available.

In the face of shrinking opportunities we have to seek new ones.

All this I see much clearer when I am in the garden, and I wanted my hopes to be imprinted into my Bears while their faces are still young.

Bear Number 124



Bear Number 123


Bear Number 122



Bear Number 121




Bear Number 120






Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Day After the Celebrations

This is Bear Number 119
I finished him while I was watching the
Mandela Day Concert last night.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://mandeladay.com/participate/handwall

Bears Number 117 and Number 118 wish

Happy 91st Birthday to President Mandela.



Today is Global Mandela Day. I’ve pledged 24,455 minutes of Bear knitting on the “handwall” of the Mandeladay website for the next year. That is 67 minutes a day for a year. I might not be able to knit every single day, but there are days when I knit two, three, or four hours. It's just a matter of writing it down. I’ve already done 120 minutes today, finishing two Bears.



Why 67 minutes per day? Nelson Mandela dedicated 67 years to fighting social injustice.



Why the "handwall?"The Mandela Foundation's Ruth Rensburg explains, "Mandela Day stems from Mr Mandela's call for new hands to lift the burden."

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Playing with Food

The reason that I call myself a “minor artist” stems, originally, from the fact that I love to learn new things, but seldom stick with them long enough to perfect my knowledge of them. But there is another reason: I create events from minor ideas. Yes, in English that means I make mountains out of molehills.

A few days ago a friend brought me peaches, lemons, cucumbers, and basil from his garden; I converted one of the cucumbers and a bunch of basil into ideas, then I made the ideas into images. I played with my food, I suppose. Not to worry though; I did chop and mix most of the basil into pesto and sliced most of the cucumber into salad. Of course sweet peaches, freshly picked from a tree, have to be eaten quickly or they spoil. No photographs. No problem. The last few I cooked into a compote to go with my morning oatmeal. The lemons accompany my afternoon tea. Now back to the minor ideas.

Idea 1. Some creatures prefer a bed of basil
over a bed of roses.
Idea 2. Even if you are blue a bunch of
basil can cheer you up.

Idea 3. Deeminor wants to share his
cucumber salad with
Bear Number 116

A light breeze of basil still wafts through the house as I am writing this. The pale lavender flowers on their ruby stalks sit on my kitchen table. One last picture for the day.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A Post for Bear Number 115 Alone

The reward for a patient Bear?
A portrait without all the others.

Deeminor Missed the Funeral

The reason Deeminor missed the sunflower funeral:
he rode away into the land of make-belief with Marisol's older sister

Ah, this is the wonderful, beautiful sunflower,
that became the "Uptight Sunflower" when she
closed up.


This is an event from earlier in the year when
Marisol and Deeminor planted herbs.


Marisol at work. Obviously things
didn't go very well. She broke one of her seedlings.




Bear Number 115 and the Sunflower Funeral

In April I bought a potted sunflower for my little garden helper Marisol.
She and her friend Deeminor, the dragon, were supposed
to take care of it while I was away.

But when I returned home the sunflower had closed up.
In an attempt to revive it I cut the closed flowerhead off,
and put the plant in the ground,
assuming that the healthy buds would gain strength and bloom.
It didn't happen!

By July I had to admit that the sunflower was DEAD

And so, this morning, Bear Number 115, Tyana J Littlestring,
and the little garden helpers held a funeral service
for the "Uptight Sunflower."








A New Wardrobe and a Patient Bear

Bear Number 115 and Tyana J LittleString
compete for my knitting hours. I am going to be in
Victoria, B.C. at the end of the month and Tyana needs three
new things to wear. On the first day we will go to Butchart Gardens
which requires something green.
Here it is, Tyana's new green dress with flowers.

We will be going to the Empress Hotel for High Tea and,
of course, this requires a pink ensemble.


While we are roaming the B.C. Museum, the Miniature Museum,
Munro Bookstore, the Harbour, and Downtown,
Tyana will wear this new sweater.

Here are a few more pink pieces we might take along.
The pink material on the front right will become
a pajama bottom, if time allows.






Saturday, July 11, 2009

What Does the Toad See?



When I first lined up my herb-filled planters on the front porch I noticed that neighborhood cats came around to sniff. Because I was afraid that they might do more than that, might dig up my tiny seedlings, or worse, mistake the soft soil for a bathroom, I bought a toad. A plastic toad that croaks whenever something moves past it. I saw it at the local nursery, circled the display several times, testing the “trial toad” and decided that it was a great idea. It would warn cats “Don’t enter my porch. Croak, croak, croak! Run!!!

In my haste to get the toad situated I tossed the box. Who needs instructions for a croaking toad? Just insert two AA batteries and turn on. Now I realize that the box might have told me what the toad pays attention to. I had to ask myself that question when I walked past him one evening after dark. Toad silence.

Are the neighborhood cats laughing at me? The black and white one, sitting on the window sill across the street, does he say to himself, “Stupid, stupid, stupid woman!”
The one lapping water from the ditch? He seems bored. “If you don’t want us on your porch, just say so. Don’t buy a twenty dollar dummy who can’t see at night when I am out hunting.”
The scrawny gray one that lives on the hill? A raccoon injured his hind leg last year; I’m sure he doesn’t worry about croaking plastic toads when he is looking for that neighborly saucer of cat chow. What he sees is the renovated bathroom facility, complete with oregano deodorizer. In the past I allowed him to rest on my doormat; he must think I have been selected to be this year’s neighborhood meanie. I wish he had met my cat Abbey before she went to cat heaven; Abbey would have told him that I am really a nice person as long as you leave my garden alone.

But back to the toad. Sometimes he croaks when a car drives by. He gets real excited when the UPS driver stands on the steps with a parcel in his hands. He becomes irritable when I water the herbs and a stray sprinkle wets his lips. And just now, as I sit at my desk, watching the sun design shadows of wisteria leaves on the porch, I hear the familiar croaking. A tiny wind makes the leaves move ever so lightly, and with it shadow leaves dance across the toad. Camera in hand I confront him, well not quite confront him, that would be a face-to-face meeting and definitely result in croaking. I sneak up on him from the side, observe him while the sunlight shifts across his back. Nothing happens. Might as well take a picture of him now, I think, before the sun leaves the porch. I turn on the flash as fill-in where the shadows are too deep.

“Croak, croak, croak!!

“Did I blind you with the flash?”

I wave my foot in front of his eyes.

“Croak, croak, croak!

Buckston Sr., my handsome porch gnome, winks at me.
“Go back inside,” he says, “you’ll never know what we see. Each one of us has a different view, a different past, a different outlook. Cats see with cat eyes. Plastic toads see with plastic toad eyes.”

Or tiny built in sensors, I am tempted to correct him, but I don’t. I’ve learned to listen to most of what surrounds me.

“And your Bears ….. have you any idea what they will see when they arrive at their destinations? Go back inside, and knit another one. Tell him what you see; maybe he’ll remember it on his way to Africa.”





What Bear Number 114 sees



Friday, July 10, 2009

The Comforting Presence of Friends

Bears Number 112 and 113


Tyana J LittleString


Isabelle



Samy Lucius Putnam



It came up in an online blog - how comforting a friend is a book? I had to think hard about this, because, after all, I love to read, read everywhere. I’m never without a book, that’s why I carry a big purse or a daypack. Well, that’s one reason, knitting is the other one. So I would say that it is a comfort to have a book with me at all times, but…. it is also a comfort to know that I could knit whenever I want to, especially when I am isolated or when I am fearful, doubtful, resentful. Sometimes I become oblivious to the events around me when I knit; sometimes I become more tuned in. I seem to knit myself into the kind of mood I need at the time, either threading my problems into the chaos or pulling them out, strand by strand. Knit one purl one is a meditation. It is a step-by-step construction of benevolence.

The blogger stated that books are not “normal social connections,” and continued to say that they are imaginary friends, and that our affiliations with them might be safer than the ones we have with humans. Well, I am an expert on imaginary friends. Mine include a doctor of psychology, Dr. Karl Steinfeld (my personal shrink,) a traveling companion named Tyana J LittleString (who is a teddy bear,) an Inner Child named Isabelle (a doll) Samy Lucius Putnam, a frog with an attitude. I also have a great number of literary characters in my head, some of them have found their places in imaginary novels, others are still waiting to be placed. Add to this the number of people I correspond with in blogs, boards, and emails – they too have to be categorized as imaginary, since I have never seen any of them in the flesh – and you find me busy interacting into the early hours of the morning. While I agree that my imaginary friends don’t constitute social connections; we don’t shake hands, hug, scream at each other, file for divorce, I hesitate at the word “normal.” What seems normal to a busy entrepreneur seems hectic to me. What seems normal to me must be downright odd to a person with a full calendar of obligations.

While isolation at an early age does invite damage to the human soul and prolonged separation from human contact is not conducive to socialization, I think that “people like me,” elderly, living alone, creative, not generally deprived of social contacts (I am the decider) are entitled to a good dose of solitude. Let us be happy with our imaginary friends!

As to what is first on the list of comforting friends – books or knitting – I will probably have to be threatened with an imaginary island to make a decision. Oops, can’t threaten me, already have one. The island of Ixla, where stuffed animals rule, where Cornelius C Chatworth (another teddy bear) roams on his dune buggy. Let me see………if you promise that I can take my 32-gallon trashcan filled with yarn, and you give me a few extra number seven needles, I’ll put knitting at the top of my list. Who knows, I might incorporate text into my design and knit my own storybook. And I promise to finish the next 100 Bears for Africa.





Monday, July 6, 2009

I finished a Few Bears Recently

Bear Number 108

Bear Number 109

Bear Number 110

Bear Number 111





Walking the Bear


This morning I realized that sometimes even taking a bad photograph takes time. I wanted to show what I mean by “Walking the Bear” and repeatedly missed the mark.

Occasionally I encounter a day that is filled with projects right from the time I get up. Not that most of the things I do are terribly important at the time, but they have to be done. And so I device shortcuts, tricks that make it possible to multitask. One of my daily musts is walking. Walking to keep the pounds away, to keep cholesterol and blood pressure down, to get out of the house and into a “social environment.” You know what they say about the elderly; they tell us that we need to stay connected. And so my daily schedule usually contains at least one social “event” (event used as psychological term, not as big production); it might be a handshake with the man sitting on his stoop down the street, a few words to the checkout-clerk at the grocery store, a lunch with a friend, a conversation with the garden expert at Home Depot. While some of these are merely tokens, others become friendly exchanges of experiences. The other day a stranger asked if I minded that she sit at the same table with me at my favorite outdoors Barnes & Noble store. We spent at least half an hour discussing travel, art, languages, books, the countries we came from. We told each other how pleasant it had been to meet, and then we parted, made a little richer by the other one’s knowledge, yet unencumbered by the promise to send emails, visit again, or in any way continue the conversation.

But today, I reasoned as I got up, is not a day for leisurely encounters. Too much on my list of things to do. I had to combine walking with something. If I walk to the grocery store I only end up with sore arms, because I have to buy more than I can carry comfortably. Walking along the creek and knitting, I know from experience, is at best clumsy. I might trip. People might stare a hole into me. My ball of yarn might roll down the hill and I would have to pull and pull until a big tangle would pile up in front of me. I’ve given up walking and knitting in public. Only one thing left - walking and knitting in the house. Normally this is a rainy day activity. This morning it was a time saver. I walked for an hour. Knitted one Bear leg and two arms. Ran into the bedroom door twice before I taped it to the wall. Had to make ten minutes of thirteen pace circuits with the telephone propped between neck and ear. Accomplished almost three miles.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo to show the contraption I use to walk and knit. A plastic bag attached to the edge of my t-shirt with a clothespin. It is a lousy picture, one of the ten I had to shoot to cover bag and Bear all at once. Anyway, I saved an hour by walking and knitting and talking on the phone. Unfortunately I just spent this saved hour taking/uploading/editing pictures and writing about the experience. Now off to the garden to water tomatoes and flowers. Maybe I could read two chapters for my book group while I let the hose spray aimlessly into the morning sky.