Illusion of Control

This time of year in the garden marks the season when I think I am in control. The plants haven't filled out, some early blooming perennials like iris and peonies are starting to come in and everything is just very green. It's so restful without all those nasty weeds and the urgent struggle of one plant trying to overcome another. Ahh spring!

This is the time when I imagine that I'll be able to undertake all those garden projects on the ever-growing list. I'll fit in garden time and studio time because, really, there's not all that much to do.

The birds are singing, courting and nesting, hummingbirds have returned, skies are blue, etc., etc.

And everything is so neat and well behaved. (Here you see in the background the Weber grill that serves as garden sculpture.)

The one exception is these lousy peonies (in pink) that demand support and then go to mush in rain. (Note the poor planning of the yellow and orange pansies - but they were there first.) Let's see how long it takes me to cut off these mushy, dead or dying blooms.

The moss and ferns are great at this time of year when it's still so dampish and cool. (Note the found - unearthed - Easter Island figure.)

Perfect little hostas emerge so sweetly.

Or some have enormous leaves, bigger than dinner plates, with not a trace of insect hole, wind damage, sun burn, etc., etc.

This is some European ginger I rescued that was growing wild in the front lawn. I'm rooting it here.

This is what it looks like when it's established. It's a lovely shade groundcover.

The yard looks a lot like a park with the shade trees and chairs. No annuals yet to water and deadhead.

And the boys are always in attendance. 


If only the illusion would last.

Honoring the Urge

No, not that urge, I mean the urge to make sense out of tempus fugiting. Here we are on the last day of the year and of the decade, so naturally there's that urge to recap and reassess the most important events, deaths, accomplishments, weather and meals. I am not so foolish that I would make a stab at any of that stuff as it's far beyond my power to approach.

An old painting of the Four Elements, when the world was younger and more symmetrically ordered.

Yes, I did think about it and what got me started on this was, of course, all the stories on TV, online and in the newspapers. Particularly, an item in today's New York Times was pretty fascinating. Called "Documenting the Decade", it's a series of photos sent in by Times readers and arranged by year during the '00s. They are beautiful, horrific and moving photos that are well worth a look.

The '00s was plainly a really bad decade. Some people are calling it the Decade From Hell. First off, it should be obvious that any decade that begins with the Supremes having to decide who won the 2000 presidential election does not look to have a good conclusion. I remember how dazed and numb I felt when waiting for the outcome to finally be settled, as in: this bad movie can't be happening in our country. But when they awarded the presidency to Georgie Boy, I had no idea of the horrendous developments and excruciating emotions to follow.

So here's where the list of events, deaths, etc. should appear. Instead, I'm going to post some pictures of my garden taken this past June when all was just lovely, not too overgrown, not bug eaten, not too wet or too dry and I thought it would stay that way forever - just like I thought all was well as we hit the new millenium before the world fell apart.

A new blue birdbath and a stone path toward an overgrown fish pond.

Clematis blooming among the peonies and meadow rue - a happier time of year.

A planting at its peak this early summer by the garden path.

The boys looking very serious and wondering what comes next.

As you contemplate the garden, I hope you will breathe deeply, contemplate the eternal, and feel the power of a wonderful new year enveloping you under the light of the blue moon as Elvis croons that tune in your mind's ear.

Happy New Year one and all!

Still Here and Raring to Go

The blog thing is OK but I guess I don't have the commitment to posting down. When I'm not in the studio, I'm not out looking either. Call me lax or whatever, but that's how it is.

But this week the Encaustic Conference at Montserrat in Beverly, Mass. has finally arrived and I'm very excited to get together for the third year with encaustic aficionados and bask in the warm, waxy ambiance. It's always so inspiring and such fun to hang out for a few days to talk art and life.

Here is this year's postcard that I will give out to show my work.

This year I'm presenting a talk/demo about editing digital photos of artwork using Photoshop Elements. I know there are many technophobes who are daunted (and rightly) by all the possibilities that Photoshop offers and don't know how to find the info they need to do the job for them. That's why I'm sticking to Photoshop Jr. and restricting my talk just to editing photos of artwork, broken down into five basic steps. I'm also including some background on how digital photography works. I'll be showing some PowerPoint slides and live PS Elements.

The conference is just Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but I'm staying on Monday and Tuesday for two day-long critical feedback workshops that are limited to 10 participants each. Monday will be with Barbara O'Brien, the conference's keynote speaker and long-time curator and art critic. Tuesday will be with Miles Conrad of the Conrad Wilde Gallery. I really want the opportunity to think about and discuss my work in a critique format so I'm taking a double dose.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my work since I've been feeling kind of stymied by where it's going (or not going). Last week I finally got a book on Lee Bontecou's work that I've been wanting for a long time. Reading it and looking at the wonderful images of her earlier work from the '60s and '70s, I was reminded of work that I had been making in the mid-'90s. I made quite a bit, but it got abandoned when I started making work on paper to sell through corporate consultants. They did not want crude-looking, black work and it didn't seem that anyone else did either. But I like it - still. I took some photos to show in the workshops. Here are a couple.

I don't remember the title I gave this, so I'm just calling this Tarpaper Piece. It's torn tarpaper with black caulk, found wood and a few tacks. I was big on tacks - as you'll see.

This one I do remember was called Cauldron. It's a found catalytic converter on wood with strips of a black foam material I was using and plenty of tacks. There's a piece of very thin netting over the converter and a lot of hidden inclusions wrapped in netting and some threads that look hairy.

This one I'm calling The Twins since I don't remember the name. It's the black foam with tacks and some found pieces of metal with painted stripes. It has inclusions such as shells, keys, etc. These pieces are all around 15 or 20 inches or so.

So I believe that this is the direction I'll be going in after the conference. I've been working somewhat sculpturally but I'm going to push it more, add some other materials to the encaustic and break out of the square/rectangle. It's an exciting prospect and I want to get started.

Meanwhile, what I've been doing since I haven't been in the studio is working in the garden. As I've mentioned (ranted on about) in earlier posts, the garden has been especially lovely this year because of the weather. The weather and the progression of growth has continued to be exceptional and it's been so satisfying to watch things develop. So here are just a couple (really I have hundreds) of photos, these taken just this week.

The Boys in their idyllic setting. The irises were fabulous this year - even though I dug up hundreds, there was still amazing bloom.

Here are the boys waiting for the Pack Leader to emerge and take them for a ride. This is how I feel waiting for the conference to start. I'm not taking my eyes off Friday.

An Alarmist Recants

Phew! After saying the other day that I saw absolutely no honeybees in my garden this year, I spotted some working away on a patch of Jacob's Ladder. Here's the proof.

That's not to say that there were a slew of bees around, but at least there were some. I felt relieved that all was not over immediately for our buzzy pals.

Yes, it was another day out of the studio and into the garden with lots of work to do planting, moving, mulching, weeding and most of all looking. I probably spend 30 or 40 percent of my time in the garden just looking. Mostly I guess I'm assessing how plants are relating to each other and to the whole. The opportunity to just look and study plants was what I most missed when all we had was a front garden in the city with people passing by and nosy neighbors interrupting me.

If I hadn't been looking so closely, I wouldn't have seen the bees in this patch of flowers.

You have to get right in there and watch for movement to see the bees.

On the other hand, I also look at a distance.

White petals from the still-fragrant crabapples looking like snow on the path. And seeing how sunlight comes through the cracks in the fence.

The petals drift down on everything.

The lilacs are still very fragrant too and so abundant.

Here's a dark purple double-flowered bush.

But while looking, I'm also working. Here's my garden tool installation. Didn't I see this at the New Museum?

And notice our beautiful bright blue new ceramic birdbath at left rear. Bonnie spotted it while driving by a garden supply place and did a U-turn. It really is a striking color that looks great with plants although I haven't seen the birds in it yet.

That dark spot is a bit of dirt brought in by - birds?

While I'm reflecting, here's another one.

Such a beautiful spring! The looking is wonderful.

Soul Survivor

Never mind all this crappy economic theorizing about art being a luxury: art is a necessity - especially if you make it. We need art for our souls, not for investment, and when I stay out of the studio for a week, I can feel my soul shriveling.

This past week has been filled with things keeping me out of the studio from work to pet emergency to visiting my elderly mother to laziness, avoidance and postponement - you know, the usual. Every time I stay away like this, there are physical, emotional and spiritual consequences - not to mention my becoming impossible to be around. And now I have another consequence to add to the list - no blog topics. Oh, God, the guilt! Just what I needed - more guilt!

So, the best I can do is to promise to go to the studio tomorrow...OK, run to the studio tomorrow, and meanwhile, post some cheery photos of my world.



That darkish spot center right is the head of Bobby Budha, a statue that sits beside a walkway to the upper part of the yard.


I posted the garden in spring the other day - lush, green and verdant. Now it's a soggy mess of spring snow overlaying a thick crust of ice and underlaid by mud. These photos were from this morning after an overnight wet snow of 3" or so.



Raised beds as they look now - buried beds under a mound. Poor man's fertilizer? We can only hope.


Kirby's pool and forlorn chairs amid the drooping hemlock branches.

Kirby's pool in happier weather with Mr. K in his favorite spot and Mr. H doing the heavy looking on. (He doesn't indulge.)

Da Boyz with Chippie (stuffed, not dead)

So there you have it. Snow, garden and dogs - where the hell's the art?

Marking Time

When I posted that item about my name becoming "Natale" yesterday, I said it was about 20 years ago. But thinking about it later, I decided it was closer to 30 years ago. Tempus does fugit. And that's on my mind today since it's my birthday.

It's not a particularly memorable birthday, but it does mark time. I spent part of the day doing something no one should never do on their birthday (maybe not on any day) - trying on pants. What the hell was I thinking??? Well, it was actually not too bad, all in all. I did find some pants even though the state of my body is, shall we say, regrettable.

But, we're moving on from that to a better day tomorrow - hopefully getting to the studio to plunge in again to some new work.

Meanwhile, I'm so sick of this yucky winter - freezing cold in the low teens every night, the yard a mass of ice so we have to wear cramp-ons to walk around and surrounded by dirty snowbanks everywhere - will it never end? The only green we're seeing are the green lights on the St. Patrick's Day shamrocks in the window across the street. (The holidays charge frequently and punctually over there.) So, here are some garden photos to share something a little green and tender in this drag-on season.

Early spring with seedlings and seeds just starting. Those metal circles are raised beds planted in fire rings. This is end May/early June.

This photo was taken June 22nd - probably three weeks after the first photo. The arugula and lettuce are up, peppers and broccoli growing.

And this is mid July - another couple of weeks later. It's amazing how much growth emerged in just a few weeks.

Here's another view from early July.

These pictures were all taken in 2007 because last year was such a miserable spring that our garden was pretty horrible. It was cold very late and then extremely wet all spring and most of the summer. The tomatoes were drowned and got fungus blight, and I didn't plant much of anything else besides chard and arugula - not even beans. I'm hoping that this year will be better both for the weather and for my interest and energy.