Apples & Roses

Apple Rose Plate - $400

Just completed.

Gardener that I am, I was thinking of all things garden when this design dreamed itself up. What you see is a food functional brass plate with an apple tree and a rose - symbols from the Song of Songs of love and union. 

I could see it filled and placed on the table for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot,  Tu B'Shevat and all joyous occasions that combine food with love and celebration.  

A 14" diameter brass plate (easier to come by and considerably more affordable than copper) served as my canvas for this etching.  Colorful metallic waxes give it a kind of folk-artsy feel.  I did seal the surface with a clear shellac to preserve those colors and then added a removable glass plate that fits into the center section (not seen in the photo), to keep usability pretty simple.  The glass can be washed after use and the brass plate can be lightly cleaned with a soft damp cloth.

The Hebrew verses around the raised border come from Shir Hashirim and Shir Hama'alot (126): “As an Apple amidst the trees of the forest (right); "As a Rose among thorns”(left); “those who plant in tears" (lower);  will harvest in joy” (upper).  These sweet references speak to earthiness - of  our being both planters and that which is planted. They speak of envisioning ourselves as uniquely beloved and they point to the sacred nature of life that conspires for our happiness, carrying us through trials of tears and hard work towards wholeness and fulfillment.

May your plates be filled to overflowing with a joyous new year and a fruitful harvest.

L'Shana Tova!

Creating Transitional Entrances

A Pattern Language, a book that addresses the human needs of public and private spaces, speaks to the need for transitional entrances as a space to leave behind one's exterior, streetwise self in order to enter a more interior, personal frame of mind. "If the transition is too abrupt there is no feeling of arrival, and the inside of the building fails to be an inner sanctum."

Creating a transitional entrance can be accomplished in many ways, by marking a path which connects the street to the entrance with "a change of light, a change of sound, a change of direction, a change of surface, a change of level, perhaps by gateways which make a change of enclosure, and above all with a change of view".

An approach that I have taken to mark transitional spaces is the Threshold Sema.  

Until this morning I was really at a loss as to what word to use to express what I had in mind. Emblem, motto, banner, focus, sign... it's all of those things.  I began exploring the etymology of each to see if I could find a word with the appropriately fitting nuance.   I was led to the word "semantic" (via "sign") which stems from the Greek semantikos "significant," likewise semainein "to show by sign, signify, point out, indicate by a sign," both deriving from sema "sign, mark, token; omen, portent; constellation..."   I have known the word sema from its Arabic meaning of "listening," the name for the ritual dance of the whirling dervishes.   Threshold Sema then.
 
The blog "Light is Planted at the Garden Gate" discusses the Threshold Sema created for the Art Song Garden.

Here is a version that I created for the portico of my studio:


JoAnne, a friend as well as a member of the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center here in Crestone, asked me to create one for the garden gate of the Mother's Garden at the Savitri House last autumn. Here is the result:

The Mother's Garden gate is overhung with trees and there is no light that would come through the back as there is in my garden, hense the rectangular banner form with no light revealing cutwork. 

The central flower symbol is the that of the Mother, Mirra Alfassa, closely associated with Sri Aurobindo. Here is a link to the meaning of the symbol: Mother's Symbol.  The Sanskrit on the left is Bhakti - Devotion. The symbolic language beneath it is a lotus with a flame. The Sanskrit on the right is Ishvara Pranidhana - surrender to the Divine unfolding. Centered within the Sanskrit calligraphy is a flower facing out, away from the Mother's symbol - listening, as it were, to another voice.

It came out so beautifully that they now want to create a more sturdy and beautiful gate for it to hang on, which I hope will happen in the Spring.  In the meantime, Ginny, who caretakes the house, created it into a mantle piece until then:

As with the Crestone End of Life Project, for which I create plaques with a symbol that represents a significant element of the life of a person past,  I love the thought of creating a symbolic language for the daily thresholds we transition while living.

The Violets are Blueing in the Green

 

I woke up this morning with this little tune buzzing in my head from A.A. Milne.  I took it as a sign that the time had come to finally upload the photos I had taken of Art Song Garden as during its exquisite Spring blooming.

I was so excited by the return of the bees that I went crazy trying to capture the little critters at work. They don't exactly hold still while you're trying to catch them in the act.  It seem the bigger, slower ones were the most cooperative.

Bumble bee on crabapple blossoms:

Here's one working on the Black Currant bushes:

 

Here is my precocious squirt of a Centennial Apple tree that is all of 3 feet tall blooming with everything it's got:

 

 

Yes, Dorothy, Nectarines do grow in Crestone, CO - ask the black bear who broke through the fence in the middle of the night last year to get at the yet unripe fruit :

Here is one of the ever beautiful,  hardy and forgiving Caraganas (Siberian Pea Shrubs):

And glory of glories, beyond all hope,  one of the Etrog trees started from seed 4 years ago blossomed for the first time :

She and her mate have spent their lives indoors.  For the first time both are (courageously) living out of doors (for the season). 

Life is luscious!

Garden Brownies

It all started out with the resurrection of a charming idea I had back when I created and ran the Stewardship Tools Catalog (many long years ago now).  Ever the counter culture iconoclast, the thought of an ephemeral, light emitting, and, let's face it CAUCASIAN Guardian Angel rather rasped against my personal, earthy grain.  A Garden Angel now, would have qualities of a different persuasion! ... Hence :

They do look a little dubious, poor dears.

My dear friend Peggy Godfrey has a sheep ranch out in Moffat, CO.  Peggy has sheep poop coming out the wazoo (more correctly the poop is coming out of her sheep's wazoo).  I looooooooooooooove this stuff!  I shoveled shit loads into every vessel that could fit into my car 5 times this last summer to top off my newly formed garden Hugel mound, which I will describe in a future post.  I still had a pile from the previous year composting nicely in another part of the garden which I have been using to produce the true Garden Angel:

Beautiful, don't you think? They don't even smell!

By the way, I have bedded each one down in sheep belly wool, a bio-degradable protein garden mulch.

That's the large one (~4,75" in each direction), and here is a smaller one that prefers to travel in pairs:

~3.5"

For me they are a new art form, each taking on its own character!  So now I'm hooked.


 Here comes BABY Poop Cake:

BOOTY Poop Cake:

LAMBIE Poop Cake:

LEAFY Poop Cake:

the BROWNIES, Biggy and Benny:

and Big and Little HEARTS:

with more to come!

I have to admit that "pure and simple" doesn't exactly describe the final product.  To my appall and my sisters resigned good humor, the first "pure and simple" batch dissolved into a crumb pile by the time it reached California in a 2-day trip through the US Postal Service in time for Hanukkah.

After that mortifying event I worked feverishly in my laboratory until I had created the profoundly improved formula enhanced by a powerful, albeit completely natural binding agent that now gives the little critters a half-life similar to Twinkies!  I have been submerging one angelic guinea pig for the last 2 months in water. It's still completely intact, though it did produce some nice manure tea.  I have faith that, exposed for long enough periods to a challenging garden environment,  each brownie will eventually be restored to its original constitution.

Until then, may all of us, and the brownies too,  have our day in the sun (please).