Organic Sedimentation: Earth 2013

The first session of a quilting Block-of-the-Month class called “Fearless Improv” did more than introduce me to my ego-deflating “gremlin” and motivate me to build a stone wall (of fabric). The introduction by Stitch Your Art Out’s co-owner and quilting diva Kimberly Davis also empowered me to start another project, a rather wild and ill-conceived project, but something that had been haunting me all the same.

To the top of my imagination rose an “end of bolt” piece I had been compelled to purchase last summer from a home design workshop in Rhode Island. This fabric was calling my name. It has a creamy background with machine embroidered fish, starfish, and shells scattered on the sand. After cutting out several fish and shells, I went hunting for their environment among the treasures in my stash. Many fabrics auditioned, but only eight made the finals. I began to see this project as a banner with horizontal slabs of fabric studded with sea creatures—a cross section of sea floor.

I placed the last hand stitch almost exactly two months from the first cut. The banner is called “Organic Sedimentation: Earth 2013.” Without the burlap sack that once held organic coffee beans, it would have been called simply, “Sedimentation: Earth 2013.” The word “organic” printed in large block letters hints at the ironic tone that evolved along with the project. In addition to composing the piece with hunks of odd fabrics, I added—along with the fish and shells—scraps of other fabric images appliqued on each of the eight layers of sedimentation. For example, a small Santa Claus sank to the bottom layer. Images of planets, cars, lizards, and a kitten settled down through the sediment and stuck at various levels. I selected a backing fabric chosen by a child’s bright imagination long-ago. Each layer of sediment was machine quilted with different thread and in a different pattern as if time—not color and texture—separated them. The binding is a tale of sedimentation itself with various hues and patterns following one another.

As I was machine quilting the heavy banner, I felt a strong desire to add small objects to raise the sedimentation of human detritus above the nearly-flat surface of the quilted banner. Two dimensions were not enough to express the three-dimensional scene I envisioned. In about an hour, I collected from closets, attic, shelves, and drawers what I needed: lanyard plastic tangled with beads, tiny lego blocks, shark teeth, lace, bits of Christmas tinsel, pink buttons, small metal clips and bolts, and a plastic horse and rider. Junk? We humans are really good at it!

Once the binding was hand sewn, I moved my tax documents off the dining room table and spread out the banner to place and attach the objects. My collection was excessive and only about half of the items made it onto this piece. I am not sure if the placements are fanciful or cynical; maybe a bit of both. A red plastic cowboy about the size of a seam allowance now stands astride the planet Saturn with a nano-revolver in each hand. Is this humor, or is it a commentary on aggressively competitive space exploration? Fresh water fish leap to consume bright bits of trash, and a sardonic starfish sports a nautical button in the dead-center of its body. Not far off, a disembodied head smiles blandly on the multilayered scene. My (least) favorite piece might be the yellow plastic band that actually tripped me up on a sidewalk in New Jersey recently. I took a five-point dive and I bear the scars of this object’s innocuous/hazardous/careless placement in my path. The same could happen to any fish or mammal or bird anywhere on earth; there is yellow plastic enough for all! The banner is very personal, not at all pretty, quite heavy, and possibly unique in the history of the planet. My gremlin desperately wants me to hang it in the laundry room and forget about it.

Last fall I created another “environmental art” piece—a banner inspired by Hurricane Sandy. I wanted to suggest devastation with a theme of broken glass and destructive winds. I cut heavy brown paper shapes and then found fabrics to bring color to the glass and menacing heft to the wind. I gave this piece to my son, an environmental engineer who lives in New Jersey. He hung it in the third floor hallway right outside the room where I sleep when I visit. I love it, but my gremlin thinks I am the only one.

If you knew my father and mother, you would recognize elements of their crafts in my work. He was an upholsterer and she grew up in the garment industry in New York City. I’ve lived my whole life around sewing machines, fabric, paper patterns, and big shears. Buttons were the best rainy Saturday amusement we could imagine! As they started a family, my mother continued to sew clothing for me and my sister, until we were old enough to create our own dresses and suits and gowns. My father found recreation and relaxation from upholstery by collecting shells, driftwood, and leaves and creating unique objects with them: vases, baskets, mirror frames, ornamental magnets, and small sculptures. He was a master of improvisation! We often laughed at my father’s “projects,” as he called them, and this has been fuel for my gremlin. If I laughed at what he made, I deserve the same for my “projects,” don’t I? I see the similarities now, and I regret not appreciating his art more fully while he was alive. The creative inheritance and skills I learned from both my parents are alive in my work. Perhaps I am not improvising at all, but simply living and creating in the family tradition.

Summer 2013 in Three Moments

#1: “Distance Plus Motion”
From my moving kayak this morning, I saw
two ranks of trees sailing in opposite directions across a hillside where
yesterday there stood a solid wall of green.
The upper stand of trees sailed slowly south, while the lower sailed
majestically north, a verdant voyage
challenging my notion of the land and
animating a façade once stiff with wood.


#2: “Morning Marvelous”
This morning’s marvelous is quiet and small:
an owl contemplates life and resists entropy,
a bit of orange flashes among the trees,
a red boat floats against tall reeds.
I turn my boat towards home and small bubbles rise to show the way.
At my doorstep, a yellow butterfly.



#3: "Short Summer Summary”
Traveling, unpacking, checking boxes on a list, transitioning, walking, waiting to begin, purchasing, arranging, moving, stirring, contemplating, anticipating, waiting to end, escaping, fixing, sewing, puzzling, walking, watching, making new lists, paddling, finishing, filling out forms, turning things on, reading, turning things off, supplying, connecting, preparing, giving, walking, packing, returning.

Watching Me Watching You

As I approached the Amtrak ticket window at Newark Penn Station this morning I smiled at a woman already in the queue. She carried a handbag and rested her other hand on a neat black leather backpack atop her suitcase. She returned my smile. In some strange recognition between strangers, we acknowledged each other as equals, “Hello” answering “Hello.” “In a pinch, you can turn to me.”

The exact same encounter happened to me at the Amtrak counter in Boston's Back Bay station four days ago. Women recognize their peers in age, class, and circumstances almost instantly. It's part of a survival instinct when traveling alone. Just like instinctively noticing where the exits and restrooms are, women will identify the peer who will be a potential ally if danger approaches. Later that same day, as the train approached my station, a woman entered the train and seemed quite anxious. She asked if the seat next to me was free and we chatted until I got off ten minutes later. She was apprehensive about this train ride, her very first. “People in Texas don’t have this opportunity,” she said. I reassured her and she seemed relieved as much by my presence as by my words.

On both ticket-purchasing experiences in recent days, I observed a woman in difficulty at the counter. For the ticket agents, these may have been just samples of many long narratives that unfold during the day. In Boston, the protagonist was an international woman with minimal English trying to buy a complex ticket that might have been impossible. She was short, dark-skinned, and elderly—three strikes against her in addition to the language barrier and limited resources. She was holding a zippered coin purse at the counter and I wondered if she would pay for her ticket with small bills or possibly even with coins. The agent must have expressed doubt about the feasibility of her desired route, because the customer responded in broken English, “I go this way many time.” The agent tried again and then wrote a number on a slip of paper, handed it to the woman, and asked her to wait while she sold tickets to the few of us with immanent departures. I saw the price of $148.20 on the piece of paper and then my narrative boarded a train and diverged from hers.

At Newark Penn Station this morning, the woman facing her trial at the ticket window was young, white, and blonde. She had five or six bags at her feet. Not suitcases, but canvas and plastic bags with their handles tied together. She was in an extended conversation with the agent. She told him she had just been released from rehab in a mental hospital and she needed to get home today. Her voice was urgent and highly distressed, almost panicked. She rested her cheek against the palm of her hand and pleaded with him. He asked for her name and typed it into the computer. Perhaps she had a reservation but no identification? He couldn't give her the ticket without ID. When he asked for a phone number, she quickly gave him a number and told him that her ex-husband was at that number and he could give any information needed. The agent ultimately directed her to the police, “Go around the corner and turn left.” She hooked all the bag handles with her fingers and walked off. When I left the ticket counter, I was relieved to see her in conversation with a policeman. I felt some tug to get involved, but I didn't.

Meanwhile, off to my left was a row of men who may or may not have had tickets, but who were sitting along the outside wall of the waiting room on a bench marked (as they all are) “Seating for ticketed passengers.” They were watching, too. They were not watching the big board for their track number to appear. They were not watching the lines at the ticket windows to pick the fastest one. They were watching out for one another as they stepped outside and then returned to the warm station and the benches. They were also watching the passengers sitting on the other benches. I wondered if they were watching to see if someone dropped something that they could pick up and use or sell, but when a package of cigarettes fell out of the pocket of a passenger opposite me, one of the watchers got up and gestured to the man until he saw his cigarettes and retrieved them.

Another of the watchers called out, “Blossom! Blossom!” and I looked to see who might respond. I was not quick enough to catch sight of Blossom passing by.

Leaning against the information booth in the center of the waiting area and looking out over all the benches and all the people was a uniformed policeman. He scanned the room attentively. What would happen if he were not watching? And the three young soldiers in buff camouflage uniforms that I saw as I came down the escalator at the Port Authority bus station on Tuesday morning? In the universe of humans watching other humans, we may have turned the page from watching to surveillance.

Sounds of Place: Budapest Keleti Station (2007)

The Budapest train station called Keleti is gigantic and beautiful. Inside Keleti Station today it is confusing, hot, and crowded, and we are waiting for an overnight train to Krakow. I have loved train stations for a long time because of the vibrant aura of travelers setting off on a journey or arriving at a destination. Grand Central Station in New York City is a very special train station for me. It represents my claim on my own life, starting a new existence right there at the center of the universe!

Centered in this station in Budapest, between tracks and ticket booths, there are two old-fashioned “big boards” with metal cards clicking over to display the times of arrival or departure of the trains along with the origin or destination, notes we can’t understand, any delays and how long, and finally, the datum that completes each line, the track number.

Every couple of minutes, the board begins to transform itself. One by one, beginning at the top, each element of the line of information will begin rotating to repeat, momentarily, the line below it. For just a blink of an eye, the two lines are identical, and then the elements of the second line begin to flip to bring up the train just below it. This movement is nearly constant as track numbers and other information is updated. At any moment, some element is flipping through all of the small metal cards with all of its potential readings to stop at the exact right one.

The “big board” entertains us in anticipation of the track posting which will catapult us into action towards the arriving train. The sound of all that clicking mesmerizes us, rivets our attention. This sound is like rosary beads clicking, like many fast, small marbles snapping against one another, like thick, flexible plastic cards shuffling, like heavy dry leaves rustling in the wind in October. It is similar and yet unlike any of these. If the mechanical big board holds still and silent, for even a moment, everyone watching it is still, we all stop breathing for an instant, for a heartbeat, until the rapid flipping begins again.

I tried to figure out who or what is behind this hypnotic system, but can’t quite imagine! This system predates computers, but is it computerized now? Of course, the next iteration of big boards will be digital displays, practical, but not as dynamic or interesting to watch.

In addition to this repetitive, resonant sound locking on a brain frequency that immobilizes us, we are also enchanted with the names of destinations that flip through our sights each time a line moves up the board. Potential destinations from this spot in Budapest flip over each other, revealing and concealing jewels and tapestries, markets and minarets, rich aromas and strange twisting cries. Today we are NOT going to Nagykáta, Zűrich, Sopron, Hatva, Moszkva, Szolnok, Sűlysáp, Koŝice, Pëcs, Graz, Berlin, Zagreb, Hamburg, Belgrade, Thessalonika, Dormond, or Bratislava, or any of the places with names so complex I couldn’t capture them from the short glimpse on the big board.

Our train finally appears at the bottom of the big board as the departure time of 18:30 takes the bottom line below 18:25. Before we are assigned a track number and achieve the top line, I am already nostalgic for the sound of the big board at Keleti Station in Budapest.

Ring the Bell

At Jinming Temple on Saturday I held three smoldering incense sticks in the sticky humid air and bowed in four directions to the Buddha, beginning with the East. I inhaled the smoke and then opened my hands and heart for a blessing.

A few hours later, I paid two renminbi to sound the massive bell in an inner courtyard of the Confucius Temple. A small log was wrapped in red cloth and suspended by two ropes. I pulled it back, posed for a photo, and released the log toward the bell and the boom reverberating through flesh and bone and air. I paid another five renminbi to hold mallets and play three rows of graduated bronze bells, a very big drum, and a Chinese zither. My five minutes on that stage were not enough to perfect my style, but to confirm a vision that this might have been my role in a past life at this temple.

On Monday, I climbed every available stair in the weaving workshop garden; the geometric and smooth ones as well as the water-shaped, rough and uneven ones, filling all my frames with texture. I looked and longed toward the roof garden that was inaccessible to my ascending desire.

I confess that I am the one who touches sculptures despite signs that say “Do not touch,” and on Tuesday, I touched the lucky turtle, and the elephant, and the camel, and the lions. They were stone both before and after, but I was not.

At the gate of Linggu Temple on Purple Mountain, I ate slippery cold noodles of bean paste with shredded carrots and cucumber, sauced with sweet, pungent, and spicy. Though I held my sticks upside down, no one noticed my splashy style.

Today, I plan to touch silk and jade, perhaps to great excess. When the antiphospholipid antibody syndrome rings the final bell in my head or heart, I will be ready.

Sitting Still (Auracular Spaces #2)

“Matter, it was discovered, can be used to tell time.
‘A rock,’ said physicist Holger Müller, ‘is a clock.’”
Harper’s Magazine, “Findings” March 2013

I am sitting still in a small park on a compact university campus in downtown Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. The temperature is in the 90’s and I am inclined to remain motionless while humid currents circulate around me.

A dark haired woman picks up a long bamboo pole and begins to swat at the plum-sized yellow fruit suspended in bunches above her head in the branches of a tree. Her companion picks up the fallen fruit and rubs it with water from a jar. She then places it on the seat of a wheelchair already occupied by a slight immobile man in white pajamas. He may not be aware that he has become a basket for the ripe fruit.

The two women are slightly heavier and quite a bit darker in flesh than many of the other women in this city; they may be ethnic minority Chinese employed as home health aides for this elderly and seemingly incapacitated man. Three animated elderly people sit on a bench nearby eating the same fruit. The two trios are linked by the sweet ripe fruit, but nothing else.

Two school girls pass by arm in arm. Workers traverse the path just beyond the low railings with small wheelbarrows, tools, and pallets of water behind bicycles.

The clicking sound of high heels draws my attention to a slender woman in a long-sleeved black dress with a spine overtly zippered from neck to hem.

I hear a flute somewhere behind me in the middle air.

Another wheelchair approaches the bench to my left. A young adult male pushes an older man. After transferring the older man to the bench, the younger one sits beside him and turns his full attention to his cellphone. The older man enters the park’s ambiance in the role of witness.

The wooden benches are built to seat two comfortably, but they are occupied one by one by one.

This park strays toward the wild side with soft low grasses that are not trimmed between the paths. The shrubs and trees are carefully randomized to present every shape, texture, and size with limbs growing horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and fractally. Greens go forth as leaves, fronds, tufts, fingertips, feathers, sprays, needles, fans, ferns, shoots, and every other possible projection and extension to form a thick and light-entrapping tent. Fallen and falling leaves become part of the appealing pattern.

Pensive notes from several flutes at a distance play hide and seek among the leaves.

This garden has many more paths of patterned tiles than necessary to pass through it in any direction. The trails criss-cross and converge at a five-pointed, off-kilter star deliberately far from the notion of center. The tiles inscribe skewed triangles and irregular four or five-sided geometric shapes. This park makes a deliberate statement about beauty and order, reminding me of the Wallace Stevens line, “The Imperfect is our Paradise.” Inside is a pause outside the ordinary. Though all sides have low boundaries, no glance in any direction gives up the secret of its size and shape. Peripheral vision is quiet on the subject, making no guesses.

A woman with silver hair and red shoes scribbles in a notebook. Three brightly dressed girls take photos of a baby sitting on a bench. A pregnant woman listens to music through headphones.

An organic breathing space offering the privacy of intimate public rooms, this botanical sanctuary presents two objects for visual convergence. One is a bronze head on a large, slightly irregular stone block. The other is a water-pocked stone in the shape and size of two horses kneeling nose to nose. Formed of elements and momentum, the stones beckon like evidence.

I am still . . . sitting . . . and then . . . the flutes draw my themes onward.

The park takes another breath and recomposes space and time around the flight of a single white butterfly.

Travel Anxiety #1: Zip it Up!

Travel anxiety takes many forms. We are packing for a two-week trip to China and three months at our cottage in Rhode Island. I am very familiar with the many forms of travel anxiety this week! One form is a manic energy for doing laundry, for packing pretzels and nuts into ziplock bags, and for watching whole seasons of Scandal on demand. The mirror image of this is a deep lethargy brought on by the long list of phone calls to make, including stopping two newspaper deliveries and checking in with our credit card security department so they won’t cancel the card upon seeing charges in two or three countries while we are in transit. The confusion of packing for Nanjing—sometimes referred to as one of the “little ovens” of China—along with cool nights in Rhode Island, and a wedding in New York has my head spinning. I’m packing tee shirts made in China to bring for our Chinese host’s new baby. I’m trying to guess what sandals I’ll want to wear on an evening a month from now.

My husband and I are book people. Before we both had Kindles and iPads, we packed three or four heavy paperback books to read and exchange. Now we shop the online store and load up the e-readers with books recommended by our friends and hope that we’ll always find an outlet (and our cords and adapters) when we need a charge to keep us supplied with our psycho-literary fix. The thought of being delayed somewhere without a book . . . that's anxiety!

I have a new four-wheeler suitcase. My old, bright red two-wheeler has been roughed around for six or seven years. I’ve been envying the four-wheelers for some time. These pieces of luggage seem to float along beside the travelers allowing a side approach for narrow passages (into bathroom stalls, for example) and easily gliding to a front-on stance facing the counter of the newsstand when purchasing Reese’s Pieces or The Atlantic Monthly before a flight. An ache in my shoulder and back from pulling my two-wheeler with an accessory backpack through airports hastened this upgrade.

My new suitcase has three shallow zippered compartments on its topside, a zippered main compartment, and one of those expansion zippers that increase the depth of the bag by another two inches. My back pack has three zippered compartments and a small front mesh pouch, also with a zipper. I’m not even counting the zippers on the insides of both bags, or the zippers in my wallet and cosmetics case, or the quart-size ziplock bag with my travel liquids. Let’s say, I have about a dozen or more zipped areas available for expressing my travel anxiety. And that’s not even counting my Eddie Bauer “SPORT” slacks with 4 zippered pockets. Travel anxiety? When asked, I will deny it. When observed, I will fake it. I love to travel, so why am I creating so much activity around the contents of all the little segmented compartments of my baggage?

My checking and rechecking of the stuff in all of these sections and partitions approaches an OCD symphony. Dollar bills for the water machine? Bandaids and tea bags? Slippers, pajamas, pens, pencils, paper? Phone charger, camera charger, extra batteries? Even at the airport, finally relaxing with a cup of hot tea, I’m unzipping, zipping, and checking little side pockets and pouches to find my travel notebook, Dramamine just in case, and the tiny card that has the codes for remote accessing my home phone voice mail. And this is all before entering the security line! After going through the strip search of airport security, there is no turning back and my anxiety muscles begin to flex for the new challenges ahead!