cottage industry

Haiku: write three simple lines

We attended a class in Haiku poetry a few years ago. The approach from school days always stuck with me–write three lines of five syllables, seven, then five again. I have written a few through the years, but took more interest after the class. Tim and I have each written in journals, attempted essay and story–published a few things here and there.

I attended a workshop with Natalie Goldberg in 1991 and began practicing her approach to “writing practice” and I have read most of her books since that early one, Writing Down the Bones. When I saw that a new one had come out, I ordered it. This one is all about her longtime study of Haiku.

She began learning about it from Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. He named the four great haiku writers–Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Basho’s most famous one may sound familiar:

FROG JUMPS

AN OLD POND

WATER SOUND

Ginsberg explained in his teaching that the rule about the syllables works differently in Japanese–not to worry about that so much when writing in English. “The only real measure of haiku is upon hearing one, your mind experiences a small sensation of space which is nothing less than God.”

Tim and I recently began practicing some haiku writing at the kitchen table.

PAINTED YELLOW STICK

WHITE PAPER HORSE

HELLO RED TULIPS! PP

SOUNDS OF SPRING

THE BUZZING OF CHAIN SAWS

WITH BIRD SONGS. TR

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FLEA MARKET MIRROR

CLOCK SAYS TEN PAST ELEVEN

COLORED FLAGS FLY. PP

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WHAT OF THE WOOD PILE

STACKED SNOW

IMAGINE THE WARMTH. TR

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CORAL ROSE ON MILKGLASS CUP

PARROT TULIP IN SAGE VASE

ROBIN SEEKS WORM ON SOGGY GRASS. PP

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GAZING AT THE FIELD

FROM THE DECK

COME FRIENDS! TR

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PALE GREEN PATIO TABLE

FOLDED WOOD EASEL

FAUX SUNFLOWER SWAYING IN THE BREEZE. PP

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The Underground: our basement studios

Transitioning work spaces from bright open second floor lofts to a dark basement was the tradeoff part of our move. In order to have the spacious surroundings outside, we opted for this change. The underground is loaded with cosmic symbolism. According to musician, Frank Zappa: “The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground.” I’ve always appreciated the edges.

Once a student of psychology, I studied Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung. He defined the basement as the place where we lose our soul and then rediscover it. In dreams, the basement becomes a symbol of the unconscious, the unknown aspects of ourselves. One might consider the place underneath your house as hiding a concealed gem–finding it brings consciousness closer to universal wisdom.

Despite all the juicy metaphors, it took awhile to want to be down there. Carrying things down the steps and discovering a way to arrange everything took awhile. Although it is not “finished,” the ceiling is fairly high and it is not musty or damp. This very nice large basement was the clincher for wanting to be here, as we knew it would be possible to house all our “art stuff.”

We had a scheduled studio visit that incentivized our push to organize our underground and we managed to arrange two somewhat separate areas using hanging fabric as dividers. Video of studio here…

https://www.facebook.com/patpendletonstudio/

We still have a garage full of boxes to position somewhere down there, but as imagined, two reasonable work spaces have evolved after three months of being here.

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Seasons: weather can be entertaining

We began living here the week before Christmas and had a big snowfall that weekend to give us the full lake effect of snow. These views from out our windows were endlessly inspiring.

Faux Sunflower for a touch of Spring and Summer to come.

I made frozen ice “Charms” to hang outside from moulds of flowers and greens inside a heart-shaped pan.

Everything becomes novel in a new place, like Winter walks on the beach ice dunes.

But we were gifted with a taste of Summer in March–warm days to be outside. As soon as the sliding glass door was left open a lot, we started walking into the invisible screen door so I affixed this tiny bird to alert us.

Tim took the opportunity to set up easel for plein air landscape painting.

We hung flags, a house bell, and fish sock. Tim’s assemblage sculptures have begun to appear. My garden objects have begun turning up.

Just as the grass was getting long and we began to realize the urgency of mowing. Unaccustomed to this ritual and without the right equipment, we knew this day would come.

But then we woke up to snow in the middle of April.

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Hash Tags: labeling and naming,

I play around with different hashtags on Instagram. Lately, I have been using a few of note: #notpainting, #ordinarymagic, #lastingness, #artful. Life in transition remains creative and productive in different ways. I take a lot of pictures that represent the way I connect with things here and now. Ordinary and artful domestic life has dominated my attention for a time. More on “lastingness” later.

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Moving: one of the top five stressors in life

We have each moved quite a few times in our lives. This is my 25th. Tim had just about as many–living all over the country as a kid with a father in the Navy, including a time overseas. I moved just once during childhood–to another home a mile away when I was 10–this one time gave me a sense the reinvention of waking up in a new room in a new place with new routines (school and friends).

Despite all the other times prior to this one, the physical task of taking all worldly things from one place to another felt so much more daunting this time. Plus, it happened during the Winter in Western New York. Dealing with the collection of art and supplies that have mounted up over time, was a chance to review and consider the why of it all.

It took a few months to get it all in. Organizing is ongoing.

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Before and After: how change happens

Figuring out how to live seems to have involved a lot of learning that arises from comparison of then and now . . . before age 18, college, jobs, apartments, travel, relationships and after when all forms of gain and loss have been better understood.

Tim and I had done a lot of these sorts of things prior to finding ourselves living in an urban loft community among a diverse group of families and artists. Just like everyone else, the pandemic year offered a new sense of urgency. The time of before pandemic separates our now as a time of illusion when we could not know what was to come. We are simply in it, not beyond it. The after pandemic remains vague. Like many others, we decided to find a way to move into a new and different environment–find the unknown in a new way.

We left our 1000 square foot lofts and merged our existence into a modest size cottage not too far from Lake Erie. We each transported our thirty years of living and making art in many different places to this humble location an hour down route 5 from Buffalo.

Our studios reside in the underworld of the basement, but we have deer visiting the field out back and birds singing in the surrounding trees.

After our long and complex individual city dweller before, we each find that this leaving has delivered us to an after that is evolving each day. The dreariness of the pandemic everyday is a bit fresher and more promising. Possibility is a process of rearranging–not just the furniture, but a point of view. While we each have individual websites, the needs of our online art life seem best suited to share as a joined effort to share reflections on daily life, as well as offer small works for sale.

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