The stirrings of spring have drawn me into garden preparations, and once again, I have been thinking a great deal about the intersection of art and gardening. I find that being in the garden influences my outlook on just about everything, including art. The palimpsest of this earth I work is layered: those settlers who first cultivated the wild land, those generations since that have coaxed food and flower from the ground, the previous owners of our house who so cared for the garden plot that their tomatoes in a wet year convinced us to buy the house, and us last year and our embarrassingly rich harvest. There are patterns here, layered upon one another; perhaps they will translate to drawings, ceramics, etc. I know there is a wealth of creative work here, and I want to see what my life looks like when I let these two generative actions intertwine. I have started a separate blog that is a repository for this ongoing questioning, as well as the progress in the garden. I am transforming this patch of earth, and somehow that feels terribly close to sculpture or performance art or something. Just a feeling so far; hopefully the blog will help me really sort it out. It feels like a major turning point, although I'm the first to admit that spring itself lures us into inviting change wantonly. I love that it does that...
http://c-o-m-p-o-s-t.blogspot.com/
A guiding quote from poet Stanley Kunitz, a fellow gardener:
I associate the garden with the whole experience of being alive,
and so, there is nothing in the range of human experience
that is separate from what the garden can signify
in its eagerness and its insistence,
and in its driving energy to live--to grow, to bear fruit.
It is the first day of spring.
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