Progress

Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes to sit down and see just how far I've come, and then I feel much better about almost everything in the world.

So, a progress review of my garden:

April 30, 2011:


June 27, 2011:


May 1, 2010:


May 29, 2011:

Trajectories

Do you ever get the feeling that you and the rest of the world are out of sync with each other? It's a feeling I'm not particularly fond of, but it's been happening more and more frequently, so maybe I ought to get used to it. It feels as though I'm moving along a slightly different trajectory from everyone around me, but not by much, maybe half a degree, give or take a smidgeon. When I started my journey, it seemed like I was heading in the same direction as everyone else, but the farther along I go, the more I find that my path is divergent. I'm not sure what to do about this, or whether I should do anything about it at all. It's frustrating to be out of step with the people I enjoy spending time with, because this loss of synchronicity means so many missed moments. At the same time, I'm trying to come to an acceptance of the idea that my path and my life are mine, and that I shouldn't necessarily twist and bend every which way just to stay in step with other people. Some flex is good. Too much flex means I've lost myself. I don't know where the line between those two is yet, but learning it isn't turning out to be all that much fun.

Completed and Hung

I attached the hardware and figured out how to hang my masks today, so my New Orleans assemblage is finished now.

The base is 1/4-inch plywood, and the center square is 1-inch pine. The decorative paper came from Michaels Crafts, and the photos I took myself. The masks are from a shop called Maskerade, which is about half a block from Jackson Square in New Orleans.

Chicago Botanic Gardens

On Wednesday

I'm going to be 30 on Wednesday. I'm feeling somewhat more settled about this than I was a few months ago, but it's still very peculiar. I had a good talk with my father last night, and he told me that he hadn't been too keen on turning 30 (or 40, or 50 either), which helped a bit. It's good to know that I'm not the only person who feels the way I do. Happily, this looks like it's going to be a fairly laid-back birthday. Tuesday is the last day of school for this year, so Wednesday I'll be able to sleep in. Over the weekend we had people over for Father's Day barbecue and birthday cake, and spent the evening in quiet conversation. Aside from that, I've got no major plans, and that'll all right with me.

Progress

The kitchen floor project is moving toward completion. This entire event started because the stick-down tiles were finally starting to pop off the kitchen floor. With a few missing tiles and several loose ones, it was time to tackle replacing the floor. This is the mostly-finished new tile that we're laying.

More Beauty

I spent last weekend in a nice balance of activity and do-nothing-ness. It was a three-day weekend in honor of Memorial Day, and although it was in turns both hot and rainy, much of the gardening work still got completed. One major issue in my back yard is that the dog runs through the gardens frequently enough to destroy them. The solution? Build her a path, and plant some "stepables", which are plants designed to be part of walkways because they can take being walked on a bit. The flagstones for the pathway came from under the deck. At some point there was a patio there, and someone built a very nice deck over the top of it. I don't know why, since the patio itself was well-laid. As I was digging out the stones, I realized that they'd been set in a bed of gravel and sand, so whoever laid it knew what they were doing. There are still many more stones under there, which makes me happy, because now I've got plans for laying them other places as well.

The Finished Garden



I also finished another assemblage. This one was originally meant to be a box project, with a bottom piece and a lid, but once I started working on it, it evolved into two separate but related pieces. Both pieces use similar materials, white ribbon, broken pieces of glass and a mirror, and words cut from magazines. When I started the pieces, I didn't have a specific concept in mind. I had the box, and I had the piece of mirror, which I knew I wanted to put inside the box somehow. Once I did that, adding the broken safety glass inside the lid made sense. It echoed the idea without copying it, and there's something evocative to me about the entire idea of broken safety glass and broken mirrors. The perfume bottle is one that I got from a girl I had a major crush (obsession might be a better word) on in high school, and the red glass and hematite star beads came from my personal collection.

Lid Side


Inside



Then yesterday I scored a big find. There's a consignment shop that I drive past every single week, and I've always wanted to see what was inside. I finally stopped yesterday, and in the back room, behind a bunch of other things, I found a type tray. I've wanted one for a while, ever since I saw an art project that someone had done where they cut decorative paper and lined the bottoms of all the sections, then hung the tray on their wall. I'd like to do something similar, but instead of just paper, I'm thinking about adding other embellishments and making a Goddess-themed piece, making each section something to represent and honor a goddess.

Hamilton Type Tray