The Death of "Grandpa"

    We went away for several days, leaving our 50 or 60 chickens to fend for themselves more or less. We left them a lot of grain, and checked the weather while we were away and ascertained that the temperature was above freezing which meant that water would remain available.  Chickens are pretty hardy.
     We returned at night. The next morning, I went out early to feed the chickens and see how they had fared. They all came running, though I didn't see "Grandpa", who is a very old rooster who we have nurtured along in his old age, shooing the other roosters away while we make sure he consumes choice scraps and tidbits. He was first named "Snowman" but was eventually re-named because he had been with us since he was a wee lad, and then had grown up to father several of our hens, and to lead a long and noteworthy life as a retired "head rooster" which is actually a rather difficult role as younger roosters don't tend to value longevity. If we didn't specially look out for him, we are certain he would have expired a while ago, as he is not up to defending himself against the others. I was pretty sure he wouldn't make it through this next winter, as he has taken in a somewhat witless way, to sleeping alone, outside, on top of the old chicken pen, where he would undoubtedly meet his end as a frozen bird one cold night. I called for him in my goofy "Grandpa" voice, and looked for him out beyond the electric fence where he sometimes ended up, probably in a desperate attempt to avoid attention from the other younger aggressive roosters. No sign of him, but that wasn't unusual.
     All seemed well, until I got all the way into the hoop house. I was busy dumping more grain and searching for the few winter eggs, when I noticed the black and white pile of feathers in the far corner. He was dead. Had a desperate retreat into the warmth of the hoop house been his downfall? Had the other roosters picked on him to his death? He bore no signs of abuse when I picked him up later and put him to rest in a chicken food bag....

     This is one reason to keep "livestock"; as constant reminder of our ultimate destiny, and to help squeamish people like me literally learn how to "handle" death. 

Painting

"Second Reflection" oil on linen 60"x48" unfinished

"Jellyfish" oil on cardboard packaging 14"x22"

My son Ivan has a blog that he posts his better art works on from his first year in animation school. He thought I should be doing the same.

I just photographed both of these paintings in order to include them in my NYFA grant application. I have been applying for a NYFA grant for many years. "Second Reflection" to the left here is not finished, but it is now too cold in my studio to work out there. I was working on it up until 2 weeks ago when I had to be careful not to hold my brush too high above my heart for too long or my hand would go kind of tingly and numb. ANd then I would be so cold that I kept accidentally knocking my brushes to the floor. The paint seemed to stay wet longer in the cold, but I had a weird problem with thin wet applications of paint "crawling" when put on top of already dried paint. It was like using water-based house paint on top of oil without sanding first....

    Anyway, aside from weather-related technical probs, I have never had such a great experience with a painting. I get completely lost in it for hours which is different. Until now, I used to get completely involved working on a painting for about an hour and a half. Then I would feel a burning desire to take a break, stop, call it a day, or whatever. This painting is different. If nothing from my "real" life called me out, and it wasn't too cold, I would work on it till I was too hungry or tired to continue, which might be entire days. It leads me on and on and on. Each new mark that I make seems to point to the next spot that needs addressing; I am aware of the whole thing being a carefully synchronized "machine"? Not a machine, more of a web, where a change of one strand can compromise others, or indicate others that need addressing. I also think of orchestral analogies, which I alluded to in my grant application. I am the conductor of this visual symphony...guarding against dissonance unless needed, toning down the loudness here and there, making sure the different moments lead one to the other....keeping the rhythm going throughout, etc, 

   The "jellyfish" painting on the right was a much faster accomplishment, but it is a beautiful integration of "found packaging" (complete with holes in it where water gun was yanked from cardboard) and painting. It is painted from a photo of my son LEo when he was about 5 holding jelly fish in both hands. I worry that no one will know what he is holding (thus the title), but Ivan thought that it didn't matter, that he is obviously holding something and it just doesn't matter what.

   

Life and death of carrots

childhood trauma

learning to love each other

becoming an ingredient

    So many carrots, so little time. But I took some time to appreciate the harvest. I  was really struck by the childhood trauma carrot above...It seems like a real live example of how a young life will just grow around whatever disturbing traumatic events happen to it. I saw Slumdog Millionaire recently and I guess the amazing resilience of children was on my mind.

   I'm trying to decide if I should harvest the rest. Cause there are a lot more out there. Unlike an agribusiness farmer, I went out and carefully felt down into the earth in the crowded sections of the carrot row, and pulled out the biggest carrots who could be accused of bullying or crowding their smaller neighbors. I don't know if I could expect that the remaining carrots can still develop further, as there is snow on the mountains now...visible from my garden.

fruits of the garden

"I could never do that" (homeschooling)

Up at 6:30 most days. It was 7 this AM as I didn't have to teach at 8 this morning. That's tomorrow and Thurs. The 3 kids at home are still asleep. I check email, talk to Ivan (the oldest away at school) on the phone about his final design project that I have been a consultant on since yesterday. I eat some cereal, while checking that there is no new email since late last night. Then I go over to my studio and work for an hour on my painting. It's blissful doing this. It's a huge symphonic exercise of brushstrokes.

After awhile of losing myself in my painting, I check my watch and come back over here to turn on oven and wake up kids. Its 10 now. We will eat German apple pancake to try to begin to eat through the 4 bags of apples in the house. Then, the 2 boys and myself must go over and remove the huge contractor bags full of roof refuse from the tenant's front yard, so that her blow up Santa Claus isn't actually obscured by what could be mistaken for his bags of toys.

Then, back to studio for 2 more hours or so before I have to take Ida to orthodontist and then hopefully go pick up Leo's cello in Kingston after that.

Must remember to continue Marsden's reading lessons sometime soon.

Halloween: Cross-dressing

So Halloween has come and gone. My daughter and her friend were inspired in a very conceptual way to be "Black" and "White" for Halloween. Very beautiful.

My son, at 12 years old, has figured out what to be for Halloween next year. He dressed this year as a garden gnome as we had a lot of the components at home in our "costume" box.  About an hour into trick-or-treating, he was fed up with the gnome idea as too many people were staring at him. So in the car, he took off the vest and the hat. He removed some of the stuffing and shoved the rest of it up to his chest area, losing the belt. Now he was a girl. His 13 year old friend spent the rest of the evening pushing the breasts up for Marsden in between gawking at real teen age girls dressed in hot pants and fishnets. Marsden really enjoyed people's mix of surprise and mirth as they realized that his pretty face and blond hair was a confusing mix of fake and real.  Driving home in the car with a big sack of candy, Marsden reflected that he would simply buy a tacky Walmart princess outfit next year, stuff some breasts, find some girls shoes to fit his big wide feet, and be set for a pretty fun evening.
I was interested to hear him loudly announcing this plan to other boys his age the next day. Somehow, he has the chutzpah to pull this off at the age of 12!

What did you do in school today?

Orthodox Temple

So, Mars and Ida disappear for hours every day and then if I concentrate, I can hear the occasional distant rumble of wooden blocks being pushed across the floor. Every once in a while, one of them comes downstairs to ask me for something specialized like "hot glue gun" or blue paper. I continue with my kitchen cleaning, or email communications, or even work out in my studio for a few hours. They have been working on a monolithic temple structure for weeks. It must be a genetic disorder; their brother Ivan built countless cathedrals and baseball stadiums with the same blocks before he eventually went off to animation school.

Sometime later in the day, maybe after dinner and before bed, I will go up to see what they have added to it today.  

I wonder privately what the people of this temple worship. They are OK with the graven image, as there is a beautiful tryptich of a mother and baby with two figures on either side ensconced on the top floor. Marsden copied it from something he had seen Ivan make for a cathedral many years ago, so I don't actually take the imagery too seriously. It could just be an homage to the breast-feeding mother, who has two other moms standing next to her talking about homeschooling.

So, as usual, it s another day with alot of art and design going on here at home, a bit of functional geometry and physics. Ida will come down and work in a math workbook if I remind her...she at least will know how to carry numbers. Marsden will have to bring her with him if he ever suspects someone is cheating him at Home Depot. Either that, or he will just continue to calculate in his head, which he is exceptionally good at. He remains vigilant about not poisoning his mind with any comprehension about how to write down mathematical calculations. Ida will also practice her violin when reminded, but Marsden will just pick up his guitar and play for awhile several times a day.

Meanwhile, their older brother Leo is asleep for most of the morning, having undoubtedly stayed up until the wee hours working on any one of his many web projects. He is at the tail end of building a website for a jewelry company, tying up the loose ends of a tutorial website that he and a friend are about to launch, and then the beginning of new project having to do with creating a visual chart application for social network users to be able to measure and chart their on-line activities....  and oh yes, he also took the PSATs this week just as a practice run for next year. He knows how to carry numbers.