Life's Bone

Last night my sleep was interrupted by the abrupt delivery of a letter to my door. I was shaken to be awakened and knew it had to be bad news. But, it turns out it was a letter from someone I had hoped to hear from. And in the letter this person said everything I was hoping to know. I re-read it carefully. Analytically. That's when it dawned on me that it all sounds like something I would say. And it was in that moment I awoke from the dream to realize I had only been writing to myself in my sleep.

It's funny - about that sound. Well, not funny...some other word I can't seem to find right now. It was the sound that woke me from a dream I was having. I was staring at the hole in the front door. A hole I had forgotten was there. A hole shaped like someone I knew. Thats when the sound caused me to sit up in the bed in a cold sweat gasping. It was a wet, watery, dull - but, heavy thud - the sound of my heart hitting the floor.

Yesterday I ran into an old feeling I hadn't seen in awhile. "What are you doing here?" I glared, walking away. It followed me. "What do you want?" I said over my shoulder. "Hey," it replied. "Its not my fault you felt me."

It is one thing to have a scar, another to become it.

I was working as a draftsman that day. Drawing up plans for the new convention center in Chicago. McCormick Place. That may sound glamorous, but it wasn't. Mostly I was drawing out things like the kitchen sinks, and stainless steel buffet counters for the numerous kitchens in this place, etc. Quite boring, actually. November, 1963. I had abruptly dropped out of college because my dad had been killed just two months earlier, in September in a car wreck. My mom was still in the hospital from the same damn wreck. All the innocence of life before had gone down the drain. And so, I was at my drawing table that day...the same place my dad had been working as shop foreman. I drew up the blueprints of the stuff his men then created. And now I was doing this job without him. Pretty heavy shit for a 19 year old. And then the news hit the radio. Kennedy was dead. I didn't know what to do. I left my job. Everything stopped. Everybody just went home. I walked down Wabash Avenue toward the bus stop that would drop me at the train station and was just trying to get home. I ducked into a Catholic church...and I wasn't even religious then...or now. I just needed to sit down. I cried for my dad that day, and for JFK. 1963 was a helluva year.

Amy LaVere.........

Joseph Beuys said, "Without the rose we could not do it." I liked this statement, even though I wasn't sure what it meant, I just liked his works as an artist. Then, a few years later, my mom died. I plucked a rose from her gravesite and pinned it to my kitchen wall. It is still there to remind me of who she was and all the lives that preceded mine.

All I try to do is pick up bits and pieces of things around me. Dystopian fallout. Fragments. I keep looking for the right glue. Some way to put things together again in some kind of new way. I don't know if it matters, in the end. It is just what I do.

I don't know for sure. Somehow, two plus two became five or three, but definitely not four. Four is so square and self-contained, claustrophobic, even. Four seemed a cell. A room with no door. I figured there had to be more than that, or less than that...but not four! Of three and five, I liked three the most. And that is how I became an artist.

Well, lately I've been making pieces for an up-coming show. I love to handle wood. I love to smell it while I am working. It gets harder to do with certain ailments going on. The arthritis in the joints. The bad back...it comes with the years that keep piling up. I'll turn 69 this summer. I hope to return to writing this winter, but meanwhile, I want to get my kicks one or two more times working with wood. I've made about a dozen different things in the past few weeks. I'll post these things a day or two at a time. A rustic side table and a Walnut mirror. The table I had in an 'earlier form' for some time...it had a shallow cabinet above it with a glass door. But, after years of living with it, I decided I really didn't like it. So, I took it apart and re-built it. Its not the first time I have done this kind of thing. Back when I was painting, I painted over a number of paintings. I am always excited mid-process with what I am working on, but sometimes, I later say, 'Nah'... The side table is made of miscellaneous recycled wood such as Hackberry and Locust, Cedar, and I think all the bracing is aging White Oak limbs. The mirror is made from a single plank of scrapped Walnut I found in the 'bone pile' at a local sawmill. It was destined to be in a bonfire one summer night, but I plucked it out, and so now it frames a mirror.

This is the third animal box I have made, and I feel a series coming on. The first two boxes were Llama Box, and Partly Blue Coyote Box. The Cow Box is made of wood, and rusted tin. The tongue and ears are made of faux leather from a pair of sandals I no longer wear. It also has the remains of one of the bones my dog Life used to chew on...this bone fragment forms the cow's somewhat stubby horns. The Cow Box comes with a 'complimentary' cow pie which can be seen below the beast's hind legs. I must acknowledge a creative friend at this point. Years ago, Elaine Wood was working with wire and fashioning various forms in a rather Calder-esque fashion. She made a wire cow that came with a coiled wire cow pie, and she gave it to me as a gift. I still have it today, a couple of decades later. So, a hats off to Elaine for giving me this idea with my current box!!

Wanna sit down? Make a chair! Here's an assortment of photos of a chair I recently made...I call it 'The Not-So-Easy Chair. First of all, I looked through my woodpile... This looks like the back of a chair.... You have to have a seat, and a back... But, you need a way to make it stand up...like some tree limbs... I remove the bark with a draw knife, or what is often called a spoke-shave since it harks back to those days of wooden wagon wheels with hand formed wooden spokes. I like crooked limbs! I have to attach the seat and back. I use 3" lag-bolts under the seat to attach the top to it. I also apply glue to the joint. I apply a first coat of oil finish to the seat and back. In this case, Teak Oil. Sometimes I use Danish Oil, or Boiled Linseed Oil. These are not stains. They simply deepen the color that is already there. I rough out arms and legs, and cross-bracing. Usually I keep these unassembled until I get a feel of how they can all come together. In assembling legs and arms, I spend some time shaping the point of contact so that they sit well together. Again, I attach with long screws or lag bolts by countersinking these. I then plug the countersunk hole. Sometimes I cut these plugs smooth with the surface, but in this case, let the plugs extend out and add to the overall gnarly sense of the structure. So, I wind up with this, as my finished chair:

I awoke this morning curled up under the blanket. The room felt cold. I had left the windows open last night. I sat up and closed the window closest to me, then hopped out of bed, threw on a long shirt and hurried into the kitchen. I prepared the coffee pot sleepily relying on muscle memory to take me through the several simple steps of adding grounds, adding water and hitting the red button at the bottom. I walked past the computer, turned it on, then hopped back under the blanket to await the sound of brewing. I awoke from the dream listening for the gurgling of the coffee pot, and sniffing the air. The room felt cold. I had left the windows open last night. I sat up to close the one closest to me and realized I had only dreamed of having done this already. I hopped out of bed, threw on a long shirt and hurried to the kitchen relying on memory muscle to get me through the several steps of this much coffee...that much water. I realized that, for once, my dream was coming true. Why couldn't this have happened the night before when I dreamed up that exotic woman sitting across from me on the train, crossing her long black-stockinged legs, looking at me as she brought a cigarette up between her slender fingers and asked me for a light? It was all I could think about as I hopped back under the blanket to await the sound of brewing.

I found small slice of walnut at a saw mill, and thought it would make an interesting table top. I decided to call it The Prophet's Table, because the grain in the walnut seemed to suggest a bearded face and an up-raised arm. The table is small...an end or side table; 18"x18" on the top, and 21" tall. It is made up of walnut, sweet gum, and hickory.

Wrens are sorta like sparrows. They are rusty colored, but not so full-breasted. And they have longer perky tail feathers. And I don't know why they persist year after year in building nests in my shop. Whenever I open the shop door, they fly in and out. I find their nests on the shelves that house my nails and screws. And nests on the shelf above my window. They build nests all over the place. This is the thing about wrens, especially, male wrens...they seem to be driven by making nests some cute little lady wren will like. And they figure, that if they build nests all over the place, they might get laid sooner or later. I'd like to see that happen since, mostly I find myself removing empty nests that never got used...poor guy...part of me wants to get rid of this crazy bird that keeps messing up my shop, and part of me wants to see him luck out.

There was this lovely big and vigorous pine tree that hugged my fence line. It was my neighbor's tree, but it shed orange dried pine needles on my side of the fence which I loved to see, feel, and smell. I built a small box on my fence beneath the tree, and lo and behold, bluebirds moved in. Each spring I enjoyed watching them come back to this habitat to make babies. Then last year, my neighbor cut the tree down. The bluebirds stopped coming. It is hard when things are beyond my control. I try to make peace with this kind of thing. Sometimes, despite the digital revolution, I just want to be alone.

At a saw mill, I saw a 4 foot long slab of Sweet Gum that had a big crack in it, and also a knot. This kind of wood is seen as not having much commercial value. But, I bought it for a few dollars. The sawyer scratched his head and said, "I don't know how you are going to seal up that big crack." I told him I didn't plan to seal the crack at all. The crack tells a story of how the tree split. The inner edges of the crack had bark on them since trees have a way of trying to heal their own wounds. Furthermore, the crack pointed to a knot further along on the surface of the slab. To me it all looked dramatic. So, basically, I sanded the heck out of the slab and cleaned out the crack with gouges and sand paper. I didn't change the edges on the ends, since they told the story of how the tree was felled by a chain saw, and then sectioned. The edges on the length of the slab are also untouched. They describe the tree's size. I need to put legs on it, so I used a Red Oak beam from an old fallen barn. I cut four legs, and cleaned them up. To fasten the legs, I countersunk 1 and 1/2" holes into the top with a spade bit, then sunk 4" hex-head screws in (applying glue along the way) I plugged the holes with slices from a cedar limb, and sanded them smooth. After going over the piece with 220 sandpaper, I applied Danish oil to deepen the color, then put on a coat of satin polyurethane to protect the finish. (In my book, Minwax makes the best poly). So, there you have it, a rustic coffee table. And now I need to brew some rustic coffee to go along with it!

We need one another. And we need our own space, too. Aloneness is a good thing. It aids togetherness, in fact. How can I be with you, if I can't be with myself? My father moved away from his home land of West Virginia wilderness to build a life for us in Chicago. He made a good life for our family, but always had a certain home-sickness. He dug a ditch in the back yard of our suburban home and lined it with rocks. He rigged some plumbing from the house to a circulating pump, so as to create a creek that flowed through the yard. He would come home from work, and sit in a lawn chair watching the creek run. Then, he would come in for dinner. It was his meditation. Mom, sis, and I would allow him this aloneness. Then he would come into the house and be with us. Quite a man.

A rustic miniature headed for the marketplace today.

Salvaged barn wood for the most part...24"x22".

I can't work today, too damn cold! Too cold to work on wood. A day to lay low, and wait for spring to get here and kick winter's ass goodbye. A day to loaf on the couch in my jams and watch the tube. Episode 15 of David Lynch's Twin Peaks...I am a couch potato paparazzi...Lynch makes every scene gorgeous...I have to pause the disc and steal some images. Damn, he is good! Here are three quick shots off the tube of a scene about 20 seconds long...a girl dancing in the dark...marvelous!

Well, this here is about back when I was a cowboy and had this painful experience of havin' to say goodbye to my horse. You see, back then, I had this here idea, that maybe I could go into some city like Nashville and make some money writing cowboy songs, and me an' my horse could have a better life. I called my horse Paint because while he was mostly a white horse, it looked like somebody splattered him with some black paint. So, it bein' such a painful and poignant moment to say goodbye to my horse, I decided my first cowboy song would be dedicated to him. O'course, I hardly knowed any chords on my guitar, and it was missin' one string, but, bein' young and foolish, I decided to write a song anyways. I decided then and there, as I was sayin' goodbye to my horse, to call my very first song, "Ol' Paint". And I do think he really appreciated that, even though his ears sorta flattened back when I took to singin' and playin'. I hardly remember all the lyrics now, since that was a long time ago, but it sorta was like this. "Well, Ol' Paint, ol' Pal, the ol' cowboy said, As he climbt down from his ol' horse, I'm gonna miss ya, ol'buddy, but I tol' ye all along, There'd come this day, I'd be goin' away to Nashville, Gonna make a little money, maybe a whole lotta money, Singin' cowboy songs. I'd sing stuff like: Yippie ki kippie, Kippie ki yo, Yippie ki kippie, ki kippi ki yo, and so on. But, I jus' want ye to know, I'm gonna miss ye, ol' buddy Ropin' them dogies, cookin' them beans, on the ol' campfire, With the north wind wailin', an' the howlin' of the mean coyotes, But Lord, I'm tired of slicin' my britches up Splicin' up rusty barbed wire. (In this part of the song I yodel) Lissen, to me yodel now, 'ol'ladyee hoo, Liddle ol' ladyee, oh ladyee, laydee hoo. But, I'll be back someday with a saddle trimmed out in silver A new pair of cowboy boots, I'll even get new shoes for you An' I'll be ridin' with a lady, she'll be ridin' on a pretty little filly (Can't ye just imagine that, Paint? When the nights get cold?) O' Ladyee Hoo! Liddle Ol' Ladyee hoo'll keep ye warm when the night winds howl, Liddle ol' ladyhoo...so, you get along now. I'll be back some day Ol' Paint, So, get along now." Well, my plan didn't quite go like I planned. Them folks in the city seemed to think I was crazy. Can't rightly blame 'em. So, I hitched me a ride back to Kansas an' went in search of my beloved horse. But, he weren't there where I left him on the prairie. There was just some bleached ol' bones of what he used to be. I gave his bones a proper burial then and there. An' now, I am so lonesome I could die. I reckon there is some lesson in this a feller could learn, but I'll leave that to you to figger out.

This most recent table is relatively small. ( 22" square on top, and 19" high. ) Once again, it is work done with salvaged barn wood, and branches from fallen trees. I hadn't planned on working with wood this spring, but the opening of a hand-made goods shop in my neighborhood makes for a ready outlet. I am making it available as of tomorrow at Sugar Plum Lane's second location - in the loft of Marcy Jo's Mealhouse, right across the way here in Pottsville, Tennessee.

This is a small table (25"x25"x25") I just finished. Again, it is made of salvaged barn boards (poplar and red oak) and uses branches from a fallen Cedar tree for cross-bracing.

This is a piece I recently finished. It is made from old salvaged barn boards and the legs are salvaged 4'x4' fence posts. the top surface is approximately 30"x 40". As with other things I am making lately, the table is going into the shop down the road specializing in hand-made goods of many kinds. the shop is called Sugar Plum Lane, and you can find out more about it by looking for their site on Facebook.

...a wall hanging, and/or a piece or wearable art (size:SMALL). Pine cone petals from Mississippi, layered over a wool felt hat....available at Sugar Plum Lane...Pottsville, Tnnessee.

I miss my dog. She died last year. She was turning 14, but didn't quite make it. I had her since she was a pup. She had a dislike of squirrels, to my dismay. She chased them all away. But now, I miss the way she growled in the night when any creature wandered onto our property. It was usually some other passing dog or cat, but, it reassured me that she was on duty while I was trying to sleep. She was a good dog.

Journal note: I am sitting here on the edge of some revolution I scarcely understand. They tell me it is the recycling of the Industrial Era, whatever that means. Some kind of spiraling into the future. I have no time for lofty thoughts though, my cat is hungry. It is not about the milk. I have the milk. I am just waiting for the simulated bowl to cool and harden. Outside, the snow is smacking my window like it wants to get me. I have to go now. The bowl is ready.

Here are two finished gourd assemblages I posted earlier as work in progress. One is entitled, 'Endangered', and the other, 'Wacky Face Vase'. The gourds were grown here in Pottsville, and the assemblages are in the Pottsville gallery known as Sugar Plum Lane.

(An assemblage of gourd parts)

This is a piece I am currently working on, but not sure how I will finish it on out. It is made of gourds and gourd elements. I am calling it 'Endangered' as a tribute to all those exotic creatures who keep disappearing from the face of the planet as a result of humankind's indifference....

Just watching an episode from The Twilight Zone and one of the characters delivered this amazing line: "HE WHO KILLS ONE MAN KILLS THE WHOLE WORLD."

Life is what you make it, as the saying goes. It is an adage bordering on trite, especially in times of limited opportunities. Freedom is a matter of whether one has options in the moment. If you do have freedom, then choice is your dilemma. Which road to take? For many in the world it is choosing one of two forks in the road. One leads to enduring heartaches and struggles, the other, total annihilation. For those who have more degrees of freedom, other choices are there. Unfortunately, many of those most free in the world don't know what to do with the idea that they could actually re-order reality. To say that 'life is what you make it' suggests that the world around you is a medium, or an array of media to be manipulated. It suggests that it doesn't have to be this way. There is no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to think. I think Marshall McLuhan foretold this long before the digital revolution in 'The Medium is the Message'. We arrive now, at some place that seems so ultra-modern and simultaneously antiquated. There is a compulsive searching to go on, and there are bad dreams of a home once known, to which there is no returning. Nostalgia becomes a kind of regressive masturbation..a pastoral myth we cling to in scary times. The world's problems are myriad. You can't solve all those. So, what can you do? For me, it comes down to staying close to home and being compassionate when I see someone else.

No matter how much gasoline prices fluctuate, it seems the price per gallon always includes a 9/10th of a cent. Gas today at my nearby station was $3.59 and 9/10. It seems to me that if I took my gas can and filled it with exactly one gallon of gas, and then paid the clerk $3.60, I should be getting 1/10th of a cent in change back. I know thqt if I asked the clerk, 'Where's my change?" he would not understand. He would say there is no such coin as a tenth of a penny. And I would point out that the big sign outside says, '3.59 and 9/10/per gallon.' So, I paid you 3.60, and therefore you owe me 1/10th of a penny. Isn't this false advertising? Ok, I've got it all figured out. I can calculate the area of a penny and divide that by ten. I can then cut the penny up into 10 equal parts. Next time I get a gallon of gas, I will be able to pay exactly $3.59 and nine tiny parts of a penny. Done deal!

Who can have and drive an automobile? Basically, anyone who can afford a car can have one. Or, a parent could even buy a car for their 8 year old son. Unfortunately, the son would not be permitted, by law, to drive that car. their is a minimum age requirement, and furthermore, it is a law that you must have a valid driver's license and be insured. To obtain a driver's license, one must pass a test that typically has two parts. The first part is typically a written test in which the applicant answers questions as to the rules of the road, and demonstrates that they have the knowledge of how one can operate a vehicle on a public highway. The second part requires an actual driving test wherein a public official observes the applicant in handling the vehicle on public streets under various conditions. If one passes the exam, one is issued a driver's license. These rules and laws are in place because of a general consensus that an automobile can potentially be a lethal instrument if not properly handled and controlled. It becomes potentially dangerous to both the individual behind the wheel, and to the public in general. Furthermore, one's vehicle must be registered in the state within which the individual lives, and this registration must be renewed yearly. Individuals driving a vehicle that is is in poor or unsafe condition, may be pulled over by authorities and issued a citation and pay a fine and/or have the faulty condition remedied. Individuals who have moving citations, i.e, fined or ticketed for improperly handling their vehicle (running a traffic light, speeding, etc)can lose their license to drive/operate a vehicle if a certain number of such violations occur within a time period such as a year. All of these regulations and laws are designed with public safety in mind. So, now we come to guns. Who can have and use a gun? Here the lack of similar restrictions as for the automobile is somewhat astonishing. If I want to go hunting, I have to buy a hunting license, sure. But, a hunter does not have to show evidence of gun ownership or registration. Nor do they have to take an exam on how to properly handle a gun before being given permission to use one. Anyone of a certain minimum age can purchase a gun, walk out of the store, and start using it. There are a lot of inconsistencies here when one looks at the regulation of automobile use and gun use. But, it seems to me they both have the potential for injury and death to the unwitting yielder of the gun/auto, or to anyone who happens to be in the way of the bullet/front end of a car irresponsibly handled. Why this surprise me, is surprising itself. Modern society is full of such inequities, enigmas, contradictions, and prejudices across the board. You'd think I would be used to it by now.

This recent piece is about 5' high and the flower is 3' in diameter. It is made primarily of cedar. It is intended as an indoor wall hanging.

I do what I do. I don't know what else to do. I love you, anyway.

Under the sun... I don't know why, but I am. I smell myself and know it is hot. I cant argue with it. I have a lot to do before I eat my dinner.

I go in and out of junk shops, thrift stores, antique places.... what am I looking for? Some sign of yesterday. Yesterday is my comfort food. It reminds me of things. I remember my grandmother. I don't know who her mother was though.

A wall assemblage of rusted tin. (22" high x 18" wide)

If you've got a home, it needs protection. You have to take up arms. That's why I am recommending these guns which I proudly own and use whenever the situation demands it. This gun is a basic essential in every home. It can plug just about anything. It is long and sleek and sexy, and gets the job done. The gun has an easy snap in set-up that allows fast loading of 8" tubular magazines and four finger trigger for plugging away tirelessly. It also features easy water clean-up. This next baby will stop anything in its tracks. Comes with 6" or 12" glue magazines. I prefer the 12" magazines because when you unload one of those, you can be sure your target won't ever move again! Each pull of the trigger yields a hot burning glob of glue from hell! Real fire power...that's what I'm talkin' about! Finally, this jewel will put a hole in anything! It packs 18 volts of ruthless power and when loaded with a one and a half inch bore capacity will put daylight between you and it! Make my day!

On a mid-winter tear, knocking some things out. The first is a sunflower made up of gourd elements. It's about 3' tall and 18" wide...nice splash of color on a winter's day. The other is a box/planter I call Llama Box...this is still in progress. Might make a nice little herb planter....

In the pitch of night, Ana let the reins fall loose as she entered the creek to the next hollow over. The horse knows more than she, in the dark. Kameer curled into a ball on the clumsy stretcher she dragged along behind her, trying to keep his tail out of the water. Along the banks, fireflies glowed on mossy rocks here and there. They seemed to know to lie low. It was a kind of knowledge given to them in their genes. Decisions had nothing to do with it. They were females observing the dancing males in the woods nearby and in the moonless sky. It all spoke to Ana. She wished to be one of them, but knew she wasn't. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, she didn't know. She only knew she had to go.

Kameer was born of Madawg, who had wandered in under the shack that winter with a swollen belly and teats. Ana cleared the table at night. It was her task to clean up after eating. She secreted scraps in her apron pockets, and when her father was asleep, she would pitch these under the shack. Her father would have beaten her for encouraging another mouth to feed, but Ana couldn't stand the thought of Madawg starving in the dead of winter, with babies on the way. Sometimes she slept on the floor in her room, her ear pressed to the cold wood, listening for sounds of life down below.

She was walking down the same dirt path she had walked so many times before. But, this time, it was different. There was a small and pitiful sound coming from behind a jungle of blackberry. Her hands and forearms got bloody trying to peer through the thorny vines. It was a young dog. His foot was in a trap. He was licking his bloody paw. "Hey, you", she said, stretching to touch his head. "I'm not going to hurt you. Come here." The dog recoiled in fear. "Come here," she said again softly as she freed his paw. He licked her hand. "Come 'ere, baby," she sighed, pulling him into her arms. She laughed as he licked her face. "That's your name, isn't it?" she said. "Kameer."