Chad's Christmas Present

Yeah, I'm still not drawing all that well, but effort counts.

Very early in our relationship--one of those dates that "wasn't a date"--Chad and I found ourselves driving up Virginia Beach Boulevard near the Route 64 overpass. He didn't know where he was going, although he pretended to, being manly. At that point in my life, I had two small children, a part time job, an ancient slant 6 Dodge Dart and no money for the bridge-tunnel, so I didn't know the territory as well as I would in later years.

We spent at least an hour driving around Virginia Beach, trying to get onto Route 64. There were no GPSs at the time, and we didn't have a map. Random corner turning accomplished nothing. I was beginning to wonder if Chad were a reliable pilot. Chad hid his self-doubt with devil-may-care. We didn't know each other at all, having met a month or two before.

Finally, Chad spotted the 64 overpass as we drove up Virginia Beach Boulevard. It was right there, two blocks away.

"I bet I can get us on the highway in 5 minutes," he bragged, big and proud behind the wheel of his new Volkswagon Quantum.

"What do you bet?" I  asked, laughing.

"What do you want?" he replied.

I worked in a hospital at the time, and there was a gorgeous metal plant holder in the gift shop that I lusted after. Don't ask me why. It was pretty, I was poor, and I wanted it.

"The swanboat," I ventured.

So he bet me the swanboat that he could get us on the highway in 5 minutes. I didn't know that Chad doesn't gamble. If there's a chance he might lose, he doesn't play. He chortled quietly, convinced that the swanboat was his.

And guess what? Virginia Beach Boulevard has no entrance onto Route 64. None in either direction. Chad could see the road, but couldn't get on it--not within the time limits, at any rate. So I won the swanboat, and we still have it, sitting in our living room.

He might say he won a wife, and children, too.

Anyway, in my efforts to make Christmas presents for my beautiful ones, I drew a picture of the swanboat for Chad. It's grossly imperfect, with rose-shaped dents in the paper  caused by the production of a previous picture. First, I drew a thumbnail sketch, as taught by Anne Holland in her ESO drawing class. I even included a thumbnail in the thumbnail. I get a kick out of it, but Anne says not to do it in the future.

The purple glass is a splendid pre-WWI piece of beachglass from Cape Charles. On the back I taped a poem:

Our love is a swanboat,
risked, lost and won.
Entwined, a sturdy boat
transporting broken
burnished treasure.

Christmas Glass

Presents for people I love.

Chris will never see this story. Neither will Aunt Dee or Uncle Joe. So when they get their seaglass mobiles for Christmas, they will still be surprised.

I make many of the presents we give for Christmas. When we were young, Mom told us it was more important to give a piece of yourself than just an object, however expensive. Decades later, I'm still following her advice.

It helps to have a studio full of gorgeous, old seaglass and a stack of driftwood piled out back, in the alley. When you really need a present, you can grab beautiful bits and put them together quickly (oh, yeah....it also helps to have the tools).

Chris' mobile is the first I've made with beads. But it's the glass that is truly outstanding. The big cobalt oval has "Made in the USA" in worn, raised letters across its face. This glass was found on a barrier island off Accomack County, at the site of a 1940s shipwreck. The deep turquoise piece is an old electrical insulator, worn to perfection on the Cape Charles beach. Then there is the purple glass, which has manganese in it, and is thus datable to before World War One.

The beads are little carved bone death's heads. Chris wouldn't like that, but I mixed them--eyes up, eyes down--so they wouldn't be as recognizable. I didn't have any other beads that were suitable. I'm betting she doesn't look at them closely.

Aunt Dee collects turtles, so her mobile has a carved bone turtle. Uncle Joe is the impossible one to "shop" for. He's a very handy man, though, so I took an antique tool from our workshop and tied it into his mobile. I don't know what the tool is. It's wonderfully made, though. Finely honed steel.

I'm hoping that they hang the glass in a sunny spot all year long, and think about how I cared about them enough to make them something lovely. It's the least I could do for people I love.

Harvesting the Yard

Why must beauty wither to bear fruit?

On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, grand old houses have names. Salt Works. End View. Cedar Grove, Oak Grove, Locust Grove. Chatham, Grapeland, Selma. Happy Union (that's my favorite). In Cape Charles the houses have more modern names. Do-Little Cottage, Southern Living, Pelican Place, Gone to the Beach.

So, Chad and I named our home Bayflower. It's appropriate, since we live two houses from the Chesapeake, and our front yard is a solid mass of flowers.

This year, volunteer zinnias took over. Even the rose garden was swamped with them. We didn't plant any, they sprouted from last year's dropped seeds. It was glorious, an entire yard full of vibrating color, butterflies, bees, and a pair of immature hummingbirds that were as small as insects. We spend lots of time sitting on the porch, gazing at the garden and the nearby dunes.

Then it got cool, and the zinnias started turning brown. We knew we would have to rip them up soon. As I meditated on the fading garden, I thought: "Seeds! Harvest the seeds and sell them. It won't earn much money, but at least they won't go to waste!"

Chad and I spent many afternoons in September picking dried seed heads. We filled plastic bags with them. I looked like I was picking cotton, wading through the tall growth, snapping off the ripe "fruit" and leaving the blooming buds. Suddenly, my beach house was a flower farm! It felt good, harvesting what was free and would otherwise be wasted. Primal.

Then we had to separate all those seeds from the hard inner cone, arms covered with the crumbled dust of powdered petals. I bought some pretty green organza bags to fill to the brim with future flowers, and now they are in my store, waiting to be broadcast around the country.

I feel like the zinnia version of Johnny Appleseed. It's fun to imagine them spreading wildly, taking over the Eastern Shore ditches and roadsides and woodlot edges. Wouldn't that be lovely? An explosion of beauty! It would be a great example of how Life blossoms and spreads without  our permission, independent from human will. Un-political. Unstoppable. A tsunami of bayflowers.

Self Portrait and Mirrors

Lacking an entourage to take my picture, I resort to mirrors and my trusty digital cam.
 

After blithely announcing that I was going to focus on painting, I discovered through humiliating trial and error that I first needed to learn the basics of drawing. Semi-daunted, I found a drawing class by Ann Holland offered at Eastern Shore's Own in Exmore.

She recommended a book called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. The first project in the book is a pre-training self portrait. Determined to power my way through to competence, I set myself up in front of a full-length mirror and tried to draw.

But kneeling in the bathroom doorway with a piece of charcoal, sketch pad on the floor, didn't work at all. My knees hurt, and as I moved (constantly) the would-be picture changed. We had been encouraged to initially "frame" our drawings with a little cardboard viewfinder, as a learning device for teaching image composition. But, when I held the viewfinder to my reflected image, all I could see through the viewfinder was me, holding a viewfinder. It set me to thinking.

Mirrors are truly odd things. And self-portraits are even more odd, because you can't see yourself directly, only in reflection. Are the reflections accurate? Can you ever know?

One problem needed solving immediately. I simply wasn't experienced enough to sketch a moving object, so I had to freeze my own image in order to draw it. Out came the trusty digital cam.

What a blast! The reflections of reflections made wonderful images. I don't know if I can draw them, but the photos were cool.

After holding the mirror and camera in dozens of positions, I realized that there was one picture I couldn't take. I don't know why, but deep in the multiple reflections was an image of myself in the small mirror. No matter how many times I tried to photograph that face in the small mirror, I could not.

Why? I wish I knew. The face was surely mine. Brows knit in a worried frown. Dimples turned to dog-jowl scowl. Tired eyes. The multiple reflections had stripped away the real world and left me with a magical glimpse at my naked face. And the me in the mirror seemed more solid than anything in sight. It was unbeautiful and worn. Worried. And it talked to me as if it weren't me, as if the reflection had a life of its own and my lips of flesh were not moving.

The experience was vaguely scary. Disconnected. I can see how mirrors were considered the tools of witches. That face, deep down in layers of glass, was a haunting revelation.

Sea China Buttons

What's left of historic DC, after the water washes it clean and smooth.

Brenda's buttons rock my world.

Seriously. She showed up in my shop this weekend, three years after we first met, with buttons made from pottery shards. I  bought as many as I could, with orders for many more. I'm inspired by them, and have found myself dreaming about sewing again--creating fashions that focus on the beauties of sea-softened china, wearable antiques.

Back when I first opened the shop, Brenda wanted to talk about sea-pottery. She was staying on a boat moored in the Cape Charles harbor, and had bags of old, beautifully worn china. Some of the pieces looked historically significant to me, and I sent pictures of them to a materials culture expert.

But nothing came of it. I encouraged Brenda to take the china doll pieces that her husband had found to a museum. I don't think anything came of that, either. One day all those "body parts," as she calls them, will be valuable. We don't make little china dolls for our children anymore.

This weekend, she told me about their secret hunting grounds in Northern Virginia. Apparently a dump from Washington, D.C. had been dug up generations ago and relocated to waterfront land near her husband's business. Over the decades, erosion washed out the landfill and tumbled its glass and china to sweet smoothness. Her husband finds hundreds of beautifully ripe shards. They match them as best they can, drill holes for thread, and mount them on hand-printed cards. Charming.

I imagine all of these shards in a museum. To me, they express the material culture of an America long gone. Ironically, most of the china was probably made in Europe and imported for the upper class families in DC. Drilling the button holes probably destroys whatever antique value they have. But what the hell......they're pretty and unusual.

And another artisan makes some money from beach combing.

Recycled Recycled Art

I made this setting years ago, before I had the proper tool for making round "hats." Now, it's back!

Proper tools make construction easy. If you don't have the right tool for a job, the best you can do is fumble around and jerry-rig something that sorta works.

Several years ago, Bruce Brinkley brought me a red-swirled marble that was important to him. He wanted a little "hat" and loop on the top--something plain and masculine. But I didn't have a dapping set, which is what you need to hammer silver into domes.

So I did the best I could with the tools, talent and experience that I had on hand. This  little silver cage is what I made for him. I loved it, but he never wore it. I asked him several times over the years why he didn't wear it. Finally, last week, he admitted that it was too feminine for him.

"Give it back!" I insisted. "I have the dapping set now and can make the hat!"

He did. I cut his marble out, and inserted a gorgeous seafoam orb from Sunderland, England. Now, I need to make Bruce his red swirled pendant. But that will be easy, since I have the proper tool.

The great thing is that I got a chance to see one of my old designs. I still love it. At the time it was a long stretch of my imagination and skills. Now, it's simplicity incarnate. I think I'll make more cages. They're cool.

Art Supplies for the End Game

Surrounded by my unexpectedly expensive supplies. Apparently, adventures are costly.

I'm looking toward the end of the race.  No, I'm not sick or sinking or depressed. Quite the opposite. I'm happier now than I have ever been, even in childhood, which was an anxious affair.

Suddenly, I can see my demise as a rushing, real date (a wall that I'm hurtling toward, relentlessly) and my choices are coming into sharper focus.

Do I want to continue living as I have, making the same mistakes, longing for whatever it is I don't have and taking all my blessings for granted? Seems silly. Since I am inevitably getting older, I might as well strive for wiser.

My new mantra is a (probably paraphrased) quote from Einstein:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results."

Here is my confession (and it's embarrassing): For several decades, I've felt that it is my duty to participate in local and regional politics. As a journalist for the Eastern Shore News and Virginian-Pilot, I was paid for it. As a town Planning Commissioner I was sworn to it. As a citizen, I felt that I had been given the training, time and guts to stand against injustice (or simply bad planning) in and around my home in Cape Charles.

I made a lot of noise. I believed I was doing the "right thing." But the uproar I helped to create--year after year--made my life an acid bath, and didn't seem to help the community. If it had been effective, if the youth and elderly actually got a community center; if the town council actually voted for a sensible density on the historic waterfront; if anyone else opposed strip development of the highway that could destroy our downtown....if anything positive came from all that effort, then I would continue.

But no. I just added to the shitstorm of divisive rhetoric that tears our community into bleeding shreds. I'm one of many, but they can write their own confessions.

Effectiveness is the defining attribute for positive action. Does it work? In my case, the answer is no. My efforts have been wasted, at best, and at worst, destructive. It's time for a change.

The first essential change is to open my eyes and see what is ACTUALLY happening. Did DiCanio and Kirkwood turn the Eastern Shore into a bedroom community? No. Did Tavi build the 70-odd units per acre that the town council said he could build on the historic waterfront? No. Did Webtide succeed in its efforts to get a "royalty fee" for pumping water from the public aquifer? No.

What actually HAPPENS in this tiny community seems to be controlled by forces outside of our control. The economy crashes. The developer goes bankrupt. The grant application is rejected. And none of it has anything to do with me, or what I think I'm doing.

I'm appalled by my arrogance. I actually thought it was my DUTY to participate--that my participation was required.  HAHAHAHAHA. The joke's on me. Which is fine. I like a good joke.

So, what do I do with the rest of my time? I like silversmithing, and making beachglass jewelry. But I'm gradually losing the physical requirements of the job. My hands are shaking. I can't see very well.  I'm starting to cut and burn my hands on a regular basis. My fingers hurt from pressing silver into shape. It's beginning to look like a short-term activity.

So I need a new outlet.

In the past I have taken a few painting lessons. I like to write poems and hide them under the paint, so there's a secret message. I'm always happy when I'm painting. So I think that's what I'll do. On Thursday I have my first private lesson with Carole Boggeman-Pierson, a famous and fabulous artist in our community. Maybe by the time I can't make jewelry anymore, I'll have learned how to paint!

I'll call it my Anchor Leg Effort. End Game.

British Glass!



My first attempt at using the British glass.

 A business called "Cape Charles Beachglass" has no business using glass from another location. But my friend Carole bought some from England and decorated her walls with it, gluing it to metal flowers as part of a mural in her bathroom.

I took one look at that glass--most of it multi-colored--and jumped instantly into Greed Mode. Anyone who combs the beaches for seaglass understands greed. It's the powerful, obsessive need to HAVE IT ALL; find and keep every gem on the tideline. For years, when I took Carole as my guest on the private beach in Cape Charles, I purposely hung back and let her collect in front of me, determined not to let greed conquer friendship.

But she can't have all the British glass. No, no, no.


Yep, I bought it, and I'm not ashamed.



So, I selected a nice bunch over the Internet, paid for them and got them in the mail. Isn't the global economy interesting? Even greedy American beachcombers can satisfy their cravings, and in England, a woman has an income.

Glassmaking came to England with the Romans. The first stained glass made in England was made in Sunderland by French craftsmen imported from Gaul in 674 AD. The French taught the locals, and by 1611, a group of gentlemen were granted exclusive right to make glass in northeast England.

By the 1800s, glassmaking was a hugely successful industry in Sunderland, which is 275 miles north of London. In 1860, more than 1,000 glassmakers were employed by more than 20 companies. Glass factories on the coastland dumped unused portions into the ocean at the end of the day (thus, the multicolored pieces).

In 1998, the National Glass Center opened in Sunderland. And Sunderland is where this particular seaglass was found.

Isn't it amazing, how waste products can become valuable over time? I've always thought that we will start mining our landfills soon. It's inevitable. Buried in the rubbish will be tons of metals, plastic, re-usable paper, wood pulp. But none, I venture, will be as beautiful as the glass that has been thrown into the sea.