Handwork

Handwork has been one of the driving forces in my life - that urge to make something - whether it be those kids we raised, or a garden, a basket, a painting, a compost pile that grew flowers on its sides, a round firewood pile……or a chicken wire sculpture.

The other day I found some chicken wire that had once supported a pallet of bought rocks, and that familiar urge took hold.  Once upon a time, I used to squish and pull small pieces of chicken wire into an armature, to be drawn through a paper pulp slurry to create a skin over the armature, and then paint the result.

The above is a chicken wire scarecrow named Lavinia, who worked hard on the farm keeping birds out of the peaches or, here in the chicken run, keeping predator birds at bay.  Face and feet show her visible structure. This handwork was from the distant past.

This time around, the chicken wire is large, and the thought is to make a free- standing “something” to place amidst the overgrown foliage down in front of the house.  Purely decorative and exploratory.  It’s not as if I were looking for something to do - it was that old compulsion.  For a second, I relished having brought a very old activity into the present again, (maybe I’m not so old after all…) and then got to work.

There is a long list of loved activities in my life that were driven by my hands - very few, actually, that don’t fit that description.  So many of you must share this, you who love what your hands can do.

The other day I was talking to a gallerist/friend who told me about his work with Kenyan kids last winter, and how readily they were drawn into putting their heads and hearts and hands together to make group paintings, some of which he brought back to exhibit in the gallery.  What a wonderful thing to inspire young hands to do magic like that!  It can last them a lifetime, through thick and thin!

So, what about you?  Have you made some wild things in your life?  Would it be audacious of me to ask you to send a photo of something that you loved making?  A friend just recently sent me a photo of a cement bird bath that she made that is now covered in moss, and I think what a treasure for this world to have!

I’ll leave you with a community construction that appears and then disappears on South Beach in Chatham on the Cape.  Some years there will be no remains (maybe discouraged by the town, or a storm took it back).  Then it will reappear, morphed, in a different spot.  Don’t you love the “keep off the grass” sign.

Before going, I wanted to tell you that I have a few paintings in St Francis Gallery again.  Anyone local or passing through might check it out.  
The gallery is at 1370 Pleasant St., South Lee, MA, 01260, a couple miles from the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.
Fridays to Mondays, 10:00 to 5:00.
Speaking of handwork, it’s a great exhibit!!

Thanks for joining me.
Until the next time, Tina

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