I devour garden books. I read them voraciously to learn how to plan a garden, what to plant where, how to design the space, all of that. I admire the well ordered designs, the borders made up of drifts of flowers that I see in those books. But somehow none of this takes.
The foxglove self seeded and the Humming birds love it.
Our garden always ends up being a sort of a wild tumultuous space. I used to apologize my way around the garden when company came over, for it’s messiness, it’s over-grown-ness, it’s haphazardness. Part of me wanted something much neater and organized, like those pretty gardens in the books.
But then, I don’t know when exactly, I started to appreciate the way plants just pop up where ever and to enjoy the delightful surprises. And most of all I came to accept our way of gardening. I’ve decided to call it Serendipitous Gardening.
Why is our garden as it is? I suppose it’s because we hate to pull anything out. If it looks ok, we leave it. And I can’t throw anything out either so if I have to divide plants I’ll just pop them in another spot or we’ll create a new bed to house them. Or it could be because the compost with the seeds of spent flowers gets spread all around in the spring and those seeds just get a chance to grow and have a change of view? Or is it because I can’t say no to some plant or other that I don’t need or even have room for that I find at a garage sale? When I get home the poor thing gets bunged into any available space just before it expires in the pot. Who knows? A bit of all of it I suppose.
The phlox among the iris
Sometimes being sort of laissez-faire about it all has it’s rewards. Plants that were seeded somewhere else re-seed themselves in unexpected places. Like the phlox that grew up in and around the iris bed. How did they know they would set off the irises so well?
A bit of the serendipitous garden
Or the bluebells and rose campion that pop up around the orange day lilies creating just the right mix of complementary color.
The mallow can stay, for now.
Or the mallow that I left in with the squash plants just to give the veggie garden a bit of color. As artists, I suppose, we have come to appreciate and delight in the serendipitous results.
Meditation was something that I always wanted to do but never thought I could. I’d read about it and researched it a bit and decided it was not for me. Me, empty my mind? Don’t think so. Find 30 minutes to meditate more than once a day? Uh uh. So I gave up on it. But one day at the library I found a book written as though just for me, “Miss Instant Gratification”. It was called “Meditation Made Easy” by Lorin Roche.
Well, I snapped it up and you know, it was wonderful. The book made it all easy. You don’t have to empty your mind, just return your focus to your breathing, after allowing thoughts to “float through”. Ok I could do that. And you can do it in 5 minutes! Or even less once you get the knack of it.
He encourages you to develop your own way of meditating that fits your life. Since then, I’ve been recommending his book and been busy teaching my version of it to everyone I think needs it . And that, just recently, included my #1 son Paul (we have three sons and he was our first) and his wife, Olya, who are just a bit frazzled with a quite wonderful, adorable, beautiful and totally lovable (grandma speaking here) two-week old son.
Which brings me to my next Pique Assiette Mosaic inspiration and how it came to be. Bet you wondered where this was leading, didn’t you?
Again, the piece started with a piece of crockery but this time it was already broken. Using crockery, dishes and ornaments puts this mosaic into the Pique Assiette category, which roughly translated means “stolen dishes”.
Hart, our fellow artist and great friend, had a client who had this lovely Japanese bowl, actually an antique, maybe valuable, now not fixable and she gave it to him to do his creative magic with. And he gave it to me.
Somehow the colors in the intricate pattern which are an almost burnt orange color and a deep blue seemed to be a perfect backdrop for one of my most meditative buddha ornaments from the Japanese restaurant collection. And with the thought that a circular shape would be most restful, the design inspiration was almost complete. Another blue plate, with an edge of concentric raised lines, was broken to create a feeling of rippled water in front of the meditating figure which became the finishing touch.
So there were all the elements of design inspiration: Meditation, Japan, blue rippled water, circular shapes being restful, the beautiful pattern of the Japanese bowl in burnt orange and blue, and the white buddha all coming together.
Today this mosaic has it’s honoured spot in the corner of the greenhouse, in amongst the plants and next to a wicker birdcage. It draws my eye and just it’s peaceful look gives me a meditative moment. And according to “Meditation Made Easy”, sometimes a moment is all you need.
I didn’t have an idea for this piece to start with. I wasn’t thinking about Japan at all. Until I found this beautiful plate at a garage sale. It was an authentic gorgeous plate Hand Made in Japan, printed on the back and had a little chip in the border. The reason it had been sacrificed to the sale table I suppose. The pattern was of chrysanthemums or carnations, I’ve never been sure. But I think that the former is more of a Japanese favourite. It was a large plate, about 12 inches across. I saw it as a background for something. And I knew it would look really good broken and reassembled in a mosaic.
So the plate was the start or maybe it was the finish. Because suddenly I had a use for a few things that I’d collected in my studio and it all came together. The Geishas are actually drink glasses from a Japanese restaurant.
The backs of them are open and there is a little hole in the front of each one to put a straw in so you can sip your drink. These drink glasses come in all types of figures from geishas to samurai warriors to Buddhas, lots of Buddhas. You find them everywhere at garage sales and thrift shops. And I have a collection of them. Ok I have lots of collections but more about that on another blog. So now I had the geishas in front of the plate, on a shelf and I needed something else. The quiet little birds had been gathering dust for ages and their color caught my eye as being perfect with the colors of the plate. And they gave this sort of lyrical touch to the ladies.
What else? A bowl. A Japanese bowl to float a flower in for my little Japanese shrine.
Then there was shape of the background to deal with, and in keeping with the theme, I drew out a pagoda shape for the top of the shrine. Now I only had to come up with something for under the shelf. I also collect those little porcelain floral bouquets. No, not to display, but to take apart very carefully with plyers or a hammer and chisel, and use the flowers on mosaics. They’re good even if a bit chipped because you can hide the missing petals in an arrangement easily. So under the shelf there is an arrangement of flowers. They don’t necessarily match the plate but who wants to be too matchy-matchy? And the little lid from a broken pot, turned upside down? Well, that became the finishing touch.
I suppose this was a case of inspiration backwards. The plate started the idea and the Japanese shrine came later. The Hawaii shrine started with an idea and the pieces came later. Backwards, forwards. Inspiration works either way if you let it.
Quote for today. Apropos, I think, for today’s blog
Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open.
– Thomas Dewar
Next week I’ll be starting mosaic classes for a few new students and I know that one of the questions everyone usually has is how to come up with an idea for a piece. So I’ve decided to do a series of blogs on inspiration.
Well, getting inspiration is really not all that hard. Sometimes you just let it all happen. Often, my problem isn’t getting an idea but choosing which idea to work on. I usually have too many ideas. I’m a Pisces and apparently making decisions is tough for those of us in this area of the horoscope. Or, as Jimmy Buffet says ” Indecision may or may not be my problem”.
It may be easier to show how inspiration works than explain it. So, as I said in the beginning of this blog, I intend to do a series and will show a few of our mosaic pieces and how they came to be. And hopefully that will say a bit about inspiration.
#1 in the series is my favourite mosaic,” Aloha”, one of the first mirrored and shelved mosaics I did. What was the inspiration? Well, obviously, Hawaii. We had enjoyed every moment of a vacation in Hawaii. We’d immersed ourselves in every touristy thing and soaked it up. We wore Hawaiian shirts and shorts and carried our camera around our necks.
I fell in love with the Hula dance and the music and Will and I both fell in love with Hawaiian shirts. And then of course there were the palm trees and all the tropical flowers, like orchids. Well, nirvana. And did I mention that the first morning on Oahu we went, wait for it…yup, garage sailing. And some of the pieces that went into this pique assiette mosaic came from those Hawaiian garage sales. Pique Assiette, by the way refers to a type of mosaic done with broken dishes and found objects, which is right up my alley.
Once we got home, I had the idea to make a piece to commemorate our trip, and things just started to happen. Things for the mosaic started to appear on trips to thrift shops.
The dishes with the palm trees and parrots, the Hawaiian dashboard dancer ( I LOVE kitsch) , the bananas and the plates and salt and pepper shakers. All of them just appeared in my site lines as if by magic.
At some point I got the idea to have a shelf to hold all of the Hawaiian goodies. And then I had to create something to put under the shelf. This gave the extra benefit, we realized later, that when you were sitting down you had a whole other dimension to enjoy in the mosaic.
So that’s how inspiration works. Get an idea, a germ of an idea and somehow what you need for it will make itself available. And all of those things will, if you let them, arrange themselves until they feel just right to you and viola! There you are with a mosaic project to do.
And another thing, don’t let the reality get in the way of artistic inspiration. Ok, I know that bananas don’t grow that way on banana trees and that there aren’t really any parrots in Hawaii, why I don’t know. And that bird that’s sitting on the pineapple on the top, well, that just happened and looked good. So go with the flow, relax and let inspiration take it’s course.
Sometimes I think that garage sailing is the most fun when you find the unexpected, whimsical, odd or wonderful. As in odd juxtapositions of the beautiful and spiritual with the junk. For instance, we were out looking for good stuff and wandered into a flea market given by the Tai Chi society here in Victoria. And there, amongst all the dribs and drabs of goodies was this wonderful shrine.
A shrine amongst the dribs and drabs.The shrine without the distractions
It was beautiful, replete with offerings of fruit carefully piled up in bowls.
Another day, over in the Vic West area of Victoria, we found this rather whimsical and thought provoking and well, just silly front yard sculpture. A bike supposedly growing out of the rock? Or had it dissolved into the rock? Who knows but obviously someone was having some fun and having a creative moment.
A bike “set in stone”.
And I have to admit I rather liked this sign. I sometimes feel like my garden is an Experimental Dandelion Farm too. Too bad the sign wasn’t part of the garage sale offerings or I would have snapped it up.
Love this sign!
As for fun, we always find that we just can’t ever pass up an opportunity to pet a dog. And this one has the facial expression down to an art.
Can you resist me?
Who can resist those ” pet me, pet me” eyes. Not us.
Now having said this I have to admit that we’re not like some of those people that are derisively called “early birds” that a lot of ads warn against. No, we’re not that intense. We know that garage sailing is like fishing, sometimes you catch something, sometimes you’ve just had a nice outing. In fact, we find that there seems to be an odd way that one week you’ll finds lots of good stuff and the next, just a few little things. That was yesterday. Just a few little things, a nice thermometer for the greenhouse for 25 cents. An amber glass globe that I’m hoping to use in the garden somehow as some part of a sculpture.
Plant sale
But we did all right on the plants. This sale is never really advertised and but somehow we manage to find it every year. There’s always a good selection of plants to choose from.
Potential garden art
We had a few misses. Things that we liked but were not in the budget. Like these clothing forms that Will had such great plans for. We never expected that they were such distinguished ones, from the 40’s, the seller said, and worth $35 and $45. They were almost going to become garden sculptures with very unique heads created for them. Ah well.
A winsome smile
Then there was the little lamp base that had such a wonderful expression that I had to take a photo, but didn’t really want to own. The photo would suffice.
We always try to work in a park, an ocean fix or garden either for our coffee break or at the end of the morning. Today it was Finnerty Gardens at UVic. This garden is known for it’s collection of Rhododendrons, all apparently started from seed. This is Rhodo time and we almost missed it. Luckily there were still quite a few in all their glory.
A path lined with RhodosRhodos in the sunlightMonstera bloomDove tree blossomsA stand of bambooYes, the bamboo really is this tall.
The garden has the most wonderful stand of bamboo. It’s huge, tall, and just gorgeous. I wish we could fit it in our garden.
All in all, the gardens were a lovely and serene wrap-up to our to our busy morning of garage sailing.
Will next weekend be the alternate weekend, the weekend when we find lots of good stuff? Who knows?
Our fridge is home to many artsy handmade collage magnets and also to many quotes that I’ve found assuring, inspiring or thought provoking. I found a rather thought provoking one about time the other day and slapped it up there.
You will never find time for anything. If you want the time you must make it. – Charles Buxton.
Well Charles sounds rather like an overbearing patriarch but I must admit he has a point. Finding Time seems a bit like wishing for it and Making Time seems so much more solid, like a commitment.
This last long weekend Will and I spent a lot of time in the garden. We had designated this weekend for gardening time for probably the last few weeks. Other weekends had been too busy with the craft show or other considerations. And of course there had been other weekends where time just seemed to slip by as we shopped for groceries or other items on our lists. I suppose you could say we made time for the garden this weekend.
Rock Rose and Fried Egg plants in the front garden
We knew that we needed to spend some solid time in the garden. And this weekend we did manage quite a lot. The shade garden got weeded. The compost was assessed and deemed pretty good, not quite to the “black gold” stage but close enough to give some “fiber” to the soil. We readied part of the garden for squash plants and were planning to finish that up the next day. Then yesterday dawned grey and cool so we took advantage and weeded the front garden. Usually we only work in the front garden in the evening when it’s shaded. But a cool cloudy day had to be taken advantage of. At the end of each of our gardening days we weren’t good for much more than supper on the couch in front of a good movie. In fact, we were actually surprised that we could even move the next day! But we did, ok a little slowly at first, but pretty soon back to normal.
A gift from the birds
We found a couple of gifts planted by the birds in our garden. These varigated thistles are growing in the front garden, very antisocial with their pricking leaves but oh so unusual and beautiful. We decided to let them grow, weeds or not.
Scotland’s national flower
On the other side of the driveway I’m also letting another big thistle keep it’s spot. Ok I know it’s a thistle but it gets some really wonderful flowers on it at the end of the summer when it’s reached gargantuan dimensions. Hey the Scots are keen on them, isn’t it their national flower? And as a weed we already know it’s tough so will fit in well with the xeriscape theme.
On a previous post I mentioned my intention to have fun everyday. And I realized yesterday as I was breaking up the soil and carefully extracting the weeds and their roots from the dirt and gleefully throwing them into my little green and yellow weed wagon, that I was actually having fun. Seeing the garden all tidied up and weed-free was pretty darn nice too. So in a way I suppose we made time for the garden and for fun at the same time.
Happy tulips in the freshly weeded garden
Which brings me back to Charles Buxton of the Make Time philosophy. I am going to try to consciously think of things that are fun everyday as I get up and make time for them. Today, I’ll have a choice, either plant up the pots of flowers I’ve got waiting on the back deck or work on finishing my sculpture at last while listening to some good music. Which will I do, I wonder? Anyway, you have to admit it’s nice to have a choice.
The lilac is in bloom in all its glory. The breezes carry the perfume and you have these little moments of pure joy as you lift up your face to catch that wonderful scent.
arbour sculpture
I just had to take a photo of one of Will’s found art sculptures with a background of lilac blooms to set it off.
We have a couple of arbours in our garden. One is to hold the clematis and the other in the far corner of the garden carries the grape vines. Each one of these was made with all found materials. As a finishing touch Will and I went beach combing, not exactly a hardship for us, to find the embellishments. These arbours are projects that never really finish. Will works on them as he finds time and inspiration. We have stacks of beautiful driftwood piled up ready at hand for him to create with.
A door knob on high
I personally love the spirals he’s created with recycled,rusted barrel hoops. The one on the grape arbour has as it’s crowning glory an old glass doorknob. There is really something magical that happens when the sun hits that doorknob just right and it glows and sparks as the sunlight streams through.
We like to joke that these sculptures serve a much more distinctive and important purpose. They are not just art, or as I like to think of them, three dimensional drawings of curves and lines. No, these are bird playgrounds. Little sparrows and wrens love to play on them, ducking up and under and chasing each other and happily chirping. It’s a sight to see.
And I love to tell Will that he has real purpose as an artist, not just to create lovely bits of sculpture, but more importantly he has a definite role as a bird playground creator. What more could he want?
Last night it rained, a lot. I could hear it drumming on the greenhouse roof as I fell asleep. So, as every gardener knows the best time for weeding is right after a good rain. Those weeds just come out a lot easier. Well, ok, some of them did. Quite a few of them required a bit more effort having established themselves quite well. And for once, I made myself come in after an hour or so. It’s always easy to forget that you are not in shape yet and overdo it. Gotta get those weeding muscles in tune yet.
But first, even before I got started, I had to get some photos of the goodies that have come up and are doing great. I love our garden and am always in awe of the way it all seems to just pop up in the spring. We’ve got poppies already full of heavy buds. And the Cardoon is just motoring and will be a giant soon.
Our Cardoon (May 14)Mystery PlantHellebore (Peeking out from behind it, a Native Bleeding Heart)My fave Hosta, which later becomes a beautiful blue.And suddenly, a Solomon’s Seal
The dirt here in Victoria is so wonderful. Such a change from our gardens in the past in Calgary. Dirt in Calgary is dryer and harder and requires a lot of work. Sometimes I felt, when a tulip would struggle up in that hard dirt, like I should just stand back and cheer. Here you have to actually cut things back. Which reminds me that we’ll have to check on the compost we worked so hard on last fall. Hopefully, it’s at the stage we like to call “black gold”.
Besides weeding I was really looking over the garden to find spaces. I need spaces for all the things I have to plant. We went a little wild at the Seedy Saturday back in February and got some veggie seeds like beets, parsnips, chard (the pretty rainbow variety of course, I am an artist after all) and dill. And to top it off, last weekend, out garage sailing, I brought home starters for Acorn and Butternut Squash and Zucchini. Now to find some spots for them. So having weeded out a few areas I’ve found a bit of space but I fear that this weekend there will have to be a lot of moving around going on.
Knee saver weeding stool
You may be wondering why I have included this photo of my little green wheelbarrow. Now we’ve got a lot of wheelbarrows, we find them everywhere at garage sales and as giveaways. But this one is special. I just love this little thing. It’s got a wonderful shape and colour to it, sort of bright and friendly. It’s my favourite for weeding. It’s light and just is so easy to drag around after me as I weed. I found it, where else, garage sailing and snapped it up. And then there is the little stool, a freebie at a garage sale last summer. I’m finding it’s just right for sitting on as I weed, a real savior for my poor knees. Doesn’t take much to make me happy.
You would think that with a craft show looming on the horizon that we would be responsible and get everything ready on the couple of days beforehand but no, not us.
Instead we decided to have a little party at our house to celebrate our good friend Hart’s birthday on Friday night with our usual compliment of fun loving friends and two of our sons in attendance. It was a Mexican theme with everyone bringing food and goodies with a Tex Mex flavour and even the music I found was Mexican. I love having these get togethers on a weekend night, nothing beats good conversation, laughter and good food with friends.
Then Saturday, instead of staying home and designing a new hand out card in the morning, the lure of garage sailing was just too strong to resist. One of our three sons, Dave, in his call to wish me Happy Mom’s Day late Sunday night, said he was pretty sure we are addicted to garage sailing to which I replied that it was not an addiction but our way of having fun. And we did have a wonderful morning buying plants, finding good free stuff and taking our usual ocean side coffee break in the beautiful sunshine. Lucky for us, Eric was at home while we were out galavanting preparing the sculptures and packing them up for Sunday and doing other little odd jobs like repairing our show table.
Finally by late Saturday night we did get everything done. The new card had been designed and printed just in time before Office Depot closed. The car had been packed with all the mosaics and pots and boxes of supplies. All that remained was for Hart to come over with his truck in the morning so we could load it up with table, chairs and sculptures. With me running around telling everyone to hurry because we have to get there before the end of load in time at 9, we finally were on our way. That is, until we realized about 4 blocks away that we had forgotten the tent. Now you cannot screech to a halt when you have vehicles loaded with artwork so we coasted to a stop and turned around to get the tent. Well at least we were only a few blocks from home. You may say you should have a list of things to check off. Well we do. But we’ve done shows so many times that we sort of gave it cursory attention. Actually I think we did pretty well. The only other things I forgot were plants for the mosaic pots display and that was soon solved by buying some more plants for the garden at the show. Or was that just an unconsciously cunning way for me to justify buying more plants?
A view of the Castle from the front lawn
The show itself was great. Sunny, breezy and beautiful. Lots of people stopping and signing up for classes and taking a real interest in our sculptures. Our spot was on the front lawn of Hatley Castle overlooking the ocean. We all managed to take time off from our booth duties at different times to take in the rest of the show. I even managed a guided tour of the castle with our good friend and writer, Lia, who is also a tour guide at Hatley, giving lots of little known info about the history of this now popular place for shooting movies like XMen 2 and 3. Lia has written three wonderful stories about the feline friends in her life. Watch for a special segment in our blog on these literary gems and how to get them.
Of course, I’m always on the look out for other artists who make art from recycling and I was not disappointed. I just have to share a few of my finds. Unfortunately the first two don’t have web sites yet. I loved the jewelry made by Joyce Bezusko made from bits and pieces of old jewelry she finds in thrift shops and wherever.
Joyce with her creations
Each one is different and unique and many are really playful. She has a bit of a following with some people collecting her one-of -a-kind pieces. She also sells in Hawaii, hence the name of her business Island Girl Originals. Or is that because she lives on our little island? Hmmm. You can reach her at 250-248-0637.
Bags reborn from scraps
The next was a wonderfully talented seamstress, Renee Morris, from up island in Courtney, who makes these perfect bags with big shoulder straps from scraps of great materials. Her latest designs are made from recycled men’s tweed suit jackets! Amazing bags. Her little business is called Hobo’s and you can reach her at buyhobos@yahoo.com.
Wonderful Windows
I loved Amy Houston’s booth with these awesome windows made with recycled glass and bottles and bits and pieces. She is part of a group called Two Glassy Ladies here in Victoria. I checked out their web site when we finally got home and it’s worth a visit for the blog and all the great glass beads they make. The windows are created by Amy’s mom, Elizabeth.
The dedicated ladies at the Wild Arc booth
And I have to share with you the BC SPCA Wild Arc booth where they were selling baskets of flowers to raise money for Wild Arc. This is a great organization who takes care of wild animals injured or orphaned. You can find out more at www.wildarc.com.
Prospective students
So all in all it was a great day. I always get a kick out of the people who come into our booth and are smitten with mosaics. So many admit to saving broken dishes and wishing to make something with them. I just know I’ve met a future mosaic artist.
And now I really have to finish putting away all the stuff that we were too tired to do last night as we crashed with our supper in front of the TV and watched British murder mysteries. This week, I’m planning to do gardening and plant all the goodies I’ve been collecting that are waiting for a home in the garden. Where to grow it all? Ah well another little problem to get creative about.
My latest motto to live by is to have fun everyday. This last weekend, what with a birthday party, garage sailing and doing a craft show I think we managed it.
