Removing Obstacles
Posted: November 24, 2019 Filed under: Art & Healing, Gallery - Visual 1 Comment
Ganesha has become a comforting figure to me. He is the remover of obstacles and master of wisdom and knowledge. A beloved friend attended the festival of Ganesha in India. She brought with her, an item from our home and placed it on an altar during the festival. I’ve continued to find him in lots of places, or maybe it’s the other way around.
Since my last post, regrettably over a year ago, I have struggled with how to incorporate my surgical screws into some creative effort.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with clay and simple sculpture materials to recreate my perception of Ganesha, holding symbols of personal obstacles.
To be continued…
Destruction/Creation
Posted: October 26, 2018 Filed under: Art & Healing 4 CommentsTwenty-five years and 5 surgeries later I’m still healing from an accident which changed my life. Two friends died in a car accident and I was spared. I walked away. I did not know that both of my feet were injured and continued to not know until 13 years later when arthritis and bone spurs brought intense pain when I walked.
A lot of life has happened in 25 years. I am married to an incredible partner and have 2 beautiful, strong-willed, compassionate and creative children. I have a fulfilling career where I try to connect with and support others on their paths to healing and recovery.
Surgery 3 weeks ago removed 2 screws which have been keeping my left, big toe joint from bending. I feel compelled to use these objects in some way that transforms them from what they were into something new. I’m still trying to make sense of what happened so long ago and here is another opportunity to try.
Redefining & Reframing What it Means to be SAFE
Posted: July 29, 2016 Filed under: Art & Healing 2 CommentsWhat is safe, what is unsafe?
What does safety look like, feel like, sound like?
How do you know when you are safe?
How do you know when you are unsafe?
I ponder these questions as I go deeper into my work with little ones, grown ones, and the ones in-between. With dialog and art media we explore stories of struggle, threats to safety, resilience, set-backs, side-steps and efforts to move forward.
I created these sculptures from the same foil/tape method as used with the starfish and giraffe series. I will complete with acrylic paints once they are ready. For me, the shells represent a familiar, innocent and straight-forward form of safe space and protection. Often, in my clients’ experiences, there is no familiar, innocent or direct connection to this most basic need.
Starfish Galaxy
Posted: November 23, 2015 Filed under: Art & Healing 2 Comments
Continuing to explore the experience of resilience and survival and what it looks like through metaphor and sculpture. Materials include aluminum foil, masking tape, acrylic and puff paints.
Getting the Lead Out (phytoremediation)
Posted: November 6, 2015 Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation 1 CommentWhen we purchased our home, it was the land I valued as the key asset. Our first soil test brought the stunning news that lead in the soil averaged 480 parts per million, a level classified as “move garden to uncontaminated soil.” We got busy researching, and learned that Helianthus annus, the common sunflower, will draw the lead out of the soil.
With that shot of enthusiasm we got to work amending our land. In the autumn of 2013 we sheet mulched a large space in our sun-drenched front yard; we call this the mandala garden. On top of a thick layer of cardboard, we piled rock dust, aged manure, chopped leaves and perennials, and clean top soil: the pile was about 14″ high.
By the spring of 2014 we tested the soil again and this area – far enough away from our house to be out of reach of lead paint chips – showed a level of 280; better but still too high to grow leafy or root vegetables.
We sowed many seeds of Titan, Russian, and Red Pilsen sunflowers and let nature run its course. When we cut down all the sunflowers we disposed of them; you don’t want to compost those!
This spring our soil test showed 215 ppm, which is classified as a “slight” contamination but still is a major step forward. We continue to add compost, but we grew fruiting vegetables this summer.
And some sunflowers just for good measure.
Seed Saving
Posted: October 17, 2015 Filed under: Child Centered Activities, Farming off the Farm, In the Kitchen 3 CommentsThis year we grew Good Mother Stallard pole beans for the Seed Temple in Estancia, New Mexico <followthegoldenpath.org>. Our first time growing pole beans, I wasn’t sure how to dry them. While I researched, Ella walked into the garden, plucked from the vine one dried pod, pulled it apart, and…VOILA!…green beans had turned a gorgeous mottled red. Exquisite, fascinating, and a great shared lesson in seed saving.
We planted ten seeds and now have ten x ten x…an abundant cache to send back, to share with friends, and to sow next season.
Playful Processing & Integration
Posted: September 2, 2015 Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities 4 CommentsMy daughter was present and engaged during my post surgery recovery in 2011. She worked healing magic on me as well as her dolls and lovies.
Colored tape, bandages, hugs and kisses…bedside with mama for those many days of recovery.
Today my daughter, aged 6 and headed for her own surgery, visited a most wonderful, child oriented surgery center where she was offered a child’s vantage point on what to expect. Once home, we spent the next several hours acting out the new information using whatever props and subjects we had close at hand.
Witnessing Resilience and the Will to Survive
Posted: August 13, 2015 Filed under: Art & Healing, Gallery - Visual 1 CommentI’ve created a scene using sculpture to reflect the process I often experience when working with children and adults.The giraffes are watching the birth of starfish in varying stages of loss, pain and regrowth. The resilience and determination is often so great that one can only give thanks for being allowed to witness such spirit.
Chef’s Garden at the Inn
Posted: July 18, 2015 Filed under: Farming off the Farm, In the Kitchen 5 Comments
A concise 6-month history of the Chef’s Garden: in January, on the cold grey day of my first visit to Chebeague Island, I stood on a lawn at the Inn and was asked there to create a Chef’s Garden.
In March, enthusiasm was high. The chef offered his list of desired plants and my friends at Frinklepod Farm, Noah Wentworth and Flora Brown, started the vegy, herb and flower seedings; David Buchanan, of Portersfield Cider, shared advice on berries and stone fruits; Nance Klehm, from the Seed Temple in Estancia, New Mexico, sent seeds of the 4 sisters: Corn, Pole Beans, Winter Squash and Sunflowers.
In April, Chuck Varney, of Second Wind Farm on Chebeague Island, plowed and turned the sod, we amended the soil, and then tilled to break the clumps. We had neither time nor materials to sheet mulch; on the island, bulk compost and mulch are available only if barged over in a dump truck, so we have worked with the soil at hand. The ground laid fallow a few weeks and then we worked our way across the field picking out roots and clumps of dried grass.
In late-May, on a rain-drenched day, Noah and I hauled across the bay crates filled with the starts and seeds: japanese eggplants, red and white onions, varieties of tomatoes, peppers, butternut and buttercup squash, bush beans, radishes, carrots, beets, slicing cucumbers, and a potager’s array of herbs and flowers. Some seeds failed to germinate. Some plants have been slow to take root. Overall, the garden is flowering and fruits are forming on the vines.
The chef has said that he walks through the garden to relax during long days in the kitchen. Today, he harvested eggplants, peppers, squash blossoms, herbs and edible flowers for this evening’s menu.
How wonderful to see an idea coming to fruition, and to know that customers have been fed from our shared efforts.
Project: Hope Process, Process Hope
Posted: July 17, 2015 Filed under: Art & Healing 3 CommentsThe giraffes have long awaited the next members to the foil/tape sculpture family.
A single starfish has emerged which seems to sing of loss, hope and rebirth. When an arm is lost a new grows back. Loss is so clearly a point of transition from one state to another.
There is no stagnation only movement towards rebirth. Let the process shine.
an Art Farm 
