Solitary Confinement
Posted: October 25, 2024 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Permaculture & Home Renovation, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm | Tags: american-history, Andrew Jackson, medicated worm syrup, presidents, Trail of Tears 1 Comment
The 7th and 11th Presidents of the United States were titans from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson and James Polk. Polk was a disciple of Jackson, and both fought bitterly against the Second Bank of the United States arguing that it was a capitalist monopoly favoring the Eastern states. Jackson paid off the national debt, but also instigated the “Trail of Tears” ethnic cleansing, the relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans, forced to walk from their ancestral homelands to lands “west of the river Mississippi.” A polarizing figure, Jackson advocated for ordinary Americans and preserved the union of states, but was denigrated for his racial policies.
1830 through 1848, in South Portland, Maine, C.D.W., a carpenter, built a farmhouse with a crew of thirteen. By day, they labored cutting trees and hauling rocks, to lay the rubble foundation and hew the timbers for the post and beam home. At day’s end, they had no hot showers (indoor plumbing began in Boston 1829, only for the rich) and their food was harvested or hunted from their gardens or woods (green grocers did not become common until circa 1916). Hard were the conditions under which those workers labored.
On Labor Day 2012, we bought the house and barn that C.D.W. built, then began an energy efficient upgrade. My wife was in her third trimester, so time was of the essence. Money was tight. A permacultural builder and crew helped gut and super insulate the main house, converting from kerosene to natural gas. Short on funds, we had to tear down the barn. On Thanksgiving day we moved in, when two weeks later our son arrived into our Greek Revival New England Farmhouse. In 2017 we were fortunate to rebuild the barn, adding a second bathroom, a loft and workshop. Which left the Ell as the last remaining unfinished section.
A prudent man would have passed on the home. A rich man would have torn down the Ell. But I was short on cash and long on hope, so I bought the farm in “as-is” condition, at a foreclosure price plus 20-years’ hard labor. I have begun now, finally, restoring the Ell. Before I can do the finish work, I need to rebuild the foundation, and before that, to stabilize the floor system. This work is done in the crawlspace, which means my hard labor now is essentially solitary confinement.
To secure the floor system I need to set ten concrete pads, upon each of which a post is hammered into place to stabilize the existing 1830 floor joists, with a gusset to lock the posts and prevent movement. Building standards were vastly different then, so I have to bring all of this up to code, with 36” to 16” of working space. Each concrete pad is difficult, while several are incredibly challenging. I had two choices: either mix concrete in the crawlspace and then bucket it into location OR pull a pre-cast block, weighing 130 pounds, into a pre-dug hole. Given “pick your poison,” I chose the latter, the pre-cast.
The crawlspace is macabre and surreal. Everywhere overhead abound spider webs and carcasses, covered in a white mold/fungus on the exoskeleton. Rats have lived in that crawlspace and in the dirt lay remnants of former lives in this house: chards of broken china with pastoral scenes, an oyster shell, shoe leather, a glass bottle of “Medicated Worm Syrup” made by Hobensack’s in Philadelphia circa 1845, and two lego pieces. In 1850 the Dyer family purchased this home, where their son John was born in one of the bedrooms. If someone was born here, how many have died here, over the past 200 years?
As a boy, I watched “The Great Escape,” Steve McQueen’s 1963 action film telling the story of World War II prisoners of war, digging a tunnel to escape from Stalag Luft III, a Nazi concentration camp. In one scene, the tunnel collapses, burying the character played by Charles Bronson. Many times I have thought on that during my crawling.
Let me be clear: never would I do this as paid work-for-hire. But for my wife and children I will and I have crawled on my back and my belly, with minimal leverage, to move concrete pads into place, hammering posts, affixing gussets to make stable the floor system.
My Father, dead now 43 years, has the last laugh. So many times he said to me, “David, you can get used to hanging if you have to.” I heard that, then, as a boy, in terms of my own life. But now, as a Father, I understand that for your children you go out of your way even when that means laboring in a crawlspace among desiccated spiders, remnants of rats.
In the end, the work has been done, and I left my mark, on a beam – as did C.D.W. and crew – showing for the record that, Autumn 2024, DPM labored here, to make stable the world in which his children grow, and from which they will go forward, into the world.
Professor Kristy Feldhousen-Giles has been most helpful with insights into the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Nations were relocated “west of the river Mississippi” but no tribes were relocated west of the 100th meridian as that was under control of Mexico in 1830, and later under the Republic of Texas. The Battle of the Alamo was fought February through March 1836. The nationalist faction of Texans sought the expulsion of the Native Americans and the expansion of Texas to the Pacific Ocean.
Here is a map of the Indian resettlement 1830-1855 from the Historical Atlas of Oklahoma.
Here is the text of the Indian Removal Act, as authorized by the United States Congress, May 28, 1830.
Fairy Museum of Natural Wonder
Posted: October 18, 2024 Filed under: Art & Healing, Farming off the Farm, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm | Tags: art, Farmington 1 Comment
The “Farmington Fairy Museum of Natural Wonder” is a building of magical wonder and whimsy, built to the scale of a 5- or 6-year old child, coming to be, in a world of exquisite beauty and grace.
Funded by the University of Maine at Farmington’s School of Education, Early Childhood Development, the Museum will be used as part of their pre-school teacher training program. Enrolled children will curate rotating exhibits, displaying natural wonders gathered on sojourns into nature. Found items – a stick, a stone, a shell, a leaf or feather – will be placed by the children on display upon shelves nestled beside porthole windows.
The design is as complex as it is compelling. Consider these facts:
- framed as a dodecahedron, with 1/2” plywood sheathed to 2×4 studs cut at 18.5 degree angles;
- the 6″ slab foundation used 14.4 cubic feet of concrete, with rebar mesh reinforcement;
- sheathed in native-Maine Tamarack, using board on batten style;
- 31 circular windows of 5 sizes, all parts custom built; 1/2” plate glass sandwiched in “Kuwaiti plywood,” with a rubber gasket air seal then faced with 2” ribbon mahogany exterior trim, cut on the bias, grain running horizontally, so water flows away from the structure;
- a Squirrel gargoyle stands guard over the custom made, ribbon mahogany entry door
- a Basilica dome, framed by laminated plywood, covered with 480 aluminum shingles, all custom cut, bent to shape, then hand nailed into place;
- “purple martin” mini birdhouses nestled in, for good measure, among the metal shingles;
- a Cupola towers over all, covered in 31 galvanized shingles, cut from aluminum flashing;
- upon which, like a cherry on top, sets the weather vane, with mice running to and fro.
In Southern Maine, everyone, it seems is a carpenter, or a DIY warrior at the least; but few, if any, could build such a structure, let alone conceive, design, and draw same. The Museum is the brain child of Chris Miller. It has been my highest honor to assist as his mere carpenter.
Inside the Basilica dome, Chris has painted the starry night sky, and through a keyhole oculus, the golden glow of the sun lies beyond. The Vatican may have Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but Farmington has the Fairy Museum; Bernini and Michelangelo could do no better than Miller has done.
We built the Museum at Chris’ studio in South Portland, then moved the structure 72 miles north to Farmington. Jesse Salisbury, a sculptor of large granite and hard stones, graciously helped on this task. An artist friend once said to me, “The coolest people on Earth live in Maine,” and Jesse is exhibit A of same. Jesse’s story is almost fantastical, and I speak from personal experience as my daughter and I visited his studio, when she was 5 years old.
Jesse was born Downeast, a fisherman’s son. He began carving wood while in grammar school, but then his father became the Founding Director of the Portland Fish Exchange, America’s first all-display fresh seafood auction that opened in 1986. This lead to his Father becoming the Attache for Asian Fisheries, at the USA Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. In Tokyo, Jesse attended high school and began his formal artistic training, including with traditional ceramic artists. https://www.jessesalisbury.com/
His path lead back to Steuben, Maine where he and his father built his studio by felling trees, milling them into beams, to create a 32’ x 64’ post & beam workshop with design room, stone cutting, metal forging, fabricating and equipment repair shops. As a young man he foraged rocks from the fields Downeast, hauling them in his pick-up truck, but when the scale of his work increased, he purchased used heavy equipment from Bangor Hydro, the utility generating hydroelectric power on the Penobscot River.
Jesse and his Father laid 70 feet of train tracks, so that granite slabs weighing 10-tons or more easily move through the studio, from the wire saw to its indoor and outdoor fabrication areas. Jesse has carved and transported major installations throughout Maine, the Atlantic Seacoast, and maritime Canada. His work has also been displayed in Japan, China, South Korea, Egypt, and New Zealand. In his spare time, he founded the Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium, a ten-year project which resulted in a world class collection of large granite works that make up the Maine Sculpture Trail. https://www.schoodicsculpture.org/
We made two trips north. First, Chris and I poured the dodecahedron concrete foundation, a 6” slab reinforced with rebar and anchor bolts set in the concrete. The forms, of course, were custom built. For the second trip, Jesse arrived at Chris’ studio on a Friday. His boom truck hoisted the structures easily onto his trailer. We strapped them down, then early on a Saturday morning convoyed North as misty fog hung upon the Casco Bay.
In Farmington, the sun was shining. On that idyllic September day, as crimson and golden leaves fluttered down, the installation went easily, each section stacked up, each upon the one below. A deus ex machina, indeed. The “silo” was anchored to the slab’s sill plate and the weather vane set atop the cupola.
By dusk we were gone. Chris returned later to apply finishing details.
And then, one Monday morning, children arrived at their daycare astonished to behold this creation. Like the “Night Before Christmas” I imagine they uttered, “When what to my wondering eyes should appear/But a Fairy Museum overnight landed here!!”
Walking
Posted: October 10, 2024 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | Tags: AFSP, anxiety, depression, mental health, NAMI, suicide, suicide prevention 1 Comment
5 October was day 279 of 2024. Year-to-date, 274 lives have been taken by suicide in Maine.
Last Saturday, on the Eastern Prom, “we the people,” deplorables and elite gathered to meet, to give voice, to bear witness, and to walk in support of Suicide Prevention. 800 people walked 2.2 miles with the majestic Casco Bay stretched out around us.
More than $120,000 was raised. Under the name “Healing Life” our family raised $820. We are eternally grateful for the support of our family and friends. We all went the distance. We all came together. Actions speak louder than words and as a family we shall do this again, a repetitive routine exemplifying our commitment to community.
In the early hours it rained, but the sun broke through. Beads of many colors were passed out: White for loss of a child, Red for loss of a partner, Gold for loss of a parent, every color of the spectrum, every reason to support suicide prevention, even rainbow beads in support of LGBTQ. One older man wore a rainbow shirt, that read, “Be a Good Human.” So simple, yet so hard.
We worked the raffle table, which was a chance to engage with many people. One young child, age 6 perhaps, wore gold beads and a placard around their neck, bearing the single word, all caps, “DAD.” The Mother, now a widow, struggled to pay, and we helped her through the digital payment. As it turned out she won two raffle prizes.
She was one among many, all touched by the dark sceptre of death by suicide. Emotions were raw, so very hard to look life straight in the eye. But we did. We all did. And we walked in support of a cause.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) funds scientific research and public policy advocacy on a national level. AFSP Maine is one of a nationwide network of chapters, doing the grass roots work focusing on eliminating the loss of life from suicide. Members of our community were recognized, stood up, each story of loss told. It was gruesome, and yet, in our bearing witness hope was present.
In the South Portland Public Schools a Director of Mental and Behavioral Health has been hired, and people from the National Alliance of Mental Health, the CDC and AFSP are lending a hand. A team has been assembled and a community response is taking root. Our task now is that such hope is nurtured and blossoms.
I spoke to my daughter about my childhood, when shame reigned supreme, when no one would dare speak of suicide or mental health. To put this in context, I spoke of my Grandmother, whose first born child, in 1923, died of SIDS at 21 days then was told by her Doctors, “just go home and forget about it.”
As if.
Long is the road to greater acceptance, to understanding, but on 5 October, along the eastern Promenade of Maine, 800 people walked 2.2 miles.
Chairman Mao famously quoted the Taoist Master Lao Tzu, who said, in the 6th century BC, “the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” Let us now stand together, let us walk and go forward, let us heal, we the people. Our childrens’ lives depend upon this simple truth.
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In our gardens, our variety of Butternut Squash has been harvested; Tomatoes produce their last; Pole Beans come in this week; Cosmos finally sings aloud in chorus; Mums reside on the entry porch.
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And tonight, in the sky overhead, the Northern Lights showered above, a heart, it seems, in the first photo. Enjoy…
Unabridged
Posted: October 4, 2024 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | Tags: books, dictionary, language, unabridged dictionary, words, writing 2 Comments
In my childhood, pride of place was given to a Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, second edition (c) 1966. The massive book laid open, upon a bookstand that my Mother built, in the family room always beside the dinner table. Quick and easy reference was close at hand.
At 2,129 pages, plus addenda, the Webster’s weighs in at approximately 13 pounds, begins with “a” (first letter of the Roman and English alphabet: from the Greek alpha, a borrowing from the Phoenician) and ends with “zythum” (a malt beverage brewed by ancient Egyptians). The masterpiece is “based upon the broad foundations laid down by Noah Webster.” Such informed my childhood.
My frugal Mother, born in the Depression, bought groceries strictly on a budget, and received S&H Green Stamps for every purchase. We saved those stamps, compiled them into books, then drove to Glenview, Illinois to redeem same. The dictionary was purchased with Green Stamps, a day of victory, that I recall vividly, still.
Of the Silent Generation, she and millions of her peers diligently saved the Green Stamps. The Sperry & Hutchinson Company was founded in 1896 and operated until the 1980s, when consumerism became the vogue and frugality faded. But over 90 years the Beinecke family made a fortune, and funded the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale. In Greenwich, Connecticut, their 66-acre estate is now for sale for the first time, at an asking price of $35 Million, after more than four generations in the family. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/realestate/beinecke-estate-greenwich.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
In my childhood home, words reigned supreme. My Father was a wordsmith, an Irish extrovert, who knew not the difference between a hammer or a screwdriver, but most certainly knew his nouns and verbs; subjects and objects; gerundives, gerunds, and participles; how to compose a sentence, how to frame his thoughts. When advertising came of age he worked as a Mad Man; known as the “Grocery Guru” his specialty was food merchandising. His gift of words allowed him to travel the world, holding meetings in Munich, giving speeches in Sydney; he commuted to his Manhattan office for lunch then flew home for dinner. He was published in multiple periodicals, and monthly in “Advertising Age,” then an upstart, which has become the standard bearer of the trade. After his death, my Mother continued the column for two years, writing “Consumer’s Viewpoint” telling the “Big Boys and Fat Cats” what she thought of their products.
And always, in our home, the Webster’s stood as stanchion, a ready reference, near at hand.
Last year my Mother sold the family home, and we emptied its rooms. Saving the dictionary was high on my list. I stored it at my sister’s, and then in August hauled it back home to Maine, along with sculptures my Mother had made. It was something of a cruel and unusual ask to have my children carry the tome through TSA at O’Hare Airport, but that I did. To my mind that task sealed their fate to the written word. Such is their origin story.
Growing up in the digital age of Google, my children may disregard the heavy analog hard copy book, a dull relic from the distant past. But long may it last on their bookshelves, and my hope is that it will endure as a reminder of their lineage. Languages change over time, such is their nature, but the story of the English language, derived from the German and Latin, and our ability to use words to frame our thoughts is an enduring aspect of our mind’s capacity to understand. I remain steadfast that there is a mysterious link between grammar and the mind.
A hard copy dictionary, then, is a bastion of that tradition. And for my children to understand same, is to know of their past. And so this Unabridged Dictionary is an heirloom of the highest regard here in our home. Purchased through frugality, cherished over many years.
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Note: Kudos and thanks to Babs, of whom I say the apple fell not far from the tree. By kind permission of, I borrowed her phrase “…meetings in Munich, speeches in Sydney…”. And she provided the family room photo with dictionary and stand ever the sentry, the rear guard. Many thanks! 🥰
The Curve of Consciousness
Posted: September 27, 2024 Filed under: consciousness | Tags: consciousness, philosophy, quantum-physics, rational mind, science, space time continuum, spirituality 2 Comments
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist with a sterling gift for writing, in English, clear sentences on complex ideas. In “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” he traces the arc of modern physics from Isaac Newton’s 1687 straight mechanical worldview where bodies move through space and time passes uniformly to the now confirmed existence of quarks and, in 2013, the discovery of the Higgs boson, a fundamental sub-atomic particle; the most basic building blocks of a curvilinear universe.
Einstein’s milestone 1919 insight was that “the gravitational field is not diffused through space; the gravitational field is that space itself….Space is no longer something distinct from matter – it is one of the “material” components of the world. An entity that undulates, flexes, curves, twists. The whole of space can expand and contract.”
Max Planck had a radical idea that energy was not a continuous flow, but instead was “quanta,” or packets, a/k/a small building blocks. Einstein, again, cracked the code, in his 1905 annus mirabilis papers when he wrote, “…the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of “energy quanta” which are localized at points of space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units.”
Einstein’s idea was rejected as sheer nonsense, until 1925 when a group of physicists in Copenhagen, lead by Niels Bohr, worked out the mathematical equations behind the theory.
The world of quantum mechanics is not predictable, can only be spoken of in terms of probabilities. Roselli describes this as “…very far from the mechanical world of Newton…the world [of quantum mechanics] is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities. A set of vibrations, as in the switched-on hippie world of the 1960s. A world of happenings, not of things.”
In the year of our Lord 2024, physics teaches us that, “There is no longer space that “contains” the world, and there is no longer time “in which” events occur. There are only elementary processes wherein quanta of space and matter continually interact with one another. The illusion of space and time that continues around us is a blurred vision of this swarming of elementary processes.”
I present this as background to an idea that just as space time is a curved dynamic field, so too, by analogy, is human consciousness; in the years going forward our ideas of relationships and fundamental rights may flower in unforeseen dimensions. The “straight and narrow” ethics of Augustine, Calvin and Cotton Mather – to name just a few – may become antiquated just as Greek myth now is seen as mere child’s play.
Whether history repeats or rhymes, the fact is that we have been here before. Augustine of Hippo, the towering Church Father, wrote circa 400, “…it is not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by those whom the Greeks called physici…It is enough for the Christian to believe that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, whether visible or invisible, is the goodness of the Creator, the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its existence from Him.” The Dark Ages followed when the Western Roman Empire fell, trade became stagnant, the Black Plague ravaged the land, scientific thought was discouraged.
Come the sixteenth century, a Polish mathematician calculated the rotations of the planets, and confirmed that the Sun, in fact, is the center of our galaxy. The mathematician, also a Catholic Canon, was savvy and prefaced his work “To The Most Holy Lord, Pope Paul III” begging indulgence, “How I came to dare to conceive such motion of the Earth, contrary to the received opinion of the Mathematicians and indeed contrary to the impression of the senses, is what your Holiness will rather expect to hear. So I should like your Holiness to know that I was induced to think of a method of computing the motions of the spheres by nothing else than the knowledge of the Mathematicians are inconsistent in these investigations.” Copernicus endeavored only to check the mathematics but his “Book of Revolutions” changed the course of history.
Galileo, equally brilliant, more bold and less savvy, championed and then scientifically proved the Copernican heliocentrism, for which he was tried by the Roman Inquisition and found “vehemently suspect of heresy.” Galileo is called the father of observational astronomy, classical physics, the scientific method and modern science. Popes Paul III and V are mere footnotes in history.
The flowering of Renaissance humanism was in full swing in those times, and consider the intellectual and cultural advances concurrent with the scientific revolution: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael were active in their studios; Erasmus and Descartes were thinking; Shakespeare and John Milton wrote epic poems and plays; Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton advanced scientific thought. Whether science was the cause or effect, the fact is that the breadth of thought – what I call consciousness – expanded wildly during this period.
So what then might our “curve of consciousness” bring? Consider these contemporary facts:
- Science has proven that trees communicate and share rescources among themselves via the underground “mycorrhizal network” transferring water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals; the stronger helping the weaker to survive. Peter Wohlleben has called this network “the woodwide web” allowing trees to communicate.
- Researchers at MIT and other universities are beginning to use Artificial Intelligence to decode the language of humpback whales “with a confidence level of 96 percent.”
- In 2008 the Republic of Ecuador drafted and approved a new constitution recognizing the rights of nature and ecosystems, making them legally enforceable. The preamble states: “RECOGNIZING our age-old roots, wrought by women and men from various peoples, CELEBRATING nature, the Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), of which we are a part and which is vital to our existence, INVOKING the name of God and recognizing our diverse forms of religion and spirituality, CALLING UPON the wisdom of all the cultures that enrich us as a society, AS HEIRS to social liberation struggles against all forms of domination and colonialism AND with a profound commitment to the present and to the future, Hereby decide to build…”
To my mind the coming flowering of consciousness will celebrate unity in diversity. Anthropocentrism may give way to an acceptance that all life is one. Genesis 1:26 where “…God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” would seem a shibboleth soon to fall, perhaps replaced and finally embraced by Romans 13:10 “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
To all of this, I quote Martin Luther King, “…Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.”
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The radiant reds and orange of summer subside, while brown and sienna now dominate the garden. Beans are ripening. We move closer to the Solstice.
Joy of Aging
Posted: September 20, 2024 Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: cranky uncle, silver tsunami 1 Comment
In my limited experience, there is a joy in aging. Certainly not the aching joints or onset of arthritis, but in the relaxed confidence, an acceptance of self. Well beyond the age of peer pressure, I have concern neither about my haircut, nor the shoes that I wear, all of which are quite liberating.
The cliche of the “Cranky Uncle” is but one example. At the Thanksgiving table, he lets loose in too blunt a manner which may be simply that he has achieved, at last, a “devil may care” attitude, a sense that time is of the essence. The accuracy of his information tends to be of little concern, to himself at least. The “Cranky Uncle,” in fact, is so ubiquitous that it has become the name of an app that “builds resilience against misinformation.” https://crankyuncle.com/
If the “Cranky Uncle” is the dark side of anger, then the uplift of mirth was expressed by Jenny Jones, the British poet, in her famous work, “Warning: when I am an old woman I shall wear purple.” Her poem was twice voted Britain’s best-loved poem, and she was described as “one of Britain’s best loved poets.” Her words were proof that we can age with grace and wit, a singular independence. We would do well to follow her lead.
These thoughts come to mind because the “silver tsunami” has begun with over 10,000 people per day now turning age 65. By 2030 more than 73 million Baby Boomers will be over age 65, a demographic shift of unparalleled scale.
I am a Baby Boomer, born at its tail end. I therefore feel eligible to opine that we have skimmed the cream, and the world we leave to our children’s children, is, I fear, darkened by the shadow of our deeds.
Early in the Boomer era, an active idealism rose: civil rights, voting rights, environmental protections, the Clean Water Act, a woman’s right to choose, and protests against endless wars of the Empire.
As a young boy, I went one night to my long-haired neighbors, to help paint cars for a convoy to a Vietnam War/anti-Nixon protest. I loved it, all of it, the idealism and sense of community (among some but certainly not all).
By 1980, when the Boomers’ careers had begun the zeitgeist changed; capitalism roared into vogue, taxes were cut, deregulation began. The success of the Boomers seems unparalleled:
- In 1967 the movie “The Graduate” contained the prophetic line, “Plastics…there is a great future in plastics.” Fifty-seven years later every person on the planet ingests about 5 grams of microplastic every week – the equivalent of a credit card – eaten every week, every year by every person, all 8.1 billion of us, with no end in sight. More than likely, the quantity will increase.
- In our insatiable quest for red meat, more than 185 million acres of the Amazon River basin have been clear cut since 1978; food production accounts for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and takes up half of the planet’s habitable surface. A diet that includes beef has 10 times the climate impact of a plant-based diet.
- The “fast fashion” industry is responsible for over 20% of global water pollution while producing 100 billion garments per year, of which 92 million tons end up in landfills, the equivalent of one semi truck of waste every second, every day. The average consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes every year.
- The richest one-fifth of the world’s population possess 80 times the income of the poorest one-fifth, and the richest one-fifth uses over 86% of the world’s resources. In America, the top 0.1% average wealth is $1.52 billion USD per household.
- From 1979 to 2022 wages grew 32.9% for the bottom 90%, 171.7% for the top 1%, and 344.4% for the top 0.1% of the USA population.
- More than 99 million people now face emergency levels of hunger, while more than 1.1 million people are in the grips of catastrophic hunger.
- Baby boomers will bequest a total of $72.6 trillion in assets through 2045.
The transfer of assets is defined in financial terms but represents essentially a set of values which will govern how those funds will be used. If we think of $72 trillion as a lever, with values as its fulcrum, then Archimedes comes to mind: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Change is still possible.
Another poet wrote “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.” We might replace “bang” with “boom” while “whimper” could yet become “win.” This is a matter of some urgency as the silver tsunami rolls on.
I am a parent now, raising children coming of age. My approach here is to be forthright about what we have done and with what they must deal; I value honesty more than politeness, and future generations should be clear sighted, to act with compassion and a commitment to social justice. A certain non-conformance may be required, and to that end the “Warning” of Jenny Jones, indeed pertains:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
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The thrum of summer has quieted, the Supermoon Full Moon Lunar Eclipse passed on Tuesday, cool nights of autumn descend: Pole beans ripen, Winter squash come to its full, Brussel Sprouts fatten, Poblanos produce still, Tomatoes remain abundant, the Cucumbers are spent, while Tithonia still shouts “look at me!!!” We will plant garlic come November.
The Grandest Cataract in New England
Posted: September 12, 2024 Filed under: Art & Healing, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm | Tags: Androscoggin River, Cancer Valley, Edmund Muskie, Hugh Chisholm, Public Art, Restoration, Rumford 2 CommentsRumford Falls, Maine is situated where the Concord, Ellis, and Swift rivers converge into the Androscoggin River, which form the watershed of the Western Maine mountains. At the Falls, called the “the grandest cataract in New England,” the Androscoggin drops a total of 176 feet over a sheer wall of granite.
In our pre-industrial age, indigenous peoples gathered there to hunt, fish and trade furs from the Lakes Region of Maine. In 1882, history forever changed when industrialist Hugh Chisholm grasped the Falls’ potential for the manufacture of paper.
Chisholm first built a railroad, then a mill for his Oxford Paper Company, which grew to become the founding asset of International Paper Company, the corporate behemoth, still active today. A Utopian, he also built planned community housing for the workers in his mills, which housing became a model for the nation. Chisholm hired architects to build great buildings in Rumford, those architects also having designed the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, and the Copley Plaza in Boston. At its peak, in the 1930s, Rumford held its own with Manhattan, but today it has fallen deeply into the abyss.
Rumford, and the surrounding River Valley towns of Maine, are known nationally as “Cancer Valley” given the incredibly high rates of cancer among its mill-working inhabitants. Four out of five children are food insecure, while Rumford has the highest special education population in the state of Maine. The opioid crisis has run rampant, and Rumford’s rate of crime is now the highest in Maine.
Rumford Falls is but one, among many cities, ravaged by the flight of capitalist money, ever in pursuit of profit. The New York Times recently reported, “Milwaukee was once known as the ‘machine shop of the world.’ In the 1950s, nearly 60 percent of the city’s adult population worked in manufacturing…. By 2021, Milwaukee had lost more than 80 percent of its manufacturing jobs (barely 5 percent of those that remained were unionized), and it had the second-highest poverty rate of any large American city…. Between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed, partly as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements.”
Last Sunday, I was in Rumford Falls helping on a Public Art project. Although the politics of free trade is vitally important, my work focused upon the power of art, the agency of making, and the process of civic discourse; how does a community rebuild once the rivers of cash flow have dried up?
A real estate developer recently purchased Rumford’s old mill building for the price of $1 USD, and she has received a grant from the Department of Agriculture to put solar panels on top of the mill, and another from the National Parks Foundation “historic preservation” fund with the condition of “community engagement.” The developer promptly called Chris Miller, and asked, “I have the building, and a chain link fence out front. Can you do something of civic engagement?” Chris pondered the problem.
He decided to ask the citizens of Rumford what their desired future might be? Adults declined to respond, but a classroom of 3rd grade students enthusiastically spoke up. Chris’ question was “If you lent your hand, if you had your say, what would Rumford’s future gain? If you wore a hat that said “Civic Leader,” what might Rumford’s future feature? Would you champion a cause, plant more flowers, have a parade or build a tower? Would you open a business to meet a need? Would you captain a brand new industry? Would you start a club or paint a mural? Would you build a park in honor of a hometown hero?”
The 8- and 9-year old students offered fantastical ideas: a skyscraper, an amusement park, an IKEA water park, trains running upside down. Gathering their bold ideas, Chris set them down graphically in the style of a picture postcard, then printed on vinyl adhesive which he affixed to seven 4×8 sheets of 1/2” masonite. My role was minimal, priming and painting the boards and helping Chris hang them upon the chain link fence.
His design links to Rumford’s past, given that Hugh Chisholm made his first fortune printing picture postcards, holding the monopoly contract with the United States Postal Service to print all of the picture postcards sold in United States post offices at the turn of the 19th century. The Rumford Mill produced all those postcards, as it grew into its peak production years.
The children of today very likely could become the leaders of our future. Rumford’s native son, Edmund Muskie, was born there in 1914 and then wrote and championed both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in the 1970s. His political leanings have been demonized by many industrialists, but one has to wonder how his Rumford childhood shaped his environmental thoughts.
Restoration, it seems, is the work of our times. The task in Rumford is how to build a new economic base, to clean up after decades of toxic waste, and to heal generations of families whose lives have been shaped by the working conditions at the Mill and power plant on the Androscoggin River. Chris’ “picture postcards” are but one very small step, but Rumford’s task of recovery does move forward.
Sea Monsters a/k/a Carousel Cosmos
Posted: September 6, 2024 Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities, Gallery - Visual, Portfolio - David's work | Tags: cosmic carousel, new paradigm design workshop 2 Comments
In April 2023 I had the pleasure of making Sea Monsters for a public art display in Portland’s West End. Chris Miller, the polymath maker, received the commission and hired me to help build seven creatures which likely could have lived on Portland’s Peninsula over the past 250-million years, give or take a few millennia, or even “just last Tuesday.”
“Carousel Cosmos” is the official title and the seven creatures are a Polar Bear, Humpback Whale, Saber Toothed Cat, Walrus, Rhyncosaur (an extinct herbivorous Triassic archosauromorph reptile), Dragon, Crenatocetus (an extinct genus of protocetid early whale).
Chris wrote, “They are dragons, lions, bears and sea monsters, the usual suspects in the greatest bedtime stories of all time. They have many names in many languages. They’ve made cameos as constellations that might be older than writing, older than the first cities, or the wheel. Some are mythological, some are just misunderstood. They invite you to explore the cosmos starting right here, on a journey to greater understanding.”
One really must visit the installation, but at the least you can visit them online: http://npdworkshop.com/carousel-cosmos
We built the creatures using a “stack laminate” process just as carousel horses have been built since 1799: layers of 8/4 ash (2” thick) were stacked then glued to create the three-dimensional form, which we then carved and painted. With as many as nine layers per creature, Chris used computer modeling software to draw the final shape, then “deconstruct” it to show the shape of each successive layer.
The son of a carpenter, Chris studied sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, and then architecture at MIT. His vision is a unique combination of those three influences.
The word “genius” normally is defined in terms of sheer intellectual horsepower – Newton and Einstein, the commonplace exemplars – but a more insightful meaning is in the derivation of the word, from Latin, which means “guiding spirit.”
For having walked the hallowed halls among the MIT Masters, Chris has retained the childlike wonder of growing up amidst the flora and fauna, woods and water of Fifty Lakes, Crow Wing County, Minnesota. His sterling genius guided him not only to conceive, design and build, but also to write this summary of the Carousel Cosmos:
“This carousel is inspired by kindness, adventure, outer space, bedtime stories, dinosaurs and ice cream. It’s inspired by the Western Promenade’s endless views, spectacular sunsets and contemplative atmosphere. It spins the way that the earth spins when the sun sets, in a place where trolleys used to stop, in a small picturesque city with a school community that speaks more than sixty different languages.”
Lest anyone think my statements are grandiose rather than grounded, I submit this photo as Exhibit A:
Climb aboard! Let’s go for a spin!!
Seedless Champagne Grapes and Suicide
Posted: August 30, 2024 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent | Tags: mental health, Teen suicide 2 CommentsRecently a friend left home grown blackberries on our porch. To another neighbor, that day, I delivered home grown peaches and wild seedless champagne grapes. Life in South Portland would seem idyllic.
Year-to-date in Sopo there have been zero murders but there have been, to my knowledge, 5 suicides and 1 attempted suicide: 3 were school-aged youths; 2 were parents of children, whom my daughter oversaw as a Rec Camp Counselor; 1 was my daughter’s age-group peer, whose suicide attempt failed.
February: a 19-year old, recent graduate of the local high school, a counselor in the elementary afterschool program, worked his Friday shift, then drove south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As Aurora pulled dusk across the sky, in his truck he sat, sent a final text to his family, then reached for his newly purchased shotgun.
April: a boy named Angel, age 16, a straight-A student at the high school, “an independent young man who enjoyed his job at Burger King” rode his bike into the woods. His phone was left on the ground, but kept transmitting via Snapchat’s location app. My daughter, his classmate, was aware of this, as were all her peers, and told us that he had gone missing. A dark night followed, when come morning we learned this young boy had left his bike and phone and taken a rope deeper into the woods.
June: Two children, both age 8, campers at the South Portland Summer Rec Camp had lives ripped by suicide. One girl’s mother committed suicide while another’s uncle took his life.
July: A young boy, age 18, who worked as a Summer Rec Camp Counselor, attempted but failed, to take his life. For one week he was in Maine Medical Hospital.
August: A 14-year old eighth-grade graduate, with “striking blue-green eyes and charming grin [that] made everyone melt,” #6 on the South Portland Little League Majors team, MVP of our All Stars, he took his life. His brothers’, Mother and Father’s lives ripped now asunder.
We gathered this evening at his “celebration of life” where our collective grief and despair mocked the word “celebration.” Social conventions keep not up-to-date with the epidemic in these times.
His classmates, young boys, were well dressed, as though waiting for school pictures, some wore their athletic jerseys. The photos on display were those of a toddler and elementary school student, so brief was his life.
The line was long and snaked around the Funeral Home, hundred’s having turned out in his memory, all of us stunned, grasping for air. Like Dante’s “9 Circles of Hell” we wound closer into the building, then entered the parlor where the pine casket was closed. Deepest into the void, we stood in a cratering emptiness.
We are bereft. There are no words, no answers, so many unanswered questions. Repeatedly now we have come together in these most searing of “celebrations.”
In talking with neighbors, the usual suspects of cause are technology and social media. Statistics support that, but pandora’s box having been opened, we cannot go back again to an earlier easier time. My wife and I, instead, have been talking about emotional intelligence and mental health.
Mental Health America defines Emotional Intelligence as “…the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. There are five key elements to EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.” This definition seems clear and cogent.
To the CDC, “Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.” To my mind, this definition is vague and leaves me wanting.
The Superintendent of South Portland Schools wrote to me, “in short order we must pivot to broader community work. On the district side, these efforts will be led by our new Director of Mental and Behavioral Health who will start on September 9.”
While standing in line at the celebration, we spoke with Lee Anne Dodge, the soul-affirming Director of SOPO Unite, a high-school based “coalition bringing together all sectors of the community–parents, school staff, police, healthcare, businesses, youth serving organizations, civic organizations and faith based organizations….and promote resilience in our community.” Lee Anne told us that she will meet this week with the CDC to discuss how to broaden their response to community needs.
Andrew Forsthoefel, the Restorative Practices Systems Specialist of Cumberland County, leads a circle of parents meeting to listen and give voice, coming together to navigate these challenging times. I have reached out to him and our dialogue will deepen into the fall.
We the people. For better or worse. Until death do us part.
It is my hope that we can weave a new narrative of outreach and empathy, forming circles of hope, to support and save our children, while this black plague of suicide ravages our communities.
Indeed, now the only way out is through.
Quercus Virginianus
Posted: August 28, 2024 Filed under: Art & Healing, Chronicles of a First Time Parent 1 Comment
Quercus Virginianus, the Live Oak tree, is synonymous to the Deep South’s mystique as are Faulkner’s gothic novels. Gothic, indeed, is the architecture of the trees: a circumference up to 35 feet, height up to 70 feet, limbs stretching outward more than 100 feet from the trunk, Spanish Moss tendrils hang to gather nutrients from the wind, rain and sunlight.
A woodworker once told me that in South Carolina a law remains on the books that if two lovers stand beneath a Live Oak tree and exchange vows of their love, then the tree as their witness legally binds the marriage. I cannot prove the fact, but certainly believe its core truth.
Live Oak trees live up to one thousand years. The story is told that in 1771, Étienne de Boré, on his estate which became Audubon Park in New Orleans, planted a Live Oak tree in honor of his bride. At 35 feet in circumference the tree arguably could be closer to 300-years old, known as the “Tree of Life” although officially registered as the Etienne de Boré Oak. Etienne de Boré became the first mayor of New Orleans in 1803.
On 28 August 2004 I travelled to Audubon Park to stand beneath the Tree of Life with a soulful strong woman. In true DIY fashion, we wrote our own vows. A Notary Public friend officiated, his wife served as witness (Louisiana is less liberal than South Carolina, at least in terms of trees’ legal standing). We were short one witness, technically, but a woman in black, a total stranger, silently walked up and touched the tree during our exchange of vows, so legally wed we were 28 August in the Tree of Life cathedral.
My vows spoke of “alchemy and the daily renewal.” The traditional “for better or worse” was a given, as I was then a co-defendant in a lawsuit concerning Trust Asset Management and fiduciary duty in United States Federal Court, Northern District of Illinois. My betrothed stood beside me then, she stands beside me now.
2004: on 30 July I was haled into Federal court, where District Judge Matthew Kennelley “granted in part and denied in part” a Summary Judgment on my behalf. My back was against the wall. On 28 August with backs against the Tree of Life, my fiancé and I exchanged vows, and then rings. Next we went to the drive-through daiquiri stand. Later that night we marched in the Second Line of a mid-season Mardi Gras parade. Viva la life of New Orleans!!
Back in Chicago, by autumn of 2004, the lawsuit was settled. The banker from Lichtenstein went to prison. Our union endures. That alone matters.
Twenty years later, we remain together in the light. We raise two bright beautiful children; our life’s work, to be sure. Ours is a remarkable home amidst a wildly creative community, in a place of exquisite beauty, the rocky coast of Maine, on Gaia, circling the sun. My wife holds our family’s center and some day our childrens’ children may say “My Grandfather married one strong soulful woman.”
an Art Farm 