Pan

 

 

                                        Pan Ceramic clay, deer antler, gold paint.

                                                        Hand built 1995.

                                                Broken 1998, 2000, 2005

                                                Rebuilt and mounted 2021.

 

 

 

Way, way back in the previous century @1995 I was attending a small and conservative Christian University ( that is a whole other story).  I was the oddball out but most people tolerated me and many were kind, though I didn't make any lasting friends. Mostly I hid out in the relatively liberal Art Building that was thankfully away from the main campus.  My ceramics  teacher, Tim Malm, was a particular favourite.  He made allowances for my weird ideas and never tried to steer me into more traditional forms.  At some point I had the idea to make a wearable mask of Pan, the Greek God of the wild, and other things.  Possibly fueled by my obsession with Tom Robbins novel, "Jitterbug Perfume".

In order to make my idea real, I needed antlers.  Real ones, from a real deer.  All of my Uncles are/were hunters so naturally I polled them about the possibility of sourcing a pair of small antlers, preferably shed naturally.  They laughed, of course.  My Uncles were not so nearly accepting of my weird ideas.  I was a vegetarian at the time and they made good sport of teasing me and tricking me into eating animal products.  What they saw as teasing, I saw as bullying.  I wasn't very popular.  Eventually one of them did send me a small set of antlers.  I didn't ask from where, but I did hope that my application of them onto an art piece would in some way honor the animal they came from.

So I made my ode to Pan, fit to my face.  The mask hung on my wall for three years, then it  fell off one night scaring me half to death.  It's a sizeable hunk of ceramic. It broke in a couple of pieces, I glued them back together and rehung it.  A few years after that it fell off the wall again, then it was broken in a move and lived in a ziplock baggy  for a couple of decades.  When I found it a few weeks ago I was astonished to see that the hanging points were intact and most of the pieces were there but the antlers were missing.  Eventually I located those too and set about reworking the piece.  I mounted it a padded box and used the Japanese technique of kintsukuroi to reform the face.

He's been through a lot, but he's a piece of art that has been with me a long time. I'm glad he's back and I hope he stays on the wall this time!

Why?

Why?

 This is Charlotte.  She is my great Grandmother, in 1918 she died of the Spanish influenza, two days after her husband Cecil, and some days before her baby daughter Hope Rosella ( or June as she was later called)  at just two years old my  Grandfather Lauren was the only survivor in his family.  For the rest of his life the flu was his scariest enemy.  Charlotte was just 18 years old when she died, Cecil was 25, Hope only a few weeks old.  I have the letter Charlotte wrote telling of the baby's birth so we know when she was born, we have no death date.  Both Charlotte and Cecil were likely buried in unmarked mass graves in Fort Frances Ontario where they were mill workers.  There is no official record at all of Hope.  Only her mother's letter announcing her arrival survives.

 Detail of Charlotte's  last letters to her sisters

We are self isolating and cleaning and doing everything within our power to slow the Corona virus down.  We do this for Charlotte and Lauren, and for Hope Rosella, who died because they didn't know what we know about germs and distance.  We do this for my Grandpa Lauren, who grew up and made his way in the world without a family.   Please, please, please stay home.

This is my creek.

 

The culvert bridge from the top of the bank.

 

There are a few places on the planet that feel like home to me.  We moved a lot when I was a kid.   11 schools in 12 years.  In between deployments, or when my Dad was at sea my Mom and I would often return to her parents home in the Napa Valley.  She grew up there, married there and began her adult life there.  She met my father there.  For her it was a mixed  bag.  Comfortable like home, uncomfortable to be a stranger there again.  Each time we went back she would return to work in the family restaurant.    Most days I went to work with her.  I knew all the people  who worked with her and my Granny and would spend some of the morning hanging out in the big booth in the front window, reading or pretending to be clairvoyant.   Later when the other businesses opened she would give me $5 from her tip jar and I would wander off down main street to look in the shops, buy bubble gum cigars and sneak peaks at Playboy and MAD magazine in the smoke shop.  The best part though usually came in the afternoon when it was too hot to be in the sunny front window.  I would head up the side street to Pioneer Park.  Up the street where my Granny was born.  Up the street where my grandparents met, where my Uncle lived in his museum house wheelchair bound and prone to throwing things if you got in his way.  Sometimes I would stop and play on  the playground equipment. Usually I would head for the muddy bank and slide down to the creek.  There is a culvert bridge that was the perfect place to search for polywogs, extra exciting when they were just getting their legs.  I spent hours there in the dappled shade dreaming of places, making stories with polywogs and fish. I built tiny villages with sticks and leaves and peculiar sticky insect webs. After a big rain the water would crash over the bridge and make it hard to cross on the slippery rocks, landing on my butt was not an unusual situation. The creek  was my haven and I was almost always alone. Any secrets I told the creek stayed there, the frogs never betrayed my confidences. From the middle of the bridge you can situate your self in such a way as to not see anything but woods and creek.  The sound of the water obscured the sounds of town.  I was someone else there.  Someone who had plans and roots. 

 Our recent trip to California afforded a few hours to drive up to Calistoga and visit the creek.  There is a real path with steps down now, there are still tiny fish and sticks and places for dreaming.  The creek still obscures the sounds of the town.  We spent some time there playing Pooh sticks, watching the water and the dragonflies.  We were visited by a rare green heron.  Playing in the creek, telling stories, taking pictures and just visiting was a big deal.  I was afraid to go back.  Afraid my memories would give me away and take me back.  Afraid all the things I held close would tumble out in a big mess.  They did tumble out.  But in a strange way, it wasn't a mess.  It was changed but still the same.  S peered into the same creek, leaves still fell into the water and sailed away to parts unknown.  And I silently let go.  It's making me cry now but I didn't cry then.  I didn't even realize until we were gone how much baggage I let the creek take away.  It was the most important place for me to visit on this trip, I had not been back for more than three decades and things for me are very different now than they were then.   It's beautiful I hope I will get to see it again.

                                                        Nothin but creek.  No town here.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money.

 image credit.  Shepard Fairy.



This is what I think will make us safer.  Not more locks, not more guns, more connections.  Schools need to be places of real community, with parents, community members, teaching artists, administrators, and visitors coming and going all day.  Conducting business, teaching, visiting, assisting in classrooms, hanging art work, tending plants.  We need more eyes in the buildings, not less, not more locks, not more restrictions, more connections.  More adults to catch the off kilter kid, the kid who needs a friend, or a role model, or a meal.  More chances for one on one mentor ship, formal and informal.  No one falls through the cracks, no one feels like there is nothing to lose.  Thinner lines between us and them. Better safety nets, not better locks. What if there were enough counselors, nurses, and professionals to notice a kid who needs help, a family struggling with violence, or drugs, or shame.  What is there were enough people to reach out before the crisis hits?  To stop antisocial behaviour before it escalates to violence.  What if angry, scared, young, men had trusted adults to turn to?  I think it would make a difference.  Early intervention works for academic success, why wouldn't it work to help disenfranchised folks before they resort to guns.

I firmly believe that we need better gun laws.  More oversight, less political influence, fewer loop holes, and fewer guns.  I grew up with guns, I know what it is like to live with them.  Yes, in my perfect world people would not need to make a fetish of their guns. Common sense and self regulation would tell people they do not need to be able to buy an assault rifle to exercise their basic freedoms.  People would put the safety of the their families and their neighbors above their own desire to own one more high powered gun.  If they were more connected to their communities, if they were the ones walking the halls at school, helping, mentoring, being present in the lives of their community.  Maybe then they would need fewer guns, less machismo, less fear,  more connections.

I think we have broken a lot of people in our communities.  We have retreated to our silos with our opinions and our like minded friends.  We have ignored the hurt, lost, sorrowed, people in our towns and cities.  We need more connections with each other. Not more locks, not more guns.

Our leaders have been bought and sold.  They will not fix this.  They are as disconnected from their constituents as the shooters are from their communities. They do not care.  Their silos are funded by a corrupt and manipulative lobby of gun violence.  This is not my father's NRA.  Don't be fooled.  They are not about gun rights, or the Second Amendment, or the lives of your children. They are about money and influence.  There will be no change from the top.

The best we can do is make sure that no one is left behind, that no one feels desperate and hurt enough to buy a gun and use it on a crowd of unsuspecting people.  WE can make connections.  WE can sit with the weird kid at lunch.  WE can listen carefully when someone seems to be off the rails.  WE can intervene.  WE can change the narrative.  WE can.  Waiting for rescue is hopeless, the government of this country is not interested in cutting off their money pipe.  WE the People can.

The Lucy Prophesy

The veil is thinning.  Well, it's always pretty thin around here but in the past few days and in the coming days our beloved dead are closer than ever. I don't usually receive direct messages but I do feel the unease, the thinness, the liminal time.  Sometimes it is disconcerting, but mostly is feels comfortable and welcoming. 

Last year when Ringo died, a heart appeared in our stone fireplace.  When I looked up from his dying breath there it was.  Right in front of me, plain as day and impossible to miss.  I don't know that I believe that the stones rearranged themselves in the moment of his transition, but I do know it was suddenly and clearly present. I have been looking at those rocks for a decade and had never seen it.  At the time it felt like a gift, a small tangible part of Ringo that would stay here in the house where he died. Looking at that wall now, it is obvious.  It cannot be unseen.  Ringo died in April, another liminal time of year when Winter is giving way at last to Spring.

This last May we brought Lucy home.  When we met her I knew I liked her (well, really, I like every dog), I knew she was a good dog.  I did not know how well she would fit into her family and close that hole that Ringo left.  She really is the most good dog for us.   Just a few days ago I was taking off her harness and I saw that she has a heart on her side.  She is a dog who wears her heart on her sleeve, she's all in, all the time.  I know that hearts are an organic shape, I know her fur did not realign itself to match Ringo's heart  in the wall.  Still it feels like a message a sending from the other side of the veil.  I'm ok. Your ok.  This dog was meant for you.

That time I wasn't assaulted.

The  #metoo tag on Facebook and other places has gotten into my head a little bit and stirred up all kinds of things that I would rather not think about.  Mostly it has me filing various events into messy piles. Was this one harrassment?  hm...yes? no?  Is there a maybe pile?  What about this, well he actually touched me so yes,   I was scared so yes, I was coerced so yes, locked in yes, said no, yes. Over and over again.  Maybe this one doesn't rise to the level of actual assault.  Well, I was on the beach alone after dark, I had probably been drinking... still yes?  What was I wearing?  I knew he was drunk and had been violent before why didn't I leave?  Yes, that one in the yes pile. These over here are maybes.  Maybe I was too provocative, maybe I was dressed badly, how  many bad decisions did I make ?  Maybe.  What about when I was too young to know better? Really naive.  Yes, those are yesses. On and On.  My grown up, socially concious, feminist self knows better.  Nothing I did, or said, or wore, or didn't wear caused these incidents.  They were not my fault.  But the other parts of me who live in my head still have doubts.  The scariest thing though is the ammount of incidents that I don't even clearly recall because there are so many I just blew them off, every off colour joke, every comment about my bra size, every single time I laughed it off just to get it to end.  I am not even counting all of those times. 

One time that really stands out is the time it didn't happen.  Thanks to intervention of two strangers.  One night in the late 1980's I was walking from a friends house on Bellevue to my own place on the far side of Capitol Hill in Seattle. It was a busy urban neighborhood, generally safe for women alone.  It was really late and warm.  I was walking up the hill past bars full of people and lit storefronts.  Not walking terribly fast, it was a really nice night.  Quite suddenly two men burst out of the dark behind me.  Greeting me like I was a long lost friend, hugs, lots of chipper dialogue.  I was confused but not really scared.  They were clearly a couple and clearly out enjoying the night air too.  One of them leaned in to hug me and said, " That man has been following you for blocks".  I didn't turn to look.  The other man said something about walking with me and they did.  For several more blocks.  Eventually the man turned off in an alley.  I only ever saw his back.   When we hit the taxi stand outside a popular bar the men who walked with me hung out while I got into a cab and they waved me away home.  I don't think I ever even asked their names.  I was pretty shaken that my normal raydar had missed the man following me, that I had been dumb enough to be lulled by the happy bar noise and warm night air.   There is no doubt in my mind that those strangers stopped something terrible from happening to me, I am very thankful that they noticed and acted. 

I'm hanging onto that one tonight.  The helpers, the good people.  They are out there too.

Calistoga

My parents, leaving their wedding reception at Mt. Home Ranch.  It burned to the ground yesterday.

My parents started their marriage in debt.  They were married in May of 1964, in a ceremony in the church where my mother had been baptized 19 years earlier.  They set up their first home on a quiet street in a duplex.  A first for my Mom, sharing a wall was weird. They also bought/franchised the local Shell gas station on the corner of Lincoln Ave. and Foothill Blvd. The road out of town, south towards St. Helena and Napa.  They were inexperienced business people, but hard workers and well known in the community.  Four months after they married the Hanley fire threatened Calistoga, the town was evacuated.  There was a never ending line of people at the gas pumps. My parents did the best they could eventually just opening the pumps to who ever needed gas without charge.  When the tanks were empty they evacuated, following my grandparents and Uncle to Napa. In the 1964 fire much of Calistoga was spared, there were many lost homes and ranches but the center of town survived. When they returned to town some people came forward to pay for gas that they had used in the evacuation, but not everyone.  My parents were left with a crippling debt and very bad credit. The debt and the credit followed them for the rest of their marriage.  They gave up the gas station and my Dad went back into the U.S Navy, going immediately to Vietnam. My Mom raised me and worked at the family restaurant. She paid on that debt until it was finally discharged with my fathers death in 1982. She never had a gas station credit card, never bought gas at  a Shell station and cursed the old station on Foothill Blvd every time we drove by.  Their home, my grandparents home, the family ranch, Creamery and Restaurant all survived the 1964 Calistoga fire.


Calistoga is in my blood.  My mother's family lived there for generations, running a successful family restaurant and famous local ice cream counter for decades.  Tourists came all the way from San Francisco for the chowder and ice cream.  The building itself is on the National Register of Historic Places. My great grandparents were civic leaders. My great grandfather was, for a time, the county sheriff. My Granny was born there, met my grandfather there, raised her family there. Ran the restaurant, "Reeders" until she  just couldn't do it.  They were local socialites.  My mother was baptized and married in the same church, by the same priest. I spent many summer there, mostly playing in the creek in Pioneer Park, or wandering the shops on Lincoln ave spending my allowance, while my Mom waited tables at Reeders.  Reeders employed the local kids and the local characters.  They were all my friends.  It was my place.  It is still one of the places that feels like home to me.  Even though I have not been back in years, and my family is all gone from there, it is still a special pace in my heart.  I could walk the streets and point out the house my Granny was born in.  The fancy mansion where my Grandfather was the families "ward" Not quite family, not quite servant. The tiny duplex where my parents started their marriage.  Even after my Grandparents  had moved up the road to St. Helena before I was born,  they still worked and socialized in Calistoga.  It was still their place.

The fires this week in Napa and Sonoma counties have really thrown me for a loop. Calistoga evacuated again this morning.  It has been years since I have been the the Valley at all.  It's not my place anymore.  But I feel a visceral fear that those places that I count on in my head as home are disappearing.   Specifically the thought of the little green house with the gingerbread trim, where my Granny was born,  burning to the ground scares me in a way that is unfamiliar. It is like one more strand that keeps me connected to the people that are gone is in danger of being snapped.  Like I might become unmoored.  Lost.   It's not true of course.  All of this lives in my brain and my heart and sometimes here on this blog.  But the feeling is real.  I don't really have a home to go back to, so any semblance of one is cherished.  Real people that I know are losing their homes and businesses and communities right now.  It is selfish of me to wrap myself up in this.

Like so many people I am kind of numb to the series of natural disasters, mass shootings, tire fires and general bad news.  Somehow this one punched through.  I'd like to think that in part it is a cosmic push from my ancestors to get my head out of the sand and do something.  Help someone.  Make a difference.  Get out of my head.  I am trying.  And I am praying for Calistoga.