hurtling back and forth

someone should wash the windows in this studio....but this is kind of beautiful

Having one of those moments, weeks rather.

It's not that things are not working, they are working splendidly. Perhaps it is that there are just so many things.  Working. Splendidly.  I'm re-reading a small text that sits in my study and begs me to pick it up and engage with it over and over again.  On Beauty and Being Just  by Elaine Scarry is a debate - a mix of personal and philosophical insight that is at once engagingly poetic and perplexing.

This is a text that one picks up and dwells on again and again.  I don't really want to review or reflect on it here -  at this moment it's serving as a jumping off point for this current state of mind.

Scarry writes, "...beautiful things have a forward momentum, the way they incite the desire to bring new things into the world: infants, drawings, dances, laws, philosophic dialogues, theological tracts.  But we soon find ourselves also turning backward, for the beautiful faces and songs that lift us forward onto new ground keep calling out to us as well, inciting us to rediscover and recover them in whatever new thing gets made....hurtling us forward and back, requiring us to break new ground, but obliging us also to bridge back not only to the ground we just left but to still earlier, even ancient ground...."

Hurtling originates in the 13c from hurtlen, or hurten - to strike.  Think of moving or being caused to move at a massive speed, wildly, uncontrolled.  My studio and my study are not large - but they are packed with images, books, materials and projects that make me feel that I am ping-ponging back and forth with the beauty of them, the necessity (self-inflicted) of addressing each of them, and the new directions they propel me towards.

This is not a bad thing.  Just a tad overwhelming.

the end of the book.... (again)

More from This is not the end of the book; by Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere.  I am still thinking about it and re-reading parts of it.  Background:  It was recently translated from the French and I picked it up when I was in London - in the bookshop at the British Library. (Oh - such a place!) The book is full of the enthusiasm of these two great thinkers...for all things - but especially all things bookish. Yes they can sound "pontificatey"  but I think they've earned it.

This idea of "the end of the book" has been going on for a few decades now.  My MFA thesis exhibit was (coughs) in 1987 and titled "Books in Space."  It was my reflecting on the "new" idea that books were disappearing, as well as how we navigate "different kinds" of space (ex. family space, academic space, community space).  I was beginning to explore calling into question (among other things) the nature of just what it was that constituted a book, or reading for that matter...as well as what was happening to books.  The idea of "books in space" came from the initial thinking and research - my outreach to astronauts - asking them what books they would take into space.  The only one who answered me was Sally Ride, who said she would take "The Tao of Pooh."

“But what is a book? And what will change if we read onscreen rather than by turning the pages of a physical object? What will we gain, and more importantly, what will we lose? Old-fashioned habits, perhaps. A certain sense of the sacred that has surrounded the book in a civilisation that has made it our holy of holies. A peculiar intimacy between the author and reader, which the context of hypertextuality is bound to damage. A sense of existing in a self-contained world that the book and, along with it, certain ways of reading used to represent.” ― Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, This Is Not the End of the Book

Anyone involved in book arts - making, teaching or critiquing - is very aware what is meant by "reading."  And it has little to do with words on a page.  It goes back to that question I was thinking about in 1987 - how DO we navigate different kinds of space?  How do we read form, materiality, the way text is place on a page?  It is so much more than content - it is more akin to what Barthes wrote about in The Pleasure of the Text;

Thus what I enjoy in a narrative is not directly its content or even its structure, but rather the abrasions I impose upon the fine surface:  I read on, I skip, I look up, I dip in again. Which has nothing to do with the deep laceration the text of bliss inflicts upon language itself, and not upon the simple simple temporality of its reading. 

When someone hands me an artists' book for the first time - it is like beginning a journey.  The way it is built - the way it smells and the sound of the pages when I turn them.  Are there surprises?  I love surprises.  I feel this way about reading any new book -- always have.  Ahhh I'm starting to ramble now -- next post will try for more clarity.

Read this rock - Black River Harbor, Lake Superior

On Gratitude and Sabbaticals

Picture it.  This morning driving to the library - a regular occurrence if uninterrupted internet is needed - I was looking up at the sky at an eagle soaring overhead and nearly smushed a wild turkey meandering across the road.  This image, my friends, is a profound life truth -although I am at a loss yet to put it into language.

But it seems an apt story for the first "official" day of my sabbatical year - even though I have been enjoying the concept since May.

Sabbatical or a sabbatical (from Latin sabbaticus, from Greek sabbatikos, from Hebrew shabbat, i.e., Sabbath, literally a "ceasing") is a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from two months to a year. The concept of sabbatical has a source in shmita, described several places in the Bible Leviticus 25 for example, where there is a commandment to desist from working the fields in the seventh year. In the strict sense, therefore, a sabbatical lasts a year.  (Wikipedia)

The idea of rest - other than a rest from the grinding down that a 15 week semester entails - is not really the focus of my sabbatical.  Nor should it be.  The idea is the bliss of uninterrupted work.

Paul Cronin begins his book, Werner Herzog:  A Guide for the Perplexed (conversations with Paul Cronin) with a quote from William Faulkner:

"An artist is a creature driven by demons.  He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why."

The process Herzog describes is a familiar one, in terms of often being assaulted by ideas.

The problem isn’t coming up with ideas, it is how to contain the invasion. My ideas are like uninvited guests. They don’t knock on the door; they climb in through the windows like burglars who show up in the middle of the night and make a racket in the kitchen as they raid the fridge. 

I don’t sit and ponder which one I should deal with first. The one to be wrestled to the floor before all others is the one coming at me with the most vehemence. I have, over the years, developed methods to deal with the invaders as quickly and efficiently as possible, though the burglars never stop coming. You invite a handful of friends for dinner, but the door bursts open and a hundred people are pushing in. You might manage to get rid of them, but from around the corner another fifty appear almost immediately... Finishing a film is like having a great weight lifted from my shoulders. It’s relief, not necessarily happiness. But you relish dealing with these “burglars.” I am glad to be rid of them after making a film or writing a book. The ideas are uninvited guests, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t welcome. 

It seems to me that I often use teaching as a way to push my ideas "out the door."  This is not always the best thing to do - and I have plenty of colleagues who manage to maintain their studio practice AND teach.  But that has always been difficult for me.  I love teaching - and students are always the most interesting people - I also love the institution I teach at, MIAD. This is my 20th year there.  (I guess I'm staying.)  So for me, a sabbatical year is a way to let all of those "uninvited guests" in from the journals and books and sketches they have been inhabiting, and deal with them.

At the present I'm sequestered on the edge of the Hiawatha National Forest very near to Les Cheneaux Islands.  Surrounded by fields of Queen Anne's Lace and fir trees I am working and working and reading and thinking and working.  It is incredibly wonderful.

              

Teachers

I recently completed MOOC on Coursera  through Duke University that was spearheaded by Cathy Davidson called "The Future of (Mostly) Higher Education."  Reflecting back on the experience  - I am conflicted about MOOC's as a learning platform - like everything else they have pros and cons.  They are messy and often difficult to wade through - especially if you have a few thousand course-mates from all walks of life, education backgrounds and different skill sets with the language the course is being given in.  This is also what makes them incredibly interesting!!

The future of higher ed is wide open  - technology offering new ways of establishing connections and delivering information.  Although face to face learning and guiding students through feedback may still be in many minds (including mine) the most effective way of delivering educational content - it may very well be a luxury in the future for some.  As we continue to defund public education and the cost of obtaining a private education continue to rise - it is difficult to see clearly where this leads us - but it does not seem to bode well.

I recommend HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, Technology and Collaboratory) to anyone
who is interested in these topics.  Educator, parent or citizen - there are a myriad of things there to ponder and be informed about.  This is THE place (in my opinion) where the dialogue is taking place about learning and technology - where ideas are being shared and debated.  If you are an educator, this is not the time (as you likely know by now unless you have been teaching under a rock) to run from re-tooling your skill set and deciding which of the new technologies work best for you and your students.  There are so many options -- and they change and morph so quickly -- that it is great to have a place to turn to to educate yourself about them and discuss their use with others.

The Wordle visualization at the top of this post was created with the first 15 hours of answers to "Who's Your Favorite Teacher and Why" which was one of the forum prompts for the aforementioned course.  There were HUNDREDS of responses, and comments on those responses  -- and comments on those comments. They were written and spoken.  The responses were thoughtful and for the most part heartfelt.  Encouragement, compassion, ability to maintain interest, facilitating learning, challenging, guiding, fairness were words used over and over again.  Certainly as I thought of my own response - those were the things that I thought of.

It has been a great gift throughout my life to have known and studied with many exceptional teachers - both formally and informally.  Still, I knew immediately who I would write about when I read the question.  Barbara Cervenka was my first art teacher in high school.  So much of the foundation of how I think, my studio practice and my outlook on the world have been shaped by knowing and working with her. Not only is she an exceptional artist.  She is an exceptional human being.  Below is an image from her series of galaxy paintings.  She writes;

"[these paintings..] are based on photographs brought by the Hubble Space Telescope.  We are the first generation to see these images, to be able to look back so far in time and space.  The universe revealed to us is beautiful - light storms exploding billions of years ago, millions of galaxies, the birth of stars.  These star maps show us nearly unbelievable depths of time and space, yet they coexist with the minute daily miracles of earth - the opening of flowers, the symmetry of plants, the perfect geometry of skeleton and shell, the fragile monuments hand-built on earth.  In the dark mirrors of these paintings we too are reflected.  I painted these pieces as a meditation, a contemporary form of "illumination" and a celebration of the light that has come to us these days as a gift" 

                                                          Starfield 11-Omega Centauri -2011 / watercolor on arches 24 x 36"

Most recently she has mounted a nationally touring exhibit, Bandits and Heroes / Poets and Saints, through her work with an organization that she founded with her friend and colleague, Mame Jackson:  ConVida.  The exhibit began in Detroit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and is currently in Chicago at the DuSable Museum of African American History until August 17 of this year.  If you are in the Chicago area --- you should take a look.

ALTERED BOOKS: ONE HIT WONDERS?

New book in the mail today, ART MADE FROM BOOKS, with a preface by Brian Dettmer and an introduction by Alyson Kuhn.  I haven't really had time to look at it thoroughly, but it reminds me of a question that I have debated with Max Yela on occasion.  Are altered books one hit wonders?  Or are they - as the title of this book seems to imply,  not really book art, but rather art made from books.  It is a fine distinction and perhaps not one that many people would care about.  But for Max, who (thankfully) grows and maintains a large collection of book art and for me - who teaches and considers these questions (see what book artists think about?) it is an interesting idea and worth some consideration.

 Brian Dettmer

Do It Yourself

2009

Altered Set of handyman books

9" x 31-1/2" x 4-1/2"

In a Spring 2007 article in BONEFOLDER, Jen Thomas writes about the art of Melissa Jay Craig saying. "...she studied under Ray Martin and Joan Flasch, both of whom encouraged
Craig to explore the creative potential within the book form. Soon her pieces evolved from traditional book structures into stylized book objects. She took these book objects a step further and created an installation titled Library. Without a universally accepted critical definition of book arts, Craig was
free to let her ideas materialize without the limitations that painting had previously presented.
Though Craig felt free to experiment with the book form, not all those working within the field of book arts recognized her work as artist’s books. The critic Clive Philpot once derided Craig’s work during his lecture at an artists’ book event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Craig says, “I had some of my altered books there and he referred to them directly, saying, ‘These are NOT books. They are fetishistic objects.’ Knowing his particular bias, I felt honored to be included in his condemnation. I do make objects. Books are objects. What makes them fetishistic is their inherent resonance, the ability to communicate on a visceral, nonverbal level. So, like the issue of beauty, I can embrace that description; fetishistic objects carry an implicit communicative power. They can be read.”

Pulp Fiction, Melissa Jay Craig

Yes, they can be read.  But there is reading and then there is reading.

(....to be continued)

THIS IS NOT.....

.....the end of the book;

Picked this book up in London -  an english translation of a conversation between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere.  I am savoring each page of it because it is so rich with insight, with history and with the kind of reflection that only wisdom and experience can bring.

In the preface, French writer Jean Philippe De Tonnac writes about books and cathedrals - citing the work of Victor Hugo in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,

"The book will kill the building....When you compare [architecture] to the idea, which...needs only a sheet of paper, some ink and a pen, is it surprising that the human intellect should have deserted architecture for the printing press."

De Tonnac goes on to write:

"Well the great cathedrals - those bibles in stone - did not vanish, but the avalanche of manuscripts and then printed text that appeared at the end of the Middle Ages did render them less important.  As culture changed, architecture lost its emblematic role.  So it is with the book.  There is no need to suppose that the electronic book will replace the printed version.  Has film killed painting?  Television cinema?  However, there is no doubt that the book is in the throes of a technological revolution that is changing our relationship to is profoundly."

And so the stage is set for a wonderful conversation between these two men.  Some of the topics in this far reaching discussion deal with the impermanence of most new technology platforms compared to the printed page.  New technology changes and become obsolete at a faster and faster pace.  Unless one has the resources to keep all of them nearby - information can become inaccessible.

In my own lifetime I have seen phonographs and type-writers and brownie cameras be replaced by reel to reel tape, word-processors and sx70's.  Then computers, digital cameras and ipads.  The storage and playback of each of these permutations is also different.  Don't we all have floppy discs somewhere that we can no longer access?  Reels of super 8 film, hard drives, jump drives, cassette decks....the list goes on.

Interesting to me that it was panned by several reviewers.  I find it rewarding - and worth picking up and putting down over and over again.  More information about the book here.

Mossy Green

Deep in the Hiawatha National Forest there is the green of moss that covers the giant boulders or "magic rocks" as we sometimes call them.  It isn't the green of leaves or lichen or stems or any other green I can imagine.  It is the green of moss.

Although moss and lichens are both called non-vascular plants, only mosses are plants. Mosses are included in a group of non-vascular plants called bryophytes. Mosses are believed to be the ancestors of the plants we see today, like trees, flowers, and ferns. Lichens, on the other hand, are not similar in anyway to mosses or other members of the plant kingdom.   Although mosses are very primitive, they still have plant-like structures that look like and function like leaves, stems and roots. They have chloroplasts throughout their entire bodies and can photosynthesize from all sides of their structures. (via the US Forest Service)

Carpet of moss....bed of moss....mossy banks. It is the wonderful rich smell of the earth.  It is the GREEN that takes your breath away. 

Moss-Gathering, by Theodore Roethke

To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber
And lift up a patch, dark-green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,
Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat,
The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots,
And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top, --
That was moss-gathering.
But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets
Of green, or plunged to my elbows in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:
And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had commited, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.

Looking around on the internet I find all kinds of resources to help in this sudden rush of moss research.   Moss Plants and More  is an interesting blog being kept by JM Budke who writes; I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. My research focuses on moss plants.  This blog lists several other interesting sources including the IAB blog (International Association of Bryologists). The latest entry brings me right back to where I am - in the Upper Peninsula

June 18, 2013—

The International Association of Bryologists has awarded its Hattori Prize to Janice Glime, professor emerita of biological sciences at Michigan Technological University, for her online encyclopedia, “Bryophyte Ecology.”
The Hattori Prize recognizes the best paper or series of papers published by a member of the association within the previous two years.  Glime has completed two volumes on this group of diminutive plants that includes mosses, liverworts and hornworts:  “Physiological Ecology” and “Bryological Interaction.” A portion of the third (“Methods”) is available online, and she has at least two more volumes pending.
“Bryophyte Ecology” is read worldwide both as a text and reference. While scientifically rigorous, it is written in a conversational style. “I hope to make bryology more accessible to students who have no mentor in the field and to stimulate interest among ecologists, naturalists and educators,” Glime said. “A book such as this is dependent on scientists in many fields, all over the world.”

 And I also want to mention Moss Musings, just because it is such a kicky sounding name.  Written by certified moss freak Nancy W. Church, there hasn't been a post since last year (where are you Nancy??).  It does include an entry about moss myths though -

Moss Myths

I regret having to break it to those who are navigationally challenged, but moss does not grow only on the north side of a tree.  It is found there predominantly because that side is generally more shady (in the northern hemisphere, that is).

And, despite having names that include the word “moss,” plants such as Spanish Moss — an epiphyte, Reindeer Moss — a lichen, Club Moss — a lycophyte (seedless, vascular plant), Irish Moss — a perennial, and Sea Moss — an algae, are not mosses at all. Mildew, unlike moss, is parasitic and requires a host.

 Written on a cloudy afternoon at the St. Ignace Library.

I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. My research focuses on mosses. - See more at: http://mossplants.fieldofscience.com/#sthash.i7urvsH8.dpuf

I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. My research focuses on mosses. - See more at: http://mossplants.fieldofscience.com/#sthash.i7urvsH8.dpuf

Matthew Ward, Weeping, and St. Paul's Cathedral (not in any particular order).

One of the funniest people I know is my brother Matt.  Ever since we were kids he has made me laugh. We share a love of books (from our father) and a lot (but not all) ideas about the workings of the world.  Matt would be my go to guy in any kind of crisis.  I know he would be fair and have my back - even if he didn't agree with me.  He is a fantastic cook.  He is a great Dad.

He also weeps openly.  Just like me. Unabashedly.

People Who Openly 

Weep in Public 

Make Things Awkward 

For Everybody

Did you know that there is a FB page with that title?  (People who weep openly make things awkward for everybody).  Frankly I have never looked at it that way - sometimes it just feels good to cry.  If you are a weeper - you can weep for any reason.  You're happy.  You're sad.  You're overcome with emotions that you can't really identify.

Weep copiously
Weep loudly
Weep quietly
Weep silently
Weep openly
Weep unashamedly
Weep bitterly
Weep inconsolably
Weep uncontrollably
Almost weep
Weep a little
Begin to weep
Start to weep
Want to weep
Weep at
Weep for
Weep over
Weep with
Break down and weep
Weep and wail

At Queen Mary University of London you can find the Centre for the History of the Emotions. 
They bill themselves as "the first research centre in the UK  dedicated to the history of the emotions."  Who am I to argue?  The Director of the Centre, Thomas Dixon, writing in the online magazine aeon, talks about the history of tears and how they have been seen and through the lenses of time and culture.

From - Timothie Bright, the English clergyman and physician who "...in 1586 wrote an influential Treatise of Melancholie, whose many readers probably included Shakespeare, which described tears as a ‘kinde of excrement not much unlike’ urine."  YUCK.  Or consider Freud's take "...There are two ideas at the heart of the psychoanalytic approach to tears, ideas that, during the middle decades of the 20th century, entered into psychological orthodoxy among professionals and the lay public alike: repression and regression. The first implies that tears are a kind of overflow or discharge of previously repressed emotion, while the second presents the phenomenon of adult weeping as some sort of return to infantile, even prenatal, experiences and emotions."  REALLY?

This next one I find especially creepy and I have to quote it at length, sorry.

If Freud and Breuer understood weeping as essentially an excretory function, one in which tears could be associated symbolically with other bodily fluids, the psychoanalytic theorists who came after extended this framework in a multitude of weird and wonderful ways. In a couple of articles in the 1940s, the influential American Freudian Phyllis Greenacre put forward the view that neurotic weeping in women was to be understood as a displacement of urination. Involved in this theory was the idea of ‘body-phallus identification’ and the production of tears by women as an attempt to simulate male urination.

Greenacre subdivided the phenomenon into those women who exhibited ‘shower weeping’ and those who displayed ‘stream weeping’. The first type weeps inordinately, shedding floods of tears; the second allows a quiet stream to trickle down the cheek. Both types were explained with reference to a ‘struggle about urination in the infantile period of life’, including a strong element of penis envy. The difference between the psyches of these two kinds of women, roughly speaking, was that the ‘shower’ weeper was sadly resigned to her lack of a penis while the ‘stream’ weeper was still in revolt, harbouring illusional ideas of possessing a male organ and weeping in neurotic imitation of the longed-for male urination observed in childhood.

Weird and wonderful indeed.

If you would like to hear more from Dixon - he did an interesting program on BBC Radio3, called Margaret Are You Grieving.  It is worth a listen.  From the description:  In this programme he explores the history of weeping as an aesthetic response to works of art: paintings, writing, music, theatre and film.  What it is about works of art and religious symbols that induce weeping and why do we shed tears over performances by actors and singers, fictional characters, abstract symbols, poems, music, metaphysical ideas - in other words things that are not real?

Dixon quotes Rothko as saying that he was aware that his works caused people to weep when standing in front of them. Rothko said that he thought that people who wept in front of his paintings were having the same religious experience that he did when he painted them.  Others find them "self-indulgent."  This idea of the religious experience is of interest to me - as I am still thinking a lot about an experience I had in London a couple weeks back.

Black on Maroon (1958)

Black on Maroon (1959)

The Rothko's did stop me in my tracks.  I sat in front of them for what seemed like hours.  His work always has this effect on me.  Sacred texts.  Meditation mandalas of a sort. And you notice that people visibly slow down and become quieter when they enter the gallery where the paintings are hanging.  A gift.

When you leave the Tate Modern you cross the Millennium Bridge (a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Thames) leading you directly to St. Paul's Cathedral.   If you follow that link re: St Paul's,  you will be as

amazed (I think) as I was reading the first sentence:  "For more than one thousand four hundred years, a cathedral dedicated to St. Paul has stood at the highest point in the city.  That is a lot of history in one spot.

As I walked into the Cathedral, Evensong was about to begin.  This is a liturgy in the Anglican tradition. When it is not sung it is simply called Evening Prayer.   It is similar to Vespers in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches.  There are all sorts of other details such as the order of prayers, readings and chants that the choir sings.  They are pretty much determined by the liturgical calendar.

St. Paul's is HUGE.  if you are sitting in the back of the nave or in one of the transepts (the short central arms off the nave) - you can barely see the altar.  Even after you have walked the length of the nave and come to the east end - you still have to look down the length of the quire.  The quire is where the choir and clergy (or royalty) sit during services .  I got as close as I could to the quire and took a seat.

This particular evening the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge was singing. Beautiful. As they began taking their seats and preparing - a gentleman came out to where I was sitting as asked me if I would like to join the choir. Ummm, yes.  I think I would.

My images from the Quire

Sitting there listening - is overwhelming.  You are thinking:  the history, the space, the effect of all of it on you or on someone who lived 500 years ago.  If one is religious or not - you cannot help but think about the role of these great cathedrals on the development of civilization.  There is so much to see that for awhile you are just a bit stunned - trying to take it all in.  And then - it all becomes still - and it is very much like.....sitting in front of the Rothko paintings.  It becomes a way to connect to something bigger - some idea, some divine mystery that is represented in both of them...one in the most ornate of ways, one in the most pared down of ways.  And I wept openly... and thought how nice it would have been had Matt been there.

(Here is the Quire @ Westminster Abbey the day of the last Royal Wedding.  Very similar.  Imagine me sitting there - HA!)

secret gardens

“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get 

hold of it and make it do things for us” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 I've been thinking about 'secret gardens' as I have been following the progress of a drawing my niece Anna Rose has been working on.  I love that she posts images on fb so people can see.  The original book, The Secret Garden,  was published in serial form in 1910 - and then in it's entirety in 1911.  It is in the public domain and you can read it here, or listen to it here.  Maybe you saw the 1949 movie with Margaret O'Brien, which is on tv fairly regularly - I think there has also been a Hallmark version and an anime version.  It's a lovely story for children and I suppose for anyone.  The idea (or the fact) of a secret garden has an iconic pull on people.  A space to relax, a space where magic can happen, a space of safety - and of beauty.  I suppose in that states that is often how we see our backyards, and to some extent that is true - but the gardens I have seen here are mostly public.  Some are huge, some are tiny - and they reflect the people who use them, or the people who came before and left them for us to enjoy. Here that can be people who came WAY before us (like this one started by Catherine Medici in the 1600's where I have spent a couple of days this past week).

Two views of the Jardin des Tuileries.

I've seen secret gardens and public gardens all over....they have been here for awhile, many of them,  especially in the older parts of the city (like  in the 18th arrondissement where I am staying).

This one (right) was on the "Ladies Walk" along the River Ness (- yes, it goes to Loch Ness).   

I loved the door - locked - and the clematis along the top of the wall were so thick 

that you couldn't see through them.

These two are from the garden that was across the street from the Goodenough Club (part of Goodenough College) where I stayed in London.  You had to have a key to get into it - and inside there was a place for kids to play, benches and walkways.  The entire thing was pretty much hidden from the outside - except for being able to look through the gate (above).  The image below shows the walkway alongside the garden from my place to the street where the grocers and the cinema were.

_____________________________________

These three are from my neighborhood in Paris.  The top left is a tiny park that is off the square where the metro stop is.  The square is always bustling with people.  There is a carousel and a piano that someone is generally playing (very well).  But the garden is tucked away from the noise and people.  It is cool and quiet.  Top right is a door down the street.  I walk by it most days just to see if it is open because I want so much to see inside.  The lower center image is the little green space that I look down on from my living room window.  It is just a tiny part of the court yard - but I love that someone thought to put it there.  Everyone who lives around the courtyard has a window that looks out on it.

I remember looking closely at urban landscaping a few years ago with Nancy Aten - and learning so much about what the possibilities were for my own city of Milwaukee.  At the time she had us do an exercise where we walked down different parts of Wisconsin Avenue looking for "pocket parks" - little green spaces among the buildings (secret gardens of a sort).  There weren't many of them.  Many of those that did exist were corporately owned - and not necessarily open to the public unless you knew where to look.  There were plenty of little cement slabs "parks"....small places where a few cars could park for a hefty fee.

We think of Milwaukee as a city of parks and it is - especially if you are fortunate to live along Lake Michigan.  Too be fair there are wonderful parks throughout the city.  But again, my time in Europe has reminded me that our cities in the States are not friendly places for walking - for living a lifestyle where walking is encouraged and sustainable. Except for my time at the lighthouse, I haven't been anywhere that I couldn't find a wonderful meal, fresh groceries, a bakery, a good cup of coffee, a cocktail, a pharmacy - and a tiny green space to sit and think within a few blocks (or in most cases a few doors) from where I was staying.

Why you might not (or might) like to travel with me.

I can't keep a schedule.  I try.  I have a list.  But the smallest thing can distract me - for hours.  That can be before I even get out of my neighborhood.  And suddenly that place I was actually on my way too doesn't seem all that important.  I mean do I actually HAVE to see those paintings when this is happening NOW?

So today I happened across L'église de la Madeleine.  (Interesting history in retrospect.) Who can resist a building with a field of pink geraniums gracing its front?

Once inside it is apparent that something is going on and I sit down to watch.  The amazing sculptures behind the altar in the apse - are electric blue and smokey.  Lots of activity on the altar - and suddenly music.  I'm at a rehearsal for a concert that is probably taking place as I write this....

Not sure who these people were or what they were singing - Max or Virg - if you are reading this let me know, okay?  Totally familiar to me in some ways, having sung in a choir and been a part of rehearsals like this.  Look at the hands of the woman leading the choir - they are so elegant and beautiful, aren't they?  These spaces were made for music.   

I was reading something the other day... (will have to look for it - no clue where it was) talking about how the creation of the printed book had replaced cathedral as a place for people to connect to the Sacred.  It makes sense on one hand... but like so many other things, they do not get replaced as much as just go through the evolutionary process of turning into something else.  

The entire experience was a wonderful way to spend the late afternoon.

la Madeleine from Leslie Fedorchuk on Vimeo.

whooooosh travel.

Whoosh travel is when you are seeing too much in too short of a time and your brain shuts down a bit - at least in terms of writing.  The past few days that is my experience.  If this is Monday, it must be LONDON.  Yes - because I just heard the guy in the apartment across the way from me say "chin up" to console whoever it is he is talking to on the phone.

Brief snippet from Edinburgh - not the last of them for sure.  This women, and about 600 of her compatriots were part of an Orange walk on Saturday down High Street.  More about those here

I was surprised - having just seen the Sikhs walking in Toronto in April when I was there for the HASTAC Conference with Courtney.  Two "walks" by two VERY different groups - both featuring the color orange - although technically the Sikhs are sporting saffron.

The politics of the Orange walk are more overt - both by the "walkers" and the response from the people on the street (locals - not tourists).  They (some of the locals) tended to stay in their shops and mutter things like "it's a bad business" or "them lot are trouble - pure trouble."

My friend Dom had given me a little history the day before as he kindly drove me around the city. I've always thought of this as an "Irish problem."  So again - I find myself ignorant of history and wanting to learn more.

 

More info on the Sikhs in Toronto can be found here. Note the politics of the responses - that was pretty evident when we were there - particularly with one waitress who gave us the "lowdown." (Happy CANADA DAY today - to all and sundry - as Muriel would say).

Nice find:  Train station with a little bookstore, enroute from Inverness to Edinburgh.

 King Crossing Station - London.  More later.

GALE

So here is what wikipedia says about gales....

A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots (63–87 km/h, 17.5–24.2 m/s or39–54 miles/hour) of sustained surface winds.^[1] Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are expected.

Other sources use minima as low as 28 knots (52 km/h, 32 mph) and maxima as high as 90 knots (170 km/h, 100 mph). Through 1986, the National Hurricane Center used the term gale to refer to winds of tropical force for coastal areas, between 33 knots (61 km/h, 38 mph) and 63 knots (117 km/h, 72 mph). The 90-knot (170 km/h) definition is very non-standard. A common alternative definition of the maximum is 55 knots (102 km/h, 63 mph).^[2]

The most common way of measuring winds is with the Beaufort scale /ˈboʊfərt/,^[3] which defines gale as wind from 50 to 102 km/h. It is an empirical measure for describing wind speed based mainly on observed sea conditions. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.

On the Beaufort Wind Scale, a Gale is classified as: Moderate Gale(32–38 miles per hour), Fresh Gale(39-46 mph), Strong Gale(47-54 mph) and Whole Gale(55-63 mph). A Gale is a type of Wind Description preceded by Calm, Light Air, light Breeze, Gentle Breeze, Moderate Breeze, Fresh Breeze, Strong Breeze and succeeded by Storm,Violent Storm and Hurricane on a Beaufort Wind Scale. There is a unique Beaufort Scale number and a unique Arrow Indication for each type of Wind Description mentioned above.

I have no idea if this storm qualified as a gale or not....but it was amazing to be in it from this particular location and I am glad I was able to experience it.  These images were taken at the very beginning ... probably around 9:30 - 10 pm..  Before the wind had really picked up.  My room had a window which faced north - northwest - and all night the wind howled.  I don't think I really slept, and it was the only night I could see the shadow of the lighthouse light as it rotated past my room  (....the light was on every night - but we could never see it because it never got dark enough - but during this storm it did).

When I say the wind howled I mean it.  Kind of a shrill screeching howl that NEVER let up - not even for a second.  It was un-nerving and I found myself wondering at one point if we were safe or not...and where we go anyways...and how would we get there.  (re-look at the video of the road to the lighthouse....).  The next morning as everyone wandered down to breakfast I realized that I wasn't alone...it had kept pretty much everyone up.  The storm lasted about 24 hours...and then the sun came out and the sea was a brilliant blue again.