Repairing the Broken

 “The world breaks everyone, then some become strong in the broken places.”

                                                                           —Ernest Hemmingway

In the Japanese pottery world there is an old tradition, Kintsugi (golden joinery), of repairing a broken pot with gold. The pot might have been a prized tea ceremony bowl, revered with the eye and treasured with the hand. Instead of tossing the pot broken by some mishap into the rubbish pile, the pieces would be fitted back together and held by lacquer mixed with gold powder. Kintsugi became an art form. A newly repaired bowl with threads of gold has more appeal than the unbroken one.

Teabowl, Yamamoto Gempo (1866-1961) photo courtesy of Backmann Eckenstein Newsletter

Kintsugi is connected to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Wabi might translate as loneliness or solitariness —the sight of a lone crow on a crooked branch or a plum blossom peeking through light snow. Sabi refers to objects that exude the well-worn, rustic patina of age.  Wabi-sabi informs the aesthetics of the traditional Japanese arts. An object doesn’t need to be discarded because it is worn and old. On the contrary, we treasure it even more.

I lived in Japan in my early twenties, and I consider wabi-sabi to be a strong influence on my own aesthetics. I love using old tools, worn objects, and wood in my art. Wood, its knots, rings, and branch collars, carries the history of the life of the tree. Similarly, pottery carries its past; the clay was created in the earth hundreds of years ago. We have an intuitive attraction to that which is old and from the earth. We trust its wisdom. Without knowing about Kintsugi, when I made my first large-scale outdoor sculpture using tree logs from a hundred-year-old maple that fell in a winter storm, I gold leafed its sawn surfaces to highlight its beauty and give it new life.

The repairs of Kintsugi draw our attention to the impermanence of life. In fact, it is emphasized and celebrated. The repairs to the bowl add to its beauty. How is it that our culture wants to deny this reality? From blemish-free apples to wrinkle-free faces to the ideal relationship, we are directed to strive for perfection as if it was attainable and permanent.

In the third stanza of Jane Hirshfield’s poem, For What Binds Us, she writes:

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

I can recall as a child sitting with friends as we showed off our scars and shared our battle stories.

I have a tea mug I use every day. It’s one that my son, Alex, a potter and the founder of East Fork Pottery, made over ten years ago when he was a freshman at Guilford College. It’s the only piece of pottery that still exists from that time. At home, we keep all of our mugs on two open shelves in the kitchen. When my beloved Alex mug is on the shelf and a houseguest decides to choose a cup, they infallibly choose this one. There is little about it that would make you prefer it from among the two shelves of mugs. Yet there must be something that communicates, whether it is our intuitive attraction to the patina of age or the subtle power of something treasured. No one seems to be concerned with the hairline crack down the inside of it. I care for this mug tenderly.

Mug, Alex Matisse, fourth from right on bottom shelf  

Eventually, my Alex mug will likely break. I will need to learn how to make a Kintsugi repair in preparation for that day. 

The gold we need for each repair is available in many forms — a hot bowl of soup, a knitted scarf, a poem, acts of courage, love and compassion — we can see them all as gold threads we offer to heal this earth and each other.

Milkweed in the Orchard

Milkweed under an Apple Tree

In the last few years, milkweed has spread exponentially throughout the orchard. We don’t mow it down, but we don’t plant it either. It is as if the earth herself has decided that we need more of it; that nature wants to help the monarch butterflies who depend on this plant for their survival. Every summer, monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed. The emerging black-, white-, and yellow-striped caterpillars begin eating around the edges of the leaves, and even absorb a substance from their host that provides a defense against predators.

But where are the monarchs? Their numbers have been decreasing steadily for the last twenty years. In fact, the Endangered Species Coalition reports that North American monarchs have declined by ninety percent since the mid 90’s. During the first few years of tending the orchard, I would see monarchs daily when the milkweed was in bloom. This year I have yet to see one.

One reason for their decline is the loss of milkweed habitat. Much of this acreage is now planted with corn and soybeans, and the fields are sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup. (In 1995, 10 million pounds of Roundup was used on corn and soybeans, and, by 2013, the total pounds rose to 204 million.) Roundup destroys all weeds – including milkweed! I’ve known about the horrors of Roundup, but I didn’t realize that genetically modified corn seed, like Bt corn, produces pollen that kills monarch caterpillars and other insects. I am familiar with Bacillus thuringiensis, Bt, a bacteria-based organic pesticide that is approved for use in organic production. An organic grower uses it sparingly and for target pests. But in the case of Bt corn, the plant itself sends out this pesticide to all insects, pollinators as well as pests such as the corn borer.

When the first findings came out that Bt corn was killing off the monarchs, the agricultural giants who control the fate of millions of acres of farmland (as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture) denied them. If you want to read further, Orion Magazine published a great article aptly titled, The Canary in the Cornfield.

In recent years, monarch butterfly decline also correlates with unprecedented fluctuations of temperatures caused by global warming. For example, in 2013, a cold period in May delayed the Monarch departure from their wintering grounds, so they arrived late and didn’t breed as well. Their numbers upon their return the following winter were the lowest ever. In early March this year, a sleet storm with high winds at their wintering ground in Mexico felled trees and buried large numbers of monarchs under sheets of ice. 

It’s good we have milkweed growing throughout our orchard, and it is wonderful to read about all of the projects to encourage the survival of the monarch, like the Fresh Pond Monarch Watch in Cambridge, MA, who are planting milkweed, pulling out the invasive black swallow-wort vines, and breeding and releasing caterpillars. However, it will ultimately be the millions of acres in the Midwest that will make the most difference in monarch numbers.

Milkweed belongs to the Asclepiadaceae family, derived from Asclepius, the Greek god (actually demi-god because his father was Apollo but his mother was mortal) of medicine and healing. Athena gave Asclepius the gift to save mortals and even bring them back from the dead. Zeus was jealous when he saw his foes coming back from Hades and supposedly killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt. No one knows for sure since Asclepius became a living god. In ancient Greece there were 320 Asclepions, healing sanctuaries, actually the first hospitals in the world. Last year a 2,400-year-old temple dedicated to him was excavated. I hope he continues to use his healing powers through the proliferation of milkweed and helps to insure the survival of the Monarch butterfly.

Asclepius and his daughter Hygieia, goddess of health.

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The Olympic Bell (Part One)

This year for our tenth annual outdoor Sculpture Walk, we are excited to welcome the installation of a new sculpture, the Olympic Bell by Paul Matisse. First installed in Athens, Greece, in 2004 at the Summer Olympic Games, the bell then came home to Groton, Massachusetts, and has since been quietly awaiting its next home.

A few pulls on the heavy rope provides the momentum to lift the hammer and strike the bell, producing a deep, harmonious tone that can be heard for several minutes. My beloved partner, Blase, is doing the work of digging and preparing the ground for pouring the concrete foundation. We are all clearing the forested area of branches and fallen trees to let the stalwart white pines come forward with their presence creating, not the Parthenon, but nature’s own temple.

Paul Matisse is my former husband and the father of our three children. When we separated, I moved to the farm and created a new life here. We rarely saw each other, only speaking briefly on the phone when it involved the children. But over the years I think we both felt that our relationship continued, albeit in another form. The arrival of the bell feels like a reunion of the creativity and beauty that we both believe in and shared during our married time together. I look forward to its first rings echoing out over the pond.  

I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey.

 One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save. 

This bell for me echoes the powerful directive in this journey. How challenging it can be to make a decision to change one’s life. How painful for those connected to you. But when we feel we need to act and we do, we create karma from this action. But the karma is also influenced by how we do it and what intention we hold afterwards. Equally, I believe, what came before also influences the future.

Paul and I shared an apple when we first met in Japan. We were on a long bus ride through the Wakayama Prefecture south of Kyoto when I brought out an apple to eat. Paul asked for it, took out his pocketknife, and cut it into two sections. But the two pieces were not halves like you would imagine; they formed an interlocking puzzle with the halves fitting mysteriously back together, seeds intact, stem still attached, a mysterious marvel. I took the section with the stem and perhaps emboldened by his creativity, I ate my entire half of the apple, seeds and all, then held up the stem. Paul took it from me. 

Paul still has that stem in a tiny jar. He also has many sculptures in cloth I made for him over the twenty years we were together. And we share the continuing lives of our three children. Now, the Olympic Bell will share its deep sonorous prayers with visitors to the farm and stand as a symbol that love takes many forms.

Fructus

I am sitting with a bowl of cherries beside me and am reminded of the little-known painter, Giovanna Garzoni (1600 -1670). Garzoni spent most of her life in Rome painting vibrant still life paintings which were collected by her many patrons who appreciated her earthy sensuality and botanical realism. The fruits she painted are not idealized specimens, but real fruit, perhaps picked from trees nearby, with blemishes and crinkled leaves, even an occasional insect hovering. Her choice of watercolor and tempera rather than oils gives spontaneity to her paintings.

Bowl of Cherries, Giovanna Garzoni

Garzoni clearly loved to paint fruit. In common usage, the word fruit refers to the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or plant that contains seeds and is eaten as food. An apple, as well as mango or pear all fit this description. The botanical explanation is a little more specific — any part of a seed-bearing plant that contains the fertilized seeds that will produce a new plant. But I like the definition of fruit that comes from the derivation of the word — from Middle English, via Old French, from the Latin fructus meaning enjoyment.  

Giovanna Garzoni was also known as the chaste Giovanna. Though she married briefly, her marriage was annulled (you couldn’t divorce back then) because it had never been consummated. Her male biographer wrote that she took a vow of chastity; also, that her father thought her husband was practicing witchcraft and urged her to divorce him.

These explanations seem a little confusing. It’s men, after all, who have written her biography. She was one of the few women in the 17th century who received an education and was financially independent. She worked in Venice, Florence, Turin, Naples, and finally settled in Rome. She traveled to Paris and London. Apparently her paintings were in so much demand that she could charge whatever she wanted. 

From my perspective, because of her dedication to her art, she knew that she needed to create a life where she could be free. Had she had children, she would not have been able to work full-time as a painter, traveling from city to city, often staying for weeks or months with patrons.  

Who can determine whether someone is chaste or not and what exactly does this mean? Who knows, maybe the chaste Giovanna was concocted so she could annul that marriage. Maybe she had women lovers — and they didn't count in those days. How do we know that she didn’t have secret trysts? After all, her subjects were rarely allegorical or religious, heady stuff, but fruit and nature, the tactile tangible world.  And remember, the derivation of fructus is enjoyment!

Her rapturous paintings certainly suggest that she experienced intimate connection with the 'other', with the world, and knew love and desire, betrayal and beauty. Unlike Cezanne’s art, her work did not influence the direction of modern art, but I think of her life and art as an inspiration, especially to other women artists.

Looking at Garzoni’s paintings reminded me of a friend, Cita Scott, I hadn’t been in contact with for 15 years, also a woman painter of exuberant still lifes. She responded immediately to my email saying, “I have always loved this fig painting — without paying any attention to who painted it. In fact, I still have some postcards of it in my desk.”  

Plums and Fig Leaves, Giovanna Garzoni

My email prompted her to look through more of Garzoni’s work.  She described scrolling through her paintings as a decadent indulgence  .  .  .

Her pears are frequently ripe to spoiling, their curvilinear shapes, abstractions; her peas become beauty queens; her hazelnuts are visited and revisited, frocked and defrocked…her asparagus kick their pink heels sideways in a cancan at the Folies Bergère, with carnations in their hair… these are dreams and fantasies... delightful, highly personalized poems and messages, which leave me wondering about Giovanna herself. remarkable!  (what do you think she was like? what drove her?…)

Stillscape, Cita Scott

Cita’s Scott’s still life paintings of flowers and fruit make me think that they are revelers at a wild bacchanalia. In the painting above the apples tantalizingly touch each other, the pepper desires the eggplant, and the grapes are about to burst with juice. (You can see more of her work at citascott.com.) I don’t’ know if Scott would agree that Garzoni influenced her painting, but I certainly see a connection. And I am grateful that Garzoni’s art helped to reconnect us.

When you next pick up an apple or cherry or grape, take a good look at it, it’s color, shape, substance, light — and, be a painter for a moment, appreciate its ecstatic presence. Then enjoy.