A Gothic Garden Tool

"Listen garden tool, don't make me introduce you to my power tool."

-- Eminem, "Won't Back Down"

Self portrait 5-12-14

I got the best gifts for Mother's Day.

I got a whole bag of my favorite dark roast Sumatra decaf, from Sam.

I got a whole pound of M&Ms, from Leo.

And I got a bad ass Gothic looking garden tool from my very thoughtful husband.

So about this garden tool ...

My grandfather had something like it. It's not quite a rake, not quite a hoe, but a long-handled, single clawed hook that is exactly perfect for maneuvering around and in between plants without disrupting everything else in its path.

It was the only thing on my one-item birthday list. And even my super-tenacious husband couldn't find one anywhere. Trust me, if it was out there, he'd have found it.

But he didn't give up.

"American Gothic," Grant Wood, 1930

He talked to a guy who knew a guy who happens to also be our plumber and who has a workshop full of all kinds of great stuff. This guy is pretty super-ingenious at making and fixing just about anything. And he happened to have an old 3-prong claw rake that he said probably belonged to his grandfather, which makes the thing more than 100 years old. The claws can be removed and re-configured with screw-down clamps, so he removed all but the single center claw, cleaned it up and delivered it to my husband's office just in time for Mother's Day.

(He also gave us the extra claws. What a sweetie pie!)

I plan to start using it today. My garden plants are sitting in flats, all ready to go. But first I have a few weeds to deal with, and I've got a bad ass hook to do it with, so those little fuckers better watch out.

As for the self portrait?

With all due respect to Grant Wood, I just couldn't resist.

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Paintbrush

"We become what we behold.

We shape our tools, and thereafter, our tools shape us."

-- Marshall McLuhan

Peacock (acrylic on board) 2-8-14

"The intentions of a tool are what it does.

A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift.

They are what it is made for.

But sometimes a tool may have other uses that you don't know.

Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing."

-- Philip Pullman,
His Dark Materials Trilogy:
The Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass

I'm afraid of paintbrushes.

Potato, palette knife, wine corks, comb and pencil 2-8-14

There, I said it.

They make me anxious.

Probably it's because I never learned to use them right. I've just faked it all my life, and not very well.

I don't know what it is. Something about painting with a brush feels too formal, or fussy, or proper, or unforgiving. Painting with brushes is intimidating -- like making forced conversation about topics I don't understand with people I don't like at a cocktail party where everyone's drinking 30-year-old cognac in crystal stemware when I'd be so much happier just shooting the shit with my best friend on the backyard patio over a bottle of $3 Merlot in Solo cups.

At the art store, I never know which brushes to buy. The choices are overwhelming, and good brushes aren't exactly cheap. If I fuck one up, it's gonna cost me some coin. And I don't take very good care of the brushes I do have. Just ask them. I let paint dry in their bristles all the time, or else I leave them soaking for days in Mason jars half full of paint-stained water. When I finally rescue them they're all frayed and fuzzy and stained. They look startled. Shell shocked.

Nevertheless, sometimes I do get the itch to paint a picture. And when I do, so as to allay any fear or anxiety, I typically don't reach for the brushes. I go for more non-traditional tools, non-threatening tools, familiar tools, tools that aren't specifically meant for painting at all.

I once had a ceramics teacher named Martha who taught me that "anything can be a tool."

Like potatoes. Or a comb. Or a pencil. Or wine corks (n this case, the rubberized kind from that cheap Merlot I was mentioning.) If I do use a painting-specific tool, it's more likely to be a palette knife than a brush. I like to scoop big blobs of paint like peanut butter straight from the jar and then glop it around. Smushing and smearing wet paint around with a potato feels good. So does zipping through it with a plastic comb.

As with most of the art forms I dabble in, painting is about therapy. I do it for the feeling I get while I'm actively engaged in it, not necessarily for how I feel about the piece that results from it. And if painting with brushes makes me anxious, well then it's not therapeutic. It is counterproductive. And I'm not about that life. Not anymore.

I don't know if my peacock painting is any good. And I don't really care. All I know is that while I was painting it, I felt happy. And feeling happy is always a good thing, no matter how you paint it.