I am sitting down.
It’s the first Saturday since last winter that I am not in motion, planning, pressing, rushing into the next project. Actually, this year, I’ve only done 3 really big jobs, the rest, little things: caring for my mom and the farm, and my daughters’ wedding, and the pandemic, and all those pizza parties.
So, sitting feels pretty ok.
Here on the farm, we have 2 new bucks and are planning to breed them around Thanksgiving. They came in an open trailer all the way from Montana. They are shy and were hungry and thin. Both had a cough, and now that they have been here for a while, have begun to settle, and fatten up. I also got a kitten who is now more like a cat. He promises he’ll get off the couch to try to hunt mice out in the barn for me.
The fall here was long and mild and beautiful. The leaves are still clinging to the trees, all golden, the reds have fallen and last night was the first frost. So, sitting in a big soft bathrobe seems to be the best thing for the beginning of ‘hibernation’.
The season started this time last year with my entry into a competition
A completion for an installation at Rowan University’s Discovery Hall, a School of Earth and Environment, one where paleontology and geology are a focus. They wanted an outdoor classroom, and I delivered that in May. While designing, I lectured in 5 different programs for Rowan via Zoom and arrived on campus to install a full show inside their Art Gallery in advance of building the permanent outdoor exhibition.
The Gallery show featured photographs of recent work floor to ceiling, 15 tons of stone that created interior walls, a cairn, bamboo trees and a pebble rug, to complete the feeling of
bringing the outside-in
Then, back at home, after some farm chores and food, we started out again for an installation in Hartland Vermont. The folly there was designed to hold a hot tub, as a 16th birthday gift... but also as an iconic statement in the front garden of the Historic Sumner Mansion. To stretch the summer days into more working hours I stayed over a few days a week, the rest of the crew came and went daily.
A Week “off” in August
was used to prepare for my oldest daughters’ wedding, celebration and recovery and then 3 days to pack all our tools for the long drive to Tennessee for a 6 week residency.
The Tennessee residency was lovely. We weathered a hurricane, power outages, a squirrel housemate and bears on the porch. The 11 of us, all living together in a cabin on a mountain top in the Great Smokey Mountains. We do have an NDA for this installation, but I can say that we used 3000 person hours and 1000Tons of stone to complete the largest installation I have taken on. It was a huge lift and an epic build, and I’m so glad that we pulled it off. I understand that Vogue Magazine is on site this week taking photos. I cannot wait to publish the images and video.
I’ve just finished a week long residency at a kind of local elementary school, and now will try to get a sign base installed at Gardeners Supply in Lebanon NH before winter, but the truth is, that I’d really like to be done for the year already, and take the time now to begin the work to finish the inside of the house and make the bathroom and basement a bit warmer and more user friendly.
Well that’s it for now.
Amidst a day of whirl wind website updates and hopes for long winters knitting and playing in the glass studio ahead.
I’m wishing for quiet, and warm winter of stillness for us all.