After a drawn out and heated haggling session, during which a pie pan and a pair of scissors exchanged hands, a fragrant rhubarb pie was baked and quickly consumed, and no less than eight new shiny items were suspended from twine in the cluttered branches of the giant cedar tree, rabbit was reunited with five of her precious and peculiar eggs. (It should be said, as the mere recorder of rabbit’s story, I have no real incite as to how exactly rabbit came to “own” the eggs originally. Rabbit is really not the egg laying type. She is single and both biologically and emotionally unlikely to be of the egg laying persuasion. Regardless...)
Rabbit lovingly polished each egg with a scrap of worn t-shirt material and lined them up on her kitchen window sill...
same tool, different vision
I heard about this man, Cameron Smith, on the podcast 99% Invisible. Cameron is constructing a handmade space suit. Aside from using an old soviet helmet, he is troubleshooting and assembling all the functioning parts himself from inexpensive and readily available materials. Cameron hopes to wear the suit on a balloon voyage into the lower stratosphere. He intends to hand sew the balloon as well.
Admittedly this man’s vision speaks of some boyhood fantasy, but his clarity, determination, and frugality are admirable, even beautiful.
I spend my time sewing images, other ways of looking at the world, little windows, or visions. This man, with a needle in his hand, is sewing his way up to a place where he’ll get a chance to see the world in an altogether different way.
rabbit wasn’t what you’d call a rapid responder...
It took her seven days of mulling and musing before she finally returned to that hole in the ground. The eager grass had already grown tall around the edges of the opening. Rabbit squatted down and parted the vivid green drapery. The hole was empty. Rabbit felt that unpleasant and all to familiar surge of disappointment in herself. Why hadn’t she acted faster? How could she have forgotten about them in the first place? Her scolding was interrupted by raucous laughter, and rabbit looked up to see crow in the branches of the big cedar tree. Crow was always taking things from rabbit. In fact, from rabbit’s current vantage point, she could see her metal pie pan, her sewing scissors, and what was likely her copy of an indigo girls CD, all hanging in the branches of the massive cedar. Rabbit could also see the round pink shells of several eggs peeking from the lip of crow’s nest.
Rabbit kept dreaming...
...about the hole and what it contained...
rabbit
Rabbit fixed her self a fancy drink, scraped the moss from the seat of her adirondack chair, located a spot in the warm spring sun, and sat down to think. She thought about those eggs waiting quietly in the black earth. She sat and wondered, worried, and pondered about what each of those odd little eggs might contain...
treasure
While mowing the knee high grass in her back yard (I know I thought she was a he yesterday. I was mistaken.) she came upon a surprisingly large hole in the earth. The hole was a nest of sorts and inside was a collection of odd, rather lumpy looking eggs. Against her better judgement she reached down and tentatively touched one. She immediately recognized the eggs as her own, somehow left untended and long forgotten. She knelt in the wet green, buckled by the wash of sadness and relief. It explained that small, sharp, longing she’d harbored in her heart for some time now.
well hello there!
I don’t take time to draw as often as I’d like to. Mostly my pen meets paper to sketch out some rough approximation of of a form I want to render in cloth. Those drawings are detail-less, hurried, and unrefined.
I recently took time to look through one of my 12 year old’s densely filled sketch books. She draws for 2-3 hour stretches on a daily basis. I’m amazed at her skill. Hands look graceful. Noses, ears, hairlines, and muscles appear in the right places. Her constant practice has forged a beautiful strong neural path from hand to eye.
My daughter’s drawings gave me the itch. I broke out the pen and paper, talked my hand into slowing down a bit, and filled several pages with shaky drawings. I feel pretty happy about this little dude. His feet are slightly misshapen, and his fingers are massive, but he is curious and he seems trustworthy. I’m thinking of taking him places.