Back to Routines at the Homestead

Pomegrenade
Ceramic, encaustic, acrylic. metal, wood
Shanna Wheelock, 2011
(photograph by Leslie Bowman)

The American Craft magazine article about my work should be on newstands soon!
(August/September 2011 issue)
to preview the article go to:
"Remote Revival"

Playing around with encaustics the past couple days, I decided to make another pomegranate.
The smooth texture and color is luscious!

This sci-fi looking contraption by John McMurray is a vent!

Honey Pot
(not yet trimmed or fired, fresh off the wheel!)

Big bowl drying on a bat affixed to the wheel.
It's a workout for my arms to center such a big lump of clay.

Bello LOVES garden time.

Bello guarding the bean pole beans.

Bouli playing inside the factory sculpture.
I had been wondering why all the furniture was tipped-over on floors one and three.
Now I know.

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Lubec. The sun is shining, birds singing, sky blue, temps warm. I rose early the past two days and accomplished throwing tasks well before noon, and that left me with time to play with wax and do a few "chores" for the shop. It feels good to have a somewhat uninterrupted week ahead to get things done. Production has been a bit behind this summer for various reasons: bees, globe sculpture, travel, but overall, summer has been productive and pleasurable. I am going to put a request in to the weather goddess for an extension - maybe an extra month or two of summer if that could be arranged? Please and thank you.

The shop is looking a bit sparse of late, but that translates as good because it means that I have had good sales. I've been throwing lots of new work but the drying time is slow: up to three weeks. I finally managed a bisque fire on Thursday and am at this moment firing a second load. I plan to glaze mid week and am looking forward to restocking shelves next weekend. Inspired by the bees, I have begun to make honey pots. The final shape is an unknown until they are trimmed, but so far, I like them. The little lids are adorable!

The past few days entailed a routine of early waking (about 4:oo or 5:00 a.m.), pottery production in "the cave", then time tending to the shop, office details, and encaustic painting. We've enjoyed the company of friends from Cape Breton and Blue Hill. Also, John McMurray, our Lubec Arts Alive sculpture expert who also is quite the engineer, stopped by with a cool new sci-fi looking contraption that will act as a vent for the pottery studio. Air quality will be much better for our lungs! Thanks, John!

All else is going well on the homefront. Bouli is growing and becoming quite demanding. Yes, she seems to rule the roost here. Bello is making slow progress toward reclaiming his space on the feline totem pole but prefers to send most of his time with the beanpoles in the garden. Compared to last summer, the garden looks fantastic! I hear other folks in more southernly areas brag about their bounty of fresh tomatoes and squash, but we have only had a few peas, three cherry tomatoes, swiss chard, and herbs to pluck. Lubec climate is a bit cooler and this is probably why things are behind. I am hoping we can harvest plenty for canning and dehydrating before snow hits!!!! All else fails, we always have the apple trees.

I have a full schedule planned for this week - appointments, shop, production, and supply ordering. I can't believe that it is already August. The Machias Wild Blueberry Festival is in three weeks and I am going to try my hand at vending once again. It's been years. The time leading up to the festival will be nonstop busy in the studio, as well as the time following. Soon I will be back to teaching and taking classes at Heartwood. Each month through November has pottery events slated. Reality is sinking in...I best finish-up this blog and get to work!

Lubec Arts Alive 2010

Mural from LAA 2009, located at Lubec Historical Society
Mural facilitated by Natasha Mayers
Photo Credit: ©2009 Goodman/VanRiper Photography

LUBEC ARTS ALIVE 2010

Friday and Saturday, July 23-24
Lubec, Maine

Kickoff Event!
World Premiere Screening of the
Lubec Arts Alive Documentary
A film by Jon Wing Lum
Friday, July 23rd, 7:00 p.m.
Christian Temple Church, Lubec, Maine

This beautiful thirty-minute documentary by filmmaker Jon Wing Lum captures the 2009 event from beginning to end with footage from the mural creation, portrait project, doorway installations, Hamilton Cove project, poetry reading, and iconic sign project. The film features several local community members and artists from far and near, their creative philosophies, and their artwork.
Free Admission. Refreshments.

Thank you to Pastor Alan Andraeas and the Christian Temple Church for their time and the use of their space for this event!

Resident UMVA Artists featured in the film:
Natasha Mayers, Robert Shetterly, Kenny Cole, Rose Marasco, Richard Brown Lethem, Diane Dahlke, Jill Lavestky, Siena Mayers, Karen Adrienne, Mary Bernstein, Barbara Sullivan, Alan Crichton, Harlan Crichton.

Lubec Arts Alive 2010
Art on the Beach
Saturday, July 24th, 1:00-5:00 p.m.
Mowry Beach, Lubec
Rain date: Sunday, July 25th
Info booth will be set-up at Flatiron Corner (across from Quik Shop)

Join us at Mowry Beach for an afternoon of environmental found-object art! Create with stones, seaweed, sea glass, shells, driftwood, etc. Plein Air artists are invited to bring their materials and musicians to bring their instruments for some improvisational fun!

Thank you to the Downeast Coastal Conservancy for allowing access to Mowry Beach for this project!
Mowry Beach is protected and maintained by the Downeast Coastal Conservancy.
Mowry Beach Steward, Jennifer Multhopp

Lubec Arts Alive committee members:
Karen Burke, Jean Bookman, Jean Deveber, Claudia Mahlman, Ann Rosebrooks, Shanna Wheelock

for more info, go to our website: lubecartsalive2010.blogspot.com
email: lubecartsalive@yahoo.com

Seaweed Labyrinth and Rock Formation
Created during Lubec Arts Alive 2009 at Hamilton Cove
This portion of LAA 2009 was such a beautiful and fun event that we decided to base Lubec Arts Alive 2010 around a similar theme!
Photo Credit: ©2009 Goodman/Van Riper Photography

Jon Wing Lum, filmmaker
Photo credit: ©2009 Goodman/Van Riper Photography

Mead Mugs

Bowls and Sake Sets

The mini Stonehenge herb garden

For those who check my blog on a regular basis, you probably noticed that I didn't show up with my regular post last Sunday. Sometimes this happens. My life just blows wide open with happenings and I can't find an extra moment to spare from sunrise to sundown. This past week and half my days have typically begun at 4:00 a.m. I love that time of day, waking with the birds, seeing the moon still in the sky while the sun is peeking out from the eastern horizon over the bay. So much stillness, yet full of life with birds chirping. I am getting a bit worn out though and even though I look forward to Lubec Arts Alive, I will be a bit relieved when the event finally takes place and then...look forward to a few days to just "be" and breathe.

The past week and a half was full of other wonderful stuff as well - including meeting new folks from distant places who lead interesting lives, from raising peacocks to writing books about model building. Last week's post about friends returning must have sparked some sort of universal energy because another couple (Linda and Jonathan) from New York that we hadn't seen in about three summers stopped by when "just passing through". This couple is one of the neatest that I have ever met. They are both rabbis and run this super cool charitable/educational bakery/program in their synagogue called "Bread and Torah." To make their lives even more interesting, Linda is working on an intesive scroll translation project where she makes the animal-skin parchment paper for the scrolls by hand! Check out their website/blog for more info.

In between Lubec Arts Alive prep and greeting folks who swing by the shop, I have been spending my time throwing pots in the "pottery cave", tending the garden with Chris, and working on the various non-glamorous aspects of keeping a micro cottage-type business up and running, and hopefully on the grow. I was so excited yesterday to see my OBDS (official business directional sign) posted on Rte. 189! Kinda neat to see "Cobscook Pottery and Fiber Arts" looking so official. Porcupine Signs in Pembroke did a fantastic job! I should give kudos to MDOT as well for installing the signs so quickly!!! Yey!

One other highlight of this past week was that Chris and I finally set aside an afternoon for some kayaking. We went to my favorite spot, Indian lake, in Whiting. It is a relatively tiny lake, but we almost always see the loons. This time, a mama loon and her baby on her back. Shortly after that sighting, Papa loon came swooping in from the sky to join them, providing us a uniquely reverent moment.

I have been up since 4:00 a.m. listening to the drenching rains and the West Quoddy fog horn. My aunt June and pup Shimmer are visiting for a few days from Bangor. I imagine this weather is not conducive to their plans for a ferry ride and hike, but it will provide its own kind of magic and peace. Perhaps an afternoon of "Scrabble Showdown". I better go find the official dictionary....

Moving Forward

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
Dalai Lama

The garden

Brannin Beuhner outfitting himself with his gear (the harness)
Bear & Owl Tree Care
First Class Arborist, Certified Logging Professional
Fully Insured and Licensed
400-6913/ 733-4959

Leaning back with chainsaw to cut deadwood from the walnut tree

Looking quite relaxed up there.....

This shot kinda puts it all in perspective...

Swinging! Is work supposed to be this fun?!

Ben tending to the apple tree

The remains

It was a tough last few days. For those who have followed my blog, I know that you have been wondering the fate of our small school. This past week, the town voted 269 to 230 to close Lubec High School. The day before the vote, a group of us gathered at Flatiron Corner and rallied in support of keeping our children here in our own community. News crews and journalists snapped photos and interviewed participants. For two days or more we were the headline for most of Maine. Other districts watched with anticipation, hoping that their school will not be the next casualty of underfunded education.

I first received the news at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday evening, 2 1/2 hours after polls closed. My sister had just arrived from central Maine and the unfortunate timing for her meant that she would have to listen to me repeat over and over for the next two hours "I can't believe this is happening." I was in shock. The next morning I woke feeling sort of numb. I went to my "pottery cave" to throw, and as my hands cupped and centered the clay, a whole flood of emotions poured out of me. I realized that I was moving through the stages of grief. The sadness deepened as empathy built for my students, whom I imagined were experiencing emotions much the same as mine, only ten-fold more intensely.

I was thankful for a call from a friend asking me to walk with her. It gave me the opportunity to process the event more fully. A second walk later that morning with my sister down the boardwalk to Mowry Beach, and up through town, brought me in contact with folks from the community. I could hear in their voices the same shock and grief that I was feeling.

That afternoon, Kristin and I returned back to the house and started to plant a garden. I was tired form the drama, but felt that now, more than ever, I needed a symbol of hope and growth. I laid out a design similar to the inner square in a mandala with four gates and a "seed" center.

Moments after we made the rows and mounds, the sky broke open and weeped heavily. Floods of rain came down over the garden. Then, as quickly as the storm swept in, it cleared out. Sun streamed intensely over the spruce, maple and birch, making the green of the leaves glow against the grey. A double rainbow arched over the town.

I felt at that moment that I had let go of my worry and pain and could sense exciting new beginnings about to unfold.

My sister left Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning my longtime artist friend Becky arrived from Portland for a visit with her very energetic seven year old daughter Alice. We enjoyed a day of beach-combing and shopping and we even went to an art opening at the library downtown. When we go back to the house Brannin Beuhner of "Bear and Owl Tree Care" called to let me know that he had a free evening to tend to some of our injured trees. Last summer's construction left many of the limbs broken, sharp-tipped, and pained. Brannin and his apprentice, a very interesting organic farmer/sailor/yogi from Vermont, began to climb and cut. At first, it was odd to see the bareness left behind. But this morning when I woke, it all felt good and healthy.

Becky, Alice, and I went out to breakfast at Village Restaurant then burned off energy at the West Quoddy trail. All felt perfect, listening to the waves crash the cliffside. Wild irises speckled the grass, and the air smelled salty and clean. We returned back to homebase to find Brannin and Ben here for day two of restorative tree care. Last night we mainly watched the simple hand-sawing of spruce deadwood but today's task required the more serious gear - a harness! Like a spider, Brannin climbed up "his thread" to a big dead walnut limb.

This walnut is the most majestic of trees in our yard. It stands taller than most, and despite it's huge girth and age, it weathers the elements, and still each summer, blooms green with fresh young leaves and produces walnuts that occasionally fall to the ground. Lately the dried-up dead limbs have been looking sorta tired.

Brannin, dressed in his harness, swung a beanie-weighted bag attached to his "spinneret" over the limb. He pulled himself up, swinging to and fro, until he could latch onto the branch with his arms. He then hauled up the motorized saw and began to cut away the deadwood. Each grayed and balding branch that fell to the earthen blanket seemed to lift the spirit of the tree canopy.

The Walnut tree looks even more proud now. I will from this day forward refer to Brannin as "The Tree Whisperer". He has a quiet aura about him, intuitive and sensitive to the trees' needs. He removes only what is necessary and approaches the task with reverence. He heals the wounds of the wood.

It was a tough few days emotionally, but my own healing has begun. The universe presented me with an unforeseen challenge, and is forcing me toward change. Like the garden, I am ripe for growth. Like the walnut tree, I am letting go of deadwood. I choose to not wallow in the pain of losing our high school, but instead, will look forward to new perspectives and opportunities.

..........................................................................................................................................................

If you are in need of an arborist to help heal or re-shape your landscape, I highly recommend Brannin Beuhner. Even though he is located here in Lubec, he tells me that he is currently working with folks as far south as Portland.

Bear & Owl Tree Care
First Class Arborist, Certified Logging Professional
Fully Insured and Licensed
400-6913/ 733-4959