Just a little bit of history repeating. . .

Bea seems to have ripped some pages from Elspeth's book.

One morning last week, Mom and I paused in our tea and coffee drinking: Bea had been AWFULLY quiet. . .TOO quiet. We climbed the stairs but we couldn't find Bea until my mother observed, "Your bedside table seems to be rocking back and forth."

I found Bea wedged in the white legs of my rickety table. She had scaled my bookcase to retrieve my make-up, and with the mediums of mascara and lipstick with possible use of permanent marker, she had created a masterpiece: Bride of Frankenstein meets Geisha Girl. She was in disgrace when I snapped these pictures, so I tried to hide my admiration for her particularly original and precise application.

Sorry, But I'm Making an Abstract Right Now

Martin brought home gifts for the girls yesterday from a bookstore. Elspeth's was a big book of Chagall, whom she's shown an affinity for. The book wouldn't have been my first choice for a four-year old, especially since the cover, To Russia, Asses, and Others, depicts a woman painted in a cubist style with her head floating away into a black and red sky. Elspeth took it in stride, and Martin left her in bed last night "explaining the paintings to Pink Bear:" See, that woman is tossing her head in the air, Elspeth was saying as he walked away. It just goes to show you that children hold diverse worlds of wild and crazy things--they're not disturbed by the things that make us squeamish, and the soil of their imaginations are rich enough to produce sunflowers and wolves and teapots and monsters with six heads. No young child I know has ever showed any horror when Grandma is eaten by the wolf or when the woodcutter arrives and cuts the wolf's head clear off. . .

Anyhow, this morning, Elspeth was at her Drawing Table coloring like crazy.


"You'd better get dressed, honey," I said--she was almost late for preschool.

"I can't. I'm making an abstract right now."

So, at the price of timeliness, we let her finish.

Here's her work, rather influenced by Chagall, I think, though there are no discernible heads floating away. Maybe that's coming later.

Artist Elspeth

This is the first in the EEC (Elspeth Evelyn Cockroft) Art Show.

Elspeth is four. To those of you who know her or keep up with her endless antics on Wazoo Farm, you might be surprised to know that Elspeth is the most concentrated artist of all our girls. She literally spends hours drawing, and she draws EVERYWHERE.

I do mean Elspeth draws everywhere. On the walls, on desks, on my computer, on herself, in gravel and woodchips when there is nothing else, even in the syrup at the bottom of her ice-cream bowl.

She creates totally bizarro compositions; sometimes she tells me what is going on in the pictures but sometimes she just shrugs as if that is unimportant. Once I asked, "What is that, Elspeth?" and she said right away, "It's ART, Mommy." So there you are. I am called a plebeian by my four-year old daughter.

Elspeth scribbles furiously through stacks and stacks of scratch paper and then shows us these wild color and shape combinations. She is almost compulsive in the way she works, and we have made sure she has drawing stations all over the house: by my desk, a whole counter downstairs, by her bed.

The other day, before we realized she needed paper and pencil by her bed, she covered the wall above her pillow with a totally wild pen sketch. Martin sighed and said, "If that girl does not become an artist, I will be really disappointed."

Right now, she is brushing her teeth and drawing a person with bubblefeet at the same time. Keep tuned for the three-eyed creature--it's my favorite.

XO Morning After--by Martin

Here it is, folks--the last Boston e-mail, but only the bit Martin actually wrote before leaving Boston. It's a fragment of his amazing three days, which included spits stuck through succulent sides of roasted meat, dim sum for breakfast, and sushi. Oh, yes, and the XO thing, which you can tell from the pictures was absolutely spectacular. All photos are by Daniel Van Ackere--click on his name for his fantastic site. And the remarkably handsome guy--BESIDES Martin of course, is Kurt.


When I woke this morning the gulls were circling outside the studio's big windows, and the sun we've had the last two days was replaced by a kind of sunless bright, sky like a cotton ball. I thought I'd slept until 10, but it was only 8am--I'm still not able to sleep in, which is probably a good thing, given my short stay here and return to routine Tuesday. And the couch may be taking its toll on me: When I sat up from sleep and looked around, I had a crick in the right side of my neck that prevented me from turning more than 30 degrees; I'll be fine today as long as I don't have to cross any busy streets (can't swivel head to watch for traffic) or say "no" non-verbally.

X/O is over. Kurt and I spent the morning talking, and already the whole event felt distant, like it happened last week, or last year. I liken it to our wedding, in this respect: I was so in the action of what happened that I sort of missed what happened. I've felt the same way at other readings I've given--where after it's over, I've got great recall of someone who read before me, or someone who read after, but little memory of my own contribution. And maybe that's because I'm trying to be fully present, in the moment, so that in experiencing it, I later cannot objectify it. Normally, I'm sort of like Merry--watching things happen, internalizing them, feeling slightly peripheral.

I mean, walking to dinner last night after X/O, we passed this birthday party taking place in a rented storefront, and it was like something out of a movie--there was an mc, a stocked bar, and a dance floor chocked full of hip looking men and women dressed in fashion magazine clothes. You could see all this from the sidewalk. And I thought to myself, a) I can't think of any place I'd less like to be; and b) if I were there, I would not be able to enter the fun--I'd be clinging to the wall for safety, paying attention, not really unhappy, not resentful--just not "in." Last night, I was "in." I didn't spend much time imagining how things would be during the show, and now that it's done, I don't think I'll do much second-guessing.

& don't forget to check out more about XO on Kurt's website HERE.

More Mischief

This morning Mom and I were enjoying the last of the coffee; we knew that Bea was awake and that Elspeth was in her room, giggling with her. We took our sweet time.

This is what we did not know:
Elspeth, with the orange oil pastel, in the baby's room. Guilty. Oh, so guilty.

Performance art? Does the definition of an installation include lots and loads of clean-up?

Everybody and everything was painted. Each rail of the crib, each face of animal and child. Not even the two Meow-Meows escaped decoration.

Martin's X/O Art Installation (from Boston!) Letter II

from Martin's latest e-mail:

I woke today hoarse as ever to what sounded like a giant having a BM. Not pleasant. Kurt assures me it was only dumsters being emptied, but he wasn't awake then, so can't verify completely.

I've had tea--Kurt bought some at a local convenience store, which, like another one we dropped by yesterday, sells higher end products: Pirate's Booty instead of pork rinds, bottles of wine, not cases of Bud, and, as it turns out, a sampler box of "premium" black teas--tea which is causing my empty stomach a bit of upset. I'll be lucky if I don't come from Boston sounding like that giant I mentioned; my diet is all screwed up. I'm now on the Eidsvig diet: eat nothing but a dried fruit and nut mix all day, then chase it down at 11pm with "pizza pie."

Actually, I can't handle the Eidsvig diet, so while Kurt took care of some business at Boston University yesterday, I walked across the street and bought myself a plate of ka prao to go. What is ka prao? I know from consulting recipes that it's Thai chicken and basil, though that wasn't explained on the marquee menu on the wall. This was a place that catered almost exclusively to BU students, and when I stepped in, the line was almost out the door. I figured--correctly--things would move pretty quickly, but I felt off-footed the whole time, on a campus (if you can call it that; BU is like Pitt, in the city, and runs for blocks and blocks along the Charles River) I don't know, among hundreds of people I don't know, looking--I imagine--every bit the bumpkin I feel.

Boston is in bloom. We've driven through areas like The Back Bay and Beacon St. that are full of flowering trees--redbuds, crabapples, cherry trees, maybe even crapes--and four-story, 19th century townhouses, and down one street that's divided into two one-ways with a miles-long park ("the mall," Kurt says) between--like the common parks [there in our PA town], only 10 times as long. I took my lunch sitting on a granite planter under a lovely pink-flowering tree, alternately warmed and chilled, the wind playing havoc with the pages of the The New Yorker I tried to read. . .

So maybe it's not the Eidsvig diet but hot, hot ka prao at lunch and leftovers for dinner, followed by 11pm pizza and morning-after English breakfast tea, minus the breakfast. I'm still waking at 7-something, even though I could probably sleep till ten if I wanted. I don't want, not really, but these nights that go through early morning are killing my usual circadian rhythms. Not that I'm not having fun doing so. . .

Sound artist--his preferred title, from what I can gather--Brendan Murray, the third collaborator, joined us most of the day as we figured out where people would sit, where readers will stand, where paintings will hang, and so on. We spent an hour working with a faulty projector--there's a film/sound installation that will be shown on one wall. . .

By 7:30, most of the readers had come for the informal rehearsal, and one poor sap from Sharon, MA, had biked in for the show, thinking it would be held last night. We invited him in to listen, which I'm sure was delightful for him: everything still a wreck, paintings hung, half-hung, ro just idly leaned against a post, readers trying out poems aloud for the first time--they're reading my poems and Kurt's, not their own--stumbling over phrasing and vocabulary. It's strange hearing my O/X: Boxes series, six prose poems written for this occasion, read by mouths other than my own--at once remarkable and painful. I tried to walk a balance between giving notes on how to read and not overstepping like I might, nitpicking everything. When I read the poems--poems I wrote--I've got total control as writer and reader. But now I'm having to let go, and while it's thrilling seeing the poems come to life like this, and the readers are well-spoken and energetic, the whole thing makes me fidgety--and know now it's not just the readers or lack of control, but my own uncertainty about the poems themselves. That old ragtime self-doubt!

We hung art until midnight. . .a tedious operation, but one with tangible rewards, then headed back Kurt's studio to talk and read our own poetry collaboration, the one called "Equations" that's to close the event. I haven't shown you that one yet, since it wasn't done and I didn't want to let any air out. Before we crossed Summer St. (Kurt's place is literally across the street from the studio we're occupying for X/O), we paused a moment and took in the exhibition from curbside, looking back into the artspace we'd just left and locked. It really looked amazing, Xs and Ox everywhere, on walls, on columns, lots of color and line, a pleasing symmetry. Kurt says a photographer friend will be there, so I should have evidence at some point that this all actually happened.

Kurt said this morning, you know, it feels like three days since I last saw you, and it's been five years. I felt the same way; with some friends, not matter how long it's been, you just pick up wherever you left off.

A Bit from Martin's Boston E-mail (where our friend Kurt and the X/O Art Installation Is)

Kim,

The trip to Boston was--was is it people always say about flights? Uneventful?--short; it's 1:15 minutes tops from gate to gate. I was looking forward to 7C, my carefully picked aisle seat (close to the front, but not too close, 7--the lucky number), but when I reached the row, alas!, all seats were occupied. There was some sort of confusion: A guy in 7C--my seat!--was telling a woman across the hall in 7B that she was in his seat, and her companion in 7A was saying, Yes, yes, we're in the wrong seats--Sorry--but they showed NO SIGNS of moving, so I just said, "Where's your seat supposed to be?": and they pointed to window seat 6A, next to this enormous fellow with a Boston accent, and I said, "Ok, I'll just sit there."

This guy looked like Kurt--same hair type and color--if he were ten years older and had been inflated like a balloon. As I pulled out my water bottle (the one like yours that my mom got us, with the insulated sleeve), he said, "Hey that's nice, my daughter's always bustin' my balls about gettin' one of those," and then--seriously--we both uncorked our water bottles (his was plastic, disposable, Poland Springs), lifted them to our lips, drank, and set them down again, at the same time--like syncronized drinking. He actually looked at me for a second like I'd copied him, but we were tight the whole time.

. . .The bones of [Kurt's] apartment are stunningly beautiful, like something out of a decorating magazine: about twice as wide as deep, on maybe the third floor corner of a building rented and owned entirely by artists (the walk to his studio from the elevator is lined with all sorts of visual art, including a large one of Kurt's that's more abstract than most of what he's done recently. . .The walls that meet at the outside corner are all exposed brick, the walls and ceiling maybe twenty feet high, with seven pairs of nearly floor to ceiling windows, five sets of them--on the long side facing the street--arched at the top cathedral-style. Wood floor, of course, and then you bend around this bulward which turns out to be the closet, walk up ladder stairs, and meet a narrow plank with a bookcase and, at the left end, Kurt's bed, resting atop the roof of the closet. It looks like if he rolled off, he'd drop, oh, about 15 feet.

Paintings everywhere--big X/O cowboy painting you might have seen on his website, catalog girls, something modeled off Lichtenstein, etc. Furnishings by IKEA--coffee table, kitchen cabinets and sinks (three of them, one just for paint), bookshelves, etc. A TV the size of a pickup bed hanging on the wall. (OK, not that big, but literally the dimensions of the kids' kitchen work table.)

Kurt has in his refrigerator: Two bottles of juice we bought last night; two slices of leftover pizza (we ate last night); salsa; two 2-liters of Coke; a bottle of flavored water; an empty sack. In his freezer, only mint chocolate chip ice cream and a jar of black-eyed peas his mother made him. He has a sleek red teapot from IKEA--no tea.
* * *
find poet and artist
Kurt Cole Eidsvig's Website HERE.

Elspeth Strikes Again

Guess who got her grubby little fingers on the camera again?

Even though the handling of sparse and expensive technology by four-year olds is frowned upon at Wazoo Farm, I can't help but enjoy Elspeth's peculiar way of seeing the world.
The dog is not our dog but belongs to my brother, Kenton, and his long-time partner, Leah. The dog is not an angel-dog, despite Elspeth's rendering here. It is very cute, though.


A reward to the person who can figure out what these two objects are. A reward only if you have not been to our house--otherwise only a little peck on the cheek. (I don't know what that makes the reward. Something unconnected to kissing. A slice of birthday cake--I've been baking tons of them lately).

Angel-dog's tail.

Our terribly ugly ceiling fan in our library--necessary in the summers here, since we don't have central air in our old house, but man, nothing is as ugly as a ceiling fan, unless maybe it's a big, heavy light fixture from the 70's. Note I unscrewed all the light bulbs. I loathe overhead light. In the living room I hid the light switch behind an Indian wall hanging. I feel immediately depressed when someone finds it and switches those sad bulbs on. When overhead light-lovers DO find the switch in the library, they get so excited, and then they flip the switch and nothing happens. I feign silly confusion, perhaps, but inside I am all triumph. Saved from bad lighting again!

My mother brought this fern and her ficus tree to me from Baltimore before she and my father took off to Washington State. They left behind my father's big TV so they could bring me plants. Priorities: absolutely straight. I am a terrible mother to all my plants, but I do love them so. I suppose this applies sometimes to my children as well. None have died on my watch though occasionally they are dreadfully in need of watering.

This one is my favorite: tulip stems against the blue of the entryway wall.

The World According to Elspeth, Age 3 1/2, in Photos

I just downloaded some pictures with the intention of creating yet another ode to autumn. . .and then I found that Elspeth had been quite busy with the camera. I actually found myself loving her photo journal, though of course she's not technically supposed to be running around with our only digital camera. Technicalities like these have never stopped her before. I wish I could include all her takings, but I've chosen just a few. Without further ado, then:





You'll note that focus is also a silly detail she doesn't pay too much attention to, which tells you much about her: she is ALWAYS on the move. Most of our pictures of her are out of focus for that very reason.




The first set of photos are from one evening and the next set are from a following afternoon.




We end with a self-portrait.

Snowy Day

This is a picture of Merry and her friend Jenna, created today by Jenna, who is six and pretty as a pixie. Currently she and Merry are in the middle of The Boxcar Children series. Jenna loves making fairy homes outside by special trees. Her favorite color is green.

More snow tomorrow, more sledding, more winter!

Wazoo Farm's First Art Show

I am pleased to open Wazoo Farm's premier art show!

You'll notice that each artist receives her or his own page. Please feel free to comment on the pieces.

Artists, all: thank you for letting us enjoy your work!

Please note that all artwork (as well as all text at wazoofarm.blogspot.com), is copyrighted and protected and may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Christen Mattix

Cradled
Christen Mattix
Oil on panel, 48" x 72".
__________

In Weakness
Christen Mattix
Oil on panel, 48" x 60".
__________

Blue Sky
Christen Mattix
30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas
__________
Christen Mattix, an accompished painter, teaches art at Seattle Pacific University.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Kara Jean Robinson

Goddaughter's Blanket
Kara Jean Robinson
__________
Besides knitting beautiful creations, KJ Robinson is currently finishing her MPH at John's Hopkin's University in Baltimore, MD. See her lovely blogsite.