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We’ve had great rain.  And the weeds have GONE WILD. 

Though I avoid weeding (hot, makes me ach-y, it’s the pick-up-after-weeding that really bites), I love the results.  I’ll be taking myself with a cocktail and a dog in a bit, and I’ll go wander around the garden.  I’ll completely forget about how much stuff came out of the beds today, because it’ll look so fantastic, all airy and colorful and really, really happy.  And then, you know what?  I’ll spy a whole patch of weeds I missed.  How did that happen???

There are always more weeds.  The rain afforded me the pleasure of being able to actually pull weeds out of the gravel and get the roots.  I’m delighted. 

But, all that weeding, 5 hours of weeding, and I still have the backside of the center island and a good 1/4 of the front garden.  Though I’m quite certain I’ll be digging out a tick or two over the next couple of days, I’m happy that my weeding experience was spider- and snake-free.  Surprising, really, considering where I spend the first half of the day.

I worked on the beginning of a new piece last night.  It has to do with sexuality.   I began building a collage of images that I believe will eventually be deconstructed and incorporated underneath areas of tempered or plate glass.

I was a little worried as I began this piece. My sexual past, my youth, particularly, but also into my mid-years, were angry and difficult. Each time I do a piece that deals with a difficult issue, something that I’ve kept buried within one of those layers, a secret… the viewer doesn’t know it, but they are standing in front of my nakedness. This partcular piece will wind up being so much more than about me, but this part of it, this collage, is very personal. I’m not sure how many of the weeds I’ll actually be removing this time. I like where it is right now, visually, perhaps with some glitzy stuff added for sparkly interest within its glass tomb. There’s lots of places I can go with this topic. The weeds are waist-high.

Filed under: change, creative process, garden, journaling, mosaic, secrets, sexuality on July 6th, 2008