Category: Momologue

For the past ten days I have been in Residency. I’m entering
the last leg of my MFA journey. Each day I leave the house with complete confidence that my three sons
are safe under the supervision of their sister, 20-year-old-benevolent-dictator, Hannah.

Yesterday when she picked me up at 6:30. I was informed of
the day’s adventure by all four of my children… simultaneously:

Liam wanted me to
drive through the carwash
        and Hannah
blasted the theme song to Little Big Planet,
… at the park, there
was a… rode my scooter and feed the ducks…
        library and Barnes &
Noble there was a book with a Lego guy
and I checked out a
book about orchestration so I can…
        one on Constantine’s
early rule and a biography of John Lennon… 

Surveying the state of the house when I arrive home, I
realize the morning was an equal bundle of good times. I begin to tidy the
clues. I don’t mind the mess. The process of cleaning up actually helps me
unwind after a day of academia… I mean literally
unwind.

I follow a mass of tangled white yarn that is strewn from
the kitchen to the living room. What I discover at the end of the line is tremendous—two forks cocooned
to stillness, functional objects transformed to a beautifully still
non-functional state. I pause in awe of the ingenuity that drove the artist
into this work and marvel at the result. The sculpture speaks to me, hangs a
question, “Is the yarn limiting the fork or expanding its potential?”

I collect the fork sculpture and head toward the Gathering Ledge, the place in my kitchen
where I put such misfit items, and kneel to my hands and knees to begin
gathering loose items from the low spaces. I pick up some stray pencils, toy
cars, and sit up when I come upon two sheets of paper, ovals mysteriously cut
out of the center.

Back on my feet I move swiftly toward the trash and am
halted when my peripheral vision is intrigued by a yellow blur… the missing ovals. But they are much
more than ovals. They are prototypes,
furniture design—a bench and a chair that would make Ray and Charles Eames
proud.

Not sure where I collected the Eye that’s painted on a scrap of canvas, but I do know that Taylor
plans for this to be a small contribution to a very large installation.

Continue reading House of Makers

With a bingo ball and a Lego block, that’s how summer begins.

It is a typical shopping day:

Hop in the car. Back out of the driveway. “Who has the
list?” Oops… forgot the list, back into the driveway. Søren is chosen for the
journey there and back again. I
watch him up the driveway… there he goes, two minutes later back again clutching
the list triumphantly. My youngest son jumps into the car and we’re off…

 We arrive at Trader Joe’s in nothing flat. In summer we
don’t have to battle traffic patterns.

Splitting the list into five sections, we scurry in five
directions, grab the goods and get in line. It’s a little game we play, our
version of Beat the Clock. I get a kick out of the items slipped into the cart
by my frenetic shoppers: Crispy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies, Altoids, frozen
pizza, Hansen’s Soda, lime popsicles, and even rice milk when they’re
desperate. Sometimes I smile, let
them see me turn a blind eye, but mostly I draw the line, “Put it back please.”

On this particular day, the first shopping day of summer, we
are fast, no doubt accomplished our trip in record time. The five of us want
nothing more than to be home doing nothing, that’s right n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

Continue reading Summer…