GARDEN GATES...

I have long wished to be able to write on my computer in my own hand lettering. Now, with the new iPad I've recently treated myself to, I can... if not very well yet. I'm certain I will become more facile with a stylus on its glass screen, it will take practice & more exploration of various apps to facilitate better control.

Last night saw the completion of a project to build gates for the deer fence mentioned in the previous post... this morning I "penned" several pages to share my celebration & joy at the progress:

!YES! FENCE ME IN...

Our Island's deer population is increasing since there are few predators... excepting automobiles. Any suggestion of introducing cougars seems unpopular... while my favorite fantasy of a "bevy of bare-chested bow-hunters" has proven complicated as well! After gardening here for years with only minimal damage, the past several seasons have seemed to educate their palates to a boldness which I can no longer tolerate... I vowed this summer to not garden until they are fenced out!  I took inspiration from our neighbors' having recently enclosed their garden with recycled fish netting.

Because they now are nibbling many plants in our landscape beyond the potager kitchen beds... even ornamentals which have been "safe" for many years... I wanted to fence the entire property, meaning almost 400 feet of length. A project made more daunting given the steep slope & uneven terrain through the woods from one cliff edge up to the road & house then down & around to the cliff edge again.

Fortune smiled when a young man named Tom arrived to help me realize such solution. He'd gravitated to our bell booth at our local Strawberry Festival in July... with a charmingly wide smile. At 19 he has finished his Associate's Degree & is heading to Evergreen College to begin studies anticipating his becoming a farmer… how could we not put him to work?!?!!

Tom wore this wrap of the netting so as to carry it down through the woods to keep it from dragging & snagging on  the brambles before it got hung & fastened...

Here he contemplates throwing a line to fell a small tree for a fence post...

But we first needed to have some major tree work done, a clump of huge, too-old & diseased Alders were required to be brought down, before another fell as inopportunely happened last winter… blocking the road during a big snow storm.

The cherry tree which has always reclined will remain a character.

In this part of the yard has long been a shade garden...

Now the light has broken through... to our mixed emotions.

Aaron has done such work for us before, although not at such scale

The result is now much more open...

Even as the trees fell crashing into heaps below...

Piles of wood were bucked into lengths ready to  split...

Stephen consults with Tom about the work he will do...

He contemplates the task...

 Answering with his predictable attitude...

Those random piles became some 6-7 cords of fire wood,  split & neatly stacked by this young man's energy... now curing until next year... clearing space we needed for completing the fence line.

A large pile of debris awaits the end of our unusually long dry spell's  burn ban.

While he certainly did the major part, he also put me to work. He's small & wiry & energized in a way quite unfathomable, with all the necessary experience & tools to make improbable work seem easy. He's regular & reasonable.  He's bright & creative. We worked well together, having good mind connections wrestling with the problems we tackled. I became his go-fer & assistant, while maintaining an eye toward design.

We used as many standing trees as possible, filling in with fence posts as necessary. We acquired a quantity of salvaged netting & rope we found for free in the city.

The north end of the fence begins down at the cliff to the left in this view 

... continuing along the road approaching the house.

Looking back from closer to the house...

down, around the wood piles, to end at the cliff on the south..

The aesthetic mostly works...

Looking south, the coil of extra rope will be gifted to some other...

Tom ultimately gave me one last of his deliciously big hugs... habitual to our hellos & goodbyes... on his way to his next admirable adventure... leaving me quite wallowing in the blessings of a fine Platonic love.

Such definition of territory protects & gifts me with new richness.

Leo Toye Returns...

I am flummoxed how to explain from scratch who Leo Toye is… being a part of me who's been mostly retired. Long ago… about 25 years...  he came along as my doppleganger when I joined a group of artists in Sedona, Arizona to revive an Open Studio venture. We decided to publish a newspaper each month & I wanted to become a "columnist" & since I, loving that image of an inky feather quill pen, had always wanted a nom d'plume... Leo Toye became my pen name.

It seems I have always practiced calligraphy, remembering many posters made for High School campaigns & events, not to mention all the placards & signs for the department store where I worked after classes. Early on I gave-up my cursive... picking up my father's version of writing with a curious mix of upper & lower-case, mostly block letters, gradually coming to love writing all in caps, long before that became digital screaming. But then... I've always been a bit of a screamer.

 

Leo Toye's name is a literal description of my visual logo… that lion on wheels. The format was graphically columnar, of course. The medium was ink, thus the title TUSCH... meaning ink, most specifically the "india ink" with which I had a rather deep relationship, using technical pens to write my journal in that permanence.

I had danced, work/playing, with graphic design those middle years [early 80's] in Sedona, creating logos & labels for other businesses, so when we conceived making a monthly tabloid as our publicity organ, which declared a quaint anodyne to the slick-cover-magazine-culture supporting / supported by the galleries, I was there with a black & white sensitivity useful to newsprint.

 This is a drawing I made for the front page of one OPEN STUDIO issue:

Leo surfaced on my mind's drawing table & evolved in small body of work of which I've always been proud. Leo could use words in a way which mixed studious years of evolution inside the many covers of my habit to journal with something attempting visual poetry. While I was angry he could be enigmatic… I did indeed like having a doppleganger to blame for my excesses!

Three of the columns:

We eventually became mired in the publishing & the group wore itself out. Leo mostly retired, yet "we" kept writing in my journal & doing the occasional bit of calligraphy or design. I still frequently refer, in many stories & much history, to Leo Toye when I'm playing with words & ink.

Now, after some long periods of neglecting my journal, in part due to having become computer literate, as they say... believing I would journal digitally. I did not, for numerous reasons, mostly because the computer seems to lack similar intimacy as pen-in-hand fosters deeply private thinking. The keyboard supposes capability of publishing, while the ink flows from my hands in very different mental processes involving more soul somehow...

I have recently returned to that inky process which I realize as being important, if not imperative. I can only allude to the many stories I would tell, but this is still just the introduction to Leo Toye, who  seemingly spontaneously resurrected himself when I volunteered to write a publicity piece for our upcoming Spring Vashon Island Artist Studio Tour. As I began making notes for an article in pencil I quickly found myself drawing the words as interactive shapes rather than sentences.

This is Leo Toye's art, a certain visual poetry... calligraphy making a composition of literate words & drawing dancing more lively than typeset on the page.

 The work begins in pencil on paper:

Then a tracing on drafting film, also in pencil:

The drawing is then traced in ink on film:

This stage was scanned into a program & finished digitally:

Notice that the lines about "grace" were replaced by digital "ink work":

Click the "read more" button if you would like to view the columns as larger images... 

Tying The Knots...

It is long past time I've posted anything, so to break my silence I begin with an old ambition: to share an instructional video I made several years ago, showing the technique of tying the cords on my bells. I teach this to clients in the studio & now all can learn!

More news is in draft form, waiting for me to finally finish my year-end letter...