BLOG DANCE...

I am coming back to my long-familiar history on Blogspot, which I hope will restore a certain richness which I have long appreciated.

While I have become disenchanted with my stint of trying to blog on Shopify, I continue to celebrate Shopify for many other functions. When my computer guru introduced me to Shopify, he put it simply: 

Shopify is about numbers, while 

Blogspot is about words.

I need both!

My business has been happily busy recently, mostly because my faithful associate, Momo, has been regularly active on the various social media platforms we try to keep up with: Facebook,  Instagram, & TikTok. The last one is especially lively... in numerous ways... most of them ever puzzling.  We've had some posts which have gone viral (up to 47,000 hits), but that has not always resulted in sales. We are trying to tease answers about the algorithms, as are many others. 

We were astounded by a run of sales of the Chocolate Lily Earrings, of which Momo had made-up several dozen pairs last year from an abundance of stock when our foundry mistakenly filled an order twice.  We don't often sell earrings, but something mysteriously "clicked" on TikTok & we've been frequently shipping them out...  sometime 4-5 orders a day! We don't know why, but we're not complaining!

The capabilities of Shopify to keep the sales, mailing & inventory functioning in real time are a boon to me; I do not love numbers & the details of bookkeeping. The program keeps track & analyzes sales & information about customers which will be useful to study how the business is faring in various ways. It can do more than I can easily fathom, much less use at present. I'm happy to keep exploring & learning its capabilities.

But Shopify is not so capable of reflecting the style of my communication. I have long taken pride in my blog. It is more than a tool for the business, which is the way Shopify is programed. I suspect I could keep working to finesse it better, but it simply doesn't seem worth it to try to reinvent what Blogspot already does.

I have often quipped that my blog is "the book I will never write." It is a collection of essays about several decades of my history... with photos. It is wildly variable as to quality. I obviously have found myself posting in many moods and manners. It is very personal. That is, I believe, much of its value.

So this flipping of venues is more of my experimental exploration. I say"venueS" because at this point I will probably post & repost back & forth, in order to educate myself more about how they contrast in use.

You may continue to read my blog on both plstforms: https://www.grbbells.com/blogs/blog &/OR: GRBBELLS.COM...

Biz & Personal, Mixed... as usual. Obviously clarity is not my easy path. 

FINE! 

I bumble well.

HOLIDAY GARDEN [APRES CHRISTMAS] 2018...

 I am digging back into the studio after the holidays, 

as seen with the pile of garden cuttings 

impulsively spray-painted 

silver, for a decorative "arrangement" now languishing 

while I ponder being safely rid of the leavings...

T'won't compost & probably ought not to be burned. 

I did not think that one out very well...

Solstice has long been the heart-fully factual event for us. 

This year we attended a lively party with a large group of

 good friends... Enjoying much fine conversation! 

On our way home we walked the path around a large pond 

where one Islander gifted the night's magic... 

a millennia of flames... luminaria 

flickering harmony with misty light of full moon! 

Then home to our own lamps for a long recuperative sleep!

Thus Christmas was happily celebrated quietly. Just the two of us at home here at Soundcliff... a very rare thing! The first time in many years that we have not been traveling, either to spend time with family... or seeking to avoid any additional rush of festivities after the period when the Island's Studio Tour absorbs so much of the calendar with the hard work of cleaning & preparing for two intense weekends of "showtime"... ringing in, ringing out & ringing up the bells' business!

We've tried escaping to various parts of the Orient, only to discover the universality of Santa & various versions of decorated trees, even if oftentimes they are more entertaining than in this country. So it is probably easiest to just sit tight & ignore the fuss where we have the most control! 

Our weather, while quite wet, has been mild, so the garden has continued to produce & bloom. I picked greens & salads for the meals to which we treated ourselves. Stephen made a big batch of his specialty crab cakes. There was fresh salmon & ahi for the succession of nights... sweet times!

The reliable gift of produce in this season is Mashua, the starch crop I've grown since learning about it at the Mother Garden in Sonoma County, when I lived in northern California 25 years ago. The abundant foliage climbs high all summer, giving its spicy nasturtium zip as addition to salads, but in late autumn it develops happy blossoms, signaling that its roots are making the tubers for which it is generally raised by the Peruvian gardeners who more famously gave us potatoes.

 

These beautiful organic packages of intense flavor can be eaten raw... I like them thin sliced like winter "radishes" to make toothsome crispy zippity-do-da salad nibbles... 

but are more usually served as a cooked vegetable. Sauteed or better roasted, 

both the flavor & texture soften & sweeten rather ephemerally.

 The hexagonal raised bed produced Trout's Back lettuces & Baby Bok Choy...

The Wasabi Arugula blossoms went in the salad to accompany the Ahi well!

Pineapple Sage blossoms color holiday salads festive...

The small Camellia started blooming to add more red to our view.

One stalwart patch of pansies held-on!

 I brought the Abutilon into the studio to protect 

& display its bell-inspiration during the show...

But this fuchsia made a lovely small show 

spiting difficulties from lack of light & temperature.

I've been celebrating the small mountain of cedar sawdust which covers the new hugelkulture Tom helped build during a week of Indian summer... an experiment in re-sculpting the contour of one large section of the garden from "sagging swale" into a more visually sturdy "rib". A long term project!

Reminding the sweet welcome in/out my plane window as we came home from Thanksgiving in Florida. Tahoma is our beautiful mother mountain... we watch her from Soundcliff's windows every day she isn't hiding in the clouds with which she dresses for her constantly evolving fashion!

These Ibis & Pelicans joined us for lunch at a dockside restaurant one afternoon down there...

Reminding me of the sculpture hiding silhouetted behind the mylar sheet we use as a sun shade in our bedroom window... not needed often during this dark time, but useful when we are journaling & reading on rare enough mornings desiring celebration of any such intrusions of light returning!

Early Bird Blessings For this New Year!

AFTER WINTER SOLSTICE - 2018...

Sunrise at Soundcliff on the morning after the longest night...

Greetings on the Winter Solstice of 2018…

Solstice is THE holiday for me. A day as “HOLY” as I can easily accept… being quite real. The physical manifestation of whatever genuine magic keeps the world from tilting totally out of control.

A moment in the rhythmic continuity of everything 

we can really know marks this seasonal symbolic loss of light & of its return. 

All the other festivities of culture begin with this. I could too easily whisper “amen” & be done with the rest. 

But, no, I realize that I can choose better... 

Working inside the wider study & understanding I’ve long practiced I appreciate again that I am not always the same curmudgeon I have sometimes seemed this year. 

I have my moments, teetering on this cusp, of both snarl & smile.

I have been remembering a story which reveals part of the origins of that curmudgeon, from the year of my graduating from college [being summer1967… 50 & more years ago], when I accepted a job to help set-up the first-ever year-round Christmas Shoppe in Denver’s newly developing Larimer Square. 

I was one of a cadre of creatives [read: mostly gay boys] who naturally collected around this project of wrangling Denver’s version of retail rehabilitation by bringing gifts of talent which were essential & appreciated while being un-affordable & thus ultimately under-rewarded in the longer term… An economic fable commonly called “gentrification”…

We began in August, as I recall, to unpack hundreds of cartons containing dozens of artificial trees, upon which we carefully strung hundreds of strings of lights & then hung with thousands of ornaments. 

For some trees there were obvious “themes” or color scenes to follow with some logic, but others invited the invention at which we could excel when given opportunity to play creatively as a fair-or-not part of the pay package. It was, after all, the summer of love... 

The initial Ho-Ho-Ho enthusiasm we brought to work at this new adventure, wearing cut-offs to cope with summer heat in an old historic brick building with no AC, began to drag. Soon enough, the plastic icicles were being hung with matching drips of sweat. The fake snow couldn’t cool anything except one’s sagging ardor. The scent of the holidays became the rank smell of hot glittery paint on cheap wood, hide glue & ageing papier-mâché. What would later seem festive to eager customers had become too early rather icky. 

I thus lost most any love of Christmas as it was becoming, even then, to be celebrated & it took some years until I could think of the holidays without noticing that stink… which, at least symbolically, still returns to my nostrils some years.

So, I have done several versions of these holidays backstage, so to speak, in retail since the small-town department store I worked during high school, through the Ma-and-Pa jewelry store so important to me during college… into the folly of Christmas-in-July.

I deserve my status as part time curmudgeon! 

The anodyne to what I’ve come to see mostly as a madness is this simply magical re-occurrence of a long night of adjustment into proof of sanity. Balance. All has righted itself. Life continues anew. 

I can now rather more easily let all the ancillary feasts carry-on as they might & need. I play with them as I will… or not. I know what is real to me.

Solstice Blessings, 

With Bells... or without even those such trappings…

GRB

ABA CONVENTION - KANSAS CITY - 2015

The 70th annual American Bell Association Convention was held in a city I've known & appreciated since first visiting after graduating from 8th grade. Over the years I've visited two aunts; an early art teacher; a college roommate; my only sister; & my closest brother... plus several favorite cousins.

We have lots of good reasons to visit KC... even before the barbecue!

The city's Nelson-Atkins art museum is a great & unusually lively institution,  It was there, in 1959, on my first visit I met the ancient Greek lion sculpted of marble which became the model for my logo. I drew him as a wheeled pull-toy, inspiring in turn my doppelganger, Leo Toye. He was long in the repair shop & on our last visit the museum was closed... although the translucent walls of the Steven Holl building glowed enticingly...

I certainly was anticipating remaking acquaintance with this important entity who has become a personal symbol. He's still wonderful!

We are most likely to attend the ABA convention when it is held in a city we want to visit, Because it is such an expensive show we often don't find it worth the time/expense. The group has been getting smaller in the decades since I began attending in 1983... coincidentally staying with brother Jon & his partner Michael that trip as well. They loaned me a car to drive to Springfield, Missouri, where that meeting was held. In those days 350-400 registered. When I came to know only 128 were attending this year, I became concerned... in spite we'd been 4 years absent ourselves... which does historically help build interest.

The first day is a gathering time before the next day's first official session. The display room is open that day for the longest block of time. We begin setting-up our display after breakfast & the room is opened from after lunch until dinner time. I usually write half my business in those 5-6 afternoon hours. At closing time we were still wrapping-up an single client's order for 10 bells... a  sale handsomely allaying earlier fears. Appreciative business continued to make a very successful show for the bells.

THE BELL DISPLAY 

 

The hotel was rather perfect: with a pleasant staff; a roomy suite overlooking an open interior court from 8 floors up; breakfast with custom omelets; a generous happy hour... both gratis; & meals from quite a good kitchen... we were pleased.

Of course I have developed friendships with many of the ABA members over the years. Stephen has his own relationships since he often has accompanied me during our 20 years. We were the first out gay couple during times which did not easily guarantee the acceptance we feel now.

During handshakes & hugs hello I found myself repeatedly queried... with puzzled or concerned glances... about my health. We discovered a rumor that I was perhaps dying of AIDS! I can only presume some story concerning my period learning about inflammation got overblown during the years we were absent from attending conventions. That all got fixed years ago by my changing to a gluten-free diet with copious amounts of kale!  It was amusing to ravel by explaining the young man with whom I work in our garden & woods is often impressed how well I can keep up with him. 

"Oh, the humanity!"

At least they were talking about me!

Our luggage, waiting on the Island's dock with me for Stephen's hike up to the parking lot to bring down the car. This is our total baggage for the bell show; his biz; &amp our wardrobes. It includes a very well-traveled taped paper construction I made sometime in the 90's to transport the bell display boards... it still functions beautifully even as it has accumulated significant additional value over the years in terms of shipping costs. 'Slap another $50 bill onto its hide for this trip...

'Twas a good trip indeed... beginning with rare views of the backside of our mountain on the first flight's takeoff...

Internal Winter Weather...

 ...remember you may click & click again on the photos to enlarge them...

My lifelong habit prefers to work in the studio during the long winter nights. This nocturnal mode sometimes allows me to see sunrise on my way to sleep...

Sunset seems always to follow too quickly, but can reward us on these short days, if the weather is clear enough to see Tahoma [the mountain most know as Mt Ranier] with the alpenglow reflecting raspberry colored light in our eastern view. The spine of the island prevents any direct view of sunset from our aspect...

The last full moon rose dramatically just as I was on the beach, fortunately with my camera, even as I'd thought about leaving it at home when I left at dusk for a quick walk. I'd not been paying attention to its cycle & was surprised to wonder at its unexpected light rising behind trees on the horizon...

Later I took the tripod out onto the Prow Deck to make some longer exposures as that orange orb climbed high enough to make a causeway of reflected light in cooler coloration...

So my internal weather is affected by that of the external... deep, creatively dark, lit dramatically... productive, even as I am also feeling less than "on top" of the schedule finishing one year's business & moving into the next, which speeds along. Now it is Imbolc, St Bridget's celebration, when diurnal time begins again to balance day & night.

There are additional stories, explaining somewhat more mundane matters of weather on the "read more" button below:

TIME FRACTURED... SOLSTICE...

[CLICK & CLICK AGAIN ON THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM]

An accident occurring just two days before the Open Studio saw the door, which would soon need to welcome our visitors, broken into a million-pieced jigsaw puzzle... giving my camera's eye some wild visuals... while being accompanied by a curious soundtrack of crackling pings & tinkles which went on for several hours as the tempered glass continued its slow disintegration. It held in its suspension of gravity for most of a day before falling into a fine mess needing careful attention toward clean-up!

But for those hours I enjoyed views seeming quite decorative & festive, even inside the frustration of a difficult situation. I was sad when I opened it one time too many for its fragile state... as it fell into a heap of sparkling shards. I'd wanted to make even more photographs, although you might not want so many as even these!

Fortunately the inside pane was intact because it wouldn't get replaced until Solstice Eve. The door functioned fine during the two weekends of the event, which was slower than I had hoped, due to weather matching that adventure. Yet, in the end, we wrote a respectable business even so. The bells do love ringing their role as holiday treats!

This self-portrait suggests my own fracturing during this busy time... holding on while letting go.

While our weather was too overcast to view last night's rare Solstice eclipse... this morning's dawn was happily dramatic. A great beginning of the new year!

Solstice is the real deal of this season, as I've noted for many years. Test-able... as the light seems already to be changing, if simply because the gallop toward shorter days has reached its ultimate exhaustion. While the pace in their lengthening will not seem quick enough I love the turning toward the light which this... the real holiday... promises.

I am exhausted in tandem... the season in the studio is mostly finished. Christmas always seems a bit anti-climatic to me & our New Year is a tardy event waiting for the calendar to catch up with the astronomical fact.

While I remember years ago having a studio rush well into Christmas Eve... selling gold earrings to guys shopping last minute presents for their ladies, while I poured liberal shots of brandy to lubricate easier choices...

These days my clientele has it already wrapped up... Hurrah!

So I am holding the day in peace & quiet, sending those qualities to all who appreciate its inherent joy! Our Lady Tahoma, seen here several evenings ago, is a fine teacher of such sentiment... I never tire of her lessons. Perhaps she offers wisdom even at distance...

TIME OF ANCIENT SPIDERS...

This view of Tahoma, wearing one of her lovely hats, distracted me from the garden on a recent evening. I'd been photographing the sedum blooms ripening from a rich pink toward their autumnal bronze coloration under a Lacinata kale in the lowering light.

[Remember... you may double click to enlarge photos.]

I love this season for the appearance of a rich plethora of resilient webbing spun by the maturing hunger of a zillion spiders feeding during breeding season for both themselves & their egg cases. While gorgeously decorating Soundcliff's windows, doorways & garden paths... they thus render me the destroyer of much craft, art & sculpture.

I wrote last year about spider webs but this year my camera has been seduced anew. Being so subtle as to be invisible in some light while another angle brings them into stunning reflection against dark background... they are deliciously elusive to capture with the lens. Finding the vantage point with good back-light against a low-keyed background, or shooting at night to catch that deeper contrast are interesting problems to solve. Raindrops included might be photographically trite but that's probably because they too are such a fine teaching tool!

I have been re-reading old journals, trying to find mentions of a particularly important project during the 1982-83 era. Today I found a description of watching a spider building its web in the space above my wax desk in the studio when I lived in Sedona, AZ.

I frequently discover synchronistic rhythms in my history relating to current life so this morning's serendipity stretches & stitches this story of arachnid interest over some 28 years. I'm reminded as well that I had a spider collection during my grade school years on the farm in Kansas... so all this spins much older still... even as I happily present a more respectful enjoyment than what would now be 50 year old vials of specimens in alcohol!

GRB Journal: 27 July 1982

What an amazing fantasy environment exists above my studio lamp! A tiny white spider caught my magni-visored eye. First sight was on a piece of wax from which I'd been taking bits with a hot tool... stringing out threads of my own. Running along the mandrel. Sticking his/her tail up doing a tippy-toe dance. 'Seemed to be tying something. No, its the ass that's doing. What a trip to tie knots with your ass! Oh! There goes a thread... he's shooting it out! Another dance as he winds up the slack fibre he's floated out, sticky enough to catch on the lamp above ! & in moments he's scampering up that ephemeral line -- his own projection. Real enough to crawl on. Of Himself. A chance hook on whatever the breeze took it to. Or is it chance? Is he playing the breeze & his line whipping it with studied English. Surfing that rip let of air. Aiming. Probably some of both. He must be whistling while he works. He does dance & dash. Floating suspended on an elegant construction. Up he goes. This time I know he has a previous line. A more well traveled path into areas of the corner I haven't recently disturbed by moving the lamp. The lamp is a hunting expedition. Home must be up near the ceiling-- he's got roads & even expressways up there. The web even near the light & with my magnification are almost invisible. Only when they catch the light, then even only after he follows one... traces dot-to-dot do my eyes focus on it! As I become aware I see the drawing. He's been busy! Neat stitching! ... Becomes almost space travel. He's out of sight... I followed with my mind & got lost on this page.

[ I've only slightly edited this entry, deciding to leave the male pronoun I mistakenly used, apparently identifying myself with what was no doubt a female, but cutting a short confusing tangential reference. It is curious to make a transcription of only a single page out of the thousands which exist in these journals.

This shot attempted to catch several versions of flight seen through our bathroom window... a papier-mache figure with feather wings inside & an iron crow sculpture out on the deck rail, with a web built floating on the breeze, it's real flight spans some 12 foot distance.

Some times I can't decide which shot I like best. I give you this choice:

Ephemeral beauty abounds !!!