Slaying Monsters

Around Valentine's Day a few years ago, I decided to learn a little bit about archery.  I have always loved the romanticism associated with archery.  Perhaps it is Cupid, a god who can shoot a bullseye with a few feathers on a stick, straight into the heart with his little bow.   

From a physics standpoint, it’s amazing how an arrow flies through the air and into the target.  There is so much to consider: distance and wind, as well as the force with which the arrow leaves the string.   All sorts of things must be considered from the shooter too: stance, aim, angles, release, to name only a few.  But then, I don’t profess to be a great archer, nor have I ever aspired to be a scientist or a physicist, so perhaps my desire to shoot came the scene in the film of Edith Wharton’s “Age of Innocence”, where Winona Rider shoots perfectly, and wins a diamond archery pin.  

 

But who cares about reason?  Archery is fun.  

 

Looking around on the Internet, I found a Genesis Bow.  I love it!!  Mine is a compound bow, royal blue, and perfect for my level of shooting.   I also ordered bright colored arrows!  

 

Out in Spanaway, my husband, Awesome Doug, created a safe space for shooting, and we gathered all our plastic wrappers and stuffed them into a canvas bag to make a target.    Since I knew the target would be blank and wasn’t going to be round, I was inspired to paint something on the canvas to shoot.  

 

Thinking about what to paint, I knew I didn’t want it to be an animal.  I would hate to think of myself as killing an innocent animal.  But, what about monsters?  I don’t mind slaying a monster.  Monsters are figurative, and as we get older, we always seem to gather more and more of them into our lives—these emotional monsters of thought that torture us and make us unhappy with our regrets, our grief, our guilts and frustrations.   

 

Amazingly, by painting an enormous monster on the canvas and filling it full of holes, it became a satisfying and therapeutic practice.   Oddly, over time, I find that I love the monsters that I shoot.  It’s like I am making friends with them, and the monster serves a useful purpose.   

 

We had to retire our first blue monster; he was too full of holes, but I couldn’t throw him away.   Instead, he is hanging up down at the shooting range in a make-do Hall of Fame.  Perhaps, he will be a mentor to the next monster we will slay!

A Garden Shrine

I love nature, and I love gardens … especially when gardens seem to blend in and work with nature.  When I walk around the yard in Spanaway, I love to pick up sticks and rocks and feathers, and I have vases of found feathers around the house, and a sizeable collection of birds’ nests.   To me, these are Nature’s treasures--Mother Nature’s handiwork--and I struggle to find places for them in my house.  That’s why I made my garden shrine.  

 

The shrine took me a long time to create—a little over ten years.  Its form started from the bottom of an old fiberglass shower stall.  When we re-did the bathroom 2010, I created a walk-in tiled shower with a concrete floor, and struggled with taking the fiberglass to the landfill.   However, when I saw the bottom of the shower on its side in the yard, waiting for the trip to the dumpster, I decided to keep it.   

 

For almost ten years, it sat under the cedar trees along the side of the yard.  I waited, partly to see where it wanted to live, and partly to decide how to make it work.  Later, I found a spot on a bank under the hazelnut bushes near the stone labyrinth.   It lived there for a few more years and started to deteriorate; moss began to grow on it.   

 

What finally made me finish the project was something my husband’s grandson said, “Oh!  She’ll never do that!”.   I laughed SO HARD!!!  I HAD BEEN CHALLENGED by a 10-year-old!!!  ... and set about to tile it—good or bad—ugly or beautiful!!  

 

I think what had stopped me from working on it was not knowing how the mosaic or design would look.  Even when I drew out my ideas, I felt that the shrine would never be able to blend with nature in the way I felt about it.  But, when I just gathered all the materials and started working with the monochromatic tiles of white and off-white, magical things began to happen.   I realized that all the shrine needed to be was this neutral space to make the treasures become the focal point.

 

The tile work also strengthened the integrity of the form and allowed for the outside coating of old towels in concrete, which created a rough surface on which the moss is growing.   To me, it is a magical place, and I love the things I find even more because they have the space.   The squirrels seem to love it too … they steal the feathers!