Welcome to Summer in Spencertown

For the 8th year in a row, our little burg of Spencertown, NY is holding its annual welcome to summer event in front of the church on the green in Spencertown. Originally a fundraiser for the historic clapboard church, a relic of days gone by but still a specimen in the history of Columbia County, the event is evolving into a lively and welcoming community day celebrating summer with music, food, plants and handmade as well as vintage wares for sale.

I will be there with pieces from my popular Faith and Wisdom collection as well as an abundance of coffee cups and specially priced platers, soap dishes and other pieces I seem to have a lot of in the studio. Special pricing for the fair.

Frances Culley designed the poster this year and I love her antiquarian aesthetic. Contrasts with my tendency toward a modern look. Diversity rules! If you are in the neighborhood or looking for a fun outing, should be worth the drive. Weather forecast is sunny, though might be little cool. Pack a sweater.

Hope to see you this weekend!

Mother's Day

As a daughter, Mother's Day was always a holiday that I acknowledged (I think!) out of a sense of gratitude (in my best moments) or perhaps obligation (in my less than best moments). As a mother, Mother's day feels a little different. Not quite a birthday, but a unique holiday for me in my family. I always like to get flowers because this is such a great time of year to get things moving in the garden. Everyone is different about how they acknowledge this special day.

According to Wikipedia, Mother's Day was created by Anna Jarvis to celebrate her own mother who had been an advocate and worker for womens' health and sanitary conditions. The holiday became an opportunity for the floral and greeting card industry to sell more stuff, a development Anna Jarvis deeply resented. Jarvis actually spent the rest of her life fighting what she saw as the corruption of a memorial to mothers and objected to sending printed greeting cards calling that practice "lazy" vs. writing a letter. (sounds like a bit of a perfectionist?) Well, I disagree and love to recognize my mom (with printed cards and sometimes flowers!) and be recognized by my son and husband. I know they will buy me a card and some flowers. If I didn't make my own vases, they might buy me a seed vase or tea pot.

However you acknowledge the woman that made your life possible, I do hope you will do it with style. And enjoy it with her if you can!

Seed vases

The Seed Vase Project is an artwork I began in 1998. I make these little 3" high vases periodically and send them around hither and yon. Spring is a great time of year to bring them back into the mix because they are such perfect bud vases. Tatiana has been loading a new batch into Etsy so I thought it good timing to revisit here.

Each vase is numbered as an act of numbering a opposed to an edition. That way, the sequential nature of numbering creates a connection, a thread between the vases. I have been writing about networks lately and the seed vase project is perfect example of a potential network. The numbering connects each owner of a vase to any other owner. In fact, this connection might be seen as a way of relating to another, a sort of fraternity of seed vase owners, art collectors. The Seed Vase Project itself is in fact a global scatter piece, an artwork, living in homes from New York, to Los Angeles, to China, Japan and Germany. I see the Seed Vase Project as the world's largest artwork in fact, consisting of all these discrete objects, a diaspora, like seeds scattered to the winds, taking root? In an imagination somewhere -- evoking friendship, kinship, love.