Road Work..  was the working title of this project but the actual title is There Were Signs.  I took photos of construction symbols painted on the pavement in my neighborhood as well as broken roads, printed the photos on organza and stitched them onto beaded tulle and sheer rayon. Then I hung those diaphanous ribbons onto broken bicycle spokes.

Thanks to Jesse Kuester at Wheel and Sprocket for taking apart an old wheel for me!

Even before Marie Kondo taught us how to tidy, if something I owned didn’t spark joy, I ditched it with cold-hearted vigor. Even sentimental items. Even adorable items.
 
A red coat with giant silver grommets on its side pockets that my mom chose for me just before she died. Gone. A pair of two-tone tap-like shoes secured with grosgrain ribbons. Gone. And, I rarely pine for any of the rejects. 
 
But one category defies my routine molts: Scarves.
 
Silk. Rayon. Pashmina. Fringed. Oblong. Infinity. They are all immune. When on a cleaning rampage, I don’t even open the scarf drawer to disrupt that shrewd nest of accessories.
 
My scarf drawer is the place I start when closet inspiration fails. It’s a place I turn a pleasant-enough outfit into enchanting. Even those squares of challis which festooned my ponytails 30 years ago make delightful head wraps. With all the cool dividers available, now one glance settles any fashion conflict.
 
And, honestly, the feast of color in my scarf drawer is a pleasure all onto itself.

If I wake early enough with a few minutes to spare and I’m mindful of my amazing view, I capture the colors of dawn. The sky. The lake. Their light. Not one picture looks the same. Boring, my life will never be.

Stunning beauty radiated in the stands at the Green Bay Packers football game last weekend. I couldn’t help staring and wondering why EVERY person looked gorgeous – young and old, men and women. It was because all of us were blanketed in scarves and caps with only our eyes showing. No perfect white teeth,  no buoyant shiny hair to distract. Just eyes. In the spotlight of their blinking, sparkling, vigilant pools of splendor.   
 

Recently I dreamed of an infant girl, who called someone else her mother but actually was mine and who gushed diarrhea when I held her. I think that baby was me, instructing me to own my slimy shit.
Studies of a Seated Female, Child's Head, and Three Studies of a Baby, c. 1507–8 Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520) The Cleveland Museum of Art

The US Postal Service returned this package to me not because of insufficient postage or shoddy wrapping. It was returned because it represented a heightened security concern. Apparently, one sign of terrorism is a row of forever stamps on a package weighing more than 13 ounces.
 
It made me think of all the people who protect us. Stealthily. Not just our Armed Forces or FBI or CIA or local law enforcement. The US Postal Service protects us, too. I love that.
 
And, because I forgot to enclose something in this package, the US Postal Service saved me from myself and gave me the chance at a do-over with no one the wiser.

When asked at a book event about racism in the city of Green Bay when he was manager of the Packers, Ron Wolf said, “I brought in barbers and soul food for our black players.”

 
Huh. Not really an answer, Ron.
 
I was tempted to genuflect.

 UV photography is beside the point after a certain age. I can see clearly, without amplification, the white scars of every mosquito bite I scratched until they bled and the countless vertical-sided, smooth-roofed buttes of sun-damaged patches and the twinned purple patches on my endlessly skinned knees. Except for my eyes, my whole body probably would be obscured by skin damage in a UV photo.
 
And that's AOK with me. Imperfections equal stories. Fireflies. Beaches. Tenderness. My skin reads like a diary of my youth.   

For an article about UV photography see:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/style/uv-photos.html

Photo from Walgreen’s website.


 

Nothing much happens in “The Summer Book” by Tove Jansson except death, life and love on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. It is comprised of 22 vignettes and features mostly just two characters: Sophia, a six-year-old girl whose mother just died, and Sophia’s grandmother who is her wise and sometimes cranky summer playmate. They build a forest of animals out of driftwood. They row to a nearby island and break a lock to peer into someone’s new summer home. Sophia dictates her stories to grandma so she’s not slowed by pesky spelling.
 
It’s small in size, just 184 pages with wide margins, and huge in character study and language and fierce tenderness. You’ll read it in an afternoon but it will lodge itself in your heart for a long time after.

You've got plenty of time to see Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels at the John Michael Kohler Art Center because it will be on exhibit until May 24, 2020. But her powerful images will be forever burned on your memory. This piece took my breath away. So much upheaval concentrated in one room! I heard a docent tell someone that the original flooring is beneath this piece. The artist and her helpers laid the new flooring on top.