all good stuff

i came home from watering and weeding our school garden to find a package waiting for me. really - for the girls eventually - but for now, i am savouring them. (click to enlarge.)





these sweet paintings are by alice dubois. i have never met alice. but i feel connected to her by fate. a painter inspired by rbk, she sent him a picture in gratitude. it arrived in the weeks after his death - and i returned it to alice - telling her how much i thought he would have liked it - and how sorry i was that it arrived too late for him to see.

i have been watching alice ever since. her work often shows the rbk influence and references and i smile when i think how much he would have loved that. when these gems appeared, i couldn't resist.

thank you alice.



on the home front, i found out late in the month, that our modern-shed is shed of the month. check out the pics - and a short interview with me, before the month is over (april where did you go?) over here.

also, i have decided to try chronicling our house-work separately. we will see how it goes. find it at Jumilla Productions in turn i am bringing this space back to its original name - jumilla stories - which seems to fit better than ever. as always - thanks for checking in!

deaccessioning

in my museum-world-circles deaccessioning - "the process of disposing, selling, or trading of objects from a collection" - is often a subject of conversation/debate. especially surrounding estate work. one wants to be sure that a gift to a specific institution is not put up for sale at a later date. clauses are formed and contracts are signed. but there is finite space. museum collections grow - but more often than not, storage and gallery walls, do not. something has to go.

our personal collection - of not just art, but stuff - seems to be at a peak. our walls and storage are full. our mid-century modern-carport-instead-of-garage-and-no-attic-to-speak-of is at capacity. i am trying to deaccession.

i am sentimental. i am sure that is what took me to museum work in the first place.

the kids' stuff is a big issue too. souvenirs that haven't been looked at in years all of a sudden are more precious than life when spotted in the donation box. do you have your kids participate in weeding through their things. or do you do it on the sly?

what is your strategy for letting go?

summer-lovin'

porch-swings




concrete-planters




clothes-lines

rolling along

unplugging

turning off our screens. (work email excluded - sigh.)

see you next week!

home work

2001


today

I have found an old stack of pictures from the first time we walked through the house that has become our home. I can recall looking at them some time ago and thinking I should really put them into an album. Then I thought perhaps I would start up another blog just to document the house. (I even thought up a name.) For now, I am going to try and post more before and after shots here - and document the work that has gone into making this place ours.

p.s. happy unofficial official anniversary cowboy.

my kid

I am watching as my nearly 8 year old walks a line between being a kid and this strange new childhood that surrounds us of high-heeled boots on third graders and reading tigerbeat magazine. she seems to be navigating it more successfully than i am. i revolt at all the "tween" marketing that is thrown our way and contemplate moving to a remote island (you know the one) where these issues might not be so relevant (though perhaps they would be). she seems to take it in stride. picking up a lot from her school friends but choosing wisely where she puts her interests.

she is anxious to see the new hannah montana movie. has a favourite jonas brother. is particular about her footwear but seems to understand that heels are not appropriate at an age when you have so much running around to do.

she spends a lot of time talking to her chicken. is completely into wearing a paper birthday hat at a two year old's party in the park. likes to play that she is a puppy with her sister.

she has found a balance. and i am trying hard to help maintain it.

i love you kid.

happy easter!

campout

Pt. Magu SP (Big Sycamore) :: Leo Carillo SP
one night :: two days
45 minutes from home :: a perfect get-away

we all want to change the world

this weekend, my world was changed.

152 volunteers
670 shrubs
65 trees

a garden

the color of play

green (and purple, yellow, orange, brown, red, black...)



a hike / play at the "farm" only a few blocks from our home.


so happy about the donation of over 600 shrubs and 60 trees for our schoolyard. just need a sign to welcome birds and bugs!

and happy to have been invited to participate in a presentation to the Los Angeles City Council on the value of Community School Parks!

Happy (happy!) Monday

circa 1980

good finds at the goodwill last week. i just couldn't resist this early 80's SFV Girl Scout vest. (and the sheet is rests on. along with a great sewing basket, and three vintage embroidery kits in various stages of completion. oh, and a stove-top espresso pot and vintage 60s plastic tray. goodstuff goodwill.) this piece though took me back. thinking whoever wore it must be my age now. (or likely a little younger, eek.) wondering why and how it ended up in a thrift shop.

that is one of my favourite things about thrifting. the stories each item carries. the ones we can deduce. and the ones we can imagine.

happy sunday

listening

day by day is keeping me busy. in all the good ways.
hope all is well out there...
hannah - i'm working on your request.

p.s. any advice on removing serious lime deposits from an espresso maker?

covered

hannah's link inspired me to pull these out. (the series of bookcover screenprints "In Our Time" by R.B. Kitaj)

they do not belong in a box under the bed.

::

sorry i'm not posting schoolyard pics yet. have a few collected here.

rainy again and i love it.

and very excited to have sandra tsing loh coming to our school tonight. we have invited her as an experiment: public school as community center. i have this little side-dream (apart from the one about a green schoolyard) of a place to gather our community for lectures, learning etc. will see how it goes. she will be speaking about parent activism, the "burning moms" movement, and screening the short documentary on the California Children's Rally she organised last summer.

if you are the neighborhood - and want to join the revolution to improve education funding in california - stop by! (when i put it that way, how can you say no?)

best laid plans

well, not quite the estimated cubic yardage came out this weekend. it was hard hard labour. and could have used another group of volunteers. but it came out beautifully. we did get more than half of it done. and we will be planting around 25 new trees and a lot of plants in it in a couple of weeks. it is amazing how much better the dirt alone looks.

we finished last night in the dark. it is raining today. so i don't have any good after pictures yet...

to the few who supported me this weekend and read here - thank you. i know i say it all the time, but i am truly blessed with the best neighbours in the world.

here are pictures from the little garden that started it all. because i like pictures. and these are a good reminder...

on the table

trying to return to my domestic groove... (aside from the prep work we are doing to remove - gasp! - 152 cubic yards - i think that is something like 4000 sq ft - could that be right?? - of asphalt from our neighborhood schoolyard next weekend! whoo hoo!)

week end

happy friday

remembered

my dad
27 september 1941 - 17 february 2002

5 months after e was born my dad died quickly and unexpectedly from complications during heart surgery. i often tell stories of him to my girls. of how funny he was (his love of riddles: "tree and a turd, tree and a turd, tree and a turd"). how he had this amazingly strong threshold for pain (how his pants were once on fire and he didn't notice). his twinkle (now in their eyes). his dislike of being late ("like a herd of turtles") and his love for all people ("be like the Lord and love them all).



there are some stories i don't know. i don't know much about the little boy in this photo - front row far left. my dad never spoke of his childhood. and to my regret, i never really asked. i suppose i thought i would hear those stories as he told them to my children. i have boxes of photos from my grandmother that i try and piece the stories from.

something in my heart tells me he didn't have a joyful childhood. he was born on a farm in rural Manitoba. farming was a hard life. they didn't have much. his sister died of cancer when she was 16. he had an older and a younger brother. his father died when he was young and he was raised after that in large part by relatives. my grandmother unable to manage the three boys i suppose. he never finished school. he always regretted that. he met my mom at a dance by a lake. sometimes he seemed very sad. i now know he suffered from depression. i never knew that story as a child.

i had a very joyful childhood. he was a huge part of that. i tell stories of camping trips. iceskating in our backyard. "secret" visits to the A & W after choir practice. and crawling into his lap when i felt low.

unconditional love of your children, the ability to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", and kindness to your "fellow man" are things i take with me everyday because of him.

i miss you dad.

"If you need it get it. If you don't need it - forget it." -- Thelma May Beets b.1918

Over breakfast this morning I read my girls a really inspiring article in today's LA Times - memories of survivors of the Great Depression.

The children of those times learned things that they would remember for the rest of their lives. They discovered how to make endless pots of soup, how to use corncobs for fuel, how to make undergarments from bleached feed sacks. They learned the value of a wild imagination and honest neighbors.
They were good lessons.

You can read the article in its entirety here as well as images, and very moving audio from the interviews conducted.