Don’t mean the developer type. Although, to credit, I was fortunate to be very happy in a close-in Austin apartment developer building, pool skyline, greatest downstairs folks and just basic conveniences, big ole management company, sure, but everything worked. Spoiled, yes I am. And someone, who probably made a little money, did build that.
Here my young neighbor constructed a standing garden over the winter, sawing and hammering, reusing wood pallets. Now in June it’s got in it vegetables, flowers, tiny gnomes. Really adorable. And as I write, evening now, he’s still out there sawing and hammering to make it even better.
And now has finished building a really lovely table, out there in the afternoon sun right now.
Through my neighborhood, I see shared gardens next to the sidewalk in those little baby swim pools, or just in back yards. Home made signs, “take what you can eat just leave the plants.”
I was walking back from lap swim the other morning and my neighbor down the street was out watering this wonderland fantasyland explosive garden literally surrounding, yes surrounding, his house. One tree, or bush, or whatever, taller than me, was blooming huge purple and I asked him the name. “Rose of Sharon,” he said. “Steinbeck,” I said. “Grapes of Wrath,” he said. Pretty nice way to start a summer day.
My Father so loved and excelled at gardening. Making beauty and nourishment from earth and water and sun, seeds, some tools but most of all his effort. He made that.
He also constructed clocks for all his children. I had a small (graceful) wall one of his before I was married, now with one of my Brothers. When each of us, our Father’s children, did marry, he made big ole Grandfather clocks as wedding gifts. Mine, now is happily with one my Nieces and will be cared for and stay in family.
And then the stained glass. Family is sharing that from him.
He built a treehouse for my Brothers (which with my fear of heights, I would not climb into, and my Brothers didn’t want there, at that time, girls anyway). He built a play thingie for my son, his grandson, with deck and cabin and stairs and slide, later turned into a cabin which neighbor kids would seek.
My son so wanted a wooden Brio train set at Terra Toys in Austin (when it still was on South Congress, best toy store ever) that, yup, pricy, but I could not say no. And then Dad made a wooden play table for the Brio tracks and trains. Little painted pond, little painted lawns just the right height.
My Mother (and her Mother) were so talented at sewing. (I tried, me no great, pathetic actually, at sewing.) Going through storage lockers on the weekend, found the interview dress my Mom made for part of my application process for my undergraduate honors program. And in my closet still now, that Eighties wedding suit, lace jacket, bubble skirt, Eighties (oh) but my Mother did make it. (She also last minute adjusted the waistline on my attendant’s gown.)
And quilts. My Mother is a quilt maker.
A long time Austin colleague and friend, brainiac at his day job, basically imagined a type of linguistics now with fellow scholars world wide, also built some lovely, just lovely furniture at home. And a red and yellow shelf thing using wood and paint and Cafe Bustelo cans. And that was pretty cool too.
From Austin I have on my walls now what a so very talented woman from my writers’ group called “spirit boxes” made from found things and her inspiration. And a painting made by someone I never knew, bought at a fundraiser for the homeless of Austin. All the artists there were unhoused but the talent. It is one of the most serene, perfect, of anything around me here and I cherish it. My son, quite young then, at the same event, met and had a so cool conversation with another artist working with found things, who called himself Mr. Bear. My son offered Mr. Bear all the coins in his, son’s, pockets, to buy a small piece which was wonderfully imaginative and delightful. Things fished out of some creek in Austin and assembled into a teeny alligator with teeny alligator eyes.
So here am I writing a book and building related websites (one on creative women, with collaborators). (Margaret Fuller, Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Carrington, Doris Lessing, and Sylvia Plath, my models of creative female invention).
Grad school at USC, Friday nights were free at MOCA and there I discovered Robert Rauschenberg, hands down my very very favorite visual artist. Art Institute Chicago Modern Wing has a Joseph Cornell collection which I always can last hours in fascination. Assemblage.
Well then there’s David Hockney. Competition for very very favorite visual artist. Gifted some posters of his work, still in storage, can’t wait to see them again.
Drooling over brilliant Greta Gerwig’s film Barbie, coming up pretty soon. I for sure had the Barbie stuff and hours of imaginary fun with my friends at our young age. Not quite the same as teeny dressy doll clothes and teeny dressy doll house but the film, now, looks to be hilarious and who does not need hilarious right now.
Now I have to drool over Oppenheimer. I’m no fan of action on screen but this looks different.
Notice at my local little market store a sidewalk chalk drawing near the outdoor plant stand. We’ve had some rain lately so it’s a little faded but still there.
Me in chair at desk but still in the same spirit of doing and making. Best days wake up words in head and walking, swimming, gym machines, words in head.
I’ve not totally mastered WordPress but I’m passable. Practice helps. Making new things.
Figuring out a play list, never done before. I like the variety of my taste, just never realized oh yeah, I can put this together instead of YouTube. Stravinsky and Gershwin, Sid Vicious, Talking Heads, Ave Maria, Travelling Wilburys, Sheryl Crow, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder (a few). That spreadsheet is way long. And George Harrison. And Tina Turner. Making new things.
Going through storage, found copies of the undergraduate newspaper that I edited and the campus literary magazine to which I contributed. Little early Joyce Maynard like moment. Luckily with guidance and practice my writing has matured.
Always through school and work I was told that I made connections and saw patterns that others didn’t and then would recognize, oh yeah. That’s my building and creating.
So very trivial but I still like building Lego. At my age. Putting things together is what we do.
Found my little rocks, the pine cone, that I snitched from Leonardo da Vinci’s Amboise home, and the self portrait engraving I bought there, and the photo of his bridge there, which will become my second WordPress banner header.
Leonardo da Vinci was such a brilliance, and I have been a fan girl for as as long as I can remember. I really, really, really like da Vinci. Now things from his house in France are with me here. What luck.
Dayna Finet 