Our Neighborhood

Today I erected my first outdoor tile panel. Golden tulips keep it company, along with my mother’s ceramic, gargoyle frogs. There has been so much work done here, shovel by shovel, rock by rock, carving gardens on this iron ground. David has his vision of lush fruit trees and vegetables and English lavender, and bit by bit it is revealing itself. I have never been much of a gardener, but the vague notion of a new purpose for my art is sprouting and taking root as well.

I did not know when we moved here how truly unrelenting the ugliness would be. The lace curtains in my kitchen are pulled back only to reveal tangled backyards filled with the carcasses of furniture, rusting vehicles, ruptured garbage bags, sad broken plastic things that once were children’s toys. There are some great people down here, but there are also apartments where people deal drugs...and when the occasional gunshot goes off, I am grateful that I am married to a man in law enforcement.

I wage war on this place with beauty, and often its plainer cousin, tidiness.  In the alley, I scoop up beer cans and cigarette butts and chop at weeds so menacing that they seem to have claws. I tenderly paint cast-off lawn lanterns with the colors of forget-me-nots and ‘plant’ them on stakes in front of our chokecherry bushes. I have painted a sign for our home, with ornate letters and a floral border, and at one point, I even hung some of my tiles on the front fence. While David digs, I will paint. This may be the toughest art show I will ever love.

There is so much pain here, so much chaos and desolation. We will continue to try to bring something of comfort here.