Getting Personal

How much do you want the world to know about you persoanlly?

Last November, I decided to write a Remembrance Day post on the subject of my father-in-law's early life and military service in the Second World War. At that point in time, I had known father-in-law for over twenty years, but I don't think I really knew him until I sat down to record some of the details of his life. 

My own childhood was comfortable-nothing fancy, but there was always food on the table. As I wrote this short biography, I struggled to imagine what it must have been like to work as a child delivering groceries at 2 cents an order or the extreme poverty that meant his family could not even afford to get him a simple library card. 

I sent hours pouring over every sentence in that blog post wanting to make sure that I represented his life and his contribution to the war effort in a way that would make him proud. 

When I emailed the polished piece of writing for his blessing, I was surprised by his response. 

He was horrified! 

"I don't want people to know all those things about me!", he exclaimed on the phone. What was for me a touching tale of his childhood and early career, was for him too private and personal for all the world to know. 

Of course I had to respect his wishes, and scrap the piece I had worked so hard on!

I think that as an artist and a blog writer, I had become somewhat accustomed to putting myself out there and even baring my soul just a bit. Foolishly, it hadn't accrued to me that not everyone is willing to do that. 

I must confess that there have been times when I myself have begun to wonder if there is even such a thing as privacy in this modern age. 

Buy a simple magazine subscription, and the next thing you know, you have some air duct cleaning company in Toronto hassling you on a daily basis with sales calls. 

It doesn't matter how many times you tell them that you have a boiler not a furnace, and that there are no air ducts to clean...they keep on calling every evening. 

All these thoughts came back to me last weekend when I found myself standing in front of the deeply personal paintings of artist Frida Kahlo.

My days of late have not been my own, so a completely selfish afternoon planned around a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario was something I had been looking forward to for weeks. 

Not even a grey and dismal day could dampen my mood.

Self-Portrait of Diego Rivera from the AGO website

At the moment, the gallery has on a wonderful exhibit of artwork by Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera was the more celebrated of the two artists during their lifetimes. Over the years however, the prominence of Diego's work has receded somewhat in favour of that of his wife Frida. I have a theory as to why that is: Frida Kahlo's her artwork is open and honest that it is impossible not to be touched by it. While Diego's paintings are a magpie of different artistic styles, while Frida's paintings are uniquely her own.

Academically trained, Diego Rivera was certainly the more technically proficient artist.  

Self-portrait by Freda Kahlo from the AGO exhibit

Kahlo was self-taught. She completed fewer than 150 small works- mostly self-portaits and still-lifes before she died at the age of 47. 

The bulk of her paintings are intimate in scale; you could easily tuck them under your arm and walk out of the gallery (although security might take issue if you ever dared to do so).

"I paint my own reality.", Kahlo once famously declared. 

At the age of 18, Frida Kahlo was involved in a tragic accident that left her with several broken ribs, a broken pelvis, multiple fractures to he right leg and foot, and a spine that was broken in three places. 

She spent three months recovering in a full body cast and underwent over 30 operations during her lifetime to repair her injuries and to correct the damage caused by several of the botched early surgeries. 

Drawn from her tumultuous marriage to Diego, her broken body, and her many miscarriages, Kahlo's paintings are often about pain. In this self-portrait above, a lifetime of struggles is expressed in the nails that pierce her skin, a torn body and exposed spine. Tears flow from her eyes and run down her cheeks. 

Kahlo holds nothing back here. She puts her heart and soul onto the canvas.

When it comes to self-expression, most of us are not more hesitant about revealing our inner lives. 

Our most earnest wish from childhood is to fit in and be accepted. We carry into adulthood a deep seated fear of judgement and even recrimination.

Who doesn't want to be seen in anything but the best light?

Add to those concerns is the fact that no man or woman is an island. It is one thing to put yourself out there, it is quite another to drag your family into the spotlight along with you.

When you write for the internet, how personal do you get? Do you dare mention first names of your loved ones?

Let's face it, the internet can be a scary place at times. 

The requests for help that pop up in my email inbox each day are a reminder of that. 

And I would be a very wealthy woman if I could ever claim the vast sums of money I have supposedly been sent or inherited!

When it comes to my blog, there are also disturbing reminders in the daily onslaught of bogus "Anonymous" comments:

"Hey, dude! Assume blog. I really like your article. I am going to visit on a regular basis. Be sure to check out my website: somethingpornographic.com"

I think I may have to enable comment moderation in the new year.

Then... just when you start to question the sanity of ever getting personal on the internet again, you come across a piece of writing that is so honest and heartfelt that it can't help but move you to tears.

The writing was so crystal clear that you feel as if you are standing right there in that kitchen, pealing apples for a pie, and listening to the hushed conversation between a mother and her only son.

The dilemma with which any artist, writer or blogger must wrestle is that sometimes we are at our very best when we are at our most vulnerable.

Heading into August

I seriously had no idea tomato plants could reach such epic proportions!

When it comes to flowers, I am a fairly confident gardener. I grew up in my mother's flower garden after all. She had a vegetable garden too, but my memories of our family vegetable patch has more to do with raiding it for an after school snack, than any working knowledge of growing vegetables. As a child, I loved picking green beans off the vine and eating them raw, warmed only by the afternoon sun. Raspberries were a favourite too. I liked them best slightly under ripe, when the berries were tart and a bit sour.

Although I can clearly remember helping my mother plant beans, peas and carrots each spring, I took no interest in growing vegetables, preferring to help with the flowers garden instead. So when I decided to create a vegetable garden this spring, I did not feel entirely like a I was standing on a solid footing of practical experience.

The design of the vegetable garden was the easy part. I had been carrying around a basic layout in my head for a number of years (filed in my brain under the general heading of creative ideas, right next to the series of large abstract paintings I hope to someday paint).

I knew I wanted a formal arrangement with four raised beds centred around some sort of decorative feature like a fountain or urn. (In the end, I went with an urn that I already had on hand.)

The thinking behind the raised beds was practical, as well as aesthetic. I figured the dogs were less likely to tear through raised beds. (As it turned out this reasoning wasn't particularly sound. We had no sooner filled the boxes with triple mix, when I discovered Rusty standing proudly atop one of the new beds, throughly enjoying this new, elevated vantage point on the world.) 

I don't want to bore you with too many of the construction details. Briefly, we marked off the beds with string held in position with 6" metal spikes. To create each bed, we dug down about 12 inches, removing the grass and the less than ideal soil.

Then, to make the pathways, we laid down heavy duty weed barrier and covered it with natural cedar mulch. (Eventually, we plan to replace the mulch in the centre section with flagstone and create more of a courtyard, with a French styled allée on either side.)

Each of the four planting boxes with made with 2 x 8 cedar planks. I opted not to finish them in any way. I know this means the boards will likely rot and will probably need to be replaced sooner than later. That is a risk I that I am willing to take in order to have a chemical free environment for our vegetables.

Once the boxes were constructed, we lifted them into position and backfilled them with triple mix.

This sounds rather straight forward, but the whole project took many weekends to accomplish. Planting was therefore delayed until we were well into the growing season. (If I was going to tackle a similar project again, I think I would do the construction in the fall, so everything is properly in place for the start of the planting season.)

In mid-June, I bought fennel, celery root, pepper, tomato and zucchini seedlings and way too many seeds for the relatively small space available. I started frantically planting everything, hoping to have some kind of harvest before the fall frost arrived.

On the edges of the boxes, I planted herbs and marigolds.

I was encouraged when green shoots sprung up through the soil. These are baby carrots.

The tomatoes quickly doubled in size and I ran out to the Canadian Tire store to buy hooped metal supports.

Then all hell seemed to break loose! As you know, a family of bunnies moved in and started eating every succulent shoot in sight. The tomatoes kept right on growing until they out-weighed the fine, hooped rings. Without proper support the heavy branches sagged and then, answering the call of gravity, they headed straight down to the ground.

A little too late, I remembered Deborah (Green Theatre) writing about the "towers" she and her husband had constructed to support the tomato plants in her kitchen garden. Oh, if only I had recalled that blog post sooner, I might have fashioned better supports for my own plants!

Anyway, enough complaining! Hopefully, I can still salvage some of the plants. At least the herbs and onions are at least doing well. And I managed to cordon off my sweet peas with some temporary fencing, so the bunnies wouldn't make a meal of them too.

Before I sign off, I want to quickly show you what else has been happening in the rest of the garden.

Daises shaped flowers are everywhere. There are yellow ones...

and pink ones...

and ones with black centres.

There is certainly no lack of color!

The ditch dayliles have passed the show over to their hybrid cousins. In the front yard, there is a mix of pink and orange flowers. These ones in front of the picket fence are cantaloupe colored (Evening Gown). 

Just inside the fence, there are smaller pink ones.

If we now head into the back garden, the hosta are just about finished.

In this part of the garden, the pink and burgundy lily color scheme slowly gives way to yellow.

There is a pretty blue-purple geranium in flower. (Geranium vivace 'Rozeanne'). The plant flops a bit, but it blooms later than the most other geraniums I have in the garden.

The pink lilies are just about done.

In the circle garden, the daylily color scheme changes once again to shades of red and orange. Now, if only my tomatoes had fruit this red and delicious! Oh well, there is always next year.

Last week, we spent a few relaxing days in picturesque Niagra-on-the-Lake. We even managed to get into Toronto to see the big Abstract Expressionist show at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

Slowly, we are slipping back into our normal routine. I look forward to catching up with you and hearing what has been happening in your garden.