Happiness

Today I had the pleasure of spending the morning at the Botanical Garden.  First, a meeting which went very smoothly (a pleasure), watering my section in Propagation and discovered there caterpillars on our most juicy leafed plants (not a pleasure) and then a stroll through the Garden following the Summer Self-Guided tour (a great pleasure).  The high-point was sitting on a bench, deep in the Mexico section, coming to notice the greatly varied flowers all around me and then hearing and seeing birds quite close.  There was a feeding flock of Ruby-Crowned kinglets, who raised their crowns when they got too close to each other and also Chestnut-backed chick-a-dees.  What a sensory pleasure it was to smell the various smells, to feel the cool air, to listen to the birds and see so many varied plants!  I was very happy.  At home, later in the day, I went to my new West-facing garden to remove spent Alstroemeria stems and dead Shasta daisy flower heads and to harvest tomatoes.  Again, listening to the birds nearby, feeling the warm sun and smelling the wonderful tomato and sweet pea smells made me very very happy.  What joy gardens bring to me!

Three Art Exhibits

I am trying to integrate three art exhibits I visited in San Francisco last week.  Reading an old (1980) book,  “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony” by Lewis Thomas,  I came away thinking about an idea he presented about scientists.  Thomas reflected you can tell a good scientist from one of lesser caliber by how quickly they find a fruitful line of research.  A good scientist knows what kind of questions to ask, when to forge ahead, when to let go of an experiment.  Back to art, with this idea,  I wonder how an artist chooses what subject to paint.  Does a good artist just know what to paint?  How is the artist influenced by or reactive to the culture in which they live?   The first exhibit I saw was a large collection of Andy Warhol’s work at SFMOMA.  I must confess,  on the whole, Warhol’s art seemed like silk-screened commercial graphic art aimed at the teeming masses:  the tomato soup cans, the Brillo pad boxes and the many different colored pictures silk screens of Mao and of Marilyn Monroe.  I sat in front of many silk screens of the same Mao, each picture with different colors, pondering how the colors used affected what I saw and how I felt about the pictures.  So many of his topics were taken from our commercial culture.  Was he saying the value of everything, even art, is understood in purely dollar amounts or is he telling us, folks, this is your culture?

The second exhibit was of early Ruben’s art at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  His topics, biblical and mythological, were inspired by the high culture of early 17th century Europe.  As I looked at the huge masterful works of Daniel in the Lion’s Den or the Annunciation, it seemed to me his art was aimed at the elite at the time.  I was taken by his use of the color red in each painting, red being a dye only the very wealthy could afford, he was raising up the wealthy to biblical status.  The rich noblemen, kings and clergy could see themselves portrayed in his paintings with all the billowing silk of the clothes and with the colors.  Even the baby Jesuses were European, with blond hair.

In contrast to the first two, the third exhibit was a very small one at the Minnesota St. Project in San Francisco.  It is a huge factory gutted with only the rusted vertical steel beams and ceiling beams remaining of the interior with two stories of small galleries on each side of the building.  It was a beautiful clean open space in a part of SF called Dogpatch, where I’d never been before.  Gallery 200 (Institute of advanced Uncertainty) had small shows of two artists’ —-Cappy Coates and Mandy Fitzhugh Wallace—work.  We came to see Cappy’s paintings but it was Mandy that captured our interest because she was there in the gallery.  We engaged her in conversation and learned how she came to paint the subjects she did.  She used images from the past, in one case half completed buildings seen in Giotto’s Annunciation, were repeated and tied to modern images she pulled from her unconscious.  It got me thinking about how the themes seen in paintings haven’t changed so much, just the expression of them.  Themes of power, beauty, inspiration, love and violence are seen in all the exhibits.  Art is about seeing things.  I came away wondering if we only see what is in our minds already.  Do we need a mental model to guide us and help us see and interpret the art?  How hard is it to see something totally new and begin to wrestle with its meaning?   Maybe that’s what art is trying to do, to give us something new to think about in the language of our present culture?

Some Days

Some days things happen that are hard to take in.  Today was such a day for me.  The wife of one of Bob’s motorcycle buddies (one that I specially like) died this afternoon much before her time.  She was much younger than us, a kind dark haired woman with a special spark in her.  I always felt connected to her even though we haven’t seen them in years.  I’m sad and wonder what we can do for the left behind husband?  Someone I know and liked passing— shuffling off the mortal coil—dying, calls forth reflection about life’s ultimate questions.  I’m not sure I have any answers, but I am reminded once again that our time on earth is limited.  It calls to mind one of my favorite Bible verses, Micah 6:8–“What does God require of you?  To seek justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”  I know it’s important to be kind, to be forgiving and to help and see the good in others.  We don’t always get second chances.  Life is not a rehearsal.  We’re living the real thing and nothing makes that clearer than a death.

Earlier in the day, I went over to have lunch with my walking buddy.  For many years now, we’ve been walking together once or twice a month, then having lunch.  In the last months, she’s lost so much weight, that she is very weak so we’ve met less often.  The last time I saw her, we walked together to a nearby restaurant that’s become our favorite.  She was very slow, but then she has been for months.  Today, when I got to her house, the front door was open and nobody was in the living room as I walked in.  Her son and his family were visiting and the son greeted me and said he wanted to talk.  It turns out my friend is so weak, she can’t even get out of bed without help.  She is no longer able to be alone in her house day or night.  Likely, it will never be the same again.  I don’t know what he is going to do, but I know that our walks and lunches are over.  My friend is my age, so I am acutely aware, failing can happen so fast.  At the gym later this afternoon, I worked extra hard, feeling so incredibly grateful I could exercise to keep my strength up.  Life is short and uncertain.  I want to focus each day on what’s important and live with joy and gratitude and love.  There’s not time for anything else.  

Light and Wonder

I love excellence, in any form, in any way I encounter it.  Yesterday afternoon, my friend and I went to Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco to see a modern dance performance.  It was without a doubt a show of excellence in every way, but it left me puzzled about what “modern dance” is exactly and where is the line between athleticism and dance.  I lack a vocabulary to understand what I saw.  My mind kept trying to find patterns and a story in the pieces.  Garrett and Moulton’s 2019 production of Four Acts of Light and Wonder, according to the program, “celebrated the irrepressible nature of the human spirit and our shared capacity to bring joy, compassion and hope to the world.”  The four quite varied pieces, each lasting about 20 minutes, had live music on stage accompanying them.  The music was very original, written for the dances, with the exception of the Mozart in the first dance.  Perhaps because of the familiar patterns of Mozart, I could understand the first piece better than the others.  It was a joyful dance about the varied ways humans connect and support each other.  The dancing was elegant, powerful and beautiful.  “Ball Passing,” the signature piece of the company, was performed by 18 volunteers who must have practiced a lot and developed great concentration to do so smoothly the hand dancing of passing balls back and forth in complex patterns.  It was also easy to understand and so joyful.  The audience was invited to shout encouragement to the ball passers which added to the excitement and joy of the piece.  Interestingly, over the years it has been used as a tool for learning and change in organizations.  The pieces in the second half while amazing me with the energy and athleticism left confused.  I saw kaleidoscope patterns every changing created with amazing energy and power.  I came from the performance away wanting to know more about modern dance.  I loved the hopeful and joyful intentions of the choreographers and they clearly have a following here in the Bay Area.  The audience was filled with many younger women, seemingly all with long wavy hair, who clearly adored the dancers and the dances.  The SF Chronicle ran a long, complimentary review of the performances, almost a full page

,  in today’s Datebook section (Monday, August 12, 2019, E2 “Moving Evening with dazzling dancers.”).  The excellence of the dancers and the choreography was clear to me, I just want to learn more about it so I can appreciate it more fully.

Mass Shootings

Last weekend there were two mass shootings, one in El Paso, Texas; the other in Dayton, Ohio.  I haven’t posted a blog yet about this because there is really nothing more to say.  We are numbed and know that more will come and probably there will be no legislation.  How very sad that mass shootings are now a part of our American life.  Guns.  Too many guns, especially too many assault rifles out there.  How disappointing our President only named the mentally ill as the problem.  Too many guns and too many angry young white men filled with hate.  Where will it happen next?  Are none of us safe?