Welcome to my blog! Here is where I will be posting thoughts, rants, news, work-in-progress, and project updates as they pop up.
Whether a quirk of fate or the frighteningly logical outcome of our collective lives on this planet, we are living in a time of deep crisis and uncertainty. The effects are felt unevenly, to be sure. I can only report from my corner of the world about what I am feeling, seeing, and doing. Now is a good time, I think the best time, to write and record the view from this corner and what it looks like on any given day.
Now is a good time to write about what novelist Georges Perec called the “infra-ordinary” – his phrase for everyday events and what happens when nothing monumental is happening. My daily outing is to my tiny garden with towering sunflowers and tasty tomatoes, and also the most infuriating crop of cabbage worms ever (why did one decide to snack on the new bud of my orchid?). Gardens are good for us. Just being outside and in green, living places is good for us, as doctors who prescribe “forest bathing” or designer-scientists studying the connections between microbial communities and our own immune system know.
Now is a good time to write about reasons to be cheerful, as David Byrne has so kindly titled his much-welcome editorial project. We can hear the birds when the drone of cars recedes and the water in Venetian canals has never been so clear. People are making more art, growing more food, planting more trees, taking more bike rides. Now is a good time to write about how we live on earth and how the choices we make and the things we value are either good for the web of life or not.
To begin, I have four broad categories that together encompass many or most of my interests and work focus:
· Productive landscapes
· Environmental art
· Wild things
· Future gardens
The views expressed in this blog reflect what is interesting to me and, I hope, to you. Please sign up for announcements and the occasional post.