MENDING RIGHTS AND WRONGS

Some of the plants we found at Filoli

Have you visited any of the grand houses and gardens created during the Gilded Age of the 19th and early 20th centuries by entrepreneurs such as Cornelius Vanderbilt or John Rockefeller?  California has its share of places to tour including Filoli, which is on the Peninsula near San Francisco.

Filoli, run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,  sits in the middle of history and values. The Ohlone lived on the land originally. Over the tumultuous period when the Spanish arrived in California, the land became a Spanish land grant, then changed from Mexican ownership to American, while still remaining open land but leaving the Ohlone without compensation. 

After the 1906 earthquake, wealthy San Franciscans began to move south from the City. The Bourn family, whose wealth came from the Gold Rush and eventually from the company that became PG&E, acquired the property in 1914. They called the ranch Filoli and built a mansion and a huge garden on the grounds. The Roth family, who started the Matson shipping company, bought the property in the 1930s and continued to develop the garden into a showcase. The Roths donated the property to the National Trust.

The main benefit of Filoli for us now is the preservation of a large piece of open land in the middle of a bustling metropolitan area that is open to anyone. The National Trust recognizes that Filoli is not only a beautiful property to maintain, but provides an avenue for discussion about its history and the diverse groups of people who lived and worked there. Large posters hang in the information center explaining the history of the property before the Bourns and Roths. This past year Filoli also recognized the part played by three Asian Americans, chef Kee Low, landscape architect Mai Kitazawa Arbegast, and horticulturist, Toichi Domoto, in the development of Filoli. An exhibit, "Stories of Resilience," can still be accessed online with information on the importance of these three people as well as other essential workers to Filoli.

The ticket booth at the entrance to Filoli stands in front of an old olive tree grove, which separates the house from the parking lot.  Though not native to California, olive trees thrive in our Mediterranean climate; but because of olive fruit flies that damage the fruit, no oil is made from the fruit. The trees grow tall and provide a canape as visitors walk to the grounds. To encourage everyone to visit, the National Trust provides free admission to anyone with a SNAP EBT card and also offers botanical illustration and horticultural classes. Otherwise, tickets can be purchase online before a visit.

Entry stickers attached, friends and I, all of us long-time gardeners, walked the grounds to admire the carefully tended gardens and to take photos of plants and flowers. We saw several groups of young people building wattles and other supports from slim, flexible willow branches. When I asked them questions about the plants, they jumped in with valuable, well-grounded information. I was impressed with their knowledge and glad to see a younger generation who has learned to love the land and wants to tend the plants that grow in such rich soil. 

We strolled next to a row of espaliered fruit trees lining beds of sweet-scented roses and multi-colored dahlias. Some of the dahlias were dinner-plate-sized and hung heavy on their stalks. We saw squash vines and bright nasturtiums crawling between heather hedges, and lavender and other herbs filling two knot gardens with subtle shades of purple and grey. 

We could have hiked the Nature Trail to the Sally MacBride Nature Center and read the many placards that identify plants used by the Ohlone for food and medicine. We decided instead to have lunch at the Quail's Nest Cafe run by Town Kitchen, which provides employment for foster and re-entry youths. The food is locally sourced from minority and female-run businesses.

We left feeling refreshed and invigorated, knowing that Filoli has become a treasure for all of us to visit, not just for the wealthy families who once lived there. As William Bourne, someone who would applaud the changes at Filoli, said:

Fight for a just cause.

Love your fellow man.

Live a good life.

Fi - Lo - Li

One of the herb knot gardens
photo by Christy Myers

   

Check out Filoli's website:

https://filoli.org/about/

"Stories of Resilience" can be found here:

https://savingplaces.org/stories/stories-of-resilience-three-asian-americans-who-shaped-filoli#.YSQF8i1h2o6 

Read about the work of Town Kitchen here:

https://www.thetownkitchen.com

Wikipedia lists mansions from the Gilded Age. Some have been torn down, some turned into museums, hotels, or college buildings, some, like Filoli, have beautiful gardens to visit, and some are still residences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gilded_Age_mansions

A DATE TO REMEMBER

 

***************************

Martha will be back with a usual post next Friday.

MRS DELANY AND THE PAPER GARDEN

photo by Bill Slavin

One of my favorite sets of Bill's photos is a collection of objects that he has arranged on black paper. They remind me of the 18th-century still-life painters with their exquisite focus and detail. Black paper or background makes the objects seem suspended in air and the details within most objects highly visible. 

One inspiration for this style of work comes from Mary Granville Pendarves Delany, a woman from the 18th century from an influential family in England, whose friends included Handel, John Wesley, and Jonathan Swift, and who often stayed with King George III and his family, all of whom are still familiar names to us. Her friends were leading lights of her time, but she has been lost to us even though she developed a technique using paper decoupage to illustrate flowers with botanical precision. Decoupage  remains a flourishing way of creating works of art on paper today.

by Mary Granville Delany (this is not a painting)
courtesy of the British Museum

Starting at 72 years old, Delany began cutting strips from paper already covered with watercolor paint. She layered the bits of paper to make copies of flowers from gardens, and glued them down onto black paper. She completed almost 1000 of these images, which she combined into what she called Botanica Delanica. The folio of work now resides at the British Museum.

We have ignored so many women artists, especially from this period of time. I had never heard of Mary Granville Pendarves Delany. Have you? She is one from the 18th century like Mary Moser and Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun that we ought to know. Delany, who led a fascinating life around dynamic individuals, spent most of her time doing the work of an aristocratic woman of that time period. She embroidered, sewed, managed several households, orchestrated dinners, gardened, and painted throughout her life. She did not exhibit her paintings. They were entertainment to fill time in busy days.

When Delany was in her late sixties, her second and beloved husband died, leaving her bereft. It wasn't until a close friend swooped her up into her own home and encouraged Delany to find an outlet for her sorrow that she began to gather examples of flowers from the gardens around her. With paper and scissors, she designed exact replicas of the flowers from paper, and created a new art form using paper decoupage.

Molly Peacock's book The Paper Garden describes this late-in-life burst of creativity which spurred Delany to return to a flourishing life filled with friends who admired her work. Delany continued to cut and past for 15 years until she began to lose her eyesight and had to put her tools away. 

Her technique influences many artists today including the artist Viveca Moller, who says of her artwork:

"I enjoy myself with scissors, thread and needle, glue, loads of silks, lace, velvet, a wide variety of paper and printed material." 

courtesy of vivecamoller.wordpress.com

Check out the Botanica Delanica collection at the British Museum:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?agent=Mary%20Delany

For more of Viveca Moller's art: 

http://www.vivecamoller.com

Check this list of female artists. How many do you know?

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/women-artists-18th.html

My post Summer, Water, Bounty from last Friday has been re-published in  Frog Hollow Farm's newsletter. Take a look at their marvelous offerings!  

https://www.froghollow.com/blogs/news/summer-water-bounty

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MOVE ON

Two friends and I sat in a cafe several years ago enjoying an afternoon tea. We laughed and told stories, drank our tea with gusto, and made plans for adventures. As we talked, I looked around the tearoom. Colorful abstract paintings lined the walls along with shelves holding various-shaped teapots. Our table was near the window looking out to the street. I had my back to the window and across from me was an older woman sitting by herself. I looked at her occasionally thinking that she would be a good subject to paint. As I glanced at her, I thought she looked lonely as she gazed out the window, not paying too much attention to the food at her table. Just before we finished our tea, I took a photo of my friends, making sure that I captured the woman in the background. She was still sitting, staring out the window as we left.

Since then I have tried to paint her portrait several times. I thought it would be easy. Each attempt has ended up in my throw-away pile. I ask myself why. Does her side view make drawing her expression difficult? Is it because she is looking off to the right? (I flipped the photo over and tried the painting with her facing left -- same dissatisfied attempt.) Is it because her loneliness seeps into my painting? Is it because of that little nagging guilt of seeing someone by themselves without reaching out to connect?

Someone once advised me not to paint someone I knew, especially family members. Her reason: your emotions get too entangled in your painting. I've followed that suggestion when I paint portraits. Out of my parents' photo albums, I pick photos of people I never knew. I don't feel the need to get an exact representation of the person. They are just a model for me to practice painting people. I can ask myself questions. Where is the light coming from? Did I get the ratio of the space between the eyes and their ears correct? Where are the shadow shapes? I don't have to ask myself if my drawing looks like my mother/sister/aunt because I am not trying to paint a real person.

I had a similar experience as I drew people from Zoom who are in my writers' group. I didn't want to make exact portraits of each one. I was just practicing getting eyes in the right place, gestures and expressions, the fall of the hair across a face, the lines around the mouth when we smile. I exaggerated or emphasized features as I drew. I felt like writing next to the drawings: This isn't you.

As I worked on paintings of the woman in the tearoom, I tried various positions, eliminated her surroundings, added them back in, looked for examples from other painters' work, and finally, in frustration, drew on the watercolor with a heavy pencil. I looked at the result and liked it even though the portrait is severe and nothing like my idea of a light-hearted portrait of an older woman enjoying tea in a tearoom. That last attempt pushed me to try again. This time I felt myself relax and I put away the photograph so I wouldn't copy every shadow or wrinkle that I saw. Though none are award-winners, I learned some lessons about myself.  I realized, once again, how important the drawing underneath can be. I also decided that some of my earlier attempts weren't so bad after all. I had let my inner critic out. I was reminded that artists live with failure all the time. Sometimes I need to move on or sometimes taking one more step can provide the change and growth I am trying to achieve. In this case, my next best step was to relax.

 

SUMMER, WATER, BOUNTY

Peaches by Martha Slavin

If you are like me, you can think of two things that make summer wonderful. You have to know, first, that summer is not my favorite time of the year. With heatwave after heatwave this year, I am spending a lot of time in our cool downstairs. When the heat waves blow off, we have had brilliant blue skies, cool evenings, and perfect temperatures during the day to relax under our shade trees. We can watch the antics of the butterflies as they float through the air, never stopping on any one bush, or we can observe the birds scramble at the bird feeders, or laugh at the squirrels who chase each other across the roof and take a flying leap into the trees, shaking down the Japanese maple seeds that we traipse into the house on the bottom of our shoes.

Secondly, summer brings favorite foods: corn on the cob and peaches. Corn on the cob, especially young white corn with kernels ripe enough to snap open when pressed, then grilled, roasted, or plopped into boiling, sugary water for 5 minutes, and eaten as is or brushed with melted butter, salt, and pepper. Peaches, their subtle aroma, filling the air around me as I slice them. Eaten whole with the juices dripping down my arm, or grilled or sauteed in butter and then mixed with a tangy sauce that brings out the peach flavor. These are summertime foods to savor and remember along with the wildlife that makes our backyard garden an oasis in summer.

Tomatoes by Martha Slavin

Though I love to garden, I gave up on growing vegetables and fruit because of the constant battle with wildlife who loved what we grew as much as we did. I think often of organic farmers and wonder how they manage to grow enough of anything to sell. Our garden is now one filled with deer-resistant plants,  many with varied-colored leaves that add needed color to our garden. Just one cherry tomato plant in our front yard gives us some sweet, fresh-picked fruit to eat.

Halfway up the hill in our backyard, we planted a peach tree. In hindsight, we wonder why we planted a fruit tree on a hill. Not easy pickings. The original thought was to continue to prune the tree to keep the fruit in reach. That didn't happen. Now the tree is a spindly twenty feet tall. We can't reach the new fruit to thin them out nor can we trim the branches safely. Too precarious to lean a ladder from any direction to pluck off some of the buds so that the remaining peaches will grow huge and flavorful. Someone suggested placing the young fruit inside drink bottles to let them grow to a good size as they do in Japan. But that means climbing a ladder. We still watch for new fruit in June. Some years there are only a few marble-sized peaches. This year the tree is covered with clumps of fruit.

We watch as the peaches get bigger and bigger, not ripe yet, but just enough to make the squirrels begin to knock them down and bite into them, leaving half-eaten fruit on the deck. I walk up to the tree and shake it hard. The ripe fruit that is left jiggles and one or two falls. I grab them off the ground and hope they didn't bruise. We will have just a few peaches from this year's bounty to savor.

We order a CSA mini-box from Frog Hollow Farms, a long-time organic farm near us. We pick up the box twice a month all year long, but in summer the fruits are at their best. In California, being a small farmer becomes harder and harder because of the drought and wildfires. The wildfires can affect the taste of fruit such as grapes and the drought can mean a field is left fallow for another year. Frog Hollow Farms is one of many small farms in California and they have used sustainable farming methods for a long time. They need our help to continue to provide the luscious food that they grow.

This week is National Farmers' Market Week. If you have a farmers' market near you, you can find just-ripe fruit and fresh vegetables to make smoothies, cobblers, salads, and other favorite recipes -- almost as good as walking out your door to pick something from your own garden, plus you support another family or group of families besides.

Here's a good recipe from MyRecipes.com for a tangy sauce to top grilled fruit:

1 Tbsp. Brown sugar

3 Tbsp. white Balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp fresh lime or lemon juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1/8 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. hot sauce

Combine these ingredients in a bowl and use a whisk to stir them. Pour over fresh fruit slices grilled or sauteed in butter.

Check out the Frog Hollow Farm website:

https://www.froghollow.com

read their latest blog posting and help save water:

https://mailchi.mp/froghollow/newsletter-july-26-1553528?e=84fbcec38c

This post has been republished in Frog Hollow Farm's newsletter. Check it out here:

https://www.froghollow.com/blogs/news/summer-water-bounty

When you visit California, take a tour of farms in the area:

https://www.caff.org/directory/

Read more about family farms at:

https://plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov/wordpress/?p=10909 

List of farmers markets in California:

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/is/docs/CurrentMrktsCounty.pdf

Read Cornell Ornithology Labs' articles about birds instead of pesticides:

https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=b35ddb671faf4a16c0ce32406&id=f0ff12dc2f&e=723d29d979

SUMMER BLOOMS

 Do you know someone who has friendships that go back to their early childhood? I mean the kind of friendship that is more than just sending holiday cards once a year?

I once taught with someone who married her next-door neighbor, someone she had known since they were both toddlers. When I knew her, they both were in their 50s, still married, and enjoying life together. I know others who have kept friendships alive since school days by meeting for museum visits, long weekends of quilting, or going to spring training. To me, maintaining long friendships is a marvelous ability to cultivate in a lifetime. And not always easy to do.

Before the pandemic, when we used to meet in person frequently, we followed the rules of being friends: looking past our quirks because we liked being with the person. The pandemic shut down meeting in person for most of us. Zoom offered a different window into keeping friendships alive, but it didn't give us a solid enough connection to help us overlook those quirks and irritations that surface between friends.

Now that the restrictions for vaccinated people have been lifted, friends and I attempt to meet. Two longtime friends, both artists and writers, who I have known since before my son was born, met for lunch for only the second time since June. In the rush of getting back to activities, we had had a hard time finding time to get together. We grew a little irritated at not being able to find a good day. Finally, this week we walked into the patio of a restaurant and laughed when we saw each other. We were all wearing similar blue patterned outfits, two of us had hats, we all had flat-heeled shoes, and, most of all, we were all glad to see each other again. We talked of books we were reading, Netflix shows, gardening, children, grandchildren, promising adventures we could plan, and we reached out past those little quirks that we all have that we know don't really matter because the person next to us is more important than any little differences that might come up in a long time friendship. Most of all, we remembered what it means to have good friends.

Be Someone's Lighthouse

Curtis Island Lighthouse, Maine

Lighthouses link us to the past and stir our imagination so much that novelists such as Virginia Woolf center stories around lighthouses. We think of the guiding light bringing someone home, we think of the fog-bound waters with only the sweeping light keeping ships and sailors safe, and we think of the keepers who lead solitary lives. The turning light in the towers, which warns ships of treacherous waters, often stands alone on an island or at the end of a distance point of land, evoking feelings of mystery, loneliness, power, and wonder. Lighthouses dot both of our coasts becoming the first symbols of land that is welcoming and strong.

The East Brother light station on a small island in the San Francisco Bay stood abandoned and vandalized until a foundation formed, raised money for renovations, and the station became a bed and breakfast. The light station needs a new caretaker as well as more funding. This past Spring, the cable bringing electricity, thus heat, to the island was damaged and the Coast Guard, which oversees the island, concluded that the price for fixing the cable was prohibitive. Again, people came to the rescue with a GoFundMe page and volunteers managed to repair the cable so that the station could continue as a bed and breakfast inn.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Pescadero, CA

The Pigeon Point Lighthouse near Pescadero in San Mateo County has guided ships since 1872. The Fresnel light has been replaced by an automatic LED beacon, but you can still see the original Fresnel on display. It is an amazing piece of craftsmanship, 16 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter, and worth the trip to the lighthouse to just marvel at the intricacy of the huge glass lens. A hostel also operates on the property.

On both of our coasts, lighthouses still work, though most of their purpose has been supplanted by GPS and other navigational aids. They are protected by the Lighthouse Act of 1789 and also by people who care about keeping their history and ideas alive. To celebrate the lore and beauty of lighthouses we have designated August 7 as National Lighthouse Day.

Luckily for artists and photographers, lighthouses still exist. Because of their locations, they make perfect composition material. In my watercolor class, our instructor presented us with a photo of a lighthouse with a station where personnel lived. The buildings near light towers are usually simple geometric structures with or without porch roofs above the front door. I attempted to paint this lighthouse and after two tries put the paintings in my "It's just practice" pile. I decided to look for other lighthouses and found the Pigeon Point Station and the Curtis House Lighthouse in Maine. Once I started these, I grew more interested in the simple shapes of the buildings, took my expectations down a notch, and began to fill a sketchbook with lighthouses.

This is the painting that started my lighthouse exploration. I like the tower, but the rest???

Virginia Woolf is not the only writer to include lighthouses as a major element in her novel. Try these:

The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

The Lighthouse, P.D. James (an Adam Dalgleish mystery)

The Lighthouse, Allison Moore

The Bad Luck Lighthouse, Nicki Thornton

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

For more information about lighthouses:

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-bay-east-brother-lighthouse-no-power-16089720.php 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-east-brother-light-station?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf%20share-flow-1&fbclid=IwAR0n-AgRbs_yA9My80fsvOCO88nknzfXH3GQ4VWdv2Lkc9ARz_h0ZJ3yv9Q

https://www.nps.gov/maritime/nhlpa/handbook/HistoricLighthousePreservationHandbook_04_Part2.pdf