My studio is part of my father’s shop. We have a door that separates the wood and sawdust side from the wool and lint side. We benefit from being next to each other, (me more than him) It makes visiting easy and playing an occasional joke on each other and ongoing part of our existence. I consider myself very lucky. I have done several things to customize the space a little, one might even say “feminize” it. Last year my sister Lou and I painted a chrysanthemum on the door of my side.
It is a design of hers that she beautified Athens, Georgia with; and if you go there you may find it scattered about town. Needless to say, many of Dad’s buddies and the guys at the body shop next door gave him all kinds of hell about the flower on his shop door. One of my ongoing projects at the studio is my little urban garden. The strip of dirt under the fence next to the parking lot has become home to a huge rosemary and lavender plant, along with thyme, oregano, bronze fennel and sage. In addition there are some seasonal items that go in: kale, cabbage, greens, peas, tomatoes and peppers. For an otherwise useless strip of dirt it is pretty productive. It has made me wonder if cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and nuts and bolts might have some kind of secret fertilizing effect.
Yesterday Dad called me over to identify a couple of plants that had popped up in the cracks in the concrete by the front door. Up had popped an arugula and a leafy red lettuce.
How they got there I don’t know. I’m guessing when I planted a pack of mixed greens some seeds blew over and lodged there, waiting patiently till the time was right to sprout up. It makes me wonder how many mouths could be fed if we just got the right seeds to the right cracks in the sidewalks of our town?