Beltane Bandits
Art, witchy things, gardens, Aline Kominsky Crumb, home decor and of course, menopause.
It’s Beltane season.
We are in-between spring and summer now, here in the northern hemisphere, and the increased light is certainly inspiring me.
The variations of green on trees during my work commute, not to mention the yellow flowers and magenta ice plants seen closer to home- I’m soaking it all in.
While I’ve been being creative and active, in regard to my home and my classroom, I’ve not been feeling like sitting still with work. I don’t usually have a lot of time available to spend outdoors, especially during fall and winter, so I’ve been taking advantage of the time I’m able to do so.
While I had a few days where I could have focused on my work, I was in need of a recharge- of clearing and fluffing up my spaces.
A teacher in college once told our class that “being in the studio” and staring at your work, considering it, mulling it over, etc… and not feeling like any marks or adjustments can be made, is still working in the studio. I’ve been, lately, in this frame of mind.
Another teacher told me that my process of making art is like a dog who is about to sit in her bed- I need to figuratively circle my space over and over again before settling in. He may have been an incredibly sexist mother fucker, but in this case, he wasn’t wrong.
I’ve been letting Beltane, and spring season in by way of observing, experiencing nature and arranging my environments. As I said previously- soaking it all in. Considering the witchy aspects of my art life.
RITUAL
For Beltane we light bonfires, dance around maypoles and weave baskets while wearing handmade fairy crowns. We’re thinking about the sun and fertility. We’re blessing cows!
Well, we can’t all have access to cattle and giant poles fixed with ribbons, so we make due with what we have.
Lighting a small candle can suffice. A walk down the block on a sunny day, looking at and listening to birds can be a Beltane ritual. It’s ours to interpret.
I’m fortunate to have a little backyard, so I can light a safe little fire and sit outside in relative privacy if I wish to.
My Beltane, while I have my own personal rituals, is always blended with Teacher Appreciation Week.
Every year, the admin at the school I teach at creates a theme for the occasion (This year was “Farmer’s Market”) and teachers are showered with gifts and food. It’s very sweet. This year, one of our gifts was beeswax and premade wicks- we could make our own candles during our lunch hour! I wish I took a photo of mine (they have all been used by now).
As well, we start to think about graduation- teachers prepare speeches for students, to be read at the ceremony. We write about the future and those making their first independent moves toward it.
So we get a “thank you" for a school year’s worth of teaching and we mark the occasion by wishing well to those who have completed their first twelve years of learning.
It’s all about warmer weather, longer days and a continuing appreciation for growth.
One part of my version of ritual this season, involved creating my own wheel of the year, seen at the beginning of this post. It’s hanging near my bed, so I can consider the sabbats more often.
I realized, as well, that I could use a daily reminder to take slow, deep breaths more often, but the thought of creating a “breathe” sign is out of the question. That’s one step too close to the “fast” decor items featuring words telling people what they should be doing.
GARDENING (But is it art?)
I swear, I had no idea that my potatoes would grow as they have. Yesterday I decided to check the dirt underneath the three potatoes I had decided to root and plant in a planter outside, along with a few other things. I was shocked to find several small and growing, golden potatoes.
Since I disrupted the growing space with my investigations, I harvested the small potatoes before watering the pot and leaving it all to recuperate from my burrowing and wiggling hand.
It felt good to feel that dirt. A lot of it came from my own little composting experiment.
I’m impressed by people who integrate the idea of farming or foraging into their art practice, but it’s not something I wish to do.
There is an element connected to gardening and how I live as an artist, in that I wish to grow more of my own food in spaces that suit my personal aesthetic, but my service to others, as an artist, isn’t connected to food.
I HAVE TO WORK UNTIL I’M SEVENTY
I had this thought the other day about my menopause being connected to my personal re-parenting, which feels now, like I’ve finally made some progress on. While I wish this feeling would have come around a lot sooner- it has been my path.
I teach teens, who are going through their own hormonal changes, and I feel like I’ve been going through my own for as long as I’ve been teaching, which is fourteen years now.
But recently there have been more physical changes- in my skin and in feelings. I think that I’m so glad I’ve had teen energy around me during this process. It keeps me in check. I have to remember to be an example of being at home in this changing skin and body and mind.
There is a lot more to it, but I can’t remember now (also a part of menopause). Something having to do with being a caregiver to my energy-vampire of an elderly mom, which is just as difficult as what I have learned parenting some teens, is like.
Revisiting all the old stuff that is linked with being her child and she, my mother, has been helping with the aforementioned re-parenting, but boy is it draining.
CRUMB, COMICS AND THE MEMOIR
I recently listened to the audio version of Dan Nadel’s Crumb, A Cartoonist’s Life
I first learned of Robert Crumb during a time as a small child, probably 1974 or ‘75, through his “Keep on Truckin” drawing that I now know was stolen by everyone and shared as stickers and merchandise around that time.
I was in love with four stacks of comics that my brother had collected. As a way to fall asleep, I used to make up stories from the pictures, as I didn’t yet know how to read.
These were humor comics- Little Lotta, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Wendy the Good Witch, Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck, Archie and Betty and Veronica, Ritchie Rich, etc…
It was the first art form I had been exposed to, aside from cartoons, Sci Fi/Monster movies and sesame street show on 1970s daytime TV.
I’m not sure how I eventually learned more about Crumb, but I suspect it was from the release of Terry Zwigoff’s documentary on him, released in 1994. I’m sure it was a recommendation from one of my friends who went away to college and were exposing me to things I needed to read and otherwise pay attention to. (Thank goodness for their influence, during that time.)
Dan Nadel wrote that Crumb agreed to the biography, as long as he didn’t shy away from the bad stuff and with Crumb, there is a lot of bad stuff.
The book investigated his work, where he came from, and the circumstances of the world and culture in a way that was able to not only not shy away from the offensive and creepy elements that has always been- Crumb, but also it presented the cartoonist’s intention for drawing up a sort of mirror to what humanity, and specifically America, was and is.
The 1994 film stuck with me, as it would do to anyone, but especially the scenes of the artist being compelled to draw. The way he sat in public spaces and drew from life, but also not from reality, exactly, was impressive to me. It’s autobiographical, which I respond to.
I saw a solo art show of his in Los Angeles in 2003 and the “lowbrow” idea of comics connecting to art was electrifying to me, as I started out as a self-taught artist without much art and cultural exposure.
My first big acknowledgement of having artistic talent in school was from cartoon drawings and an illustrated storybook that received some kind of award and praise from teachers and classmates, so I could connect with Crumb as an artist who has always used the “comic” in my work, but geez, did he have to be such a pervert??(According to Nadel’s book, age has made him less of one.)
Something I’m very excited about is that the Nadel book got me to considering Aline Kominsky Crumb, who was Crumb’s wife for many years. She was a comic before they met and she continued on, until she passed away in 2022. While her works have always been autobiographical, she released a graphic memoir in 2007 called, Need More Love that seems to cover it all, but I’ve only started reading.
Even though she’s passed on, I investigated her Instagram account and found that like me, she needed to create spaces that she and her loved ones can thrive in. Beautiful, artistically cluttered spaces that are truly and artistically lived in.
I found this quote on Laurie Simmons’ Instagram that was said by Dan Nadel, regarding Aline.
“I LOVED GETTING a FaceTime call from Aline, phone propped up so I could see her face and environs. Can you see my cozy bedspread? See my lamp? The wall color is nice! Cute, huh? In her home in the south of France she always seemed perfectly in tune with the colors and tones of the walls and furniture around her.”
Anyway, today I’m going to putz around the house, wash my blankets and spend some more time cozying up with Aline’s illustrated novel. Tomorrow is the start of another week of teaching teens and typing admin things on laptops.
PS Yesterday I gathered with my artist pals, and after that Kenny and I hosted a lil gathering in our back yard. Here’s a video from the calm before the storm. (It shows the funny little raised garden we just built- more dirt and plants to come!)
I’ll be back here on Substack once we are in the midst of the summer solstice, or maybe I’ll be right on time, next time. By then I should have some more art to share and news from some art things I have planned.
Cheers and thanks for reading!