Beautiful Process

Cold cold cold cold cold. I really hate to be cold. I really, really admire all those who hung around the freezing concrete in the river fog last night for the Occupy GA. I watched it in the relative comfort of my home, riveted.

As I said in my last couple of blogs, I had a lot of emotions about the protesting, and decided for that reason (avoiding the adrenaline patterns) that I couldn't participate in person. I feel lame about it, but self-preservation is what it is.

But I'm so grateful that this revolution is being (partially) televised. The GA meeting on Wed. night Oct. 26 was a really compelling example of patient, innovative and creative process. Meetings are hard for many, but I like them. I usually take minutes if possible to keep me in the moment and not feeling bored or impatient. I like the role of recorder and can channel my desire for justice into painting the most accurate picture possible of what happened.

The minutes can't possibly fully illustrate the beautiful moments of a well-run meeting. Last night there were good minutes being posted on the Occupy Eugene Facebook page, as well as a play-by-play thread which included over 1300 comments that helped fill in the gaps from people not speaking clearly and stupid violent ads that would interrupt the livestream. The video was of marginal quality due to the conditions, but it showed enough to get the sense of the crowd's appearance (bundled up) and size. When the vote was taken to see if there was 90% consensus, after there were a couple of immovable blocks, there were over 75 people still there, and it was midnight.

There were two facilitators, and I didn't catch the name of the second (Silver-something), but the young man named Samuel Rutledge was fantastic at responding, hearing subtleties, and coming up with creative ideas to move things along the way the body wanted them to be moved. I know he didn't do it alone, but he was the linchpin or center around which things revolved, and he was amazing. Apparently he has been part of Community Village and I'm sure he has done plenty of other available training, but however he gained his skills, it was impressive how well he used them.

And he didn't make it all about himself, at all. He always kept himself in the position of facilitator (except when we got a glimpse of how this wonderful skill set can affect his wife and children, which must be wonderful and terrible at times.) It was the best TV I've seen in forever.

It makes me want even more to broaden my understanding of consensus and bring it to the decision-making bodies I sit in on. I've always been committed to it but most of my groups have devolved to consensus-seeking, for efficiency I suppose. Possibly it is partly because we didn't keep up with the available tools. The hand signals are new to me, and darned useful. And consensus-seeking is still better than fighting things out in the sad delusion that there are only two sides of a question. Mostly people don't fall into that trap any more, except maybe in bodies that are politically charged and secretly funded by the Koch Bros. (like the County Commissioners?)

Listening! What a thrilling thing to see how simple it can be to allow everyone a voice. Grounding worked well last night too. There was a woman with a singing bowl who would walk around vibing when things got tense, and it really did serve to calm and bring people back to the present moment. It was just lovely.

So they decided where to move, and another chapter opens today for the movement. Even though I am mostly watching, I really appreciate all the very hard work of so many people. There is a lot of passion and energy being channeled into this communication to the world and I am proud of our local groups and their efforts. I hope everyone can continue to take the high road.

It isn't over. There will still be ways to participate and some of them might be easier now. There was a definite feeling of not being safe in that big dark park and there was no way I could go down there. It will be much more approachable now. More power to the people!

Volunteers of America

Rich came by Tuesday and we tried to remember that Jefferson Airplane song. I clearly remember standing on a bed playing air guitar and singing that at the top of my lungs. I was in DC for the seventies revolution, the massive marches, the tear gas. I was in the student strike. But that was then.

Had some further thoughts on my last post, which was essentially whining because not enough people participated in my retail sales experience. I mean, so what? I hate it when I make it all about me not getting what I want. It's an international movement, something giant and meaningful, and I'm all about not getting enough attention. I am of course not the only one in that state.

I've heard that some of the occupiers are not too interested in the seasoned activists from the previous generations. There is probably some of that. I remember when we didn't trust anyone over thirty. That was before we got to thirty ourselves. Now (at 61) I try to trust everyone.

By all indications the movement will indeed move as promised to make way for our little commerce day in the Park. It's the right thing to do. We're pretty on the edge down at Market, with many of us under the poverty level. We created jobs for ourselves in previous recessionary times, and it was a fairly good strategy for keeping busy and not getting thrown out into the streets. It isn't an easy life, but it does have its benefits.

We do depend on retail sales, which is a wide and deep morass of delicate, ephemeral negotiations with strangers and fans that results in us getting money for our efforts (if all goes well.) It's a rare artisan who can sell everything she makes in a timely fashion. One of the reasons I still have a lot of political stuff is that politics doesn't change that much, and some of the items are the same ones I have had for years. Literally the same ones. They go into cardboard boxes and come out later and go back on the shelf. Sometimes I find the old screens on the rack and reprint. That has been the case with the "This Space Not Available for Corporate Advertising" shirt. It's really hard to print on hats but I keep doing it because anti-corporatism hasn't gone out of style. When I first printed it, I was reacting to seeing Camel cigarette wear on everyone, and needed to make a statement. I actually sold quite a few of those shirts to Northern Sun a decade or so ago.

My generation of peaceniks is still current in many ways, and we've been honing our skills. We aren't really old and in the way, so I don't think the disdain of youth is stopping any older people from making a contribution. Mostly folks my age are supporting from what I call the middle distance. The Occupy Eugene page on Facebook has over 2500 friends, but the vast majority of those are not the kind of friends who want to spend the night. We're supporting in theory, maybe with money or food or by pitching in with the chores, maybe just by keeping up.

It's our need for security and stability that causes us to pull back and not throw up a tent and mount our freak flags. I personally find that I have an unfortunate tendency to get triggered by the trauma of that past revolutionary time, so I really can't immerse and keep my life stable. I had a very messy decade in my twenties. Some of it was self-inflicted, but most of it was just a bad set-up for me that I had to roll through and survive. I did of course, but spent most of the next decade trying to find peace in the woods and ignore the Watergate stuff and all that came after. I immersed in work, kept a little part of me expressive in a radical political way, but for the most part became a mother and productive member of society.

Alternative society, though. My family finally found the label of "Voluntary Simplicity" to put on me, which made them much more comfortable than lost soul or hippie or whatever other label they found that fit. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to explain myself, just knew I had found something that worked and stuck with it.

I suppose I am a workaholic if you like that label. I know I use work to substitute for other things in my life that aren't as satisfying. I do probably get too emotionally attached to my work, but it's hard to see how an artist would avoid that. At least I can see the attachment better now and don't fool myself so much about it.

I talked to a fellow fiction writer on Tuesday and he asked me about my writing, which truthfully has mostly consisted of my blogs for quite some time. The fiction I wrote was always very personal, a form of therapy almost where I went over events from my past with the idea of transforming them by rewriting them with honesty and insight and maybe finding out something new for my own progress. It worked, but increased my vulnerability and I have a hard time sharing a lot of it. Publishing it never seemed wise, particularly when I thought about public readings where I figured I would weep on the podium.

So I've had the goal of creating distance in my fiction, which would be a neat trick if you could balance that with the emotional vulnerability that people hunger for in their reading. I try writing with male characters, changing names, etc., but mostly I talk myself out of writing the stuff altogether. Editing the pieces I have written carries the same risk of pain, so I have files and files of unedited novels and stories and essays.

But I'm going to push through that resistance and work on the pieces, and write new ones too. It's vital work for me personally. I'm not very attached to sharing it, but I'm working on that too. I really don't need to fear the exposure. Mostly people my age are ignored or at most, read by people my age. I'm not going to be read much by younger generations unless I manage to learn more about them, to be relevant. I can only do so much of that.

So really, my work does not speak much to this new revolution. Add to that that it is a revolution without so many souvenirs. I read today that most items available in Zuccotti park are for free. The armbands seen here in Eugene are free. It seems somehow inappropriate to sell shirts about this revolution. The new economy is more of an exchange economy. It doesn't really trust money.

So no, I still haven't made the t-shirt. I just don't want to. I'm too conflicted about having to clear the tents off my booth space in order to sell them. I'm too afraid of putting myself into old traumas. I hate fall anyway, don't like to be cold, and just want to stay home and make Jell-O Art Christmas ornaments. I just can't push myself this time of year. When I do, I get irrational and fearful, and this is not the time to add my fears to the piles of fears ready to be set on fire downtown.

It's not just the occupation. There's a lot going on in our city and county. Saturday Market is right in the heart of it, and we are being seen by lots of people as problem solvers and problem creators. It has been the most complicated, difficult year ever. I've written myself into several conundrums and sometimes it has helped, sometimes hurt (me, at least.) Words are powerful.

Believe it or not, in the sixties and seventies we didn't really have t-shirts. The t-shirt used to be underwear, and it was not really until the eighties when they became commercially available decorated wardrobe items. It has been fabulously useful as a vehicle for self-expression, and before the internet was one of the main ways to spread the words, better than posters, better than speeches.

But now it isn't. There are some, mostly black with white toxic PVC-based ink, that are still popular, mostly because they are black. There are the white ones with the transfers or direct-print full-color art that comes directly off the tubes. But the old-style protest shirt, the ones everyone pulls out of their drawers to wear to the protest, are fading away. It's too cold for t-shirts this time of year, as well. Patches to sew onto the backs of jackets are more practical, or the armbands, or the tendency to avoid being a target by not displaying your politics on your person.

There is still a bit of the spray paint/stencil/DIY stuff out there, but of course that is not what I do. So anyway, there are my justifications for not making a shirt this week. Mostly I had other work to do that was more secure, more safe for me. I'm a bit out of the mainstream, by choice. I'll settle into it eventually, maybe even like being on the sidelines. It's hard to maintain that passion and hope for change. It's tough to beat off that cynicism from seeing it all before.

I'm with you, though, people for change. We do need it on so many levels. I'm in the middle distance like the other thousands of FB fans. We do what we can. We hate kicking you out of the park, but property tax bills came this month. We have to cling to the security we created. We're just not twenty anymore. Unlike you, we're gonna die!

But we're clicking Like. The funny thing is, I think everyone might have gone somewhere else on the internet, and we're still on Facebook thinking we're in the center too. Old people are funny. We think it is our world just as much as anyone. I'm standing there across the street, testing the waters to see if it is warm enough for me. I have to. Thanks for doing the hard stuff, kids. Keep up the good work.

Don't mind us over here, we're still doing it. Just a little slower maybe, a little less idealistic, a little less magical. There are ways we can help. Come home and do your laundry, but make sure it is a sunny day, cuz Mom doesn't have a dryer. Can't afford the electricity.

I could always be wrong about the souvenirs though. Come see me if you want to order something, because I could still be swayed. I bought some shirts. I'm just thinking "We are the 99%" because "Mad As Hell" is too inflammatory. But if the consensus is "Mad As Hell," I could be swayed. Bring me your brilliant ideas. I promise to share the money. Cash is still a useful commodity. Those Porta-potties cost $75 a day. We know. We've been paying that bill for forty-some years.

Compassion is the new currency

I felt invisible today. I bought produce from nearly every farmer there. I bought items from two of my fellow SM vendors, plus ice cream, which technically I didn't buy because I had a filled up customer card. I spent about five times as much as I made. No farmers bought from me, no occupiers or occupy supporters bought from me. Friends came to visit, but I saw just as many who avoided my zone completely. I saw lots who didn't cross the street.

Two Market vendors bought from me. I had the same conversation with about a dozen Market vendors: what were the protestors thinking to set up in our space? Did they not know we are part of the 99%, don't they know anything about our needs, don't they care? I assured all of them that we have a most excellent manager who will make sure that we will be in our spaces on Saturday. I assured them that everyone who was speaking for the Occupiers has said they will be leaving the space on Friday. I encouraged everyone to trust and listen and not worry. We are the 99%. The occupiers know this.

Sometimes I think I show up on Tuesdays as a public service. Come see how I express my politics, come see how I live my ideals, come see the wonder of Jell-O Art. But you know what? I'm there to make a living. I'm obviously doing it wrong.

The scenery was different, looking over at the occupation instead of the farmers, but the feeling was the same. I did not matter to anyone, and they would not notice if I wasn't there. I felt strongly today that we needed, as a group, to occupy our own space there, which we revere. We might have done better over with the farmers, but the space they offered us would have our backs to the occupation, and we would have acted as a barrier between the protestors and the farmers. Not the position for us. Instead we faced the occupation and stood there all day with our hearts open.

I know why the occupation wanted to be in that space; it's obvious. For several decades Saturday Market has nurtured a beating heart there in the center of downtown.

When the thousands of marchers filled the west block on Saturday night, it was the velvet embrace of an unstoppable force meeting a gently yielding lover. I slowly relinquished my space, the one I have held all day and all season and all my adult life, to a group I was part of and not part of. I took about twenty hats off my display and gave half to one of the legal team, who thanked me, and laid the other half on the ground about ten feet from my booth. They were immediately grabbed up. I didn't see anyone wearing one of my hats today, but I didn't give them away for any return. It was just spontaneous generosity from a heart filled with joy at the power, and participation the way most of us vendors participate: we give our creations away.

I've always considered myself to be an activist, but it was confusing to feel part of a group that was ignoring me, and worse, waiting for me to get out of the way. The hats disappeared. People tripped on my hat display as they walked through my space, oblivious to my work, not seeing my organized packing as I loaded my awesome human-powered machine. No one had the slightest interest in me. And so it was today.

Yes, a few of the occupiers came over and asked us if we needed help. No, I don't need help to do my job, but thanks for your concern. Do you really want to help? I need customers. Can you help me with that? I need acknowledgement of my lifetime of activism and my generosity of spirit and my tireless pursuit of justice and my dedicated service to my community. Can I get a handshake? Can I get any of you to see me at all? I can see you. Just stand here and look at my stuff for a few minutes. Most of the conversations I did have were about the t-shirt people wanted me to make. At my own expense. At my own risk.

I don't know, we are all so wrapped up in our own importance in this society, caught up in our own ideas. I know I am too. I'm watching the livestream from the distance of the internet. I'm not participating, I'm watching. I'm holding in the middle distance, keeping myself separate, because I don't want to camp out downtown. My back hurts. I'm a Facebook activist. I'm commenting now and then, I'm encouraging. Hell, I told people to shop at Farmers Market. I told people to trust the movement to consider us. I reassured and reassured.

I suppose this is part of the problem, that I did not know how to integrate the confusion I felt Saturday night, being gently occupied, that I did not know how to be both the artisan selling in the public square and the person shifting the square to another purpose. I didn't know today how to be a Saturday Market stalwart and a person looking out for my own financial interests. I expect I would have sold more with my back to the movement, with my heart open to the farmers, who have looked upon me with so much suspicion and even anger in the recent past, but maybe not. There wasn't really a good place for me, so I held down the default, my little bench on the east block.

I would have been better off financially if I had stayed home. I'm having a hard time figuring out what I was doing down there today. I was holding space for my organization, my Market family. My greatest loyalty is there. But my products, which I created to promote social change, to express some of our best collective attitudes toward that purpose, were not useful to the movement. They were not even noticed by the movement. Maybe it is not the same movement.

I have to take responsibility for keeping the occupiers at a bit of a distance. I've been observing, and I walked around a little yesterday, but I'm not involved. Many people have asked me to make a t-shirt for the movement, and presumably a few of them would buy one if I had done so. But I'm broke right now, in debt right now, and I have a lot of political t-shirts and hats already. People aren't buying those, so I don't think I'll throw more money at that target. I don't need more shirts to give away.

People in the movement don't have money. It's about economic insecurity, about how to get out of this pit we have been thrown into by the 1% who use us and manipulate us and toss us aside. It's about how to combat this, how to not get defeated by it, how to collectively survive and thrive despite the oppression. I have always prided myself on doing my part. I have always put my own needs aside to some degree to serve my community, to promote security and prosperity and what is right and good. My currency has been compassion for some time now. I noticed this during the Bush "elections", when people were so fearful it seemed like they couldn't be any more scared. I was happy to stand on the corner telling everyone it would be all right. They were happy to believe me, though of course it has not been all right and most of my hope and trust were misplaced.

I've been happy to use my listening skills and my counseling skills and my writing skills to do everything I can to help out. That's what people do, they bring their skills and assets to share, they pitch in. I always pitch in. I thought by going today I was making a contribution, and envisioned dozens of movement supporters supporting me, someone with something practical to contribute. Who doesn't need a hat with an encouraging slogan on it? Fear less. Practice peace.

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm being selfish. Maybe I'm scared of poverty and the future for a little old woman. Maybe I got my expectations of the movement up a little too high, remembering the exhilaration of being part of the solution, the fun that protests are, the great energy that comes from standing together and shouting together and being a part of something big and important.

I guess I could have abandoned my booth on Saturday and hollered for awhile, marched for awhile, but I am more responsible than that. I had a big workday and did my work. On the way home I passed the OCF annual meeting, where my outrage and woundedness needed to be expressed, where I don't feel treasured and I don't feel my other membership organization sees me or has compassion for me. I would have stopped, but I had just worked a fourteen hour day and still had an hour of unloading to do. I didn't engage there either.

So I'm just not part of the solution today. I'm part of the disenfranchised, the disaffected, the discouraged. I'm sitting here, staying up too late, trying to find some clarity for myself.

I'm overwhelmed about all the things that need fixing due to our self-absorption as a people, our lack of understanding of what compassion looks like, our self-centered obsession with what we think is the only important thing, what we ourselves are doing. I'm just as guilty of it as anyone. I'm just as bereft of solutions, as empty of ideas as the next person.

I'm glad people are trying, I really am. I think there are many earnest people who are losing sleep right now trying to find solutions to giant and weighty problems. I love consensus and working on privilege and learning compassionate problem-solving and crisis intervention and I'm very glad people are practicing this kind of peace downtown in the place where I keep my heart, opening and reopening it every Saturday and Tuesday. I hope they feel that heart there and keep it safe, show it reverence and feed it their passion and hope.

I expect to trundle my wares down there again this week and have my clean old space ready for me, to do my work some more. I trust in all of those people to work for justice for me as well as all the rest of us. I know their intentions are good.

But if compassion is our currency, we have to expand our understanding of that word a thousand fold. We have to get out of our own worlds where our own needs are paramount and really look at each other, really see each other. I did not experience that today. I brought home a lot of food, but I did not get fed. I saw a lot of difficulty and not the same amount of humor and ease. I saw some giving but more expecting. I saw raw needs, but not needs getting filled.

But there's always tomorrow. Yesterday's gone. Today's gone too. I'll try sleep.

T-shirts for change

After three days of pulling I've declared provisional victory over the ivy. It will be back, but right now there is none where there was tons of it. Unfortunately most of it had to go in plastic bags and though I have been assured that the yard waste collectors empty the bags, I have to assume they will then throw them away. Sorry. So hard to be a purist.

Best news of the day was the new movement to dress up the protestors in urban camouflage, i.e. business suits. I've been trying to think of a t-shirt idea that I could whip up when I get back to town, to sell to raise money to donate to the protest. I'm not going to go down and live in a tent, just can't do it for several reasons. But I do certainly want to do something. Reposting things on FB is getting old. Most of my friends on there share my politics so they already know this stuff.

So, t-shirt brainstorm. We're at the bottom looking up. We just want to earn. Listen to your children. Be part of the solution. Maybe a fake business suit-looking thing with something cute on the back.

I dunno, not getting anywhere. It has to be funny and clever and have something new to say. I hold my t-shirts to a high standard. And I'm not so sure it will sell. Most of the political stuff I've done in the past few years has ended up being given away. Need another hippie shirt. Get your boat this time hippie? Those tents are going to be floating in Eugene. And those shirts aren't made in the USA, folks. They might just be part of the problem.

I've been pre-occupied today with my feelings about the Fair fee increase specifically the parking sticker inequity. I really don't want to feel the us and them, but why do I and my workers have to pay $20 and the other workers pay $10? It makes no sense. We are all working as hard as we can, as far as I can see. We are all serving each other and the public. Yes, I'm making a living there, so I might go home with more money than I arrived there with, but I also have a lot of giant bills to pay when I get home.

It's a huge effort and risk to mount that show. My fees amount to $300 per public day. That is a really expensive show in my world. All of my success is due to me being on it every waking minute, and also professional and efficient in my efforts so that my customers are satisfied and my responsibilities are fulfilled. I do very much appreciate the efforts of the volunteers and see that some of what they do is for me: the security keeps me safe from threat and theft, the traffic helps me not waste a lot of time getting in and out, all the staff and coordination supports what I am doing there.

But I also support them. I bring wonderful items to entice and satisfy the public. I create a big part of the draw that builds the gate income. You can't really separate things and say one of us is more essential or more deserving than another one. So why do we not strive for more equality in our membership?

We don't seem to have this problem at Market, maybe because all of our volunteers are also vendors. We (or at least I) trust our Budget committee and they seldom levy additional fees on me. They always look to other ways to make their decisions to avoid fee increases. Our percentage fees ensure that we all pay the same proportion of our income, and when I do well I'm happy to help Market do well. The Fair did well this year, so why do I have to pay more?

I read through the meeting minutes and there were lots of sensible comments and a few proposed compromises, but the vote was taken and the fee increase was passed. Nothing to do about it now but cope. I can theoretically cut workers (though I can't, since we are all working as hard as we can) or ask them to pay for their own parking passes or something. I'm not going to do that. My workers are practically volunteers as it is. I can pass the costs on in increased prices, but I have seen the public every week this year and they do not have money. That will likely result in less income rather than more.

Occupy Main Camp? Not that funny, and I doubt the spotted towhees will care one whit if I sit out there a little longer. The Fair isn't exactly a greedy corporation even though I would like to see them trying a little harder to have more compassion for my struggle to survive.

I tried this year to shift my thinking by getting more involved. I volunteered for the Fair, specifically the Scribe Tribe, people who take minutes at committee meetings. This was really good for me. I got a much better idea of how the committees function, and paid a lot more attention to the people who do the work and what they do. I renewed my faith in what good, well-intentioned people we are. I felt a greater sense of belonging. I consider just about everyone a conscientious, conscious member of my fair family. I felt a little reciprocation. At least a few people learned my name.

But truthfully, I also noticed that these people were generally not really supportive of me. They passed by quickly if they passed by my booth at all. I heard a lot of volunteers bragging this year about how well they managed to stay out of the eight during the day. Excuse me? Is the eight during the day not the Fair? Why don't they participate in that? How come they don't buy my stuff, or even look at it (with some notable exceptions who have always been very supportive of the Market and even me in particular)? Is it me? Am I just not seeing that they do buy my stuff? I hope so.

It seems like we're having several parallel events at the same time. There's the craft fair, and the shows, and the night scene that the young people dominate, and there's the pre-fair that we all know is a really great time and a lot of sweaty work. It all happens together but it isn't really happening together.

So we can work on that. I will offer to not write a complaining letter to the FFN this year about the fees. I said it all last year anyway, to little response. I will pay the fees and not make the t-shirt with the cynical response (actually, no promises there. I have a backlog of funny and cynical ideas and I might not be able to resist come June). I will continue to volunteer (though I dropped one committee, regretfully, mostly because I can only type so much and I need to concentrate on typing things that make money for me). I will continue to try to think the best of everyone and give them the benefit of the doubt and strive for mutual understanding and common ground. We are all working hard for a valuable purpose.

I'll try not to be negative about the community center plan, though I may continue to insist that the funds for it come from fundraising and not the vendors. I'm not much of a visionary and I want to support those who are. When it is built we will probably all love it and find it useful. I certainly hope so.

But if we are really in this together and all that, I would like to see some of the visible fair volunteers come to support me and my fellow vendors this year at the Holiday Market, or maybe even on the Park Blocks in these coming dark and wet days. I'd like them to speak up about our common experiences and solidify our relationships. Purchases aren't really as necessary as presences. Let's find more ways to collaborate. Let's find more ways to love each other and include each other in our thinking.

We have a little tiny and wonderful world in Eugene/Veneta. We are really lucky that we made it that way and protected it and are living in it. It isn't perfect. But if just one volunteer comes and buys one of my $20 items, someone who has not done that before, I will use the money to buy one of my expensive parking passes and feel better. I promise to feel better about it. I do not want to feel resentful and petty.

Let's save our animosity for the real enemies. You can find lots about them on FB right now, thanks to this new revolution. Let's concentrate on big justice, and be kind to each other.

Wow, this is not how I thought this blog would go. All the way from occupy Main Camp to maybe I'll drop in there and check out that Hospitality service next fair. I hear it is for us boothpeople too. It might be quite the heartwarming time to go down there and get a snack and a drink of something cold and feel part of the family.

Dang, next thing you know I'll be running for that Board myself. Then I'll have to put myself on the line and make those hard decisions and get all that criticism. That'll show me.

Monopoly

The only art class I ever took was a calligraphy class at Cooper's Union in 1973, which probably lasted a month or two at most. I spent some time in 1974 at my Mom's house, where my old room had been improved by a big old worktable that I settled into with my art supplies and unrealistic notions about life and art.

What a wonderful Mom I have to let me have some artistic space in my life at that time to explore and play. She paid me to do her housework and cook for my remaining siblings while she worked at an investment firm.



I practiced calligraphy with various projects, this being one I finished. I gave it to one of my sisters who has had it in her attic all this time.


I lettered each one of these cards, and each piece of money one by one.

I painted the deeds and properties with gouache and used speedball points and India ink and some rulers and ruling pens I had gotten from my Uncle Ed. These were the kinds of pens that you filled a little reservoir with ink through an eye dropper.

I don't believe I had any technical pens at the time though the lack of blots and skips makes me think perhaps I did.

As you can see I lettered out the rules book and although there are a few corrections on the board it is mostly perfect in my primitive little twenty-four-year-old's style. I never got much better at lettering than that.


I constructed the box (unfortunately with rubber cement) and used my charm bracelet for the game pieces, and some stuff from the hardware store.



Even I find this piece of my archives amazing. She brought it over today saying we should sell it for a million dollars and maybe we might sell it, but it is one of a kind for sure and might only be worth a lot when I get more famous as an outsider artist, or when my collection is put together in a big truck to take to the dump.












I could get a few bucks for it at a garage sale, I'll bet. Except we're keeping it.

The Whole World is Working

What do we want? RESPECT! When do we want it? We've always wanted it, all of us. Since Day One.

I'm loving the growing Occupy protests and how they are serving to get the issues articulated and opened up and the people realizing that we are so much more alike than different. Today's protesters (which of course include many of yesterday's) are so much better (aided by FB and such) at expressing the common ground. The signs are so intelligent and thought-provoking. It's the public square where the panel discussion is taking place, with everyone participating. And the whole world is involved, not just watching.

Expressing ourselves is so vital, and we get so frustrated and isolated when we have no way to do that. We need to know that not only are 99% of us in the same boat, it isn't really sinking as fast as we thought. Lots of people are working to keep us all afloat! I have great hope that many things will improve so that political realities realign with actual domestic realities for so many.

And hope is really important in times of difficulty. I'm glad that I can still access it through the crust of cynicism I tend to wear to protect me from pain. But Naomi Klein just said that cynicism is a luxury we can't afford right now. So I'm brushing off the crust.

I spent the day yesterday working for my Mom. We put preservative on her deck, which didn't go so well since it didn't dry and we will probably have to wipe it off today. Oh well, one step forward and two steps back. I'm charged with her yardwork. Fortunately the weather is gorgeous, summery. Our conversation:

"I'm going to get the ivy away from the foundation, Mom. You're not supposed to grow English ivy, invasive species, you know." Me being the condescending environmentalist as usual.

"I've been working to get rid of that ivy since Day One." She's lived in this house for 55 years. So I guess we can see who is winning. It's on three sides of the house. She can't keep up with it.

Ivy is tenacious and persistent and you can manage it but it takes major efforts and invasive techniques to eradicate it, so you usually don't. I pulled a ton of it out and it looks good today but it's still there and will probably be there for another lifetime. It's just trying to survive and get its needs met.

I'm always looking for metaphors and there it was. If you can be tenacious and persistent you are a match for the invasive species of the world but at best you can manage them, so don't get too attached to your particular outcome. And if you think it is a battle, be prepared for defeat. Better to think of it as gardening, a lifetime of care and tending that results in moments of beauty and grace and clear common ground, but mostly a lifetime of something to do that gives you the illusion of control and practice at cooperation. And is a bunch of work you might rather not do, but you have to do it, or the stuff will start to get on your neighbor's house and they will have to deal with it. They might hold that against you.

Everybody is trying to get their needs met. I'm talking about Saturday Market and our home on the Park Blocks, and the difficult year we have had with all of our neighbors trying to tend their own gardens and survive and thrive. There has been a lot of juggling and a lot of listening a quite a few demonstrations of desperation and utter confusion. Things that have gone right have been a clarification of who we are and what we are doing together, and what we want. We've unified and opened our hearts and done a lot of thinking about the past and future and our values and plans and strengths and vulnerabilities.

We want respect for what we have built. If you are going to erode our foundation and act like a weed upon our landscape, we're going to be inclined to want to manage that. We might try a few things that are a little harsh and there might be unanticipated consequences. When we get in the same room and talk it through, go think some more, and talk it through again, we do pretty well. We can see our limits and expectations and we've increased our mutual trust and understanding.

That's internally. Externally we have not done as well, although we are not finished. We've avoided the public forum, preferring to keep fairly quiet and work carefully so we don't get boxed in. We think of ourselves as a transparent organization, in that our meetings are public and we don't do secret agenda stuff and we don't lie. We try for courage. If you can't say it in public, you probably shouldn't say it. If you can't allow yourself to be open to being wrong, or needing more information, if you get defensive and fearful, it might turn things into a conflict or it might spread the problem to even more of your gardens and compromise even more of your beautiful flowers or those of your neighborhood. That isn't fair.

And if you don't do anything, that ivy will grow over your whole house and bury you. It needs to grow and propagate itself. The farmers need to be the kind of farmers market they see it necessary to be in this economy at this time. It might not be the kind of farmers market I want it to be. It might not fit in my neighborhood anymore in the form it was, or in the form it wants to be. I can try to cultivate and manage it, but my vision of it is not a fact, and the sum total of everyone's visions is maybe the best outcome, if that sum total can be found. Maybe my house was built first, but the neighborhood is for all of us. So we probably need to get together and talk about it, if we can. Certainly we don't want to make things harder for each other.

And the city and county we are located in have different concerns and goals, and needs, than we do. Careful communication can help us see where things are going well and where they need adjustment. It seems that because we have been so persistent and tenacious in putting down our roots and tendrils, what was once viewed as an invasive species of hippies with brown pottery has evolved into business incubator, public gathering place, and very healthy arts venue that has enabled thousands of people to make a living during hard times and good. Both the 80's recession and this one have caused a lot of damage and Market has been a lifeline and still is. We've blossomed and seeded many times now. We want respect for that.

Being next to a space dedicated to free speech seems like a perfect fit. We are all about free expression and we support that. We've tried hard to manage that space adjacent to ours, because we are good gardeners and if our neighbor's tree comes over the fence we try to learn to appreciate it, or do what we can to alleviate the affects of the leaves and flower petals that fall on us. We're not going to tromp over there and cut it down.

We clean that space at our own expense, even though some people don't seem to respect some aspects of it and leave a mess. We've tried to educate. We were patient for years of a few pipes being sold, on a few blankets by a few people who needed the money. We've encouraged as many of the sellers there to join us as we can. We've tried to protect attendees from danger by spending thousands of our hard-earned dollars to close the spaces where illegal activities were hidden. It's our major concern that our value of having a safe and family-friendly community space is respected.

Things got out of hand. We worked a long and patient time for solutions. We're just beginning to find one and both the city and county are opening to trust us and work with us for the mutual goals that we hold. This is a world away from the days when we were the ones with the blankets being moved around town, trying to find a home to do what we were compelled to do to survive: to create and share our self-expression and to live lives of mutual respect and cooperation.

It's our charge to manage our garden. It's a task to which we bring all of our collective skills and for which we must spend a lot of time working on compassion, justice and fairness. We value equality. We want to hear each voice before we decide anything. We don't want anyone to go away mad before they understand how they can contribute and what will erode us.

We're not the establishment and we aren't conservative and we aren't all about making money. We want to meet a much broader range of needs than the economic ones. We want to find a way to support free expression in that space, and all over our city and our county. We're progressives. We want social progress. We want to be involved in evolving.

I watched Invictus last night. I know Morgan Freeman isn't Mandela and Matt Damon is an actor too. Still, I cried as I watched how carefully Mandela thought and the things he said about forgiveness and how much we need to change ourselves first if we want to change the world.

So let's keep looking within and see if we can exceed our own expectations and come up with the elegant solutions we need. I am sure that we can. There is so much common ground to stand on. There are so many people willing to do the work.

And when it all comes down to it, there are no enemies that cannot be made into friends. That's not just a movie scenario. When minds stay open, doors do too.

Keep thinking. Keep working. Keep dreaming of what the best world would look like. Be tenacious and persistent. Stand beside each other and use all the tools in the garage. And then do it some more. Because it is a lifetime of tending and it will never be finished.

Things to Love from the Market

Kim from Saturday Market is a very accomplished photographer, and in her weekly blog she often features wonderful closeups of the handmade items we all bring to show and sell.

Most of us don't have the means to collect a lot of them for ourselves, though for gifts and special treats we do purchase and at the very least covet nearly everything our friends and neighbors produce. I have a big family and really can't give the gifts I would like, but in searching I develop needs of my own.

I wanted one of these coffee filter holders for almost a year after my friend Pamela bought herself one. My old plastic one grew increasingly disgusting and I looked at the imports available with disdain and finally just followed my heart and bought this one from Amy Palatnick, also known as Amy the Potter. I love the way it looks with my tile, and the mug I bought at Holiday Market a couple of years ago from Claire and Bill Delffs at Moonfire Pottery.

Then on Tuesday I purchased this glasses chain from Cortney Fellet of The Steel Web, and in case you are not familiar with this kind of work, let me tell you that she opens each link of this stainless steel chain and puts the links together in the precise patterns needed to make the many types of chains she fashions. It's hard on the hands and needless to say takes a lot of focus and concentration to get it right.

I'm still getting used to having glasses on my chest (sometimes a shelf for crumbs, I find...) but it's better than having them on the top of my head.

And speaking of the top of my head, I can't wait to wear this.

Traveling in the Big World

I tell you what, there are a lot of people in the Denver airport! I had to laugh at myself for how small my life gets sometimes, just me and my cat, my little neighborhood, and work and work. Saturday Market definitely expands that world, and that Market family is large, too large for me to even know all of the other vendors and their families, although I do know most of them by sight now. I meet more every week, and see what they make, and how they live, a little bit, when we interface on Saturdays. I learn a bit more from Kim's blog, and the others linked on her site.

Add the public who comes to hang with us are a pretty big crowd, and our town seems pretty big, but I don't know what a million people feels like, really. Certainly I have no concept of a billion. Thanks to the internet, I get a glimpse of this, but I can turn off the computer and make my life small again. I like it small, generally.

But down at Tuesday Market when we had practically no customers at all this week, I got a little too comfortable with the limits, and started to think I will never be able to sell my inventory, never be able to expand my business, never get any better hold on financial security. I felt small and even a little desperate, and we all know that even a whiff of desperation will translate to people making very wide circles to avoid being drawn in even a little.

But there I was in the Denver airport today, realizing that of all those many, many people walking on the speedy sidewalks and trailing their wheely suitcases, hardly any of them, maybe even none of them, knew anything about what I make or how to get it or why they might want to. And the vast majority would never, ever stumble by my booth on the Park Blocks, and even if they did, they might get distracted by the Jell-O Art and not even notice that I make clothing and funny hats, much less that I paint silk and write and have important things on my mind.

But oh boy, I have the internet! I have a website with untapped potential and I have a digital camera and there is no reason that I have to stay in my small world when there is an almost limitless one that is open to me, as open as can be.

I checked my stats on this blog and I have had readers in 10 countries, many continents, and I had no idea. I never looked. The Gelatinaceae blog has similar stats. I suppose some of them are random hits and not really readers, but even so, my world is bigger than I thought.

And I don't even have to cram myself into a tiny seat in a metal tube that magically goes into the air and transports me back to my origins in just a few hours to reach these people. All I have to do is take pictures and post them, write entertaining tidbits to amuse them, and voila! Connection. It's amazing.

I'm really finding the Occupy protests heartening. I remember thinking when Kiev happened that I couldn't see my countrymen camping out in the snow for weeks to make change happen. I thought we were too comfortable to do such a thing. I am so happy to be wrong about that.

It may be that I was not the only one feeling a bit desperate this week. Perhaps a lot of people are feeling desperate, and instead of making wide circles to avoid each other, people are finding common ground and working together for each other. That's what it looks like.

I've certainly done my share of protesting, mostly when I was younger, and I well remember how full it makes a heart to be joined with others in passion for justice and equality and sensible choices and peace, and even prosperity. It's very wonderful to see people discovering that and building on that and forcing change to happen.

Because the master will not give you the tools to take down his house. You have to make the tools and you have to plan and dream and act. It's all within your grasp.

Discouragement and limiting yourself is a trap. There just isn't time for it. There's a lot of work to do, and the energy is there, and the imagination is there, and the means are available.

Local people, check in on Occupy Eugene, or Portland, and if you can't participate, there are other ways to support. People in the East, take the Amtrak up to NYC or Boston or get together with your people where you are. We're the 99%. What an amazing notion.