New Age

Fortune Telling, 2009, Maury Gortemiller

Tomorrow, I will be 24. As I review the past year and my current surroundings, I can't help but be amazed-as I am every year-at how much change and growth has occurred. I have now worked my first full year since graduating college, moved to a new city (and in that new city, moved from one place to another place approximately three times), rekindled dormant relationships, ended some live relationships, made new art and new friends, nurtured seeds into full-blown plants, and generally learned to relax, breathe, and slow down a bit more successfully.

I believe it's Ani DiFranco I'm quoting when I write, "if you aren't getting happier as you're getting older, something's wrong." I agree. Although I have my moments of antsy worry, wondering if I'm doing things the way I should, or if I am where I should be at this point in my life, I have enjoyed the fact that I can now, more than ever before, just ignore those voices by making something, going for a walk, or calling my sister. Expanding my Etsy shop (liontailpress.etsy.com) and watching my watermelons grow doesn't hurt either.


But, I ask you: when did birthdays suddenly start feeling like so much pressure? Pressure to have more fun than the last birthday, to actually ask for things you want this year, to see more loved ones, to eat more cake...Luckily, my birthday falls on a Monday, which means I will be at work during the day and won't have much free time to feel guilty about not partying harder. Thank the universe for Mondays! (I will never say this again).

Of all that I have to be so grateful for this year, perhaps the plastic dinosaur on the ice cream cake is Clarity. Sure, I have a million questions, but soon they will be made ever-so-slightly more lucid, for my mother has told me that my birthday gift from her this year will be an hour-long session with her "favorite psychic."


I must say I am both thrilled and riddled with cautious anticipation. This will surely be a new birthday experience and an insightful start to a brand new age.

Growth Cracks

Charley: the ever lovin' light of my family's life. Courtesy of Maury Gortemiller . 2010

Sometimes, my often skeptical self just has to admit that it truly is amazing how some things just seem to fit. all at once. together. On some random day, out of the proverbial blue, some crazy kind of intuition or luck kicks in; all things begin to make sense. Or-at least-feel more like "okay."

Now that the vaguest of prefaces is complete, I'll tell you that - since graduating from college with a BFA in both Printmaking and Art Education about a year ago - I have been working a job in Atlanta that is at any given moment boring me to tears and making me the most grateful "young professional" out there in the "real world," just to have a job and work with people I admire and love, at something that is ever-so-mildly related to my interests. I have been battling the ever-present torment to just make a break from my financial (often wobbly) stability and find some minute (but out there somewhere!) way to just make art again; full time. And, maybe garden, cook, practice yoga, and ride my bike, too. Until I find my way to do the aforementioned, I am thrilled to be a part of the following show this upcoming Saturday:

and, to be making work in my basement (studio):


"Things To Do" notebook (soon to appear on liontailpress.etsy.com)

And, of course, for my garden and the folks that love me enough to listen to me tell the story of how I recently (out loud) apologized to one of my adolescent sunflowers for almost knocking it over when pulling a nasty weed that was all up in its grill.

Speaking of weirdness in the garden: I have noticed in the past week that my maturing tomatoes are all developing some kind of spirally crack near their stems. On Tuesday of this week, I thought to myself, "oh damn..they've got worms." That night, I had a dream that a friend of mine noticed this on a tomato I was trying to give her as a gift, and I tried to reassure her saying, "don't worry about it. That's just a freakin' growth crack."


The next morning at work (during a lull in productivity), I was researching tomato pests and problems only to stumble upon a large, bold heading reading "GROWTH CRACKS" looming over a photograph much like the one above. I tell you what, dear reader: sometimes life is full of its squirrelly tricks and treats.

The Starting Line-up

It feels dishonest now to post any photographs taken one whole week ago; but, I'll take this opportunity to use them as an enticer, a jumping off point for my subsequent posts. Curious yet?


After what seemed like weeks of hacking through jungles of heinous weeds, battling one mysterious basil problem after another, noticing that the stray neighborhood cats had used (what was) my kale plot as a litter box, and wondering if any of my sunflower or morning glory flowers would EVER bloom (all while getting eaten alive by them heartless mosquitos)...I can exhale; I am content.

Suddenly, mother nature - or maybe, some invisible yet convincing garden fairy - issued these words to my plants: "let's pick things up, people!" While the weeds seem to have listened as well, I am still absolutely tickled pink at the sight of 3 sunflowers about to unfold their yellow petals; 1 large (and long dormant) gladiolus now studded with frilly, pink blossums; at least 2 newly ripe cherry tomatoes daily (Better Boys to follow..); 3 miniature watermelons on ever-sprawling vines; 7 whole morning glory flowers (!!); and lastly, herbs that don't appear to be auditioning for the role of Harold (before he meets Maude).


**dear reader, please note the bee in the bloom.

Thumbs

I am not a gardener. Nor am I a blogger. I am a twenty-something lady, an artist, an 8-4:30 worker, an Atlantan (for now), and a perpetual taker-on of new projects. What I like to refer to as "my new garden thang" began once I moved into this great new house with a great new friend.


This house - unlike any other abode in which I have lived thus far - has a great back yard with lots of sunlight and ugly fence areas to cover. Recently, I have had to admit to myself that I absolutely LOVE to eat (and thankfully, to cook), and am always wanting to share new recipes with others; thus, I suppose, my new garden thang and this new blog thang! Like many others before, the aforementioned are a few of my most recently taken-on projects.

So here I am, trying my hands at them - with green thumbs, or all thumbs? Welcome.