3.31.-7

3.31.07

Lunch with good friends of my father, who sailed with us, is bittersweet as the husband is dying of throat cancer and his wife of 38 years reconciles a new phase of her own life. We have a brief chat with him and then lunch at a local polish place. Wandering around in search of an artist she is fond of draws us past a glass-blowing shop where their wares are displayed to the street and one is invited to watch a class taking place behind the goods for sale. It is mesmerizing, to watch the young man sit at a special seat, rolling the long metal tube back and forth across his lap, shaping the glowing orb of hot sand, then rising to reheat it in a fire breathing oven. I am reminded of how few of us get the time, opportunity or perhaps inclination to be so creative in our lives, how far removed we are from creating the necessities of living on a day to day basis, rather depending on the market economy to provide our goods and services. We then happen upon a garden shop, with amazing topiary and green displays, including a bonsai Redwood forest, tiny yet commanding in a foot long dish. We don’t find the artist on this trek, but I get to see the warehouses that are being bought up by developers and how soon this area will become too chic for the polish community, which had decided to reject low-income housing for fear of the “darkies” moving in. Finally we locate the shop where an artist creates original works by the yard, setting up shingles lined up in a row, adding to each as he goes up and down the line. He’s created more than 180,000 pieces which he sells for $5-10 so now I am an owner of fun take on Homer’s “Christina’s World” in which she lies on the grass, her arm outstretched as if searching. The subtitle is “Lost Glasses.” It seems a perfect gift for my 50th, as I’m constantly losing my reading spectacles.

The evening is capped with a lovely dinner with the man who lived with Michael and me years ago and his wife, an artist. They have a small apartment, but lovely as a display for her books dipped in wax, large canvases, antique iron beds and all white décor. They make a lovely fish stew and we catch up on his writing efforts and their current disagreement about whether a sofa, that he wants for reading, is the death of creativity. She prefers uncomfortable seating to keep her on edge and I’m interesting in this whole idea of whether one can be an artist and “happy.”