Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

I winced into the sun and adjusted the brim of my ball cap. It seemed to be fitting a little loose today.

Hats were not my thing. No matter what season or what purpose, hats always felt a little too big or a little too small.

Maybe I just didn't have the right head for a hat...artists are usually a little odd, and I seemed to have more quirks than most lately. Guilty.

The title of "Artist" felt like a poorly fitting hat lately, too: a misunderstood hat---a hat that seemed to place my pursuits lower on the totem pole in perception than those of others around me. Likely this was just a chip on my shoulder I needed to shed.

I kept paddling. My kayak kept moving. It's important to always keep moving forward when in a kayak...

Who is that? A man was running along the shoreline calling after me.

We were well matched. He wasn't running very well and I wasn't paddling very well.

I didn't know him. That, was for sure. But, he seemed to know me?

My paddle steered the slim helm of my tandem oceanic-blue kayak through the narrow channel zig-zagging between pontoon bumpers, jutting pier posts and loosely tied fishing boats bobbing in the quells. 

Two seconds ago, the man had been tending to potted plants on his back porch minding his own business. Two seconds ago, I was simply floating by his shoreline in a kayak hoping to go unnoticed.

He looked up at me with no more interested than if I were a passing bird. Then, his head bobbed for a double-take. He bolted down the steps and came sprinting out into the prickly pebbly grass in bare feet.

He winced and high-stepped. The stones were clearly painful. Yet, he kept running with unflinching momentum. In just a few seconds, I could not avoid but to come within six feet of the dock where he now stood. 

I was clearly startled and edged as close to the far side as I could without bottoming out the underbelly of my kayak in the shallow mud. The brittle water reeds parted like a veil to make way for my pointed helm. He was so close I could see that his eyes were blue.

He was well dressed for an early morning on the lake. His kakhi bermudas and white long-sleeved athletic shirt had clearly been ironed and pressed. Not to stereotype, but he didn't look the type to take morning jogs barefoot along the shoreline. He also didn't look the age. Like my father, he had endearing laugh-lines around his eyes and the same white-gray hair of a former blonde.

His smile was warm as he caught his breath and said something about the nice weather. The weather was nice, but not deserving of a sprint (?).

Semi-incognito in my ball cap, my intent was to nod and paddle on by this sprinting stranger.

The problem was, I was no stranger to him.

I gave him a nod and a wave in standard courteous laker-fashion and no more while my paddle cut the water with fresh pace.

"Wait! Wait!" he called out. This guy really wanted to tell me about the weather!

"You're an artist, aren't you! You paint violins!? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He began walking along the shoreline, talking fast, and following my kayak at a lagging intentionally-polite distance.

His kind voice seemed to will the waves to draw me back.

I was now at the mouth of the deep green open waters about 20 feet from shore. I had a choice to stay or to go. I dug my oar hard to the left and turned the kayak to the side. The breaking waves would hold my position, but the paddle required muscle to tread water motionless for long.

He must have figured that if I were not the said artist, I would not have paused. This spry gray man who reminded me of my dad actually jumped a couple leaps in the air like a small child at Disneyland.

"It is you! I knew it! I recognized you from your website picture. I can't wait to tell my wife! We are really good friends with the people who bought the One-Stringed Violin from the ________ Gallery!"

As I recall, I just sat there bobbing in the water and squinting into the sun behind his silhouette. His excitement was entertaining. It was my curiosity that had paused; not my pride.

I had never been called out before like a celebrity. Because, I'm not. I'm "just" an artist. Iv'e used this 4-letter J-word before in reference to myself. So have well-meaning others. But, his face, his voice, and his entire countenance challenged my philosophy of comparative value in a matter of seconds.

Something about the whole incident touched my heart. His response to recognizing my face was not premeditated, but an instant impulse upon seeing who he thought was...the Author of the Art-Song of his friend's violin?

The violin of which he spoke carried with it a story. The fact that he called it the "1-Stringed Violin" as if that were it's title, settled any question I may have had if I had sold it to the right people. See, when I part with an instrument, I am passing along the guardianship of it's story.

This violin belonged to the father of the late best friend of the woman's late husband who met me half-way between her town and mine. Out of respect, the violin had only been played by it's first owner; a farmer who could play a "mean fiddle" on a Friday evening.

As the story goes, the man lost his playing fingers in a farming accident. His instrument sat idle and never graced a Friday evening again.

By time the violin reached my studio, only one string was left, bent and warbled, but still stretched across it's cracked and weathered form. I could not help but be reminded of the comparison between a violin with one string and a musician-farmer with one finger left to play.

With every creative impulse that is within me, the design of the little violin celebrated that one hearty string that held out and held on to the memory of it's first love. I carefully taped it aside while I cleaned the surface. I carefully rewound it after the final stroke of the sealant had dried.

The violin was sold to the wife of a school teacher...this shoreline sprinter's close friend. It's story was preserved in a hand-written letter tucked inside the cracked black-leather case.

The shoreline sprinter happened to have jumped off the very porch of the house I veered from the main waters to visit when I paddle through this channel. When most people visit a house, they come to visit the people inside while the house, well, just contains the people in their natural habitat like a zoo animal within their domain.

Neither me, my paddle, or my kayak had any idea who lived in this house. But, anyone with such an array of artistry in their back yard must have some form of shared naturale' interest to say the least. I had some questions of my own if he was willing.

There they hung some thirty feet behind him and 12-or-so feet above him loosely swaying in the wind in similar glory as a bone-white, sun-bleached Georgia O'Keefe painted dessert icon: white-washed nests of refuge---a destination.

This is why I turn into this tight channel when I float the waves. I don't mind skirting rogue currents along a weedy shoreline. A close view of these ethereal sculptural beauties is worth the fight of the current.

Individual forms within their choir, they each balance with a pendulum-like weight, precarious and fragile, yet tediously built by their caretaker with the strength to last the wind that rolled across the open water and hit the shoreline with full-force. How many, 15 on each 12-foot piped rack with arms splaying in all directions of the compass?

Purple-winged Martin Swallows of Brazil nest here. Not native to this lake, this town, or this continent; yet, here they are--a steady flock. They take flight with the seasons in a continually renewed cycle of generations. Deep blue and purple iridescent wings. 

I kayak here often, floating silently by and beneath the shadows of countless wings.  This is my favorite destination on the lake.

Each web of spinal white pipes hold a myriad of dried gourds dangling in the air like two dozen stars strung low in an ebony Indiana night sky. The darkened pin-prick doorway holes are so small that it hurts my imagination to think of the contortions this flock must go through to burrow inside.

As it turns out; their burst of purple-glory wings resist nesting anywhere where the struggle to hide their young from predators is not present at the threshold. I liked their style.

It was for this view that my kayak sojourned to the winding channel of this shoreline.

The air was quiet. I could hear the fluttering of wings rustle above my head and his.

He knew this lake as well as I. He knew how many possible inlets and outlets and channels and water paths I could choose as my favorite destination. I told him his bird houses were more than bird houses. They were Art. When one creates art, one is an Artist, too.

His eyes became watery and it wasn't because of the sting of the wind.

Holding my kayak in a stand-still position became more than I could muscle and I said I must be moving on, but it was very nice to meet him. It was...very nice to meet the artist behind the white gourd swaying naturale' sculptures that had become my friends.

He asked me if I could muscle it for one more minute while he ran inside to get a piece of paper. His wife wasn't home, but he asked if I would sign my autograph for her.

Again, he high-stepped a winced sprint back across the stones and back up the porch steps. He came flying back with no less grace than the swooping flight of a Brazilian Purple Martin lighting on the perch of a white painted swaying gourd nest.

My paddle fought the current, pulled the kayak alongside the dock, and signed a torn piece of paper that had clearly been quickly ripped from a wound-wire perforated notebook. 

Before handing the paper back, I folded it neatly and ripped it along the creased edge with 15 years of teaching origami units to Art students under the ease of my fingertips. A moment of quizzical curiosity flashed across the deepened wrinkles around his eyes.

"Would you mind giving me your autograph, too? I would love to have the John Hancock of the Artist of the Purple Martin Lakeshore Sculptures!"

His aging eyes flashed a color deeper than the blue-green waters I was about to paddle back across. "An Artist---me? I'm just the keeper of the Purple Martins."

"Yes...You."

The sun was now at my back as I paddled away. I took note that my hat felt like it fit better on the way home than on the way there. 

I kept paddling. My kayak kept moving. It's important to always keep moving forward when in a kayak. I suddenly felt a surge of excitement to get back to the studio.

I think I will paint in purple today; the deep purple of the wings of a Purple Martin.

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In my years of wanderings and connections, I have never met another artist with more reverence for the title than the one whom the title was freshly and freely given in this story. Neither have I met many an artist who loved his Art more: the Artist of the Purple Martins.

This story rose to mind as my hands are freshly creating a series of mini tribute mosaics---tributes to people who have exhibited remarkable characteristics of virtue in my life and, like the Purple Martin, have given wings to my creative flight.

This project is using a very minimalistic color scheme. Like a little girl circling a tea party with my dolls, I am naming my few colors as I go.

The shade of purple I have chosen is deep like the skin of a ripe egg plant, or the irridescent wings of a Purple Martin Swallow. I have named my color, "Purple Martin".

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* See this desert artwork by Georgia O'Keefe with the IMA at this link.