Thor's Cultural Landscape Issues

Cultural Landscapes

Some years ago people began to understand that there were things like our beautiful valleys, mountains and lands and waterfalls, etc. that could have some special attention paid to them, not always because they were beautiful, but that they were human landscapes that bore witness and testimony to our unique human cultural footprints and that they needed to be, sometimes, preserved and paid attention to in just that same way that we have nodded to the natural world. Here are some examples that I have written about:

This land is your land, this land is my land. The sign said, "no trespassing," but on the other side it said nothing. Well, I know it is a little like the elephant in the room, but have you ever noticed how the backsides of street signs are like the emperor's new clothes — naked and ugly (no offense to him, of course)? Perhaps it would be cool to find a way out of these obvious signs of denial out there, not to mention the ubiquitous power lines (Yuk!).

Maybe an army of CCC-type artists armed with imagination and good aesthetics could create signs of recovery. I'll go for the new buffalo gourds next to the Rotarians on the Old Pecos Trail myself. Keep up the gourd work!

This is a Boy Scout camping spot in Oregon. The look of amputation is all around, with that zero look of the log ends, the stumps cut at a comfortable height for a chain saw operator and then just left there as if there was nothing wrong.

Or:

George Bush and his chainsaw mentality, treating the world like he was clearing brush on his ranch in a screaming fit of willfulness, filling space that might be filled with thought, heart and true quiet strength. Best put that saw and its mentality in the shed before going into the house. Now it is Sarah Palin, with helicopter safaris to hunt the caribou and the wolves, her butcher knife mentality for political actions and cutting words against her perceived foes. McCain's "fight, fight fight", "bomb bomb Iran" and Palin's "Drill, baby, drill" could be replaced with "Listen, mirror, validate" and "Think, think, think"; use forgiveness like the Amish did recently. And that doesn't mean what we give up our power but it does mean that miracles can begin to occur and peace and prosperity and "Win-win" situations can arise. As a tool user myself, I think it best to use the right ones for the jobs.


What I am trying to get at actually begins in my own heart and experience. I tried that chain saw mentality – so easy to do when you work with them and other tools that scream their way through the materials – and found out the hard way to “Stop It”. I also had an amazing experience as a young man in Bombay (Mumbai) when I first walked out onto the streets and a tall, thin, woman beggar walked right up to me and stuck her amputated arm stub (perhaps cut years ago just for that purpose) right in my face and asked for money; that was horrifying to me. In the process of working with wood, I began to realize, as the Japanese do in their advanced techniques and attitudes toward woodwork (the woodworker is considered a special, highly advanced person worthy of great respect –as opposed to here where we are pretty much ignored- and one of their tenets is that the end grain of wood is to be avoided; being neither delicate nor elegant and they tend to not use finishes, stains or paints on wood) that in the shop as well as out on the ranch the look of a amputated branch is , basically, offensive; both from an aesthetic point of view and one that is part of a land ethic and philosophically. I actually create "through" mortise and tenon joints with the exposed end showing and jutting out slightly, then rounded off slightly and polished slightly - it looks great to me and shows off the craft and is a celebratory joint.  So there are exceptions and personal choices here.  But I have spent lots of time trying to figure out how to either not show the look of chopped off ends, which is especially hard in rustic work, or to detail the end in some way as to make it less stark. On the ranch I sometimes put stones up on my railroad tie fence posts and I have done that for sculpture as well and I often round an end cut some or maybe paint it with a turquoise paint, or mostly try to leave the ends natural and do not cut them. It is an ongoing problem and I am still looking for good solutions. It is all kind of odd from an Americana perspective, but I have found that these considerations go fairly deep into our cultural needs.

So, sometimes it looks better to snap a limb off than to cut it and often it is better to cut the tree down at or near the ground level (taking care not to damage the chain saw with dirt and rocks at that level) and then to cover the cut with dirt or mulch. If you go into a thinned out area of the national forests you will see what I mean; the place is devastated from this aesthetic point of view and will look unnatural and damaged for many years. If you get right down to it, the process of milling wood is quite violent and that beauty that we tend to see within speaks about it, silently but strongly. So, as usual there are compromises and balances and paradoxes in the created world and we are left to sort it out for ourselves as to the values and the courses of action. Now you might not see  the world quite the same as before you read this, perhaps obsessive, piece.

Thor's Hammer Introduction

Thor’s Hammer

“The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things; of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings” - Lewis Carrol

That is an appropriate quote for me, as I dabble and sometimes wallow; other times immerse myself in a large number of pursuits - sort of a Renaissance man of the woodchuck world. When people ask me what I do I tell them, “Well, I pretty much make things every day”. Sometimes I even make music, sometimes poetry, sometimes artwork of various sorts, sometimes …….trouble. It depends on the day. So that is what I will do in “Thor’s Hammer” – talk about things that I have experience with and sometimes make a little trouble. One more thing: Thor is pronounced “Tore”, just so you know, not “Tthhhor”, as Patch Adams once joked to me as he spluttered all over the place, sounding like Daffy Duck. Hammer is what I use sometimes, but actually prefer nailguns and prybars a lot of the time. Sometimes I will just pick up a rock, a board or my fist to get the job done. I once picked up a rock that I thought would make a great tool; a shim in this case to - hold up a moveable concrete form, and I looked at it more carefully as I was jambing it under the form and realized that it was a metate stone, so I have a good eye for tools, too. No?

I have been supporting myself by making fine custom furniture for over 35 years, trained in the classic mortise and tenon construction style and I learned to make mostly Spanish Colonial style pieces at first and help develop what we call Santa Fe style and then continued with all kinds of different styles, including Rustic and a sort of Arts and Crafts, modified Southwest Shaker style. At this point I have made hundreds of pieces of all kinds for many different customers. I work out of our 40-acre ranch on the Galisteo Creek outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico where I built a 3,000 square foot log shop that includes, at this point, full furniture making tools as well as full welding facilities and also a foundry for pouring bronze, doing cast iron work and cast glass abilities and also sheet copper work. I buy tools at every opportunity because I must be addicted to them.

I have designed a built numerous architectural items and have as many years of experience in the world of building structures of all kinds and milling all kinds of window and door parts, skylight parts, flooring, tiling and etc. etc. I can pretty much build a building from the ground up and have done quite a few with just myself as the sole force; using my John Deere 1010C as my back and right hand. “C” means crawler which means track machine or “bulldozer” with a front bucket. I recently bought a backhoe, so I am having fun with that incredible machine. I have an old dump truck and farm tractor and lots of attachments and such. I have a sizeable “boneyard” – junk yard to most of you, where I find most of what I need for many things.

I am a member of the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance and the “Iron Tribe” and have many years of experience in working with all ages of men and women who love to pour iron art pieces together. I have done some fascinating work in bronze and thus my foundry. I also do a lot of photography and have been in various shows of all sorts for my artwork.

I write quite a lot, including a sort of poetic style and my thoughts on numerous subjects, including philosophical and humanistic, land management or “Land Ethic”, politics and the environment and I speak a reasonable facsimile of builder’s Spanish.

That should do as an introduction, for now, and I look forward to being able to spout off on some of the above mentioned subjects in a positive creative spirit.

“The problems of today cannot be solved at the same levels of consciousness as those that created them”. –Albert Einstein

Aldo Leopold's Legacy

Aldo Leopold’s Legacy

A film celebrating Aldo Leopold’s life history and thoughts was just screened at the NM Land , Office, with our beloved public lands commissioner, Ray Powell, giving his nod. The film is named “Green Fire” which is derived from a moment in time when Leopold was in his 20s and a forest ranger in Arizona or New Mexico and his party had just shot (as they routinely did) a Mexican Grey Wolf and he saw a “green fire” in the dying wolf’s eyes. What the movie makes clear is that it took a lifetime of experience being in close contact with our government, our culture and the land itself to come to some powerful conclusions about what, I think, he coined, a “Land Ethic”. What he came up with was a forward thinking notion that our relation to the land needs some rethinking and redoing. This was very interesting to me as I begun an experiment similar to his Sand County, Wisconsin one some 31 years ago out here along the Galisteo Creek , in Spirit Valley. The experiences here and the lessons I have drawn through this and my resulting thoughts and research has led me to pretty much the same conclusions as Leopold’s; that our connection to the land is critical for the survival of our culture; that the quality of the soil is the ultimate goal and concern; that the interaction and view of nature as a complex dynamic which depends on diversity; that the aesthetics of our solutions is a critical part of the formula for “correct behavior” ; that developing a “Land Ethic” is what needs to be done. How does this play out in my life? I, first of all, have consciously understood that what I have attempted to do here on our 40 acre property surrounded by wilderness with ½ mile of creek through our property; is an experiment that not everyone would feel comfortable doing but my background had let me do it without the kinds of modern cultural constraints that are often stumbling blocks. It was coming from a family of artists and early pioneers in alternate life styles and being a part of the “back to the land” movements that had a surge in the 60s and 70s and was strong in New Mexico; we were able to learn to build our own house out of adobe or other interesting techniques and materials; laying brick on brick or whatever materials we could find to make a shelter in the time honored tradition as embodied by Henry David Thoreau or my stepfather, Ken Kern. We were wanting to integrate ourselves more into the land, as embodied by John Muir and our American heritage. We were beginning to realize that our connection with nature was very important and powerful as exemplified by a lot of the Native American cultural thinking. I begun to see by shepherding donkeys for nearly twenty years – all kinds of connections to the natural world as we maneuvered on the land; doing controlled grazing; working the ranch from top to bottom to keep them and the land sustained. The creek and water changed from day to day, the quality of the soil determined the health of the plant life, the varieties that were either here and were planted here became a consuming interest, the animals around were mesmerizing, the seasons and floods and droughts became intense and very real and how they affected our lives. How to “work” the land became the challenge; what to harvest, when, how, how intensely. But what I drew from Leopold was a knowledge that what was desired was not pure wilderness without humans, not a carefully tended and rowed “garden” like , perhaps, an English landscape, not a purely engineered set of solutions that involved lots of concrete and steel, but the goal in my eyes was deeply related to the aesthetics of the solutions. I have, for instance, an aversion to the amputated look of cut limbs and tree trunks and make a special point of not cutting things in a way that blare out that zero look everywhere. I try to use materials and methods that blend in with the landscape as I try to reduce erosion and assist the banks of the river, for instance. The roads tend to curve and be blending into the visual look of the place, etc. etc. I believe that this lack of attention to the aesthetics is very often a stumbling block in our society. For some reason our sense of aesthetics is not as refined as I have seen in Japanese culture, for instance, where concepts of wabi sabi and natural beauty are present. I have developed concepts such as: use native rocks and materials for landscaping, be very careful what signs look like, front and back, be careful not to obscure the grand views of the cliffs and hills, do not put just any kind of gravel down, be careful not to pull just every weed and grass that seems not civilized as those weeds are often the prettiest things around. Kochia, for instance, our most ubiquitous plant/weed was originally brought here as an ornamental known for its wonderful red look in the fall. The plant is desired by horses and donkeys for food and is often the first placeholder in disturbed soil.
Tamarisk is a wonderful source of colorful twigs in rustic furniture design. Keep the invaluable bone yard somewhat contained in one area so as not to spread the junk all over the land. Some items of aesthetics are very personal, though, and so what might pass as fine in my eyes might be a terrible eyesore in yours, so that needs to be understood. I have also taken a very different course of thought in regards to the so-called alien species of plants, valuing them in a way much different than the garden variety environmentalists do. In fact I take a quite different stance than most environmentalists I have encountered; being often more in touch with using and living in the landscape as opposed to wanting to , for instance, just hike in it or camp in it or photograph it (although being a photographer can be a great tool for examining the aesthetics of a place).

So, there is no end to the subjects that can be addressed and Aldo Leopold helps address them in many ways that I enjoy as I work on my “Land Ethic”.

I close with an excerpt from something I copied a few years ago:

“Government has pursued constant programs to reduce or eliminate locoweed. We favored cattle without realizing we were making a choice. It was the great University of California scientist Starker Leopold that noted that loco weed was essential to the reproduction of quail. It was Starker’s father, Aldo Leopold. Who made the key statement on caution, “The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the pieces”. My own thinking can be quite biased. I tend to consider the invasive plant tamarisk as unredeemed evil. Yet, in the last issue of Desert Reporter we had an article pointing out that sometimes an endangered bird, the Southwest willow flycatcher, will choose to nest in tamarisk. The author, Pat Tennent, told us how to be cautious when removing tamarisk. Our hunting laws still place few or no restrictions on the hunting of varmint (foxes, coyotes, badgers, etc.) because varmints will catch and eat the farmer’s chickens. Intelligent farmers have learned that if all the varmints were killed, the varmints’ prey –rodents- would eat all the crops.”

Champion

Champion

After hearing the stories about my great great grandfather, Champion
The guy who the uppity us referred to when touting our ancestry;
The Mayor of Omaha, the colonel who vaguely looks like me
I thought about how they all added up in my mind and heart
And I realized there was something ironic and worth taking note of here;
The stories, each colorful, conflicted in a weave that begged some questions
Such as who are we and who do we think we are and who was he
And how did he impact us for so long ago?

The first was about how he was at the last Sun Dance ceremony in Nebraska
And had stolen a sacred object; a spear, a scalp or some such item
And the incensed natives chased him wildly on horseback
The one I had always heard was that he and his son were invited guests
And that it was a great experience, etc. at least for young Clement.

Another was about how he was not re-elected to be the mayor
After being one for quite some time unspecified here
And why that was; one version that a close official on his cabinet
Had taken or given bribes to sorted folks, like prostitutes
Another version was that he was so grieved about the death of his lovely wife
Our great great grandmother who, along with him, came, ancestrally,
On the Mayflower with two relatives, each
….that he was arrested for public drunken-ness, thus sealing his re-elective doom.

The second story might explain why, in my beloved tea totaling
Grandmother’s family……her father being a society printer…
…was often given containers of alcohol….and that they
“Came in the front door and then went right out the back”…
Suggesting, in my view, some trouble with alcohol.
Being of a recovery persuasion, I perked up my ears.

A third story came my way the other day, and that is the one
I find most interesting, somehow; you see, when my grandmother’s sister
Carmelita was in her grandfather’s study….Champion’s,
She was left alone in there with a bowl of enticing goodies, like cookies or candy,
And she took the liberty of having one or two, as it were ..
And grandpa came back in and asked her if she had taken any.
She just shook her head, it seems, and then was given a long
Tirade lecture about the evils of lying
He then told her that telling lies would damage her soul and corrupt her character,
That telling lies would weigh on her conscience and make her life unhappy,
That one must always tell the truth and that if one did not, it would be discovered,
And she would never be trusted and how the soul and
Credibility would be eroded, etc. and chase you around for a long time, etc.
So sternly, it seems, she never lied again and neither can her granddaughter
..not very well, it seems, as she , too , heard the story at a similarly tender moment in time.

The stories have an eerie ring, when taken all together
Whether Champion learned his lessons the hard way
As those in my family are wont to do
Or we are projecting an aweful lot, airing our tendencies and fears

A story that I know to be true, because of documentation of various sorts
Was the one I like the best and feel closest to;
That Champion, the lawyer (or liar as my wife’s attorney-laden family spells it)
Had successfully defended 10 Indians who were charged with murder
And they had presented…… two pieces of artwork done
While they were in prison, in a sort of colored pencils
On thick-ish paper, not the often seen “ledger” paper, but in the same
Plains Indian style, like on their teepees
Depicting Pawnees Chasing Sioux, what with spears and guns and horses…..
To Champion to give to his son, my great grandfather, the very same…Clement
This is the one I like to think we can learn the most from and can treasure as fact.

If you take the tales and cut and splice and interpolate and edit for lack of fact
And notice who told the tales of choice, then the multi-dimensional
Time-Sculpture begins to appear in all its deep spell
Steeped in irony and something to pass on down, well,
Somehow.



PS. The other one I like is about the other side of the family and my grandfather, long since dead, who was depicted as frail and sickly, but kind and loving…..
Well it seems he was on a wild and wooly adventure to scope out a new state park in
British Columbia as a young man; canoeing up violent rivers, porting boats on rough terrain,
Hanging around mythically rugged characters and documenting the whole episode besides. And so out goes the myth of the sickly grandpa and in with the famous adventurer
Who will now be published by admiring offspring.

Be

BE

What does it take to make a cowboy?
A big ol' white cowboy hat or a pair of boots?
A horse barn, a few horses or a mess of minis?
A saddle and some carts or a trailer?
Do you need to have a long face and a bit of a drawl?
Do you need a big American pickup truck with posi-track,
that when loaded with railroad ties in the winter will go
anywhere?
Do you need a flair for drama and excitement?
Do you have to lean Republican?
Do you have a leathery face and lots of experience?
Did you have to jockey ambulances in the Big War
or walk around on your knees in the South Pacific.
Cause you were too tall otherwise; a good target?
Do you have to come back hating war and not wanting to
glamorize it?
Did you work hard all your life to make a buck
or keep the critters fed and ready
To parade them little horses and chariot around for the kids to enjoy?
Or take wild death defying wagon rides now and then?
Do you need a beautiful wife who everyone adores?
Do you need a community of folks to hang out with,
Who love to tell stories about you and laugh and tease
A little and like you a bunch?
Do you have to speak clearly and plainly and with heart?
Do you have to shoot from the hip, sharp and clear?
Do you have to be a horse trader extraordinaire?
Do you need to pass eighty and then go to 90?
Do you have to stand six and half feet tall?
Do have to drink nothing stronger than ginger ale,
And be proud of it?
Do you have to die with your boots on?
Do you have to walk into the sunset on your tired horse?
No, but Be was that kind of guy, wasn't he?