Joe

This is Joe. He’s a lizard. His ancestors have lived on this land for millennia. He moved into the studio at Mountain Water as the autumn temperatures fell and hid himself until we discovered him in late November. We’ve never had a lizard in the house, and we weren’t sure what to do. It seemed cruel to put him outside, so we politely ignored him for some weeks and let him go about his business. Fortunately, he prefers the can-do atmosphere of the main studio.

We named him Joe. (Some herpetologists say that lizards will respond to the names that humans give them, so why not?) We greet him every morning as he warms up in the new day’s sunshine.

Since moving in, Joe has placed himself in charge of insect control. He’s working here, always on the lookout for the many tiny creatures that find their way indoors. (And yes, he eats them.)

 It is said that lizards represent dragons, which are regarded as good fortune in many Asian and traditional cultures around the world. A lizard in the house is said to be a harbinger of something new and positive. Or of protection. Or prosperity. Or regeneration.

 The lunar new year that begins this month is The Year of the Dragon. Call it coincidence if you will. We suddenly feel an urge to pay more attention to the proper respectful protocols! Perhaps the lizard’s augury of something newly arriving could be you yourself coming to Mountain Water.

In addition to self-directed retreats, we offer in-house tutorials in drawing, painting, watercolor, and general creativity, all in the context of contemplative inquiry. Both of us have many years of training and teaching in studio arts and mindfulness meditation and can assist you in designing a retreat that includes instruction and lots of studio time. Your retreat could be any duration of your choosing and could be solo or with a group of like-minded friends. Let us know if this interests you.

Best wishes,

Robert Spellman and Joan Anderson

Getting Well

Old Cousin Covid finally found us this past spring. Maybe we’re the last people to get it? We were quite sick but not in danger and the aftermath of fatigue was a wonder in itself. It took the wind out of our sails for much of the summer and might excuse the lack of correspondence from these parts.

A lot happened anyway. The big news is having success with drilling a new well. The drilling rig arrived in late April timed perfectly with our Covid adventure. In the midst of an unusually dry year the drillers hit water right where the water witch predicted. We need not have been surprised: the water witch, a young woman from a local ranch family, arrived to do her dowsing and was greeted by a large bull snake that seemed to appear out of nowhere the moment she arrived. In many traditional cultures snakes are considered guardians and harbingers of water. The dowser dowsed, the drillers drilled, the water flowed!

We also had an upgrade to our solar array, bringing the system up to the maximum allowed by the local utility. This will generate close to all the electricity we use in a year.

Since the onset of the pandemic, it seemed wise to avoid hosting group gatherings at Mountain Water, while throughout we have been welcoming individuals – sometimes several at a time – to take advantage of the fine opportunity of creative retreat practice here. This has set a trend that seems to work well. We are now expanding that to include in-house tutorials in drawing, painting, watercolor, and general creativity, all in the context of contemplative inquiry. Both of us have many years of training and teaching in studio arts and mindfulness meditation and can assist you in designing a retreat that includes instruction and lots of studio time. Your retreat could be of any duration of your choosing and could be solo or with a group of like-minded friends. Let us know if this interests you.

Fall and winter here are beautiful seasons here. Our cabins are winterized and cozy. Do come for a stay before too long!

 Joan Anderson & Robert Spellman

Lessons from the Bench

Some years ago, we spotted an old bench broken in half along its length and in the trash. It was a few doors down the alley from our studio in Boulder, Colorado. Too big for the trash collectors, it seemed to call out to us as we drove by it dozens of times over several weeks. One day we responded, “Let’s get that bench and fix it up.” And so we did: glued it back together with Gorilla glue and roughly sanded it down. A sturdy bench is always handy. The bench moved with us to Mountain Water where it has a welcoming spot in the entryway mudroom. It could use a bit more sanding, but we’ve resisted the impulse to pretty it up with paint.

Recently, we thought to make a few more of those benches. The first replica used discarded and salvaged lumber to echo the world-weary but welcoming look of the original. All went well until we gave it a few coats of varnish. Even though the dimensions of the original were carefully followed, the gloss of varnish gave it a false look. Though it’s a good, solid bench, it lacks the rough authenticity of its forebear.

This third bench is in progress. As with the previous one, the lumber is from a pile of discarded and very weathered boards abandoned at a nearby ranch. We’re attentive to finishing this one in a way that will show it as it is without pretending to needless glamor.

How to revive a bench is something of a metaphor for how we discovered Mountain Water—a piece of land we drove by hundreds of times, a piece of land overgrazed, neglected, and ignored by its out of state owner. As it turns out, the place has its own qualities to learn and respect. It doesn’t need to be varnished or made to look like anything but what it is, which happens to be dramatically beautiful and accommodating enough. You might say that the land is teaching us to make a simple bench that makes no apologies for itself. Come, have a seat and see for yourself.

Taoist Garden

Constructing the main building at Mountain Water left a considerable scar. Re-vegetating this has been a humbling education in what is possible in a dry climate, along with reaching accord with the existing inhabitants of the place. Some of these – like gophers, deer, squirrels, and rabbits – are standing by to see what is on offer. And there is wind and heat and relentless sunshine.

We’ve been calling this area behind the building The Taoist Garden. Listening and looking to see what plants are willing to grow here, what plants do the animals want and which ones will they pass by. Gophers, it turns out, are providing ongoing roto-tiller service; they loosen the soil and pull quantities of organic material underground. (This is fine unless you become attached to the gopher’s favorite plants.) The deer and rabbits do the pruning work, especially in the spring; it takes nerves of steel to stand by and watch during their sessions; but as spring proceeds the benefit of their work becomes apparent. There have also been regular showers in recent weeks in spite of the dire predictions. Mountain water it is.

The practice of the Taoist Garden is training us for Mountain Water: few things go according to plan, but everything seems to work out in its own time and fashion. You can’t push the river. People continue to come here; they get watered like the grasses and bushes on a disrupted hillside.

Last week we hosted the first group retreat organized from without. The teacher was Denise Townsend, a Zen teacher ordained as Joshin Kyodo (third from right, above). It was in some ways an experiment for us to see what hosting a small group retreat would entail. We learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the lively five who showed up.

Here is one of our newly placed meditation decks, refurbished with salvaged lumber and a lot of help. The custom of outside sitting meditation was already popular twenty-six centuries ago during the time of the Buddha. The natural world has a way of putting to rest worldly worries and dogmatic views, a refresh button for native creativity. Mountain Water is proving itself to be a blessed refuge in these trying times. We hope to see you here before too long.

Holding Peace

One of our favorite books in the Mountain Water library is A Sketchbook of Birds, a collection of drawings by Charles Tunnicliffe, a British wildlife artist active in the middle of the last century. Many of these sketches were done in the early 1940s on the Welsh coast Isle of Anglesey, not far from the worst ravages of the Second World War. While we don’t know how Mr. Tunnicliffe felt about the terrible destruction going on elsewhere in England and on the Continent, he was clearly focused on something very different: his art was a practice of devotion to the birds and animals around him, quite evident in the tenderness of his observations.

Badito Cone at dawn, seen from Mountain Water.

Artistic practice is a way of preserving peace during times of chaos, a contribution that may seem lost in the din of war but one that stands as a crucial haven against aggression and nihilism, like saving seeds, stories, and poetry for the future.

A piece of cottonwood bark from the woodpile.

These thoughts come to us in a peaceful valley far from the terrible destruction in Ukraine. Holding the necessity of peace and not succumbing to discouragement in witnessing human cruelty. Much of what we do at Mountain Water is a practice of devotion to this place and the beings inhabiting it for countless generations before us. As we cautiously emerge from the pandemic, we continue to host individuals and small groups. By late spring the two new cabins will be ready for use. Do let us know if you’re thinking of a stay here and we’ll send more details.

Autumn Snippets

Following is a peek at some of the goings on at Mountain Water since our August message.

An early dusting of snow in September heralded the end of summer.

Rocket keeps a lookout during the first Artists Way retreat, organized by Laurel Miller. The proceedings must have been carefully guarded; no photographic evidence exists. We can, however, attest to the excellent blend of meditation, studio time, food and conversation visited upon the whole September weekend.

Our neighbor Nan Floyd honing her documentary skills interviewing Joan Anderson with questions about silent meditation and its courtship with creative activity, a topic about which we could go on and on. And we do…

Here is a work crew organized by Amy Dose, one of our earliest students from Naropa days. Amy, along with her daughter, mother, and stepfather, here planting daffodil and crocus bulbs in the oak grove surrounding the new cabins. This crew - some of whom came all the way from Memphis, Tennessee - were a lively company of enthusiastic workers and conversationalists. (We’ll also be planting hundreds of sprouted acorns in this grove to help re-generate the stand of oaks around the cabins.)

Here’s Bill Andrews from Memphis painting the ceiling in our ongoing renovation of Jimmy’s place. This is the house and partially completed Mayan temple complex that our friend Jimmy Robieson left to Mountain Water when he died. You can see here that Jimmy’s may be more of a Hobbit scaled residence once it’s ready for occupancy.

The studio desk of Jan Wilcox who is in residence this fall to work on her jewelry and on Mountain Water. She’s become a regular here and an indispensable ranch hand among many other things.

Chris Silks, our neighbor, is seen here mowing one of several tracts on Mountain Water as part of a larger land restoration scheme. It’s worth mentioning here that both Chris and Nan (the filmmaker above) met as smoke jumpers. We regard them as full superheroes able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. We’re lucky to have them as near neighbors.

Mountain Water continues its sauntering along. The pace seems exactly right. Residents come and marvel at the stillness and vastness of the land, which somehow seem to pacify ambition while being secretly in cahoots with our innermost voices. It’s rare and good during this unnerving era

Sunflower Guardians

It’s high summer and we find ourselves surrounded by a volunteer army of sunflowers. So far, the season has been mercifully wetter and cooler than usual. The neighborhood irrigation ditch usually slows down and stops sometime in mid-June; it’s still running full tilt here in mid-August. All of this has made it possible to begin restoring the building site after the disruption of construction, something we were unable to do in last year’s dry spell.

Late June saw the arrival of two new cabins to Mountain Water. These will serve multiple purposes: sleeping for one or two, writing, drawing, meditation, and all-round social isolation. They’re now situated in a lovely oak grove a few minutes’ walk from the main building. We’ll eventually finish them off inside, heated and insulated, suitable for use in the cooler months. They’re already like cozy little camp cabins.

We continue to set the scene here for Mountain Water to accommodate individuals and small groups for this ongoing exploration of solitude and creativity. Later this summer we’ll have some further test drives of the place, as we host a variety of willing participants for the continuing experiment. The pandemic has enforced a slower pace of development, which seems fitting. We look forward to seeing you here before too long. Meanwhile, we love hearing from you!

Seeds!

Mountain Water is enjoying the greenest spring in memory. It’s miraculous to see how resilient the plant life is here. Just a few weeks ago the whole landscape was brown, and crunchy dry, much as it was for the past year. Surprise spring snows arrived followed by rain, gentle and steady, and then a procession of afternoon thunderstorms. Our well, which has been dry for over a year, came back last week, smiling as though it had just stepped out for a minute.

Photo: Corey Kohn

Joan continues with seed trials for the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and, this year, Albert Lea Seed Company. There is right now a beautiful stand of Turkey Red wheat outside the studio windows. With the abundant spring moisture, we’re able to make progress in restoration plantings around the building. We’ve planted trees, currant bushes, native grasses, flowers, and prairie grasses like little bluestem, blue fescue, switchgrass, and galleta.

We have been hesitant to have too much going on at Mountain Water during the recent pestilence and its persistent uncertainty. Still, we have been cautiously hosting individuals and small groups for this ongoing experiment in reverent land use. In a week, two small cabins will arrive for private accommodations, something planned even before the pandemic and social distancing. They will be situated in a nearby oak grove a short walk from the main building. This will be a great enhancement to our hosting capability.

We’re currently devising guidelines about how to visit Mountain Water. The human scale is modest. The accommodations are slender. The place itself works its own magic. We continue to experiment with how to combine solitary contemplation, creativity, work, and social convivium. We’re open to any ideas for small programs of four to eight participants; some of these are in the works for later this summer.

Photo: Corey Kohn

Mountain Water is taking shape quite nicely and in its own way, despite the disruption of recent times. We’ve always thought of this place as a refuge, free from dogmas of all kinds, trustworthy in its ageless way of provoking undistracted freshness. We hope to see you here before too long.

Bluebirds

It has been more than a year since our last message, and like much of the rest of humanity, we’ve been in a strange pause for most of it. Fortunately, Mountain Water seems to be a patient state of mind. Twenty-five years ago this week, on a Palm Sunday, we first walked out onto this land. Those many years of mulling, sitting, walking, drawing, and painting here, hosting guests, camping and dreaming, established a rapport that made possible a simple, functional refuge for artists.

We’re grateful every day that, owing to the generosity of so many people, Mountain Water can ride out the pandemic without serious concern. We hosted a number of artist guests during the past year, but the covid-19 uncertainties were, and continue to be, daunting. Lately, there is a sense that things could stabilize in the coming months. Still, we are not planning any summer programs because of these uncertainties, but we will resume hosting individual artists by mid-summer.

Bluebirds, we did invite last year—with a spring campaign of bluebird house construction. It was a thrill to see them move in and raise their families. In winter they turn a dullish color, change their voices, and hide out in the trees until early spring when they reappear and turn their most beautiful blue. They’re suddenly around and visible again. Perhaps “bluebird winter” is a good enough metaphor for our pandemic time: a period of deliberate inconspicuousness from which we’ll emerge excited about new possibilities.

We have other developments to report, news of which we’ll be sending out in the coming weeks. Won’t it be grand to see you here one day before too long!

Busy Hibernation

Like a painting, a story, a poem, a song, Mountain Water is a work in progress. The new year, 2020, finds us in a busy hibernation. The move from Boulder CO is complete; unpacking and organizing continue to be the focus our energy. We've built a lot of shelves! See the views of the library coming to life. All the art books we've collected over the years make a rich and invaluable resource for drawing and study. They are now all housed in the sunny studio ready and waiting.

Lots happened in September. The long-anticipated installation of Mountain Water’s solar array was really exciting. Generating most of our power via solar is an essential part of the building design. Though not completely off the grid, we’ll be generating about as much electricity as we’re using. Two beloved visitors, who wish to remain anonymous for now, made a gift of the entire installation. We're ever grateful for their generosity!

Through the fall and early winter, an informal procession of artist guests have visited. Everyone is immediately affected by the stillness and beauty here. Contemplation and artistic imagination mix naturally; and daily basics, like cleaning, cooking, and conversation, happen with familial simplicity. Cory Kohn, Marisa Montagna, and Mikayla Sanford were among our autumn visitors; they arrived with the single-minded intention of working on Jimmy’s place, the land and house our late neighbor, Jimmy Robieson, left to us. These three set to the task with respect and energy and a let’s-get-this-place-back-into-artistic-action spirit! Wow.

Marisa, Mikayla, and Corey posturing in front of the Mayan Pavilion

Last week a shipment of new meditation cushions arrived. We got them in sage green so they’re ready for deployment outdoors in the wilds. There is a custom at Mountain Water to sit outdoors in all seasons.  (We have a nice collection of wool blankets, too.)

It’s hard to describe the experience of being here after so many years of dreaming, scheming, and being cajoled, prodded, and encouraged to bring the vision into being. Because so many of you have been part of this process, we feel free of “owning” Mountain Water. It will be grand to see you here! Stay tuned for our official opening next summer.

June News

In the construction whirl of May, we missed sending you our monthly progress report. Here it is June and the main building at MW is moving quickly to completion. We’ve joined the work crew painting floors and exterior window trim. On the outside, the steel siding is up. It’s designed to rust to a warm, reddish brown over time—with an adolescent stage of bright orange, so we’ve been warned. In a few weeks, valves will open, circuits and lights will be switched on, water will pour forth from faucets, kitchen appliances will hum along for food prep and meals around the table. Art will come alive in the studio and the land will welcome meditating minds. It all seems very dreamlike still.

In May, beautiful maple kitchen cabinets arrived at Mountain Water from the Crowley Prison shop. In their program partnership with Habitat for Humanity, qualifying inmates learn to build high quality cabinets in exchange for reduced sentences; the men who finish the entire apprenticeship in prison are in high demand upon their release. It is quite clear the cabinets were made with tremendous pride and focus. We’re glad to support the program and be its beneficiary.

Meanwhile, big earthworks are underway. Heavy machines are installing water storage cisterns, trenching the water line, and shaping the ground around the building. We hurried to dig up native wild flowers in harm's way but recruited our backhoe operator to do a rescue mission for a huge evening primrose. Impressive!

Visiting friends - artist meditator types - inspecting the studio recently.

Our May matching fund campaign was a great success! Thank you all again for all the ways you support and encourage us! We hope to see you at Mountain Water before too long.

Double Your Fun

Greetings Dear Friends,

Thank you, thank you for your enthusiastic response to last month’s Mountain Water news and word of our neighbor’s generous gift of his land. Thank you to all who have made financial contributions to build Mountain Water.

Richard Ortiz, drywall and circus pro; Robert looking on in awe.

Big news on that front! To get us to a finished building, one of our investors will match any contribution you make, between now and May 15th. Outrageous, right? Ten dollars becomes twenty, twenty becomes forty, one hundred becomes two hundred, and so on. All contributions large and small will double in size, now is your opportunity. Press that button "I Built Mountain Water" down below, and follow the prompts. If all goes well, we’ll be opening Mountain Water without debt. The rest will be gravy.

Mountain Water brings together the practice streams of meditation and art in a place surrounded by mountains and trees older than our own memories, a laboratory for you and future artists. We’re now planning a month-long housewarming for later in the summer; come and see Mountain Water, meditate, paint, draw, write, dance, eat, plant, rake, scythe…take it all for a test drive! Stay tuned for details.

Surprise News from Mountain Water

Tuesday afternoon, February 12th, my phone rang. Robert was right there and answered it in his baritone jokey way, “This is Joan.” On the line was Terry Gervais, whom we had never met. She is the niece of our recently deceased neighbor, Jimmy Robieson, our reclusive artist friend who lived in the deep woods between the road and the Mountain Water fence line. Terry was calling from Minnesota to tell us that Jimmy had left his land and house to us. We were speechless and had to sit down. The property is a long 5 acre strip of huge and ancient Gambel oaks and cottonwoods. Hidden in the woods is Jimmy’s hand-built hippy-era house, an incomplete Mayan-inspired pavilion, a 1970 Opel GT, and a functioning well. Jimmy's is a marvelous habitat of a working artist. With his endowment, so incredibly thoughtful and generous, we suddenly have a bunk house and shop. Our heads are spinning. Thank you dear Jimmy from all of us.

A view of Jimmy's work in progress: a Mayan-themed pavilion. Wait till you see it in person!

Big news, too, on the Mountain Water studio building front. This week, with the roof and insulation complete, the crew begins the interior drywall. Another big jump! All of the cabinets are on order, as well as the exterior siding. The front porch paneling is up—a switch to wood, aspen tongue & groove, which we think will be a homey contrast to the industrial chic burnt sienna patina of the rusted metal building siding.

Here's a look at the new roof that just went on last week. Metallic splendor.

As always, we’re grateful for your continued encouragement and support. Can’t wait to see you here one day!

Building News

Greetings from the Ranch!

It’s been a very busy year here at Mountain Water and there is much to tell! The construction of the main studio and hosting building is quite far along.

The foundation has been poured, the walls are up, the roof trusses and decking are in place, all the windows and exterior doors are in, the internal plumbing is in place, and the wiring and light fixtures are installed.

Thanks to the care and attention of our contractor, Rick Jennings, all the plumbing, electrical, and framing inspections have passed. Building from the ground up is really quite an elaborate process, requiring many kinds of skilled workers and a lot of time.

We’re still traveling between Boulder and Mountain Water. The building will be ready to move into sometime in late spring or early summer, so we find ourselves suspended between this and that, here and there. All in all, watching the building take shape these many months is a daily miracle.

Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm; we look forward to hosting you

at Mountain Water!

The Builders

One of the surprise pleasures of building Mountain Water has been the crews coming to work at the different phases of construction. Their skill, humor, and friendliness have been a continual delight. Last summer, the concrete pour was an all-hands-on-deck production with Jeff Reynolds overseeing his workers with a command that was playful yet sage-like.

Since the beginning, Rick Jennings, our trusty contractor, has been a knowledgeable advisor, meticulous in his attention to detail. He and his crew show up like clockwork early every morning and work through the day. Each day they leave behind a neat and orderly work site. Now, with winter in full blast, they continue even when the temperatures are in the low teens. We’ll all be glad when the building is completely closed in and insulated!

Mountain Water Press Novel Selected for Kirkus Review's 100 Best Indie BooksR

The owners of Mountain Water Retreat also have a small, interdependent press publishing works of fine writing & fine art that celebrate the enspirited land — in books and magazines. We call it an interdependent press because we are fashioning a new collaborative model of publishing with artists, authors, and printers and exploring what that means.

Our latest publication – and our first novel – is the inimitable Quarry by Meredith Ann Fuller, illustrated by Joan Anderson. We are pleased to announce that Quarry was selected as one of The Kirkus Review's 100 Best Indie Books of 2017; and 1 of only 8 fiction works selected!

If you are in Boulder on February 28, 2018, Meredith and Joan will be at Boulder Bookstore for a reading and book signing. You can buy your copy of Quarry at Boulder Bookstore during the event, or purchase online directly through Mountain Water Press. 

Below are a few of Joan's illustrations that appear throughout the novel.

Best Stories of 2017 from Mountain Water Ranch

Dear Friends,

The Lunar New Year is here,
the Year of the Earth Dog has arrived.
Deep winter, the time of stories in the northern hemisphere,
gives way to the intimations of spring.

We’d like to share with you
two of the best Mountain Water stories of 2017:

The day the contractor and his crew came to stake out the site,
they said they suddenly heard the sound of rushing water.
There in front of them, from a clear blue sky, a long banner of red and white triangles streamed to earth
and landed right in front of the building site.
The coincidence of this remote place, the timing, and the three witnesses is strange enough.
Add to that the insignia that we use for Mountain Water
—a small diamond made of a red triangle over a white triangle—
and we’re left speechless with wonder.

Mountain Water Press,
our nascent interdependent imprint,
is making news with its first published novel,
QUARRY,
written by Meredith Ann Fuller, designed and illustrated by Joan Anderson.
Kirkus Review named Quarry to its
100 Best Indie Books 2017.
Wow, are we excited about that!

Meredith will be reading, accompanied by Joan, 
at the Boulder Bookstore,
February 28th, 7:30pm,
1107 Pearl Street, Boulder CO.

If you’re on the east coast, keep an eye out for April readings in
Boston, Quincy, and Falmouth, MA,
the “home town” settings of the novel.  

This is a novel to share with your book club!
You can even order a copy directly from Mountain Water Press.

Wishing you this New Year the best the Earth Dog has to offer.
Stay glad, dream good*, be the Earth’s best friend.

Build Mountain Water with us by making a non-tax deductible contribution to
Building Mountain Water.

Love to you all,
 from Mountain Water
Laurel, Samagra, Emily,
Joan & Robert

* excerpts from Woody Guthrie's 1943 New Year’s “rulins"

BOMBERS, BOOKS, and BUGS: New and Old Work from Robert Spellman

A favorite among websites to visit is Trend Tablet, the site founded by Lidewij Edelkoort, who, as the site claims, is “a trend forecaster, curator, publisher, and educator who constantly lives in the future.”

A circuitous amble across the site links me to the work of the Piecework Collective, and from there to the Mississippi-based quilting workshop, YaloRun Textiles. At the YaloRun site you can find packs of pre-cut quilt scraps curated by Susan Cianciolo.

Using scraps dawned on Robert Spellman, too. Look closely at the surface of his paintings and you’ll see them.

A ladybug’s carapace, the fuselage of a bomber, the elements of a sofa (or davenport if you are from Ohio). Many of his paintings present one thing. It helps us see, as he seems to, the beauty of what we forget to notice. Since I’ve written the word forget, it occurs to me that Spellman’s paintings startle recollection and seem to portray what has happened to these things in the time that elapsed since we last noticed them—they’ve become iconic, wizened, perhaps a little melancholic and ghostly.

Paintings by Robert Spellman.

For the optimists among us, the paintings give us another chance for sweet regard, before old things disappear altogether in the constant renovation of the future.

BOMBERS, BOOKS, and BUGS: New and Old Work from Robert Spellman

January 16—March 2, 2018   

Opening Reception: January 26, 5-8pm

Naropa University, Nalanda Gallery, 63rd & Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder CO

Hay Forks

My grandfather owned a hardware store when I was growing up. Though I was no stranger to tools, it took Jim Dine’s drawings to open my aesthetic eye to hand tools. It happened after I graduated from college and moved to Boston. Dine’s tool drawings* were on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. I recollect they were taller than I, raw and poetic. The veil between myself and the ordinary beauty of things was lifted.

Jim Dine, Tool Drawings.

Decades later, I receive an Amish hay fork for my birthday. Need I say they are beautiful? In a tool beauty isn’t all that matters, though, so I took one out to the field with my scythe. It was in December so cutting old grass that’s been nested upon and walked through by deer and elk was laughable. Nevertheless, I cut enough to try out the fork. Miracle. The forks themselves are so light, certainly not weighing even a pound. They are cunningly made from one piece of wood, steamed, bent, split, and shaped, with three small dowels added as spacers. But that is not all. They work, they perfectly lift and balance long grass. Happily, mowing season will be here in a twinkle.

* In looking for a suitable link to Jim Dine’s drawings, I discovered his grandfather also owned a hardware store—his in Cincinnati, OH, mine in Stow, OH.
 

Amish hay forks. Photo by Joan Anderson.