The journey towards this series began accidentally and now is finally carrying on into production.
Last year our daughter was a bit obsessed with small tomatoes. When my husband encountered a rotting one, rather than putting it in the trash, he would often throw them into the large pricker bush in our small yard.
Early in the summer my landlord decided to get rid of that large pricker bush. In its place grew several volunteer tomato plants, ill placed and falling off the precipice of our little yard.
I recognized them and replanted them. I doted over them as they initially seemed to weep and almost die from such a late transplant. I watered them several times a day. (With my schedule, this took up a larger part of my daily habits than I would have guessed.)
By late July they began to yield a little fruit. In August and September we were in tomato heaven, but urban wildlife would often eat the fruit that was just about ripe.
It became a daily activity of picking the fruit and tying the branches up higher on the posts I'd put in place and watering them.
Those knarly twisted branches began to inspire me. When the cold came I pulled the plants and dryed them flat.
Now finally "we're" all ready to begin...
The preparation to this point is beyond compare in my work. Now that we're here, it's just about getting lost in the process...
The full involvement of my heart in such a simple thing reminds me of how it felt to have my heart so fully involved in others things long ago. So these have become in my mind the "Odes".
Tomato plant stalks embedded in wax.
(The beauty in the struggle)
A great counterpart to my ongoing Reliquary series...
Reliquaries and Odes
It's finally go time for the Odes...
