ACOMA, THE OLD ONES

ACOMA, THE OLD ONES
 

In the Grand Canyon, the rivers eat time.

The muddy Colorado, a hungry red snake devours natal rock.

Like an old man seeking the fountain of youth,

it eats ever deeper to a time when the earth was young.

Soon it will devour itself like Oruboros,

because it eats through to the heart of the metaphor—

not vertical history, but timeless geology.

Lava sensibilities hidden in the depths

give no clue to the passion set in stone; time itself is fluid—

cracks in the earth, fissures in the soul

of alluvium and rusted sandstone.

Defiance Plateau. How big, and utterly defiant

the land must've seemed to those crossing by wagon.

Now the land becomes less distinct,

an amalgam—like the people who settled America.

Mirages are to the desert as waves are to the ocean.

Ghost cities laid out like Nazca lines,

geometric knotwork of someone's failed dreams.

We try so hard to leave our mark,

sometimes without even knowing it.

Flying over Acoma, the oldest inhabited city in the U.S.

I think of Coronado searching for the seven fabled cities of Cibola,

who found only the empty cities of the Anasazi, the Old Ones,

could not see the wealth of earthen walls glowing at sunset.

9/91 & 9/93  

Santa Fe, NM

CORN MOTHERS

CORN MOTHERS

Dendritic memory of dry riverbeds,

the pale alluvium, most recent in memory,

points accusingly toward sinkholes below sea level.

Recognizable from the air: Cedar Breaks,

Vermilion Cliffs, Rainbow Plateau, Monument Valley.

Lines across the earth in resonating patterns,

what do they mean? Power lines visible from space?

The varied skin of the mother,

the mysterious deeper names for the earth.

A finger lake with fractalline shores—

and irrigated circles, green coinage for the corn mothers.

Nothing grows in the pocket canyons

except turquoise reservoirs, truly jewels of the desert.

Remnants of oceans, polyps and coral, a garden

bloomed in the blood of our mother, the sea,

the first goddess to emerge

and give up her bounty.

9/91 & 9/93

Santa Fe, NM

Face to Face Art Auction 9/16/91

Using art to help celebrate life




COMPASSION—A work by wood sculptor Bruce Johnson to be auctioned at Face to Face's annual Art For Life benefit Sept. 21 at The Friedman Center.


BY MAUREEN HURLEY

In 1988, stained-glass artist Laurence Evangelinos contacted Face to Face Sonoma County AIDS Network, the local agency dedicated to providing care and support for people with AIDS and ARC. "It is time to do something. I want to help," the Occidental artist told Face to Face Development Director Rick Dean. "The only thing I have to give is my art."

But she had an idea that she wasn't alone in the artist community, and Art For Life, one of the most successful art auction fundraisers in California, was born.

Over the last four years, the Sonoma County artists have responded in force to the Face to Face request for donations. Last year's auction exceeded projections of $25,000 and raised $37,000. This year more than 200 works of art valued at over $100,000 have been donated to the auction which will be held September 21 at The Friedman Center in Santa Rosa. One piece alone, donated by Timber Cove sculptor Bruce Johnson, is valued at $8000.

Among the contributors, visual artist and SRJC art instructor Marsha Connell of Santa Rosa sees the project as a natural endeavor for the community. "AIDS and the artist community overlap—and there are fewer resources available to us. We need to help our own community."

Guerneville printmaker Inge Laskowski says, "I feel it's a really important event for artists who can give something other than money. It's a gift of ourselves to contribute to the cause. The community takes an interest in that art, and with that interest, donates money to Face to Face. I can see the direct results of the benefit auction right here in my own community."

One complaint often made by artists about benefit auctions—that sponsors think little of asking artists for a donation as if somehow creating fine art was less of a livelihood than, say, plumbing—is curiously absent when discussing Art For Life.

A practical issue Connell raises is that "though a piece of art may be worth thousands of dollars, the artist is not allowed to take a tax credit for the charitable donation of a piece. The IRS allows artists to deduct only the cost of the materials." Since most artists have already deducted materials in their yearly tax returns, they usually receive no tax-break whatsoever. "However, if a business person or a gallery owner donates a piece of art, they can claim full value," explained Connell.

So when artists give their art for charitable causes, they usually receive no compensation. True philanthropy.

Though artists contributing to Art For Life are entitled to receive up to 2O percent of the sale price for their donated piece (which helps to recoup materials costs), framing a watercolor can run upwards of $400, a considerable out-of-pocket cost for the artist to absorb—most artists who donate work to the auction do not claim their 20 percent. According to Dean, less than a quarter of the artists ask for the payment.

Of course, artists also donate their work because ita lso gives them exposure. According to ceramicist Jeff Zigulis, "This auction is one of the premier art events in the Bay Area."

Zigulis, who is on the board of directors for the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, feels it's a feather in his cap to be asked to be involved in the auction. "Face to Face is a timely issue, it helps local people in the community. The ir auction is head and shoulders above the rest. It's number one."

Forestville wood sculptor Michael Costantini began as a volunteer at the first auction four years ago and helped organize the system with "flow-function logistics." Costantini explains, "The art auction is a very labor-intensive way for an organization to make money. The amount of energy expended for the return of profit is considered to be on the low end of the totem pole. And the auction is so successful, it's one of the biggest money-makers for Face to Face." The other major fundraiser, the Human Race, is held in May. Monthly pledge programs and state and county grants, make up the bulk of the organization's annual budget.

Costantini, who works primarily on commissioned pieces privately negotiated through Gump's, sees the donation of his art as a promotional venue as well as a philanthropic gesture. He says it's like having a new instant client.

"The auction gives exposure to worthwhile artists, and because it's invitational, it has prestige," says Laskowski. "It's important that all of us think about AIDS-most of us can't help out on a day-to-day basis. The auction is an outrageous success. A real social event, a who's who of the [local] art world."

After the art auction Dean will fly to Vancouver, B.C., to take the model to other AIDS agencies. One reason he thinks the auction is so successful is the extraordinary number of artists, restaurants, and wineries in Sonoma County. Several chefs, caterers, and wineries also contribute services and products to the event. "Sonoma," Dean says, "is a mecca."

Face to Face began as a grass-roots movement in 1984 with community members taking care of friends by providing home care, emotional support, and hospice services. Development Director Dean began at Face To Face four years ago as a volunteer. He had quit his job at retail sales, decided to volunteer, and loved working for the organization. When he began, the budget was $100,000. Today it exceeds $600,000 and requires a professional staff of 16 full- and half-time nurses, social workers, therapists, and educators. The volunteer base has swelled to 150.

The extra services are, unfortunately, tied to increased need. Recent statistics from the Sonoma County Public Health Department show 552 known AIDS cases since 1982,389 deaths, and an estimated 3,000 HIV-positive people. Seventy-eight new cases were reported during the first half of the year alone.

But county statistics don't accurately reflect the numbers of AIDS cases in the county, Dean says, because many people are diagnosed in San Francisco and other Bay Area communities, and then relocate to Sonoma County. "We have done miracles to still be in existence. We're one of the few agencies that does not have a waiting Iist. And the patients are not just men—women, children and whole families are on the roster," explains Dean.

"We now serve 400 patients a year, the highest caseload ever," notes Dean. "It's been a steady climb from just 35 people from four years ago."

Evangelinos continues to donate to the auction, this year a fused-glass sculpture. "Donating art has both political and social rarnifications—if you don't act on what you believe needs to be changed, or helped, you are guilty of leaving the status quo intact, she says. "Just standing on the sidelines isn't enough."

Works to be auctioned at Art for Life can be previewed in over a dozen community showcases, including the Quicksilver Mine Co. in Guerneville, Q Gallery and Sawyer's in Santa Rosa, Copperfield's in Sebastopol, and Hand Goods in Occidental. The auction itself will be held at the Friedman Center, 4676 Mayette Avenue, Santa Rosa, on Sept. 21. A silent auction will begin at 3.30 p.m. and a live auction will follow at 5. Tickets ($10) are available at the door. For more information, call Face to Face at 887-1581.

The West Sonoma County Paper, 9/16/91

SUMMER SQUASH IN A WINTER GARDEN

SUMMER SQUASH IN A WINTER GARDEN

The first sign of winter begins as a small vegetable mold on the leaves,
jagged five-veined hearts pointing away from the nest in radial asymmetry.
Fractal curve of young leaves guard embryonic clusters
caught too late in the season and yellow-orange squash blossoms
curl their five arms around the fruiting body to keep it warm.
From the velvet throat, the stamen, like a finger,
or brain coral, rises up from a phallic stock. Floral love.
Pale green veins end with small claws at the tip and base of each flower
like two hands—one holding up the sky,
the other holding up the sun, as if in victory.
The base root swelling through the boundaries of star
shaped fruit until it becomes a crenulated sundog on the horizon.

Beneath the leaf canopy, an acrid odor of beetles
or formalin gives way to the sweet sap of mute inverted bells.
Yellow fruit. Pure cadmium pigment from the tube, so intense
it pushes back the green air with small vibrations of light.
In the heat of summer you can almost hear them growing,
taut-skinned summer squash, ripening to bursting point,
scattering small blind eyes in the soil, waiting for the signal
to unzip the genetic ladder. Vegetable love.
This extravagance of life too soon ends.
The kitchen knife reveals their hidden star charts,
the marrow and vein of space. Tracks of seeds—
stars streaking in the direction of dawn.

I remember my grandmother picking the unpollinated flowers,
looking inside each one, saying, they'd never bear fruit.
I never knew how she could tell — sexing each squash blossom,
dredging them into egg and flour and frying them in butter
until they were dinosaur tracks of the sun
feeding me in late summer. Nutty sweetness
and the promise of something more.

And you, unseasonable bitter fruit, tough-skinned vessel,
why so yellow? A love token of the sun's fickle attention?
Undone by your own surgery, you try to cleave your broken halves,
heal the breach with your veneous dealings
but you can't fix the imperfect symmetry of your heart
severed from its circular discourse by the steel blade.
There is little comfort in remembering the corpse of our love,
or in knowing that you're a beetle-browed Sisyphus
condemned to dragging your sterile sex from woman to woman
like a victory torch in a perpetual race where
no one gets to be on top of the dung heap.

11/6/1988
rev. 9/91

1992 First Leaves

Russian Connections 9/5/1991

LIVING HISTORY—A kind of impromptu cultural exchange in the weeks following the coup in the Soviet Union made the historic and present day links between Sonoma County and the Soviet Union even stronger. Above, History Professor Nikolai lvanovich Rokitiansky from De Anza College and Archbishop Anthony of the Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco exchange interpretations of the events at Fort Ross.

By Maureen Hurley

WHEN 160 Soviet scientists, scholars, historians, geographers, businessmen, artists and crew joined the historic 250th anniversary voyage commemorating Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov's exploration of Russian America, little did they know that the Soviet Union they left behind on July 10, 1991, would cease to exist. News of the failed Soviet coup d'état, which kept most of us glued to CNN news and had mapmakers scrambling for updated versions of political boundaries, was celebrated with cheers by the Soviet entourage aboard the research vessel, the Akademik Shirshov, docked just hours later at San Francisco's Pier 32.

Soviets and Americans celebrated the culmination of a week's tumultuous political changes that swept the Soviet Union onto the shores of democracy during a visit to Fort Ross, where, with open arms and hearts, they feasted most sumptuously on borscht, caviar, and salmon—dancing and singing again under the flag of the Russian American Fur Trading Company that once flew over Fort Ross from 1812 to 1941.

According to crew member Yevgeny Shlei, a photo-journalist from Novosibirsk, during the seven decades of communism, the name and location of Fort Ross (Ross is an ancient Slavic name for Russia) was concealed from history and geography books and maps. To many Soviets, he says, Fort Ross is a symbol, a mythical place, a piece of old Russia—surrounded by California redwoods. He asked me why—even during the height of the Cold War—Americans didn't also conceal or change the name of the fort or the name of the Russian River.

Yevgeny Shlei elaborated: "Russia is finally coming back into the lap of depoliticized existence, while her children who once had to leave their country, have finally found that haven of human souls that could be substituted for their motherland. Fort Ross has become such a haven. Will Russia itself ever moor to it?"

When I queried Yevgeny Shlei about the coup, the breakup of the USSR, and the pending freedom of ten Soviet republics, he stoically said, "Russia is still Russia. That will never change." Another ex-Soviet added, "But you cannot again make a slave out of a man who stands up for his rights."


In 1728, Bering discovered the gulf between Asia and America. Searching for "de Gamma land," on July 16, he, like Columbus, discovered America, but didn't know it, as he had lost his way in the thick fog. Chirikov, who searched for Bering aboard the sister vessel, the St. Peter, had passed him up in the fog, so Chirikov also co-discovered America. But it wasn't official until Russian exploration of the "unoccupied" coast of the Pacific Northwest began in 1741 with the second Bering Expedition and the colonization of Sitka, Alaska, the first Russian-American colony.

Attracted by an abundance of prized otter and seals and a fertile coastline blessed with clement weather, Ivan Kuskov of the Russian-American Fur Trading Company, anchored in Roumiantzov Bay (Bodega Bay) in 1809 to scout out a possible settlement site; he returned with 25 Russians and 85 kayak-bearing Aleutians on the Chirikov in June of' 1812 to establish the colony of Fort Ross, Russia's southernmost colony. Russians, Aleutians, and Kashaya Pomo Indians lived together in rare tri-cultural harmony. (See "Digging the Past at Fort Ross" page 14.)

From the northern reaches of Alaska to the southernmost Channel Islands, the Russians and Aleuts had harvested the sea otter to the brink of extinction within a decade. By 1821 the fur trading business was over, the bottom had fallen out and the otter population decimated. And in 1841, the fort, considered a massive financial loss, was sold to Swiss immigrant settler Captain John Sutter for the sum of $30,000. The Russians packed up, lock stock, and, well, leaving behind the barrels and cannons—they sailed for home.

But the Russian Front returned to Fort Ross 150 years later, this August 24, to reestablish cordial relations. In addition to the festivities coordinated by the Fort Ross Living History interpreters, a rock opera staged by the Leningrad Rock Opera, "Juno and Avos"—a love story based on the historic romance and engagement of Presidio commandant's daughter, Maria de la Conceptíon Arguello, or Conchita, and Count Nikolai Rezanov, was staged in the reconstructed Fort Ross barracks.

Commanded home by the tsar in 1806, Rezanov set sail on the Juno. While traveling across Siberia, Rezanov was killed by a fall from a horse. Hearing no news of his death, Conchita waited faithfully for years before becoming California's first Carmelite nun. It was an interesting reality tweak to see this particular rock opera, replete with orchestration from the original iron bell cast in St. Petersburg, performed at the fort.

According to Fred Ptucha of Santa Rosa, the visit, a brainstorm of Fort Ross Interpretive Association President John Middleton of Monterey, began as a fluke—an idea conceived on a few sheets of Fort Ross stationery. Later, at Dutch Harbor, Alaska, when the Russian-American 250 Committee was under house-arrest, and the ship impounded by US Customs for not having official documents, they waved Middleton's letter, declaring they had an official letter of invitation.

The US bureaucrats backed down, and the expedition continued. But having received no reply from the Soviets, Middleton assumed the idea had met an early end—until some one happened to spot an article about the voyage, already underway, in the June issue of Soviet Life magazine. News that the Russians were indeed coming had several Americans hastily scrambling to organize a welcome committee for the delegation in Alaska, Washington, and California.

The California leg of the voyage was nearly aborted when news of the Soviet coup (putscht) reached the ship, but after the failure of the scheme, the Akademik Shirshov continued on its journey and headed for San Francisco. (Fort Ross harbor—such as it is—is far too small to accommodate the 400-foot scientific weather research vessel.)

With little warning and little time to prepare for the visitors, Sonoma County volunteers, headed up by Ptucha and Barbara Leger of Santa Rosa, rallied to the cause in true American fashion. With less than two days' notice, Santa Rosa-Cherkassy Sister City USSR arranged transportation, a tour of the Wine Country, a concert, and impromptu homestay for 52 stranded Soviet guests.

From the beginning of their epic journey, the crew of the Akademik Shirshov, which embarked on a goodwill journey from the Siberian military port of Vladivostok, in the extreme southeastern portion of the Soviet Far East, has been plagued with troubles. Rough seas, clashes with U.S. Customs, ten defections during the height of the coup scare, illness, and an aborted journey to Los Angeles were all part of the excursion in the United States.

But it was the theft of the ship's payroll-which ultimately left the crew and passengers stranded, broke, and without food or fuel, and docked for more than a week at San Francisco's Pier 32 that made headline news and brought offers of help from all directions. Russian American Yuri Shavanov donated $4000; An owner of an Oregon inn flew down from Portland to give the crew $100 each. Harbor master Jules Hall arranged docking fees, and $3000 worth of food. Countless others offered gifts of food and money to help the travelers return home.

Vladimir Baturin, deputy chairman of the Soviet expedition, said the aim of the expedition, which includes seven vessels (the Pallada, a 352-foot square rigger, and the 44-foot Baikal, arrive this week in San Francisco), is "a voyage of friendship to bring our two nations closer together, to build bridges across the ocean."

When the A. Shirshov finally departed, Americans (including many families from Sonoma County) and Soviets alike shed tears for their new-found friends. Americans threw cans of beer, toys, teddy bears, and candy aboard; Soviets returned the gesture with posters, flags, and fresh loaves of galley baked Russian bread.

Crew members say that had the attempted Soviet coup succeeded, defections would have increased dramatically. Only four Soviets in Seattle elected not to return home. However, there was another form of defection—consorting and fraternizing with the enemy. Before the ship was officially closed by customs officials, groggy Americans and Soviets emerged from cabins and berths, more than just a little bleary-eyed from necking the vodka bottle during the previous evening's festivities. In the true Russian-American tradition of Glasnost, more than one love match was spawned at every port—a guarantee the goodwill voyages will continue in another form.

Fighting heavy Labor Day traffic, I drove to a pre-designated spot at the Marin Headlands—I was a modern-day Conchita waving my impromptu flag-red pants—as the Akademik Shirshov emerged from beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship returned my salute with two blasts from her horn. The new Russians waved back wildly as she headed out to sea; a white ship brilliant as an idea merged with the fog on its final voyage home and a return to an uncertain future.


From pages 1 & 14, The West Sonoma County Paper, Vol. 13, issue 7, September 5-18, 1991.

JUNO AND AVOS

JUNO AND AVOS

The labor of love begins in the mind
works its way down into the body—
hollows imperfect architectural notions —
the way a termite hungers for wood.
At Goat Rock, or Slavic Gate,
I turn and speak to my Russian friend
in the few nouns I know.
Called home by the tzar in 1806,
Count Rezanov must have felt this hollowness
as he gazed upon his betrothed,
the Presidio Commander's young daughter,
ConcepcÌon de la Maria — or Conchita, as he called her—
before he set sail on the Juno that summer.
To love was to commit treason against church and state —
But by taking a wife, he could take a country too.
Besides having to woo the Tzar, the Patriarch,
and the Vatican, the King of Spain also had to give consent.
Teaching Conchita her first foreign words,
We must have faith, he said. Mea maxima culpa, she replied.
Did Rezanov and his secret bride pantomime desire
and willingness to wait in their own languages,
each hoping the other would understand?
Adios — go with God, she whispered to the wind.

That same Fort Ross bell still tolls for love:
I am the music of the field, what do you want of me?
Under the Russian-American Company flag,
the Leningrad Rok-Opera renders their love story
into Juno & Avos.                 We celebrate
the end of the August putsch and the 250th anniversary
of the Bering — Chirikov discovery voyage to America
by feasting most sumptuously on salmon, caviar, and borscht.
We raise a bilingual toast to peace, friendship,
and to the offshore flotilla anchored in the bay —
the frigate Pallada harvests only the wind in her sails.
Peter the Great must've dreamed of a moment such as this.
The end of summer, the square-rigger,
To the Pomo, the tall ships were exquisite winged gods
rising from the belly of the sea. Tabula Rasa. New lands.
After 150 years, the otter is making a slow comeback
from the brink of extinction, no more fur-traders left in the new world,
and freedom has resurrected Leningrad
once again into Petrograd. Peter's city.

The Russian singer calls me his Conchita,
naming himself as Rezanov.
The night is empty, cold ikonii.
No one told her Rezanov, weakened by illness,
was killed by a fall from a horse in Siberia,
and she waited 10 years for his return
before defecting to the veils of God —
as California's first nun.
No one can tell me the dark secrets
gnawing at the singer
who falls to his knees, and blesses me
on this feast day of the three Maries —
as if he were an apostle,
and I, a heathen in need of salvation.
He asks: Are we Romeo and Juliet? 
I shake my head: No, wrong metaphor —
Too seasoned a warrior to die for ideal love,
I keep an uneasy truce with religion.
As a child I was a cynic, I deliberately armed myself
by collecting small bright stones of venial sins,
insurance against conscription to Jehova's cloisters.
In as many days as it took to make the world,
he sings arias to me, Ave Maria, wooing me.
A chance meeting: have I fallen in love with the art,
mistaking it for the man?
But maybe there's no other way out,
maybe this is a natural reaction to so many years of denial.
Avos. Perchance by sleeping with the enemy,
we find we are one people after all.
On our final journey back to the ship's berth,
his first sentence in English: Marina, I want…kiss you, 
I nearly drove off the road,
last night's horses dreamed us into being,
having no common tongue.
Pointing at the dictionary, he gestures,
dumb and mute, I nod, yes. I understand.
He shows me the words serious and tenderness,
pointing to his heart.  What do you want?
I confuse the Russian word soul for rain,
and answer, No, the stars are shining.

At a friend's trailer, we sang
until darkness melded us to the redwoods,
Venus burned, we broke apart a sand dollar,
freeing the five small white doves inside.
Rick said: It's a gesture of peace 
to each take a dove upon parting.
Los aves, I say in Spanish. The Cold War is over.
Handing me a half a loaf of Russian bread,
and blowing me kisses, the singer asks
when I'll come to him in Leningrad.
I answer, In the night wind instead of In spring.
Our final kisses through the porthole need no translation
as the Akademik Shirshov shudders away from the dock.
A modern-day Conchita,
I race the ship to the Golden Gate Headlands
and wave my impromptu flag — red pants —
feeling as she must have so many years ago,
with her snowy petiticoats held aloft to the wind.
The vessel returns my salute with two blasts of her horn;
a white ship brilliant as an idea merges with the fog,
returning home to an uncertain future,
towards the westering sun to Vladivostok and Siberia.
Hammer and Sickle. What dawning country awaits?
The paradox of sailing west only to arrive in the east,
thus losing the day already gained,
is no less strange than this love.
I am hollow sacrament,
the chambers of my body,
riddled with light.

Labor Day 1992
Marin Headlands
1993 Maverick

AFTER THE COUP

AFTER THE COUP

                                                Language is a virus.

                                                  —William S. Burroughs

Yelena, I want to write you a poem of the men we've loved,

how their names, oval like honey, cling to our lips.

I want to say to you we are sisters; there is no cure

for Tuesdays, Bach, revolution, and snow falling from our memories—

always in another country. The children we don't have,

words lost with meaning, a revelation: the senses fade, or do they?

How do we measure generations, when you and I,

who, following our hearts, sleep alone

because our craft is hidden in the very definition of snow?

The Inuit have 52 words for snow; how many have we for love?

Who will recobble Kutzovsky Prospekt now the barricades are down,

the tanks withdrawn? They say the fallen will be buried in the Kremlin Wall—

even if they have to disinter someone to make room for them.

Who will it be: Lenin, Stalin, John Reed?

Someone pinned onto my jacket, Demokratia,

a concept imported like independence, economy, and freedom.

Shall I tell you how I can't sleep in the hollow

where my lover's body made a lasting impression;

I have to move against the wall in order to find rest?

But you know of these things we've never alluded to,

having no common language between us—

To those who could translate our thoughts,

we would never divulge such secrets.

The weather is changing,

they're pulling the statues of repression down to their knees.

Both Vladimir and Iron Feliks were found to be hollow inside after all.

Opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, Marx still stands amid graffiti—

I apologise: I was wrong. . .

I can still see you walking down Shevchenko Street;

snow collecting in the blue pockets of your scarf.

There is something about snow that illuminates the face

into the purity of angels—

no matter that it is dirty, or a symbol for the old guard,

and the shelves still empty.

I always thought of Russia or the Ukraine

as a dark place in winter;

I forgot about the reflective quality of snow.

Or that East and West are somehow buried

in the curious fact that, in Arabic,

there is no distinction between ice and snow.

And there are no words for democracy or orgasm

in China. Tianenmen Square.

If the revolution succeeds or fails,

will language dictate thought?

I think of you on that street named after the poet,

your lover sneaking off to marry someone's intended wife

while mine is unaccounted for. How does one measure grief

when the collective beds of the harem are so full,

they buckle and strain and calve like ice floes in spring?

They say only a small portion of the iceberg is visible above water-line.

The ice in our lemonade (sweetened, no doubt, with kolkhotz sugar beets,

not honey) demonstrates this with consistency—

We fall from the blueness of our lover's eyes,

the iceberg, another summit to be scaled, like all the rest.

I want to tell you how the fragrance of nectarines or apples

in the cloistered stillness of a room in late afternoon

is like that opening to sex.

We are haunted by the everyday things in our lives;

the slippers under the kitchen table,

forgotten clothes still holding the shape of the man.

The air grows colder, I wear flannel nightgowns,

the full moon is a reminder of walks along the Dniepr

midsummer, when there is little palpable difference between air and flesh.

It seems as if the woman is always lying down a harvest for the man,

no matter what country, century, or season. What of Akhmatova?

Sometimes it feels there is no end to this concert of silence.

We become experts in the business of waiting,

calling our advocation our art.

These indistinct words spill onto the snowblind page;

shadows of bare branches,

feeble attempts of fruit trees holding laden skies.

Our lips aren't jaded, they're made of common stone.

Maybe we did live other lives in other countries,

maybe the small boy skating on thin ice was your only child;

the treacherous river is dark, brooding, and vengefully swift.

If you look onto the white expanse, they've cut holes into the skin

of the river, plummeting the icy depths for small treasures.

The river's children glisten silvery, as if the moon hid in their bellies.

They are not the Savior's body, they are feeding on the moon,

each month she reminds us of the red tide,

squeezing out slave's blood, drop by drop.

Coral beads in the snow, on the sheets swaddling our hearts.

Someone cautions me: Give even-numbered flowers to the dead.

I cannot begin to count all the bouquets in Red Square

to see if I'm among the living.

As honey ages, it darkens, turns bitter the sweetness

of long-withered blossoms buried in its core.

What generation of bees enters our lips to reconstitute spring—

as if you could cage the very air with memory?

Winter nightclothes grow multiple arms to hold us

as we journey towards the longest night,

drinking resurrected light from the moon.

21 August 1991

1991 Soviet coup d'état

1992 Louisville Review, KY
1992 Richard Eberhardt Poetry Prize, Florida State University, First Honorable mention
1992/93 Sundog Florida State University

DREAM VESSELS # 19: The Great Johnstown Flood FIRST DRAFT

 DREAM VESSELS # 19: The Great Johnstown Flood  FIRST DRAFT

     —From a collage by Marsha Connell

Rolling imprecisely from the military cavalcade
Ambivalent shockwaves rolling
toward a shore pierced with shadows
of houses and picket fences at dawn.
A loose sun and swirling fiery skies
battle against cerulean mountains.
A city that takes pride in its tombstones
is tucked in under a thin blanket of snow.
There is comfort in knowing
the ancestors sleep at the foot of the city.
The statue—is it Saint Joan? Flying,
one wing bent skyward,
touching the big blue marble of earth,
bringing its image back down to the ground.
Marsha said she lived near the great Johnstown flood.
She said she could see the watermarks,
the houses where people perished by water and by fire.
She said: This was where I was living
when I got the news that my father died.
I lived in the hills above Johnstown,
there are no roads to Johnstown.
No roads to get out, all those houses
jammed up against the bridge, bursting into flames.
I can’t shake the scenes of those floods,
they said it would never happen but it did,
a strange alignment of planets, the cold winter light
made the flood happened the statue is real,
all the unidentified dead.

Summer 1991

Crafts for Craft's Sake 8/15/91

EXHIBIT CURATOR JEFF ZIGULIS at the kiln of his workshop in Sebastopol: 'The popularity and recognition of American Crafts has exploded."

BY MAUREEN HURLEY


The early '70s was the heyday of the current American crafts movement. But changing lifestyles and values, and a plethora of mediocre crafts, nearly killed it. We've all done time at numerous street fairs and crafts shows—and they keep coming back to haunt us: vintage resurrections are alive and well at the flea market, and village shops along the isolated North Coast in summer can be like a bad déja vu. I mean, who still has Aunt Em's beaded macrame frying-pan wall-hanging? How many ceramic Hobbit toothbruses weed potholders can one person admit to having owned?

Now the emphasis is on high-quality collectibles—objets d' art. This is the focus of the "Fine American Crafts by Sonoma County Artists" exhibit currently on display at the California Museum of Art (CMA) in Santa Rosa. The handicraft of 29 Sonoma County artists (the majority from West County) ranges from traditional wood crafts, clay, blown glass, textiles, dolls, and knives to jewelry and metal sculptures.

According to some artists and collectors, American crafts have made a real comeback, and have been transformed and elevated to the status of fine art. In the post-Darwinian fashion of the '80s, many craftspeople molted—got a haircut and a "real" job, while others tenaciously stuck it out, honing their survival skills by developing their craft into a fine-arts format.

Curator for this crafts show is nationally recognized ceramicist, Jeff Zigulis of Sebastopol. In his Artists' Statement, Zigulis tosses out a provocative idea: that with the growing popularity and recognition of American Craft over the last 15 years, the line between Art and Craft has blurred significantly." Zigulis, a former college instructor, juror, and "seasoned exhibitor" for the American Crafts Council, states that "the show will display how American crafts have evolved into a movement that merits acknowledgement by admirers and collectors alike." Certainly the show challenges set notions, as there is a wide variety of objects and styles ranging from pure craft to pure art to choose from.

Public response to the show has been varied. Some who come to the exhibit expecting to find bargains are surprised to find this isn't another crafts fair. Unfortunately, the term "arts and crafts" conjures up images of lace doilies, shell animals and trees and dried-bean picture frames. As Zigulis states, "People have a cheapened view of crafts."

He is very quick to point out the distinction between a crafts fair and a show. "The emphasis here is on the word 'fine' crafts. Many of these artists who became craftspeople are from a fine-arts background. These people are professionals making a living at their craft." A successful craftsperson, with the right marketing skills, exposure, and a little luck, can make up to $100,000 to $200,000 a year, according to Zigulis. Not exactly flea market wages.

Form follows function? During my salad-bowl days at College of Marin, I recall my pottery teacher, a corpulent Greek named Thano Johnson, wildly waving his arms in the air like a stuffed owl, booming the adage: "Form must follow function." He emphasized that "because every substance had integrity, one must both respect and honor the physical and aesthetic properties of the medium and the object." During raku (Japanese wood kiln) firings, he demonstrated the Art of Tea.

Form and function echoed through my mind like "Good and Plenty" commercials on TV. And so, as I viewed the exhibit, I found myself automatically muttering form follows function. This idea is attached to another, less defined idea, the blurred borderline between art and craft.

'Form follows function. Yeah, but there is no longer any function in pure form," Zigulis explains, citing an example of a teapot with a sealed lid used as a theme or a starting point which leaves us begging the question: Is it a teapot or a sculpture? "It's no longer functional. A kitchen knife transforms into a piece of sculpture. The lines are blurred. The definitions are blurred."

From this progression of ideas, the artist has the opportunity to grow and evolve. Ultimately, aesthetic judgement is in the eyes of the beholder, a more personal definition is needed. "You just kind of slide into that gray area," says Zigulis. laughing.

The dictionary doesn't shed much more light on the subject: a craftsperson (craft is an Anglo-Saxon word) is defined as someone who is cunning or skilled at a manual or mechanical trade-, an artificer, an artisan; also, sometimes called an anist.

On the other hand, a fine artist (art is a Latinate derivative) practices an art in which imagination and taste reside over the execution of the making of things for their own sake without relation to the utility of the objects produced.

In other words, art is for art's sake. Though the origins of craft are utilitarian, it approaches the realm of art on a more personal level.

Interestingly enough, the influential Bauhaus movement of the '20s and '30s. which played a vital role in the shaping of American and European crafts and industrial design, ventured away from pure function into streamlined form. Artisans designed experimental models that became industrial products.

However, in some cases, they got so carried away with form that it no longer followed function—as anyone who's sat too long in an uncomfortable Bauhaus chair can attest to. The Bauhaus movement, founded in Germany, had an enclave right here in West County: American Bauhaus West, so to speak.

The Bauhaus director, architect Walter Gropius, designed the Hexagon House in Guerneville as a studio space for artists and art students. One artist was internationally recognized potter Marguerite Wildenhain of Frog Pond Farm in Austin Park, who influenced several generations of potters including my former partner.

Meeting of the physical and the aesthetic, Sebastopol potter and teacher John Chambers' salt-fire glazed ceramic vessels with closed tops present an oxymoron: they're no longer practical as pots, and transgress into the realm of sculpture. At what point does a craftsman become an artist? When he calls his vessel a "Helmet Pot."

In contrast to Chambers' academic and understated ceramics, Bodega sculptor Michelle Morehouse's porcelain candelabras positively resonate and challenge the senses. "Candelabra for Kuwait" and" 100 Hours," with their powerful primary colors and motifs-barbed wire, dead doves, skulls, missiles, and candies stuck on cactus—are reminiscent of Mexican papier-maché altar pieces for El Día de los Muertos.

Patsy Chamberlain of Occidental incorporates yarn-bound twig pinches into her bird shrines, and I like the honest evidence of slab construction—textured clay. However, with the exception of the exquisite center shrine (which sold immediately), I wish she'd experimented more with other types of glazes and techniques to enhance the shrines—perhaps raku.

Gerald Hong's raku vessels, especially "Arch with Arrows," are exemplary models of form and function, demonstrating both physical and aesthetic integrity. As is Zigulis's vessel from his "Dancing Man Series." The surface of these vessels becomes a rich canvas for an idea. Both artists use underglazes, pencils, and stencils to work the surfaces. Technique doesn't interfere with overall aesthetic design. Zigulis often saggar-fires his pieces two or three times to achieve the results he desires.

Forestville artist Carla Bernstein's peeled willow chairs don't differ much from the age-old craft, other than burned and painted pictographs judiciously placed here and there. However, they're quite comfortable to sit in. Nice copper nails, too. She is new to the field; perhaps, with time, her work will evolve more.

Though we couldn't handle Karl Schroen's knives at the exhibit, it's reported that their balance is superb, they bless the hand. I lusted after sun-ripened Roma tomatoes and basil, just to whet the thirst of the blade. (Tomatoes, as any good chef knows, are the ultimate challenge to the quality and sharpness of a blade. However, I think Carl's blades are more carnivorously oriented.)

Healdsburg weaver Molly Hart, best known as a textile artist, successfully takes her soft craft of yarns to the hard realm of metal sculpture/ painting in "Genetic Memory." Her "found art" jewelry is composed of circuit breakers, screens, and switches.

Collaborative artists Robert and Joanne Herzog's stacking wooden jewelry boxes are more like shrines. Every square centimeter is carefully polished, decorated, or carved. Even the bottoms! "Analog" is supported on river stones of carved redwood. One loses a sense of scale with these pieces.

Chuck McLaughlin approaches the wood for his bowls the same way a sculptor unlocks secrets from a raw slab of marble by studying the possibilities it has to offer, and paying tribute to it. Among the results are a handsome big-leaf maple bowl, replete with original knothole, and a redwood burl bowl with lacy natural edges.

Brenda Rainson's coiled linen baskets are amazingly well executcd. "Transformation Journey," with lavender and green trees and dreamlike figures, conjures up images from our aboriginal past. Marilyn Radzat's large dolls have great costumes (the layered look), but I instantly recoiled at their too-beautiful faces, as it seems she can't bear to give them character or life.

Master craftsman Fred Cresswell of Cazadero's handblown glass pieces, with heavy Venetian cane designs and fumed glass, though technically beautiful, fluid, and well crafted, lack that distinction to challenge the cutting edge of glass art, while French-born Occidental artist Laurence Evangelinos's kiln slumped glass pieces are more arresting as wall pieces that just happen to double as platters—especially her untitled piece of blue glass with threaded black glass cane and blue squares.

Avant-garde. According to Zigulis, American crafts are in the forefront of the international crafts scene, with France, Australia, and Japan as close contenders. The American works are more avant garde—"pushing the inside of the envelope out," muses Zigulis. When asked what future trends might develop 15 years from now, the burly artist laughs and says, "I don't know. If I did, I'd be out there doing it, and not this exhibit!"

Though Zigulis is the curator, this thoughtful and well displayed show (there are over 100 pieces) is the brainchild of Duane Jones, CMA director. "I wanted to do a crafts show for a long time," says Jones. "We have many fine artists and craftspeople who have no venue to show their work in Sonoma County.

Last spring both Jones, who also lives in Sebastopol, and Zigulis were setting up for the Sebastopol Center for the Arts auction when Duane collared him late one night "with the help of a good bottle of cabernet," —well, the rest is history. No matter what your take on arts and crafts is, you'll find something at this show to stimulate your synapses. As Jones says: "We want people to argue about it."

"Fine American Crafts by Sonoma County Artists" is at the The California Museum of Art at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa through September 15. Exhibit hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. A free lecture by Jeff Zigulis will be on Thursday, Aug. 22. at 7 p.m. For more information, call the museum at 527-0297.

THE WEST SONOMA COUNTY PAPER - AUGUST I5- SEPTEMBER 4.1991 page 19