Seasons Monthly magazine

New Arrivals

seasonsmonthly — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:12:40 +0000

Edd’s Garage (Band)

seasonsmonthly — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:17:27 +0000

Adrian Foltz

Edd and his garage have collected more than a few interesting items over the years. The latest addition is one that garages are often prone to attract: a rehearsing rock and roll band. After Greensboro’s The Raving Knaves lost their practice space at the Lyndon Street Artworks this past winter, Edd generously offered time and space in a garage that’s already been primed with the creative energy of Edd himself, a former Piedmont Airlines mechanic who spends enterprising hours woodworking, model-making and perhaps unknowingly, creating an exciting visual feast for anyone lucky enough to pay a visit to this visually delightful impromptu gallery of shapes, patterns and colors.

Danny Bayer

The Knaves rehearse every Wednesday night, true garage-band style immersed in a backdrop of bright mechanics tool chests, router jigs, wood mallets, awes, belts, hacksaws, clamps, vises, beer lights, memorabilia, old toys…even a Mexican Wurlitzer Jukebox.

1…2…3…4…an audience of anthropomorphic mops, and brooms look on as well as a few human friends who stopped by to check out the music.

Tina Wilkins, Budd Wilkins, Ronda Cranford

Playing my Yamaha keyboard in the corner, my eye wanders over this stunning array of metals, alloyed surfaces, shapes and patterns formed by vises, wrenches, nested funnels, clocks, saws and sanders,the coiling wires of an air compressor hose. Hundreds of compositions and abstraction frame and flood my line of sight.

Paula McLean

A small gallery of Edd’s garage:

From Edd's gallery

Later I discover the piece de resistance under the counter shelf, down in the chiaroscuro darkness is a phantasmagorical cosmic lollipop birthday cake, muse for a hundred imaginative adventures. I learned it had common name, (Dremel Tool Kit) but nothing could detract from the jolt of its initial enchanting glory. “Do you want me to get it out?” Tina said. No, I preferred it be kept where I had found it, with all its mystery.

February is for Romanticism

seasonsmonthly — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:35:37 +0000

“To say Romanticism, is to say modern art, that is intimacy, spirituality, aspiration toward the infinite, made possible by every means available to the arts.”

- Charles Baudelaire

I’m happiest when most away
I can steal my soul from its home of clay
On a windy night when the moon is bright
And the eye can wander through worlds of light.
When I am not and none besides
Nor earth, nor sea, nor cloudy sky.
But only spirit wondering why
Through infinite immensity.

Emily Bronte

Thanksgiving

seasonsmonthly — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:10:58 +0000

illustration and poem by Paula McLean

Thanksgiving

At the end of our travely day
We lean like greyhounds
Lunge slip-shouldered
Against the panes
Our ears drowning in the window’s wind
Our tired feet paddling the tread.

Tensely we hunch
Ove the digital hearth of green
Facing, wan and wait
We pass under star lit night
That rises up to sleepy ursine stars
Bright under the canopy clouds
Like a bed that waits softly.

Veer anticipation. What lies ahead?
The muffled clip of slowed down streets
The crack of gravel underfoot
A door that slams the echoey air
The crunch of shoes
On the icy grass that leads to
Home under a slicey moon.

5 Days of Fair Weather in the Rainiest October

seasonsmonthly — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:46:30 +0000

I could be nicknamed “Weathergirl” for the sheer pleasure I take in every form of weather including many storms, at least the non-destructive ones. This October put me to the test, though, with its almost continual rain and gloom. Rarely have I been tempted to call any form of weather “foul” but this nonstop drenching was dampening my longings to photo document a natural holiday I look forward to all year long: the annual turning of the leaves. Day after day of soggy, droopy trees not only challenged my inspiration but my moisture-sensitive point-and-shoot Sony digital camera posed significant limitations. The end of the month finally delivered a few sunny days, making the already ephemeral experience all the more precious.

My long held visual fascination with the ground is heightened in Autumn. Every square foot becomes exquisite. This year the a rotting under layer of leaves created a blue rich backdrop for the freshly fallen, each as unique as a snowflake. I am awed how each so randomly deposited could create such deeply pleasurable compositions.

The sun had at last broken through.

Shining through the sheer Catalpa leaves.

Turning the deepening layers on the ground into golden shades of brown.

A Cozy Retreat

seasonsmonthly — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:33:09 +0000

Shamu decided to drop in for a nap on the backporch during a slight dip in the temperature this week. Soon we’ll all be thinking of retreating indoors. Here’s a creature who knows how to get September off to a good start.

There’s still plenty of time for basking in the sun.

Photographs by Paula McLean

Reflections of the Sun

seasonsmonthly — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:37:01 +0000

Black-eyed Susans bask in late afternoon steam of a dog day summer afternoon. Petal rays reach for and mirror the the sun and its form.

Tell me the difference between a flower and stone.
Will one change while the other remains?
Which speeds through life,
which moves through centuries?
Even withering to seed, the flower is reborn.
The sun feeds, burns, casts shadows on it.
I touch the flower
with the hand that shields my eyes from blindness
Both of us outstretched
catch and contain the rain, heat
Our form, our impulse satisfies us.
While the flower wakes and the seed sleeps
These will be our days.

Poem, photographs and drawing by Paula McLean

Howling about Urban Sprawl

seasonsmonthly — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:30:17 +0000

“Your quality of life is more than a cheap pair of underwear”

– Al Norman

Any journey down Lee Street or the ironically named High Point Road in Greensboro, North Carolina is enough to make me howl out loud even though I’m not the sort to rant about much of anything. But, even for types like myself who try to make a habit of finding something to appreciate everywhere, I find this locale to provide an Olympic grade challenge. I wonder if Greensboro could take the biscuit for zoning and urban planning nationwide.

Unfortunately, probably not. Take any exit off any major freeway and you are likely to find the similar conditions, especially if you travel inward toward the city through the rust stained asphalt and decaying carcasses of strip malls, through layers of shopping centers that , even in their prime were thrown together with aluminum barn siding facades and cheap plastic molded signs in garish ketchup mustard and pickle color combinations.

I can hear Jackie DeShannon singing, Hal David’s lyrics:

“Lord, we don’t need another meadow,
There are cornfields and wheatfields enough to grow,
There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine,
Oh listen Lord, if you want to know…oh…

Amazing to think we once thought that so.

In my wildest dreams the seemingly endless concrete and asphalt would be ripped up to make way for meadow, trees, weeds even,… ah but even wildest dreams can get the urban blues here. They give way to the Christo-scale commentary of this rat photo essay. Maybe that will have to do for now. A journey down these roads ,makes me think as I often do of a future like the one envisioned in The Jetsons. I thought we’d at least be riding monorails, possibly using jetpacks. I thought we’d be smarter. I thought we’d at least have an aesthetic.

Interestingly on this very street a remnant of that old vision still remains: probably the most aesthetically pleasurable sight along a ten mile patch of road.

Cool interior too!

Well, North Carolina still has a few cathedrals standing. I’m all for preserving them, though my outlook has long since been updated to a green one. We can build up not out. We can live in gardens if that is our dream. Humans don’t have to leave a trash pile in the wake for the sake of development.

On Not Mowing Your Grass

seasonsmonthly — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:11:32 +0000

Views from Two Weed Lovers
Part 1 by guest blogger, Angela Cook

“We will grow in force, like chickweed…entwining our arms and
thriving among the status quo grasses! Weedies unite! Power to
the poke weed.” – Angela Cook

Johnny Jump Up

(Angela is an aspiring artist and a science teacher at the Greensboro Montessori School in North Carolina.)

Weeds are hearty plants. They pioneer disturbed environments. They protect against erosion. They feed wildlife. They even cure disease.

In our ongoing endeavor to control our environment, it seems humans try to obliterate anything just a tad bit unruly. If it can’t be easily controlled, then it is a nuisance. That is a scary thought to me. Does every yard have to look like everyone else’s? Nice little plants in their nice little spots doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

Many of my neighbor’s yards are all the same dark shade of chemical green. They have very few birds who frequent their property because their chemically treated ground provides no insects for the birds to eat. The plants they have selected for their yards don’t self-seed (easily controlled), so they don’t provide a food source for wildlife either.

Unknown Weed

Dames Rocket

I once gave a nature journaling assignment to my students. They were to spend 30 minutes each day outside and write about what they observed. I had one student who wrote that he was bored because the only living things he observed on these outings were golfers on the golf course adjacent to his yard.

Our 1.3 acre property, on the other hand, is a proliferation of plants, beneficial insects, and wildlife. We’ve seen over 30 species of birds and at least 7 species of toads and frogs. Our soil is fertile and with each shovel full of dirt we dig, a handful of earthworms comes with it. With plenty of food sources and roaming room to go around, even the nuisance animals are more joy than problem.

Rabbits come to our back door to munch on clover. A groundhog lives under my art studio and loves to scamper up and down the fallen tree trunks near the stream. Deer follow the stream during migration times on their way to the meadow behind our house. Raccoons play on the rocks in our backyard, swim across our little pond, and sometimes eat a fish or two. The fish spawn annually and seem to refill the pond with generation after generation of goldfish while our one large koi keeps watch over them.

Wild violet, wild geranium, cocklebur, rabbit tobacco, dandelion, pokeweed, mullein, red clover, St. John’s Wort, jewelweed, cleavers, and chickweed can all be found on our property…and yes, they are all considered weeds. They are all also medicinal plants with value greater than just their beauty (and they are all beautiful too).

As long as humans have cultivated plants, weeds have been a problem. What about before humans cultivated plants? Do we really have to have control over our surroundings? Isn’t control just an illusion anyway?

Let’s see…what is the opposite of manicured, orderly, cultivated? Full, boisterous, wild?! That’s just fine with me. At first look our property may seem unkempt, but if one looks more closely (and through new eyes) one can see a most beautiful landscape.

Red Clover, Photographs by Angela Cook

Views from Two Weed Lovers
Part 2 by Paula McLean, editor Seasons Monthly Magazine

“I wanted others to believe. I thought if enough of us did, if we learned to care again about the wild places from which we’d driven the magic away, then maybe it would return.”
- Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot

I glance over my shoulder looking for the lawn police as I head out to my yard to enjoy one of my favorite springtime delights, the now knee high growth of my still unmown grass, or more accurately my weeds. Neighbors to the left have sheared a razor sharp line of demarcation between the civilized and the wild. My yard, once referred to by neighbors on the right, as “the Jungle”, falls into the later category.

In the environmental pejorative, I am more than a tree-hugger. I am a weed-hugger. My philosophy, ala Lennon/McCartney is to LET IT BE, by that I mean, to do nothing, do less, or let things spring up naturally. If I do more, it is to plant more, more trees, more shrubs, more wildflowers, though an interesting thing about wildflowers is you don’t really have to plant them. They come on their own and so do trees. Letting the back third of my two acre town lot go to weeds, I experienced the enormous pleasure of seeing it turn season by season into a mature forest.

It took some guts though. The town of Liberty, issues yearly statements that residents are required by law to bushhog junk lots and mow any grass over twelve inches high under the penalty of fines as stiff as $250. Junk lots! I remember when I read that phrase! To think what I believed to be my nature refuge, might be perceived that way. Apparently a pervasive outlook prevails, that a defoliated, barren patch of land is a good second choice to the highly manicured and chemicalized status lawns which are the mainstay of upscale neighborhoods. Long grasses and weeds and constitute neglect of property. Neglect. Property. Two words I could see transformed from my point of view to Stewardship. Nature.

Everyone who owns a home has a little piece of land, some have tiny city lots, other acreage. The majority mow with sheer religiosity. I can’t help but wonder, what if we all stopped mowing? What if nature encroached and took over, even a little?
What if we began more and more to leave little patches as an offering to nature, a token of acceptance that we can still cohabitate with a wild and natural world so in need of our attention now.

Weeds, for many may be an acquired aesthetic. For people who still like the mown look we could return to the use of sheep. In fact, sheep, were the original lawn mowers, the founding fathers and mothers of the very idea of lawns.
Sheep… weeds… call me a romantic as I have a fantasy of the quiet stillness, that would ensue as entire towns silenced the mechanical buzzsaws that fill the air, especially on weekends I start to wonder how much gas would be saved if we eliminated mowing as a necessity.
Why do we mow anyway? Two centuries ago, it was considered a luxury to have land that was not allotted for agricultural use and so mowing caught on as a symbol status and wealth also with such luxury pastimes as lawn bowling and golf.

We all know things are different now. Now we are the sheep just following the norm! We are the slaves behind the machine. It makes me think of how fun it would be to have a bumper sticker that says. “Don’t be a sheep buy one! “ or “Buy a Sheep, Don’t Mow, Better yet, let it grow.” Yes this is the modern world.

The new modern, well, I once thought it would be like George Jetson and we’d be eating beige dehydrated slabs and pills served from automated doors in the wall. Imagine instead what could come – a world where we live and embrace the natural world, where we as human beings are no longer separate from this planet, which gives us our life, but, be one with it all, once again. Kind of amazing to think that one move we could make in that direction, does not require massive effort, or hard work but doing nothing, just enjoying. It makes me think of a quote by Master Baba Sri Siva, guru, to author Wayne Dyer, “What I used to think was hard has become easy”. Well, maybe going green is easier than we think.

Photographs by Paula McLean

Click here to see how you can have your yard certified as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

The Leaves I Didn’t Rake

seasonsmonthly — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:14:48 +0000

The Leaves I Didn’t Rake

A wind arranged
The leaves I didn’t rake.
I find that possible to allow,
even the dark and dank,
the rotting richly Spring
worms and beetles,
the pure and clean
grubs.

Bugs,
they come in droves
some with wings.
On the wind!
Feasting consumers
undertakers, robbers
to the partitioned land.

I find it possible
to have them here,
close to my fingers,
after all, they are hard workers.
They are my fresh dirt-minglers in this
fallen blossom world
of withering and green.

Poem and Photographs by Paula McLean