Master's thesis in Education: Art, Nature and Virtual Environments
Construction continues around my garden plots. I’ve noticed that the security lights blaze orange at night and that the garden box nearest the security light on one side of the road, and the side of the wheatfield closest to the security light on the other side of the road, are underdeveloped.
…a walk through the park to find sticks to make a teepee over my beans at the U. It’s cloudy and a bit windy so I’m hoping some branches will be blown down…
When the focus of the research is process, rather than goal/objective, you are talking about time- to process, to process through, to “process” as in, procession, a walk through or towards. I realize this as I process down a lane of trees with the woods on one side and the river on the other, looking for the right kind of sticks, and as the guy walking fifty yards ahead of me processes more slowly than I do I slow down so as not to overtake him, so I can lag behind and pick up sticks without him turning and noticing, so that I am far enough behind that he does not infringe on my process and so that I don’t have to worry him or worry about his reaction to a middle-aged woman furtively picking up sticks in the underbrush. A process takes its own time.
Being is generated from the body. Being enacts time, which can’t be saved up for later.
With a couple of artist friends, I installed a procession of baby spiders underneath the Louise Bourgeois sculpture “Maman” at the National Art Gallery. They are made out of clay and sticks.
I was picking up my Grad pics on Thursday June 18 at the Uni Centre, and I thought I would take the time to see how the garden/plantings were doing. I was sadden that to see that the wheat with the petunias had been meticulously weeded out. However I was very excited and happy to see the beans doing really well, the corn and the zuchinni were also going strong. I didn’t think the plot would nourish and support all those vegetables but really nature is amazing. Then I looked under the tree at the wheat and that is also going really well. I don’t know if the current heat wave will damage this new growth but maybe some students or workmen will water the vegetables since they are the most noticeable so far. I am anxious to see how all grows, like the unravelling of a novel
As this is a thesis project requiring multiple perspectives, I have been very lucky to engage the attention of two participant/collaborators. I’m calling them able gardener 1 and able gardener 2. I am looking for another able gardener # 3, who will together with myself (principle researcher) make four sides to our container planters. I received notice from the Ethics Review Board today that I can go ahead with the project. As I sat on the edges of the mini wheatfield today chatting with able gardener 2, we noticed the tiny sproutings of hundreds of wheat seeds that were planted on Saturday.
Able Gardeners 1 and 2 are now “categorized”, which means that when they write something they will tag themselves and afterwards all their blog entries will organize themselves so that they can be read as separate streams as well as intertwined contributors to this blog.
I was quite in despair about the state of growth of my boxes and then as I left, I passed by the infernal petunia boxes, where I had planted the first batch of wheat last monday- LOOK! my wheat has come up as weeds! I am thrilled to note that seeds CAN grow here (perhaps only monocultures).
My new participant/collaborator in this escapelot will be known as “able gardener 1“. There will be another voice, another plotter, another denizen of this space.
It’s late for planting wheat and I’m feeling the pressure of bad weather, but after reading a bit more about wheat I thought I might have a chance, even though planting in the “gristley bits” of nature on the borderline of possibility sounds more like “futile” than “possible”. How can anything grow here, except my own irritation? I planted the tree container I was given after the dreaded petunia invasion of last week. Construction and destruction continue a dusty regime of infiltration. Not to mention the squirrels.
These were my boxes, planted with wheat seed on Monday. By Wednesday petunias were in full bloom. (see below)
You could call this a detour from the Plan.
I’m guessing that monoculture really does not work on university campuses. My wheat crop has failed in a day to resist an invasive species of planter-box petunias. I had to rub my startled eyes when I returned to the University yesterday and from a distance could see that my wheat plantation had grown into an amazing crop of petunias!!
