Making Saints and Pulling Bishops Weed

I ventured away from home only twice today: to the Pleasant Ave. compost site and the Merriam Park Library. I worked in the rough-and-tumble yard 'til late afternoon. (Don't ask me to get up or anything because I'm sore and stiff and planted in this leather chair right now.) I could only tackle a few large areas today: the rusted Snow-on-Mountain or Variegated Bishops Weed all along the line of the picket fence and the rock steps leading up to the back yard. While I was at it, I pulled out some nasty crab grass and Creeping Charlie and even leaned over the picket fence to chop down the purple aster, which I had hoped to cut earlier to stop its legginess; two pickets were quite rotted from age and their tops busted off on my lean. Anyway, I cut and pulled and filled two big leaf bags with the green refuse and so Tim and I headed over to the compost site together to dump them. I still have the inside of the fence to clean up, which is now so completely overrun by that Bishops Weed that I'll be pulling those deep roots out much of tomorrow. Most gardeners will tell you to say no, just say no, to any offer of a gift of Bishops Weed. Too invasive! No matter if its free--that plant has been crowding gardeners for centuries.

I found "The Herbal” by John Gerard, who made this comment about the also-named Gout Weed in 1633:
“…..Herbe Gerard groweth of it selfe in gardens without setting or sowing, and is so fruitful in his increase, that where it once hath taken root, it will be hardly got out againe, spoiling and getting every year more ground, to the annoying of better herbs."

I returned my two rented DVDs at the library. Of course they were overdue, putting them at the same price as the Red Box movies at McDonald's on W. 7th. Still, at least this time I watched them both. Sometimes I rent library movies, keep them too long, and then return them late without ever having watched them. One of our authors at the Press recently told us she no longer uses her library anymore. She loves libraries, sure, but with all the late fees she pays, she can't afford them anymore.

Last night I stayed up past midnight watching the terrific French film Séraphine, based on the life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis--"a beautiful portrait of an artistic mind." Forget Bravo's Work of Art, this movie was a work of art. From a user review on the IMDb site:

Seraphine recalls other outstanding understated French films like La Dentelliere and Brodeuses, films in which female acting transcends subject matter. If Marion Cotillard was born to play Piaf then Moreau was born to play Seraphine, the beautiful innocent, condemned to a life of harsh servitude yet never wavers from her simple faith and sings to the virgin on a daily basis. Completely untrained she uses what little spare time she has to paint flowers and fruit with no thought of reward, a real definition of Art For Art's Sake. Because this is a true story about a real person her gift is, ultimately appreciated by the German art collector/critic who also 'discovered' Rousseau; for a mayfly moment she knows something akin to happiness/contentment before spending her last years in an asylum. The film scores on all levels, not least the visuals in which almost every set up whether indoors or out, reeks of paintings we can all but name but ultimately remain elusive. In the leading role Yolande Moreauis beyond praise.

In the movie, Seraphine cleans houses--often barefoot--all day, walks miles to and from her home, her employ, church, and the fields, and paints on her hands and knees, her humble supplies and wood panels spread flat on the floor. Yet, despite all this hardship, her physical life beckoned, entwined with art and nature in such a way that a day in front the computer seems so much like penance. So I didn't really mind all that Bishops Weed. It got me to dig my nails into the ground.

Speaking of art and faith, I just learned about a talented typesetter and book packager I worked with years ago who has a practice of making Saints, by hand, in cast stone and pewter. He writes in the Artist's Statement on his website, In the Company of Saints:

Why Saints? My first contact with saints came when as a little Presbyterian kid I found a tiny plastic statue of St. Christopher, in a leather case, in a parking lot. I picked it up and put it in my pocket (thus unknowingly allying myself with St. Dismas, patron of thieves). I didn't know much, but I vaguely knew that I'd found a religious object. I felt comfort. No matter how humble the image, it seemed to me to intimate a binding of the spiritual and physical, something everyone longs for at some point in their life. Years past. I forgot my little St. Christopher until I studied European medieval literature and then taught it. Saints, of course, are a major theme. In the Canterbury Tales, for instance, saints, in a way, trot along with the pilgrims. I started to feel like those pilgrims. I started thinking of saints as spiritual aunts or uncles, figures who could give you advice and compassion without large doses of the doctrine you might get from parents. I ended up editing Catholic theological books for fifteen years, many of the books about or by saints. Finally, I wearied of words and started trying to carve my own images of saints. I had no training, no idea what I was doing. I just went into a garage and started trying to make statues of saints. ~Hank Schlau

Check out his work. You can order statues or medals online. There is St. Anthony, Finder of Lost Things; St. James, Patron of Walkers, Runners and Pilgrims; St. Jerome, Patron of Booklovers and Librarians; and many more. I think I'll go with Hildegard of Bingen, Patron of Gardeners, Musicians and Artists. Seems a perfect choice.