ENAMOREMIENDO



KEEPER OF THE CORN
page one

KEEPER OF THE CORN - continued

The next day the teacher was sharing aspects of all enduring art from Richard Hugo's Triggering Town. Among them was:

“All art that has endured has a quality we call schmaltz or corn. Our reaction against sentimentality embodied in Victorian and post-Victorian writing was so resolute writers came to believe that the further from sentimentality we got, the truer the art. That was a mistake. As Bill Kittredge, my colleague who teaches fiction writing, has pointed out: if you are not risking sentimentality, you are not close to your inner self.”

The teacher then recalled, “Didn't someone have a piece of corn yesterday?”

Wow! I had been vindicated and I could raise my head high, now a heroine because I had exposed my true self. Taking our found object a step further,we were asked to draw in charcole on a gessoed piece of kraft paper our found object. I began drawing a huge kernel of corn, next a square appeared so it looked like the kernel was sitting on a cushion. Then I remembered a dream I had about seeds and that began influencing me.

Dream of Seeds

I was at an estate sale at my grandmother's house. She had passed away and everything in the house had been sold. The sale had already occurred and I was looking for something that I could take as a keepsake. My mother was sitting behind one of those folding tables often set up at garage sales. I asked her if there was anything left. She said everything had already been sold. I looked around and in a multichambered wood rack on the wall I spotted a small creme colored, smoothly glazed cream pitcher that had been broken and glued back together. I asked if I could at least have that and I would reimburse the person who bought it. But, she replied, no I could not have it. She then rummaged around in the cardboard box next to her filled with discards and trash. Her actions seemed to say maybe there's something in here you can have. She pulled out an old plastic macaroni bag with seeds my grandmother had collected. I accepted it with the intention of giving it to my daughters who love to garden, feeling it was meant for them. She reached in again then held out her open palm. In it was a large seed like a bean partially embedded in a gem-like square object.

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This dream has some perplexing twists in it:

Nothing was consciously passed down directly from my grandmother or my mother to me . . . that would empower me as a woman. Obviously each of them has passed on their experience of being a woman in this world and the way they handled it. Even though my mother was a good storyteller I don't remember any empowering women's stories. She seemed to be resigned to her fate or role in life. My grandmother, however, was very angry and stubborn. She was of Scotch heritage. My grandmother always wore red and I swore I'd never wear red. . . but of course I did. I even began having dreams of having red hair. I now have red hair and my favorite saying is, “A girl can never have too much red.”

The cream pitcher. . .seems to represent the feminine quality of being female, the milk from the breast, food we give to our babies, mothering so to speak. My mother seems to say, “It's not for us to give, ours is broken.” But couldn't I at least claim this for myself?

The bean/seed partially embedded in a gem. . . seemed to be saying it was really for me and what had to be done for me to take this gift? A very precious gift. I was always giving to others and it seemed a message to learn to give to myself. I wrote this in 2001 and now in 2004 I am making jewelry! Maybe it was a sign!

Nothing was left for me. . . nothing material anyway. I have my mothers storytelling and my grandmother's determination. However, what greater gift could there be but a seed! The possibilities, the hope, and yes I love to garden too. Both my mother and grandmother had a garden, perhaps their only means of creativity.

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In my drawing the kernel of corn was now sitting in a large overstuffed chair with corn growing beneath and up behind and embracing the chair. I could not be stopped. I had brought my acrylic paints so next I painted the kernel and the chair became the green/ blue/red and yellow plaid chair that I sit in at home when I meditate. I was unsuccessful at painting thin red lines with the one large brush I brought so I painted paper red and yellow and cut out strips of paper and squares to adhere to the green chair. The red strips were shooting out of the confines of the chair, untamable. These red strips placed on the cushion around the kernel of corn in a receeding perspective became the furrows in a field. I realized this represented the Mother Earth and the Sacred Blue Corn.

As I get older I find a sense of humor is most important and I can be something of a trickster or joker. This is how I became the Keeper of the Corn.

© 2001