"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius....I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation." - Emerson, Self-Reliance


Mary Mikel Stump
Whim
[2002]
old window, paint, prismacolor pencil, candle, found objects

admitting you've got a problem is the first step.

me:
My name is Mary Mikel and I am addicted to birds.
imaginary 12 Step group:
[in unison] Hi, Mary Mikel.



This is how the beginnings of my 12 Step Program of choice would go. Well, actually, you could insert the word "lamps", "chairs", "tables" or "unnecessary objects" for the word "birds" and it would pretty much go the same way.

I must confess it, though...of all my vices, birds would be the hardest habit to kick.

I guess it started early for me. I've got a lot of connections with the bird form. I'm not proud: I'll admit to playing that John Denver/Olivia Newton John song, Fly Away on my record player over and over again.

When I need support or guidance, my grandmother comes to me in the form of a roadrunner. My spirit guide is a raven. I love the sound of the doves and owls that live in our back yard...and even the grackles that perform what my son used to call the "afternoon bird show" in our town.

When I had a hard time getting pregnant and staying pregnant, it was the sparrow who had made a nest for her eggs in my gardening clog that first told me that "this one would stick" - and she came back again when I was pregnant with my second son.

It's ironic, really, because I don't even like to fly, so it's not that I'm wishing to leave the nest, it's just that there's something so magical about birds. These tiny little creatures who can go higher and farther on their wings than we can on our feet. They signal the passing of the seasons when they fly in formation overhead. They give us hope each spring and their nests are some of the most beautiful sculptural forms that I've seen.

There's little more that you need for entertainment than a bird bath and a bird feeder. Those two things make for the best people watching that birds can provide. Truth be told, the more I know of people, the better I like birds.
They may fly in and out of your life, but they are nothing if not consistent.

running with scissors.

A few years ago, a friend gave me this little book of The Amazing Paper Cuttings of Hans Christian Andersen for Christmas and it has become one of my favorites. I can't imagine making one of these with hours of concentration and planning, let alone doing it spontaneously while I tell a story. Andersen, the Danish storyteller who is best known for writing fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Steadfast Tin Soldier, also made hundreds - perhaps thousands - of paper cuttings. Often he made the cuttings while he was telling a fairy tale, then gave them to the children listening to him. Although he would not use the papercuts as a means of illustrating the story he was telling, Andersen employed the same imagery found in his stories - that of swans, clowns, toy theaters, windmills, angels and other whimsical images. It's hard to know how many of these jewels he actually made, since many were not completed and many did not survive...due to not only the fragility of the medium (paper) but also the playful nature of the recipients.
So, this is what they did for entertainment in the evenings in the mid 1800's. This is how they entertained and occupied their children. hmmm...I'm inspired.

PEEL : BANANA : SHELL : ______

"Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home."
- Sigmund Freud



drawing by my son, Whitaker Reid, Fourth Grade

It's that time of year. The time of year when every teacher across the state hands the standardized tests to their students and just crosses their fingers that some-how,way or where their students were listening throughout the previous 9 months. Now, I've learned that analogies have found their way into said testing. I don't remember being tested on analogies - if I had been, I would have loved it. These little word puzzles are the way I do my communicating about 85% of the time. It's hard to get through a conversation with me without being subjected to at least one, "It's like..." It's the only way I know to make sense of situations. Freud's right - it doesn't really solve anything, but it sure makes the conversation feel like home. It's kind of like...oh well, nevermind. Below, you'll find some winners from a Washington Post humor contest of a decade ago...enjoy.


He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

the house I live in is delight.

breakfast room,
7:40 a.m.



WITHOUT PROPERTY CAN WE
BE REAL?
How can we feel
the unknown facets
of ourselves
without a parcel
of hard property?
Look there's a tanager
and also indigo buntings
in the sunset!
Waterfalls
cataract
upon the mind.
See,
the star
that touches us
with hands of light.

The house we live in
is delight.

[Emily Dickinson's House (for Sam and Ann) by Michael McClure]

rejection is not fatal: how applying for and not getting a job gave me the perspective I need to bloom where I'm planted.

"We had an astonishing number of qualified applicants and I thoroughly reviewed each submission. Although your candidacy was impressive, the competition was intense; I regret to inform you that you were not selected as a finalist for the position."
[rejection letter, 2010]


Well, there it was...my first rejection letter in 20 years from the first job application in the same. My best friend has a theory that life really boils down to that Cheap Trick song, I Want You To Want Me. It's so true. I had all but formally pulled my materials from the application process, having decided that I didn't even want the job, but somehow seeing it in writing...the fact that I was not selected really hit me hard. NOT SELECTED. What? I wanted to be the one to say, "Thank you for thinking of me, but I've decided that I'm really better off and happiest right where I am." In the time it took me to gather my materials, craft my resume' and even seek out the special square paperclips I ordered to match the formatting that a brilliant friend of mine designed for my packet (it's a sickness, really, this detail thing), I came to the conclusion that in reality, the grass is not always greener. At one moment I asked myself if the situation were reversed and I was in that job and the one I have became available, would I apply. My answer to myself was a resounding "yes!" and that's all I needed to know. The truth, or rather Truth, is that my work life is ideal...a creative job with autonomy and supportive colleagues is something that I'm darned lucky to have and that there's value in the non-tangible things associated with it. Was I crazy to even think about going somewhere else? Yeppers, I think so.
But wait, there's more...I learned the final lesson when I was looking for an image to put with this post. In my search, I came across this image of a rejection letter from the Walt Disney Studios dated 1938 and realized that we have, indeed, come a long way, baby. I couldn't believe what I read there:

"Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men.... The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with Indian ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions." [rejection letter, 1938]

Hmmm...if this was 1938, I wouldn't have even been able to apply. Now in 2010, I can be rejected based on the contents, or lack thereof, of my resume' and not my gender. I am free to make the choice of where and how I want to work, without any thought as to whether or not I could gain access to the boy's club. It's unbelievable, really, to read the words and realize that some studio executive actually had the nerve to dictate that to the poor woman from the Steno pool who had to type it. What a time we live in...and what a time we've outgrown...which brings me back to the whole lesson that this has taught me, anyway. Rejection - the valid kind - is not fatal. The challenge is to find the lesson that lies within it.

flash.

A picture's worth a thousand words, or in the case of a flash card, simply one.
Each year, as my husband and I make our annual trip to his home state of Washington, I make my pilgrimage to a little store in Sumner, just down the road from his folks' place. This is the spot where they sell things that I didn't know I can't live without. Like these flash cards. Upon discovering them, the conversation went something like this:

me: "OH! Look at THESE! I NEED THESE!"
mother-in-law: "What in the world are you going to do with those?"
me: "Um...well...I don't know yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something."
mother-in-law: "hmmm. okay."

I did think of something when I was taking a watercolor class and I was looking for something to do. These little paintings practically jumped out of my head and onto the flash cards. Painting them gave me the same feeling that I get from washing dishes. You know what I mean...immediate gratification. That's me - an immediate gratification kind of girl.
In my upstairs studio - a retrofitted sleeping porch in our antique house - lay the many things that "I couldn't live without." 26 small ciphering chalkboards, untold amounts of abandoned buttons, dismantled antique windows, 73 clear empty glass ornaments, 13 sheets of unseparated twist ties, a seemingly endless supply of old discarded keys, a box of celluloid charms, candy boxes, vintage calendars, and the list goes on. What am I going to do with those?
Um...well...I don't know yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

we remember the moments, not the days.

"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in."
- Arlo Guthrie





Remembering a dear friend's Daddy today. Remembering what a great man he was. Remembering what a great daughter he taught her to be. Remembering how well she cared for him. Remembering how the circumstance of his life brought out the most caring part of her. Remembering how very much she will miss him.

Remembering her today, too.

one man's trash.

It's amazing to me how wonderful the most ordinary things can become when married to each other. Each little object has a story to tell, but when put together, they become something else, altogether. It takes effort to see things not as they are, but how they can be. The lace "curtain" you see here is actually an unfinished cross-stitch that had been long since tossed out and the oval frame behind it is a rough-carved piece of tramp art. The artifacts on the small dresser below it are simply twigs bundled with jute, but when placed next to the carved wooden bird, they take on a new meaning.
The collection pictured in the top image makes the sublime out of ordinary things, too: toy chairs under a glass dome elevates them to the rare and special things that they are and 4 porcelain wheels from the very dresser upon which they sit become unique specimens loved for their sculptural form. The artwork on the wall is by Texas artist Brandon Petree and is comprised of individual ledger sheets, tiled and put together, in an artful way, with numbers stenciled on it.
The lesson here is this: one man's trash is another man's work of art. Be careful what you so willingly discard. I just might be there to get it.

seasoned wisdom from a side show sage.

"Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now."

- P.T. Barnum

Mary Mikel Stump
circus tent with ladder
2009
digital photo

[taken at The Transportation Museum, Roanoake, VA ]

still life with wallpaper

want. want. want.
need. need. need.


These funky little drawings come from a
South Australian artist named Mandy Horne.
They can be found on her website:
Still Life With Wallpaper
http://withwallpaperwork.blogspot.com/

I, object.

Too much furniture in one's living room
Too many pens in a stand
Too many children in a house
Too many words when men meet
Too many bookcases in a bookcase there can never be...

-Kenko (Fourteenth Century)

These words are from the first few pages of Objects of Our Affection by Lisa Tracy. My mother recently told me about this book during a conversation about the joys of stewarding family heirlooms and the interesting history they hold to one's past. I find solace in Kenko's words, as I have often wondered how a non-material person - who I hopefully consider myself to be - can have such a love of things. Not a passing fancy or flirtation, mind you...but a passionate desire and deep affection for certain objects that catch my eye. They exist on a grand sliding scale - things as precious as fine silver, china or crystal on one end and others as humble as a simple abandoned key or cabinet latch on the other. All the things, however, have one thing in common: they have an integrity about them that makes them absolutely irresistible. If there were a fire in my house, I'm really not certain what one thing I would grab.

In the end, I might take nothing, for fear that I would take so long to decide that I'd go right along with them.

speaking of chocolate...

don't all things, ultimately, get back to chocolate?

for your viewing pleasure

"...I think we're fighting a losing game."
- Lucy Ricardo

Just in case you haven't see the Lucy episode to which I referred...
here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q

nothing.

Never underestimate the importance of learning to relax.

“Nothing” is on the schedule for this week. You know you’ve fallen into bad habits when you have to write “nothing” across the day in your planner in order to have nothing to do. Through no fault of my own, I’ve become one of those people who doesn’t know how to relax. It took a broken bone to do it, but I am slowly learning the value of being still and the skill of doing nothing. As we move further and further into our adult lives, we pile on the commitments like the conveyor belt of candy on that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel go to work in a candy factory. You know the one. Life is like that - just when you think you can handle the load, someone yells “speed it up” and before long, you’re stuffing the candy in your shirt, hat and mouth. Staying off your foot is harder than it seems and I’ve learned to appreciate really small but special things. Things like the subtle shift of light as the sun makes its way through the day. There’s something really humbling about staying in the same place as other things move around you. I urge you to do it sometime.

It’s hard work, this doing nothing, but oh so rewarding.