A Place to Get Off and Smell the Roses

Today, May 31, 2020, Rett and I step off the rat wheel together.  Hurrah!  Between the two of us, we have clocked more than 80 years of college teaching.

“Time and Change will surely show…” the Covid-19 crisis will have a dramatic impact on higher education and particularly on traditional modes of voice pedagogy.  Now is an opportune time to retire.

I have spent the past 11 years as Associate Director and Chair of Graduate Studies in Music at Ohio State.  As such, my primary goal has been to support the mission of the graduate programs.  Unfortunately, I have seen the administration of the College of Arts and Sciences make budgetary decisions that placed the Arts in general, and Music specifically, at the bottom of their priority list. I speculate that an even leaner budget due to the pandemic will be devastating to the Arts; and so now, this rat is stepping off into a place with a different kind of work where BEAUTY can be observed and exalted.

As I depart, I leave future administrators with these words from Plato:

In closing, as I reflect on my career as an Artist/Teacher, I am blessed to have been involved with creating and recreating beautiful music, and to have been in a position to share that music with young talented adults.

An die Musik

Franz von Schober

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden,

Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt, 

Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden, 

Hast mich in eine bessre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf entflossen, 

Ein süsser, heiliger Akkord von dir

Den Himmel bessrer Zeiten mir erschlossen, 

Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!

To Music

English Translation © Richard Wigmore

Beloved art, in how many a bleak hour,

when I am enmeshed in life’s tumultuous round, 

have you kindled my heart to the warmth of love, 

and borne me away to a better world!

Often a sigh, escaping from your harp,

a sweet, celestial chord

has revealed to me a heaven of happier times. 

Beloved art, for this I thank you!

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrC3J_TAcles0MAKCwPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=An+die+Musik&fr=yhs-pty-pty_email&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_email#id=41&vid=5b4d02008110658d8bf60e0ba9b0db76&action=view

To OSU, I bid Adieu!

CPW

A Place for Heirloom Irises II

The Iris Garden at Merry Mount

This week the iris bed at Merry Mount burst forth in full bloom.  In addition to the plants that were located here at the time of our purchase of the property, there are rhizomes that were transplanted from several locations in Tennessee and Indiana.

Purple Irises with Hues of Gold and Fragility

The purple Irises glistened 
in the morning stillness 
with three tongues that lick 
as if to catch a dew drop
upon each tip 
Golden bearded and strong 
these living gems 
calling for those lucky enough 
to scent and see them. 
Rhizomes barely catch the earth, 
with roots that serve as a place of rebirth 
Dividing as they go 
year after year, they double in show 

Oh, this beauty with for my eyes to see 
I cannot keep them for only me 
with friends true I shall share. 
and next year bring to them 
this joy I find in 
a purple world with hues of gold and fragile love.

         -Chris Lane

I remember one autumn when Robbie (Loretta’s dad) brought a grocery bag full of freshly dug rhizomes from their property in Cunningham, TN to us in Columbus.  He had “thinned them out” and wanted to share with us.  We, unfortunately, do not know from whose stock Robbie shared.

I do know that the beautiful white irises (pictured above) came from my Mother’s garden on Colchester Court in Knoxville, TN.  During a visit to Knoxville in the autumn of 2016, just before the property was sold, Mother specifically told me where the white irises were located and that she wanted me to take some back with me to Merry Mount.  Mother also wanted my cousin Sharon to have some of her rhizomes for her garden. We dug up the rhizomes and transported them to their new homes. We have enjoyed sharing photos of the successful transplants.

During another trip to Knoxville, Sharon dug up several rhizomes from her garden and told me that those plants had been originally in the garden on the property of our great grandmother, Mammy Baker.  I returned to Merry Mount, thinned out our iris patch, and added the heirloom irises. Now, annually, Sharon and I share photos of our beauties.

An orange beauty presently located at Sharon's garden

Also from Sharon's garden

We also have plants from our dear friend, Laurie Krcmaric, who was one of the first persons to pull weeds at Merry Mount.  Often when Laurie visits us, she has freshly dug plants from her amazing garden that has included iris rhizomes.

During the autumn of 2019, I planted several new rhizomes given to me by Rett. Although our chickens scratched along the courtyard fence where they are planted, this yellow beauty survived: 

 Now every May, as we enjoy the beauty of the irises, we can also respect the handiwork of the loved ones who came before us.

 CPW

P.S.  Serendipity: while writing this blog post, my friend Robert Ward sent me a message about a beautiful white iris (pictured below) that he brought to Columbus from his former residence in Oklahoma.  Robert shared with me that his neighbor, Ed Glover, a WWII veteran who survived the first wave at Normandy Beach, had given the rhizome to him. For Robert, the bloom is a memorial symbol.

A white beauty from the Ward Garden

A Place for Poppies

It is an intensely simple, intensely floral, flower.  All silk and flame, a scarlet cup…like a burning coal fallen from Heaven’s altars.

           

            FROM PROPERPINA by John Ruskin

During the last week of May, the poppies at Merry Mount burst forth with their radiance.  They are a beautiful symbol of Memorial Day and the beginning of summer.

In her book, A Victorian Flower Dictionary, Mandy Kirkby writes about the poppy:

When in bud, the poppy holds on tightly to its emerging flower; until suddenly, almost in the blink of an eye, the two imprisoning sepals are shaken to the ground and its floral glory is revealed…Yet its flowers remain open for just a few days and all is finished.  So much for just a moment of splendor, but what luxury and infinite pleasure on the way!

from the Portmeirion collection

Poppies at Merry Mount

Rett and I love poppies, and now, even though our poppy plant blooms only a few days a year, we can enjoy a painting year round by East Tennessee artist, Robert Tino, given to us as a retirement gift by my cousin Sharon and her partner Audrey.

Be well.

CPW

The Place to Be for Me

The Oven Bird

BY ROBERT FROST

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Ovenbird Seiurus aurocapilla  Illustration by David Allen Sibley

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ovenbird/id

"In shady woods, this odd warbler walks with deliberate steps on the forest floor, holding its short tail cocked up higher than its back. Although it is not especially shy, its choice of habitat often makes it hard to observe; its ringing chant of teacher, teacher is heard far more often than the bird is seen. The name "Ovenbird" is a reference to the bird's nest, a domed structure with the entrance on the side, like an old-fashioned oven."

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/ovenbird

P.S. Thanks again, Pete!

CPW