MARK 9:47 with BAXTER'S EYE
I once owned a “farm-ette,” as I came to call my small farm in the town of Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, just west of Richmond, heading towards Charlottesville. Actually, I had another name for it as well…Jean Acres.
That name was inspired by a 1970s sitcom on TV called "Green Acres," where a well-to-do lawyer, from New York City, longs for a simpler way of life and convinces his glamorous wife to move out to the country where, together, they’d become farmers. Oliver often wore business attire when working around the farm, including a tie and a vest, while Lisa was known to still wear evening gowns and fancy jewelry; both of them clearly fish out of water in a rural environment.
On some levels, I related to all that. I had moved back to my home state, Virginia, after spending most of my adult life in the north, mostly in New York City. After 3 years living in Richmond, I decided I wanted to buy a house and looked around in the city, but something in me yearned to be closer to nature. I had taken up horseback riding again and thought I might fulfill a life-long dream to finally have a horse. So I bought a farm in Goochland County and starting learning how to manage 6.6 acres. I had a lot of “city chick” still left in me, but I loved my newfound life in the country, bumbling my way around on the farm.
My old barn and the Butterfly Garden, left of the tree, where a railroad tie sits.
There was a big red barn on the property and a butterfly garden not too far from it. It was a memorial garden. The previous owner built it in memory of her mother, who had passed away while she was living at the farm. I too used that garden to memorialize my father, when he died, by adding lots of deep red lilies throughout.
One day, as I was gardening in the memorial garden, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was a bird’s nest, laying on the ground, far from a tree or a bush. "How did it get there?" I wondered. I picked it up and studied it. The sweet little nest was perfectly constructed and tightly woven together. A real feat in engineering. I brought the nest inside and placed it in a spot where I could look at it and think about what I might do with it. I was thinking I’d use it in an assemblage.
I have always loved Surrealism and the juxtaposition of elements to create bizarre, thought-provoking imagery. I thought about putting something unexpected in the nest, that would be shaped like an egg, but would be out-of-the-ordinary. Once I had thought of that, the question was: What would go in there?
The answer came one day from a friend of mine, Baxter. I had met Baxter out in the country and we became buddies. In addition to my neighbors, he helped me learn a lot about farm equipment and other useful stuff I needed to have around the farm-ette.
When Baxter was a little boy, he had an accident, playing baseball, that cost him one of his eyes. So for the rest of his life, Baxter had to wear a prosthetic, glass eye.
One day, Baxter mentioned that he was getting a new eye (he had to replace them periodically) and then it hit me….why not put an eye into the bird’s nest? It would be so Dada-like. So I asked him if I could possibly have his old eye and he kind of liked the idea that one of his eyes would be memorialized in a work of art. It was a brown eye, a perfect match for the bird’s nest.
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From there, the idea began to take shape. I had gone up to Maine to visit my aunt and cousin and noticed this beautiful light green lichen growing on the trees along the drive to my aunt's home. I collected some of that lichen and when I got back home, decided it would make a great background. So I got out some masonite and started covering it in lichen. I was a little short, so my cousin gathered more lichen for me and shipped it down to Virginia.
A piece of tree bark, with lichen clinging to it. Who knew pulling it off trees would make a great background!
After I covered the board in lichen, I mounted the nest down, then added the eye. It was looking good, but it needed something more, I felt. So it sat for a bit, as art needs to do when it is being made.
The answer to that question, plus the title of the piece, came to me when I was reading a book called The Way to Love, by Anthony deMello. In it, deMello entitled one of his chapters: “Pluck Out the Eye,” followed by a passage from one of the most read books in the world: Mark 9:47. Even before I started reading what deMello had to say, I realized that I had a great title for my assemblage.
Now that I had the title, with some underlying meaning, I saw what was missing. The piece needed a halation that emanated from the nest. Paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe came to mind. Next was: What would it be made of? I determined that marsh reeds would be perfect. They were natural. They were straight. They were easy to find. So I found some marsh reeds and added a halo effect coming out from the nest. And it just felt perfect.
Baxter loved tinkering on any 'ole thing. This truck, parked out back behind his workshop, was no exception.
I sold the farm, never did get a horse, and moved before I finished my piece. Then Baxter passed away, so he never got to see Mark 9:47 in its full glory. But I’d like to think that perhaps Baxter has seen it, from a whole different place, where he sees better than he ever did before.
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