Maria and I went to the town dump Sunday and Maria grabbed my arm and said “look at this,” I had missed at first, an old coffee can filled with beautiful pencils an elderly man had brought to part with. A piece of art, which is just what George Forss said when I showed it to him. It had to be a still life. This photo says so much about life.
I believe that connection is a universal and powerful need for human beings. We yearn to find our place in the world, and to find the people who will share it with us in love and understanding. I think the Open Houses are mostly about connection. Me and my readers, and who follow my blog and photographs, Maria and the people who love her art, me and my photos, people and animals, people and nature, and who seek fellow travelers, who yearn for a community.
Such a community has been building around my blog and online groups like the Open Group At Bedlam Farm and the people who have following the Bedlam Farm idea. We are family, we have our difficulties and misunderstandings, but we mostly hang in there with one another, we are a connection.
All around me today I saw people at the farm connecting to one another, it was a powerful sight, even a stirring one. In our fragmented and disconnected world, connection is possible, it is available if one looks for it and does not quit on it. Wherever I looked people were talking to one another, appreciating one another, understanding one another. It is, I think, the point of the Open Houses.
Maria is launching her Happy Housewife Potholder series from vintage hankies and discarded fabrics and prints, I think it is quite wonderful. The potholders sell for $20 plus shipping and will debut at the Open House Saturday and Sunday, and if any are left, will be sold on Maria’s website.
Simon went to work today and the Open House doesn’t even start until Saturday morning. He was greeted by a small mob of ardent admirers who brought him, carrots, hugs and kisses, and who took a lot of photos and video of him. He loved it all. Some people were invited early to the Open House to paint, sketch, photograph and visit. There was a great feeling at the farm, some of the people were members of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, an online creative sharing community, and they had never met one another face to face. I see that still matters.
I think we are ready. The notecards were finished this evening (thanks Lisa Dingle), my friend Jack Macmillian, the Bedlam Farm Godfather, brought some folding chairs (Jack will be on hand during the Open House to help with traffic and parking), the grounds are mowed, raked, brushhogged and weed whacked. The firewood is in the shed, the sheep are in the side pasture, waiting for Red to do some herding over the weekend. I’m meeting some people for an early breakfast at the Round House Cafe, then back to the farm before the ll a.m. opening.
George Forss has some exciting ideas about doing portraits for visitors over the weekend. Maria has organized all the art in the studio, she has great stuff to sell. I think we are as ready as we can be. I have a good feeling about it.
By 3 p.m., there were people from Seattle, Boston, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania at the farm, members of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm who have talked to one another every day for months but never met. Their meeting was touching and powerful, a poignant thing to see the digital connections become very real and tangible. We arranged for some quiet hours of talking, photography, sketching at the farm before the Open House begins in earnest on Saturday, it was a very poignant and meaningful thing to see how much these people mean to one another, and how much the farm, the blog, Maria’s work and the animals means to them. I am somewhat overwhelmed by it.
