Patching a Sieve

Glory. That's what you get in Maine, about one week of glory, before the bugs and other summer complaints arrive. That old French lilac out back exploded into purple fragrance on Memorial Day, hummingbirds are flitting in the Solomon Seals, and the verdance is doing a sun dance. Did I say sun? Excuse me while I take my shirt off.

Something about grass springing up stirs the pagan soul, and your native ornamenteur goes rummaging for lawn junk to put out. Wasn't it Dylan Thomas who said the green fuse blows all low watt brains? Anyhow, when the steam starts rising off the leachfield, I dig out the old decor, and began playing with acrylics and signboard again.

Crows in Sharpie

Return of the Robins

Piano Bob conveyed a message from Kim that those turkeys on the front slope were definitely out of season, so I lugged them around back, and Hilde helped me plant the flock of robins in their place. She and Seth aided me in propping up the boat shrine, and said that the fish-tailed Capricornus was suitable to grace it. It's important to engage others in this ritual observation, so they can gain understanding, and, perhaps, grace.

That boat shrine was once a lovely winestem stern skiff called The Sieve. Phil Hamilton said he thinks it was one of the rowing boats at Portland's Deering Oaks Park, when he was a kid. When I was a kid, Tom Plaisted traded a dory for it to a fisherman at Owls Head. Tom couldn't stand to see him dragging that beautiful hull up and down the rocky shingle behind his pickup, and the fisherman knew a bargain when he saw it.

Boat Shrine

Planting

This was in the early days of fiberglass, and Tom figured on trying some to cure the leaks in that skiff. He canvassed the hull, and laid on glass and resin with a will. Nobody tells you that trying to fiberglass an old wood hull is a fool's errand, or they'd never sell all that fancy glop. She was solid watersoaked oak, naturally, the absolute worst substrate for glassing. The glass held for half a season, then the boat worked like a hinge, fractured the glass, and she leaked along her garboards.

Next spring Tom glassed her along the keel again. And again. Summers she lived, half sunk, on an outhaul by the cottage we stayed in, and was the first boat I ever sailed, and bailed. My rig was a blanket and an oar, and a lobersterman took pity on me down by Ash Point in the late afternoon, or I'd have gotten to Europe. Tom kept putting the patch to her until she was too heavy to haul, and then she lived under a woodpile for twenty years.

Piping

Fountain of Liberty

About the time we moved to Bowdoinham I was looking for plans for a skiff that Seth and I could build for a boy's boat. When I stopped in at Tom's for advice, he admitted as how he had some plans, " but The Sieve is still under that woodpile. You think you can stop her from leaking?" He grinned.

We dug her out, and I tried. Repeatedly. Talk about your beater boat. Half full of water, and half a ton of fiberglass: once you got some way on her she'd track like an arrow, and you could leave her unguarded at the dock. Nobody could drag her onto the float or into a pickup. She was the town tender, and Seth built a one sheet plywood pram for his own purposes. Something he could lift.

But Tom's grin pursued me each spring, and one year I was determined to cure the leaks, or else. I got a good purchase under the inner canvas, pried away, and.. the entire skin popped off. The wood inside was nothing but rot and paint, and the whole thing came apart like a busted basket.

OK. I'd just use her for a plug, and make a strip-core glass skiff on it. I flipped her upside, squared and stiffened her, and stapled a skin of plastic over all. Ripped up a pile of pine strips, and proceeded to staple and glue them to the plug. Miserable business, if you don't taper the strips. By the time I got to the hollows in her stern she was more V-bottom than winestem, and I was a mess of glue and grumbles.

Dancing Daffs

On the Lawn in 99

Eventually I slathered the West System to her, and was putting a third coat on the outside one afternoon as a thunder storm approached. In my haste I'd mixed two parts of resin together, with no hardener, and rolled it on. As I went to cobble up a cover, I saw she was still wet with ooze, realized my mistake, and panicked. Poured a bunch of hardener into the rolling pan, and filled the roller. When I ran it across the hull, the chemical action was so hot it burst into flames. Holy smoke. Took me four rollers to get the goopy mixed, flaming and fuming as the storm blew in. (The trick is to mix a new batch of hardener AND resin, and apply, I discovered later.. but no fools, no fun.)

Once the new skiff was actually glassed inside and out (and thickly painted to hide my workmanship), she was a lovely light and lively thing. Maybe just a bit too lively. If you build a glass boat on wooden boat lines she'll sit too high in the water, because she doesn't weigh as much, or soak up any moisture. That sweet turn of the bilge was now well above the waterline, and she's tender as a bastard. More than once I jumped into her from Sharpie only to flip upside down and take a plunge. Bruce and Jimmy always watch my arrivals with interest. But she's another boat nobody is likely to steal. At least if they step into her first.

Skiff in floodtime

The remains of The Sieve ended upended against a tree at the foot of our yard as a boat shrine. Remember the boat shrine? This is an essay about lawn ornaments, after all. See, there's more to ornaments than you might suspect. Or want to know.

What with all the cold and dank this spring, my heart hadn't really been into ornamentation, but a call from Rockland galvanized me. That's where they hook two electrodes to you, throw you into a vat of liquid zinc, and you come out all shiny. In this case it was Bill Robertson all charged up. He's moving his Aht gallery into a new location on Maine Street, cross corners from the Farnsworth Museum. Home of Wyeth, Wyeth, and Wyeth, Inc. In fact it had been rumored they were changing the name of Rockland to Wyethville, but now MBNA has sprawled down from Camden and Belfast, taking over the Fisher Plow plant, Rockland will probably get painted MBNA green, and lose its identity entirely.

Circa 1988

Bill's premier show in his new digs is called HOME, and he's sharing his proceeds with homeless teens in Maine. "Home," he said, "sounds like a show for lawn ornaments. Got any?" How could I resist? Back when we were grouping with The Lawn Ornaments Band, Gary Lawless and I tried to convince the Farnsworth to sell Christina ornaments in their gift shop. You know: cutouts of that crippled woman in A. Wyeth's "Christina's World" you can put on your lawn to make it a work of art. They weren't amused at the Farnsworth. And my chance to sell Christinas for use as prizes on the Japanese quiz show "How Much For The Whole World" fezzled a few years later. But here was a whole new opportunity to bring culture to the masses. Or Christina ornaments to Rockland.

The original inspiration for the Christina ornament was an experiment Peggy and I indulged in. On the theory that lawn ornaments had to be recognizable at 55 mph, we put various arts on the front lawn to see what people would say. Nobody noticed Venus on the Halfshell (aka "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli), even when we put her in an upturned bathtub. A few remarked on Rodin's "The Thinker", but mostly because he was on an old commode. Everyone recognized Christina, though. One of those indelible Maine icons, apparently. Some AP press photographer snapped a shot of our house with Christina crawling toward it, and we got clips from all over the country, with various editorial comments.

Circa 2000

Full Sized

Bill didn't know any of this, and I was hardly going to spoil the soup by broadcasting the recipe. In honor of Bill's new venue, and at Peggy's suggestion, I conjured the latest Christinas with mermaid tails. The new Rockland City Logo, perhaps. I made one bigger than lifesize, one four footer, and an intermediate version with Helga's back and pigtails, just to work a theme. When Seth, Hilde, Jim Torbert, and I arrived in a downpour last Wednesday, carrying Christinas, Bill not only laughed, he put the big one in the front window, crawling in from Main Street.

This may be the pinnacle for me. Old Rockland was the lowrent locale of my teenage malefactions, and to be featured in a tony gallery in the New Rockland is almost too exciting to bear. Makes me feel all full, and glittery and rustproof, like a new bucket.

Helgafish

Peaceable Kindom

We also installed a pair of redwing blackbird ornaments, the most territorial of birds. A quartet of dancing daffodils, a la Matisse's "Dance of Spring".. this is an AHT gallery, after all. And a large "Peaceable Kingdom". The Bryce version of the lion lying down with the lamb. If a 19th century primitive (Hicks) can do it, so can a 21st century one. It really ISN'T supposed to be erotic.

The rest of our ornament collection is now staked out in the yard. The gardens are planted. Peas are leaping and salad stuff leafing. Irises are out, poppies on the swell, and we're feeling pretty puffed up ourself. We may be provincial, but that don't mean we ain't got taste, bud.

Skiff and Toad