The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Water

My last post was about the rain barrel project I participated in with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.  Here is a photo of my finished rainbarrel, which will be auctioned off after touring the state with those by other artists, in a PR blitz sometime this spring:

 

Since completing that project I have been scheduled for a solo exhibition in September '10, at the Rider University Art Gallery in Lawrenceville, NJ.  Because it is the largest space I've ever been able to show in, it is an opportunity for me to expand the scale of my work in spite of difficult studio size limitations.  Water seems to be the dominant theme in my mind lately, and I am working on a mixed media wall relief of a river.  I say "a river" to be more geographically inclusive, but the only river I really know is the beautiful Delaware.  I'm crocheting parts of a river, painting parts, photographing parts, and making ceramic tiles for parts of this watery line that cuts between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  

This week we were on the receiving end of the worst storm the area has seen in many decades, or so our long-time neighbors say.  A foot of snow came down on the several inches that were already there, but it was a heavy, heavy snow.  The 30 ft. tall bamboo folded down to the ground under it's weight, and then froze there.  Snow = water all dressed up in bridal whites.

It was immensely beautiful as twilight settled in.

Then we began to hear noises.  "Wasn't that just the bamboo brushing against the house as it lays down, laden with snow?  Shhhh!  Was that a branch falling on the roof - no, it wasn't that loud...probably more bamboo moving".  Soon the power went out.  Nothing new there, it does this almost every time there is a rainstorm.  It stayed off.  I found and lit candles, remnant ghosts from Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners past.  I'd never seen anything like this though:  in what should have been the darkness of night, long flashes of light illuminated everything brighter than any July dead noon glare.  Pink/white/green/purple light outside as if indeed, the whole world WAS a stage.  Was that lightning?   Was that some arching electric current?  Funny how the mind retrieves phrases stuffed away though not understood.  I didn't really know what an "arching electric current" was, but in grasping for explanations for what I was seeing, the phrase came to mind.  My daughter recalled the phrase, "thunder snow", which I'd never even heard of before, and I grew up near Chicago, Illinois, where people know their snow!

Hours later, the power came back on, feebly at first, and then for real.  We went to sleep amidst the silence that only snow can surround you with.  The next morning all of that wet snow's destructive powers were evident. For us, a tree hung alongside our driveway, branches lay everywhere, and another tree fell across and smashed a section of fence.  Down the street it looked like a tornado had gone through.  Branches and trees were down across the road, making it impassable for several hours.  One of the giant, tall pines that edge the street at the southern end and make our street so special, uprooted and fell, just the tips of some branches hitting the brick house it had stood in front of.  Yet all of this happened with so little noise!  In a summer storm we would have heard great loud crashing and thrashing.  In this wet snow-wrapped fury we only heard, "...shhh...was that... something_____?"  

Today as I was getting dressed I heard the tiniest "drip...drip...drip..."  Of course I looked up.  "Funny, I don't see anything".  Still, that unmistakable "drip...drip...drip".  I opened the shade, hoping to see dripping icicles magically throwing their sound inside the house, but the windows were all wet.  I took down the curtains and blinds, and water was dripping from the inside of the window mouldings.  UGH.  Nothing localized, where a bucket could catch it.

Well the past does haunt:  two years ago our handyman was up on the roof and said we needed some extension on the flashing, because the roofer hadn't done it right.  He added some sheets of aluminum.  Later, the neighborhood yard guy (who nobody likes to call because he is so unreliable and overpriced, but who everyone ends up calling in the inevitable pinch,) was on our roof for something I've forgotten.  He wrested the metal sheets off, thinking they were a roof job done wrong.  Afterwards, he insisted that we didn't need them.  Welcome the big bad snow of '10. Those metal bandaides would probably have saved the bedroom wall.  Now nothing can be done with the "situation" until all the snow melts.  I could be wringing out wet towels for weeks...

Ahhh, water, with your many faces!  So good, so bad, and now so ugly!