How Empires Crumble

(An example, not one I've received)

In one of my classes I have my students do an exercise where they have to take a plain white piece of paper and, using only cuts in the paper, make a visual design that conveys a message. They can take paper away, but they can't add extra, and they can do it as a 3-D pop-up kind of piece, or simply flat so that the relationship between the spaces and the remaining paper speaks for itself. The idea is to get them to focus on shapes and forms, rather than relying on color and line.

I've received some truly great designs from this over the years, and one of my favorites was from a girl who cut out the outline of a city at the top of the page, skyscrapers and different types of architecture all clustered together, but she only cut it out on three sides and she pulled the cut away pieces into a crumpled ball at the base and called it How Empires Crumble. Really smart work, and I've found myself thinking about that often of late. Why and how do things fail, especially when we've put tremendous effort and time and care into them?

January didn't end nearly as pleasantly as it began, and this is to some extent the case each and every semester. We go in with high hopes, and by the end of the first couple of weeks it is apparent that the same issues will continue to arise. That being said, teaching is still the job I love and the one I want to go on doing, and I am well aware that, while no university is going to cut its Math or English or History programs, the Arts are always assailable.

(How it will look, if I don't screw it up)

At the start of February I find myself hoping that it is necessary to spend less this month than last, and with the major purchase of the greenhouse out of the way and the desk in the small spare room, I am not due for another one this month. I did find it necessary to get a ladder in order to even contemplate being able to assemble the greenhouse, but that was going to be necessary for multiple reasons eventually anyhow. The giant flat-pack box arrived Tuesday and so far I have...not assembled any of it. It took me a couple of days simply to unpack it and go through every tiny part on the parts list to confirm that it was there. I also read through the instructions, which was quick, because I was dismayed to find that it's one of those where there are NO WORDS only pictures with numbered parts to tell you that in some form or fashion you are to connect part 696 with part 7509. Super. This won't be hard at all. The weather was also not conducive to lots of time spent outdoors this week in that it was in the 40s most of the time, and by the time I got home from work in the evenings not only was there only maybe an hour of daylight left, but it was dipping into the 30s by then too. Good news though! Sunday (tomorrow) it will be almost 60 degrees and on Monday it will be nigh 70 and sunny, so I may take my unstructured morning time and use some of it over my lunch break to construct part of the greenhouse.

The week wasn't all bad, I did manage to get drinks with a friend to catch up and commiserate, and he saved me his coffee grounds which have now been added to the compost heap. I bagged another load of leaves to make leaf mulch too. A trip to the store today garnered linen for a work project that I'll probably post progress about, so updates are coming for the Panel Art Project. Looking around at what everyone has been posting lately it seems as though in many ways everyone is feeling the blues. Here's to better (and warmer) days ahead.