COMMENTARY: NOUVEAU ART VIA THE GARBAGE CAN

In the midst of a quiet meditation when I can see clearly in my mind there came a vision of a long ago waste basket I had made from a bean basket. How account for the pictures that come into focus mentally?

Remember bean baskets? They were tall, about two feet, wood slated and shaped like a flat bottomed ice cream cone. The perpendicular slats were about 3 inches wide and held together by sparsely spaced thin wires. They were what fresh unhulled beans were delivered in to produce stores. Probably bananas too. If one was lucky he/she could get one simply by asking the grocery produce man. I asked. I possessed.

Any kind of a basket is beautiful to me. I set out to make my bean basket even more beautiful. Out came the paint brush and green paint. Always green for me. Then onto the perpendicular slats I painted a patch of hollyhocks. There were pink, lavender, yellow, even blue hollyhocks. It make a very attractive tall waste paper basket I kept in my kitchen. Friends and neighbors were impressed and said so. Martha Stewart and Mary Engelbreit weren't on the scene then.

The vision faded away and I arrived at an accounting for it.

I buy sunflower seeds for the birds by the 50 pound sack. The clerk puts it in the front seat of my car in a manner that makes it easy to just slide out and lean against the garage wall. But if left there the squirrels gnaw a hole in the bottom of the sack in less than 10 minutes. So I have learned to leave it in the car until someone comes along to carry it to a safe, non-gnawing place -- the basement. Therein another problem. Up and down the old steps every other day for a bucket of seeds to fill the feeder.

Replacing the vision of the decorated bean basket came a picture of a decorated metal garbage can sitting on the back porch, squirrel proof.

Out came the green paint. Spray paint this time. On went a patch of flowers -- flowers that never were. I thought at first to duplicate the hollyhocks. Then I thought of sunflowers. They would be fitting, in case I forgot what was in the can and, too, I had yellow paint in the paint chest.

Some time elapsed before I arrived at my flower pattern. Looking intently at a stylized flower pattern on a cushion I had once crewel embroidered, I thought and probably said so out loud, "That's it!" Stylized stalks could go straight up in the grooves of the groovy sides. Round, scalloped flowers could be crosshatched, checkered or polka-dotted. A variety, of course. More paint purchase required. But the primary colors, mixed, produce multiple hues and tints. Green leaves could be painted, freehand, as well as a few butterflies.

So there it now stands on the porch, only a few feet away from the feeder, something Engelbreit and Stewart would be proud of, if not Van Gogh himself. Oooo, I must remember that pride goeth before a fall. It is 50 pounds full right now, but when it get down to 5, some mighty windstorm or big black dog may come along, pushing it down the steps, smashing the painted flowers and sending the lid wandering clear across the yard.

I still have to wait for someone to come along to empty the big sacks into the can but that is not a problem. The birds are happy with an always filled feeder. I'm happy with my accomplishment. I sit in silent meditation enjoying the array of visions that pass through my mind.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.