small cypress

tulipmania, a drawing, bread and puppet

Sherwood Gardens

This was my first time going to this privately-owned park in Guilford, a pretty bougie neighborhood. They plant over fifty thousand bulbs, mostly tulips, that are in peak bloom right now. The weather was gorgeous and we met up with some friends and toddlers.

We don't have cold enough winters for them down south, so this is really exciting to me. All the bulb flowers kind of blow my mind, really. They have such a bright, cartoony, plasticky quality that I love.

And of course, the cherry blossoms were popping off:

Each year they dig them up to replant a new variety, but there are always some holdovers.

A Drawing

Just a doodle I started at a friend's art night this past week. I love looking through her books for references, so I picked a book with palaces and field guide to birds of North America for the pelican. I didn't know how to finish the bottom of the building, but when we got back from Sherwood I finished it with tulips. I'm trying to just make drawing as low-stakes as I can to make it fun again.

Bread & Puppet

I've known of Bread & Puppet for years because of their printshop, but I had never seen one of their shows. It was held in 2640 Space, which is an old church with excellent acoustics and lighting for a performance like this.

It was delightful, chaotic, cathartic. This show was The End of the World Neverminding, with the current horrors front and center. Afterwards there was delicious bread and garlic dip, and I was able to see many of the old prints up close for the first time. An old roommate and I joked about how all of our friends were introduced to Bread & Puppet by the same four posters that were at every punk house in the aughts - this is the one I used to see everywhere. The cast members made and sold their own prints as well. I love how block prints are always part of radical movements.

I love seeing an arts organization carry on over fifty years without institutionalizing itself or losing sight of its radical politics. They're not shrinking to get grant funding, they're making a giant paper-mache hat to pass around and mass-producing crude art on letterpress for the people.

2640 is impressive, too - I know no collective is without its drama, but it's so nice to see a collective of leftists actually get it together to get and run a space of this size. I watched spaced open and close in a year or less constantly in Florida. To see people figuring out how to keep something alive long-term without institutionalizing is pretty rare, and I hope this space is able to keep it up for the long haul.

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