I feel in the need of guardians again. I do know they are all around us, all the time. But sometimes they seem to be wearing way too many layers of invisible cloaks. I wish they'd take them off every now and then.
Anyway, September seems to me like the perfect month for having a guardian scarecrow hovering around. I know they are supposed to be watching over new little seedlings, so I guess that's why it seems as if they should be more of a spring and summer guardian, but for some reason I always think of scarecrows in relation to autumn instead. Maybe it's because of all those autumn-harvest crops that I love so much, like pumpkins, for example.
The stars encircling my guardian scarecrow are cut-paper, the vine is green thread, and I made the hat out of a straw hat that I found at the Goodwill. I found two hats, actually, one for the scarecrow in my garden and one to use to make miniature straw hats, or baskets, for my cards.
Here is what is left of the hat I use for my cards. It is slowly being devoured by miniature scarecrows in need of hats, or miniature ladies in need of baskets.
The way I make a miniature hat is to plaster a small portion of the back of this hat above with clear tape. Then I cut out the crown of the hat and the brim, each one separately. I tape the crown and brim together from the back, and then, when I'm ready, I use double-stick tape to fix the hat in place on top of the scarecrow.
As you can see, a piece here and there of the straw is coming loose. And I'm starting to like that. I've been painstaking in trying to make each little part so perfect, cutting off every loose thread, etc.
But I'm changing my mind about all of that. I think I should leave the loose ends and all the loose threads in place. I'm going to start letting that happen, and not just in my art. In my life, too. I'm thinking I might just have to let more things fall apart. Do you know what I mean? Maybe we're not always supposed to try to hold everything together.
Anyway, here's an outdoor scarecrow of mine from a few years ago:
This is where the other hat went. And speaking of falling-apart, that is the fate of scarecrows, isn't it? In fact, the more tattered and shredded and shabby that they become, the more perfect scarecrows they become, being more perfectly scary with every magnification of the "frayed and frazzled" look.
I really liked this jaunty scarecrow, all purple and red, with bright Mardi Gras necklaces around her neck.
Her clothing and hat ultimately disintegrated, but those Mardi Gras necklaces were almost indestructible. They never lost their color, and I think they would have lasted forever if the tiny threads that connected them hadn't finally deteriorated.
Here's the big outdoor hat up close. Those are silk flowers from a hobby store and they keep their color forever, too. Or maybe they're plastic. I really don't know for sure. The metal bells are hung with brown twine from the inside of the hat, to look like earrings. I thought these bells would jingle in the wind, but I guess it would take a hurricane-force gale to make them ring. Even so, they hang in such a lovely, calm, metallic silence.
Can you see that portion of a safety pin in the red apron at the bottom of this photo? I don't sew ~ I "safety-pin." Really, I'm often walking around in public wearing something or other that is safety-pinned to keep a hem from dragging or a seam from gaping open.
But back to the hat.
The hat itself has to be nailed to the central post in three places: one nail right on top of the crown, and then two nails, back and front, to make the brim stay down. Otherwise, from the street, you can't really see the brim at all. You lose the whole effect of the straw hat. It just becomes a horizontal line with a little bump where the crown is.
By forcing the brim down, you can see the straw hat in its full glory.
I showed you this scarecrow before, but I'm very partial to her in the same way that, if you're a writer, your favorite story is always the one you're working on. This is my favorite scarecrow because she's the one guarding the garden now. I really love this scarecrow!
Only the wooden frame, the old garden gloves, and the bells survived from the older one. I had to find yet another hat at Goodwill for her, because the one from that purple and red scarecrow just fell apart, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, straw to weathered-straw fragments, flakes, and powder.
This time I made her a necklace out of fabric remnants all tied together the way a kid ties sheets together to escape out of a two-story window, or a prison in a tower. In stories, of course ~ surely never in real life. Or have you tried this yourself and lived to tell the tale?
This is Gladys. "Gladys as a scarecrow," photo taken by James.lebinksi, and given to the world on WikiCommons.
And isn't Gladys simply the very finest specimen of a crowus scarius bovinus that you have ever seen in your life? A very rare, shy, and only recently identified species, in case you haven't heard of her yet.
I put her here, not just to allow her a place in the sun, but also to let you know the full extent to which I really haven't done a whole lot of thinking outside of the box about scarecrows. I fully intend to enlarge my vision in this regard one of these days.
And since I put a crow on my scarecrow card, I added Van Gogh's painting of "Wheat Field with Crows" (1890) here. You can almost see the scarecrow that isn't painted here. Surely, the tatters of its clothing have become the tattered wheat, the tattered earth, and those tattered ribbons of green.
For some reason, every slash of paint on a Van Gogh canvas is like a slash of lightning lighting up my heart and soul.
I've read enough about Van Gogh to know that great beauty can come from great pain. The art he created in the 1800s was stunning and unorthodox and revolutionary. The world was not ready for him during his lifetime. I hope that he knows that he has endured the test of time.
If I could, I'd send Van Gogh my guardian scarecrow to watch over him. I wonder if I'd change the words that I wrote ten years ago, below.
I borrowed a few words from the Talmud: Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." I hope the Talmud doesn't mind.
Please let this be my wish for you if by chance you are reading this today!
Your guardian scarecrow knows
how to protect you from every kind of harm.
She will watch over you
in sunshine and rain and hail and sleet.
Her rustling dress and flapping hat
will scare away
all your fears and tremblings.
She will whisper to you every day
in the cool of the moon and the heat of the sun,
"Grow, grow, grow."
Then she will send you on your way filled with
her wisdom and mystery.
.
P.S. This is another guardian in my attempt to make a hundred guardians as part of Tollipop's brilliant "Make One Hundred Somethings" project, which you can find here.