in the new year?

And what’s wrong with pears anyway?

I’ve never understood why Pear-shaped means something’s gone wrong.

Pears are beautiful.

They’re smooth, balanced and voluptuous. They are nature’s art – alive and juicy. They even stand up by themselves. Perhaps they need to stand up for themselves, along with their pear supporters.

Pear-shaped World 2
Sally Swain © original art
2017 vision

What do you think is a

good substitute term for Pear-shaped?

How about ‘Chair-shaped’? (It rhymes). ‘Prickle-shaped’ or ‘Shoebox-shaped’? (more angular). Let us know your ideas.

A couple of years ago, I made a Dreaming Mandala from fabric, paint and beads. An apple emerged for each project I wished to bring to fruition.

Fruity Dreaming Mandala
Sally Swain © original art
vision for the year

As I begin to awaken to 2017, I stretch my muddy old limbs. I feel not too fresh, if truth be told. I wonder if you too need time and space to recover from personal, social, spiritual and political 2016 whirlwinds.

Over several days, as 2016 ripened into 2017, I indulged in creative play with my sister and niece. The first day, we perched on the salty boardwalk of an inner west sea pool. I led a guided meditation. We mulled over the year that was. We dreamed, wrote and drew into our possibilities.

The next day we played with miniatures and cloth.

The day after, we sculpted with air-drying clay, beads, wire and feathers.

Pear-shaped World 1
Sally Swain © original art
2017 vision

Fruit reared its juicy head and body again. Apples of previous years morphed into 2017 pears. Pears themselves might be beauteous, but many elements of my sculptures were dented, frayed or misshapen. That’d be right, I thought, that imperfection. Faded fabric, a broken candle, a dusty swan, my muddy limbs, this creaky world.

I began to delight in deliberate denting and distorting. A fingernail bite here; a squishy blob there. Small beads fell out and away from the clay.

Life is not perfect.

Even my vision for the new year is a bit bruised. And that’s OK.

 

The good news is

that the dented, frayed and misshapen elements

joined to make a cohesive whole.

I dressed the imperfections with jewels. I celebrated the sacred squishiness. No false, saccharine new year’s vision for me. Just because I wake to a new year doesn’t mean I have a blank slate or a symmetrical piece of fruit. I acknowledge age and continuity. I create a genuine, authentic, late middle-aged embodiment of the desire to bear fruit.

Then I painted my pears. Bronze, with smears of greeny black patina.

Pear-shaped world 2
Sally Swain © original art
2017 vision

Pear-Shaped World 3
Sally Swain © original art
2017 vision
I notice the pear nest starts to look like a boat

Let’s be wabi-sabi.

(see link if you’re unsure of wabi-sabi meaning)

Let’s embrace the dented, frayed and forgotten. Let’s reclaim the shape of the pear and sail off into new lands, carrying with us what matters from the Old World.