A woman of the south, my mother moved “up north” to Glen Ellyn, a small village on the Aurora & Elgin railway line (the “Roarin’ Elgin”) 30 miles west of Chicago, with my father in 1945.  In her mid-20s, she’d lived as a pilot’s wife for a couple of years at bases in Edmonton, Canada, […]

Steve often uses materials from abandoned industrial sites. The seeds of the pinecone are paddles that churn molten iron at the Bethlehem steel mills. The core is the inner casing of a curved pipe. One of a few narrative works that Steve made in the 90s, the untitled “creature” stands atop a life-size tortoise and […]

When our nation faces a recession, it becomes receptive to the notion of gardening for both economic benefit and pleasure.  Imagine new vegetable gardens across the countrysides, in the suburbs and patched throughout the cities.  As we face food price hikes—despite relief in gas prices—and cancel big-ticket purchases and investments, we turn to our gardens […]

The sculptor Densaburo Oku, or “Dense” or “Mr. Oku”, in his workshop. He had already a distinguished career in Japan before coming to the US twenty years ago. He casts, molds and blows glass and works metal. We have ten fish by Densaburo Oku. The metal combines found and reworked parts, and the glass is […]

Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski

We published a first version of this light-hearted piece in early 1996 in our old ‘Burpee Home Gardener’ magazine.  However, I announced later that I was actually forming the Garden Party—and I did!  The Philadelphia Inquirer covered it and CBS radio interviewed me “on the street” in Chicago, where I attended a few small rallies […]

Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski Photo by Mary Kliwinski And above Butterfly Hill… Photo by Mary […]

“Bamboo” view from the south Photo by Kenneth Ek The artist, Steve Tobin, found unusually patterned scrap metal up near Reading. There used to be dozens of steel mills and hundreds of fabrication shops in southeastern PA, an embarrassment of riches to a sculptor. “Bamboo” view from the north Photo by Kenneth Ek I worked […]

Native Americans use this word to describe a tactic of absurd contrariness that conveys a ground level wisdom.  For instance, if a husband offends his wife, she may become “heyoka”.  When he’s hungry, she serves him a bowl of dirt; when he wishes to sleep, she noisily cleans the house; when he finally awakes, she […]

I just spent a long weekend attending a wedding in San Francisco at the Embarcadero Hyatt down near the water, the old Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge. The city rises up from there so I walked a lot—up to Chinatown, North Beach and over to the old Tenderloin, as well as along the Embarcadero, […]