Other Worlds - The Flipside of the Leaf

Obverse Reverse

This is a medal I made a year or so ago - i think in 2007 as a matter of fact.

I am posting it today because I did not want to leave you with such a sad thought in the shape of that poor little changeling pushed out of his nest and the bosom of his family. So I cast about (forgive the pun) for something a little bit more uplifting for the weekend

This medal is a little whimsy.

I used to have a garden in my last house and I delighted in filling it with plants and flowers with big lush foliage. I especially like the herbaceous type that dies down in the autumn, leaving nothing but straw-like twigs and brown leaves.

It is true - I am a bit of a lazy gardener. Loving the planting of new things, but not so good on maintenance. But that is the beauty of herbaceous plants - they sort of take care of themselves and are new every spring.

Please do not think I have gone off the point again!

Well, one of my methods of clearing up was to put all the trimmings and old leaves right back underneath the shrubs and bushes to let them rot down. Now, in one way that might be seen as lazy because it meant that i did not have to bag the waste and put it in the bin*, but on the other hand it provided wonderful mulch for the plants, keeping a lot of weeds down or at least weakened. Secondly it provided wonderful cover for beetles and centipedes to scurry around out of sight and out of the midday sun. Thirdly it was soooooo irresistible to blackbirds and robins. The minute my back was turned they would be in there, under the shrubs picking and pulling away, hunting for all those tasty beetles and centipedes. So I thought it was a wonderful solution that encouraged all this extra wildlife in my garden. And I did have more birds than most of the other gardens in our terrace because I also had lots of hiding places and lots of plants with seeds and aphids. A very natural garden.

Are you still with me? - I am not off the point even though you think I am rambling.

The point is this:

When I was kneeling down in my garden, sweeping all those bits of twigs and leaves into the dark shady places beneath the shrubs i was on a different level. Usually, we grown-ups view a garden from a height - in my case - my eyes are at a level of approximately 5'2" (i worked this out by deducting 5" for my forehead from my overall height of 5'7") So that is the height I view from (I admit that was a bit of a ramble). But when I get down and dirty in the undergrowth a whole new world and perspective open up to me. This is what gave me the idea for this medal. You never really know what is going on in the undergrowth - it is a whole 'Other World'. So when you pick up the medal, that looks like a rather nice green leaf - cut into a circle - and you turn it over in your hand, suddenly you are seeing things from a different perspective and lo and behold, there beneath the leaf is a strange sort of worm. This is a sort of celtic-y worm because of course it was an Irish garden. Of course - I have made it a WHOLE other world :-)

i hope my description made you smile.

So now, dear art lovers, I wish you all a wonderful weekend and a wonderful week, as I will be away - in Spain yippee! For a bit of a holiday. I won't have my computer or access to internet very easily so will not be making any new postings until i get back next weekend. If I am not too groggy on Sunday I will let you know how I got on.

*You might wonder why I did not have a compost heap. Well I did for a while, but very honestly I have never quite got the hang of making compost and always ended up with either a pile of dry rubbish in the corner, or one of those green, slimy, evil smelling heaps that never seemed to become anything useable. Also it was a very small garden, so it was hard to hide it. When I decided to tidy up to sell the house I did away with it altogether - leaving me with that very real problem of how to get rid of garden waste responsibly.