Tobacco Sticks for the Garden Fence

It's been over 10 years since we first put up our garden fence using old tobacco sticks from a local farmer. They have withstood the test of time, kids, dogs, soccer balls and scrambling squirrels but recently many were looking a little worse for wear.  So again I located another farmer and secured around 700 of these useful sticks to replenish our current fence and build an additional one next to the Art Studio.

I think of it as Green Building :-). After all, I have given new life to virtually antique wood..left over from North Carolina's tobacco past. Humbling to think that there was a time when these tobacco sticks were an indispensable piece of harvesting equipment on so many farms. Times really do change!
We picked a frigidly cold day last week to go and get them.   Our van was full of art equipment so rather than unload all of it,  we drove our two Hondas up to the farmer's barn and loaded them both down with the sticks that he had. I showed him the photo I had snapped of our fence and he was impressed
"Never thought about doing that," he said. "We've been using them as kindling to start fires."

These sturdy, handmade 4 ft long "sticks" were used to hang (string) tobacco from and then laid across the beams in the tobacco barns to dry. I think that virtually anyone in NC over 35 who was born and raised here, "worked tobacco" as a youngster. It was then the money crop of the State and the way to make good money as a teenager back in the day. It was apparently dirty, sweaty, back breaking work (and I wonder if a teen today would even consider it? :-)  )

Ah well, to each his own! Below is the winter photo of a section of the garden fence with tobacco sticks along with a spring one of the Seven Sisters roses in bloom! And you thought artists only painted!

Winter View of garden fence section with tobacco sticks

Blooming Roses on the tobacco stick fence

The Art Studio in Spring

Well I went on and on in our newsletter about our many blooming old roses at our studio! So I have included some of my favorite photos!
This is a view of the studio from the garden. The fencing, did you notice, are old tobacco sticks!
To really enjoy our spring garden and see more of our studio, click here!

Wild Roses and Artist inspiration

I am not, by nature, a landscape painter. Odd, huh? You would think that an artist would paint pretty much anything and in one respect, I do. But my artistic heart is on subjects...people and animals especially. Or a tree. Now THAT I can get a grasp on-a big, impressive or gnarled subject! But a landscape? No. To look at a beautiful landscape has always held a wonder for me. The oceans, the the pastoral farm settings, a pasture with cows, the mountains of the Blue Ridge. But to paint those scenes? Actually.....no. Sometimes I look at all the green in all its variations and think "No, I don't wish to paint each leaf." But of course I miss the point don't I? In memory, one remembers with a softness, not with clarity and that is probably why the Impressionist movement has such a following. I am quite fond of my husband's work as he loves his landscapes and perhaps has the essence of what I just said-light, color and generalities to combine into a beautiful coherent scene. But having said all that, maybe, just maybe, after wandering through my yard yesterday and looking at the once a year amazing burst of colors from the wold and heirloom roses that surround the house, studio and pastures, I might be persuaded to pick up a brush and boldly go where I usually don't go! Into a landscape!