Thursday's Testimony: "Loving the art in yourself and not yourself in the art . . "

The image posted above shows a sideway view of the trellis that Juan V built (in May of 2011), using bamboo stakes that I had left over from 2006, when I used them to manage a tomato plant that had gotten out of control. You may recall, dear reader, that in my posting, "Love thy Neighbor — but don't pull down your hedge", I not only discussed Juan's structure, but I also wrote about a terrace on a building two doors west of me, which is used by folks whose sole reason to go outside seems to be to pull up a chair and stare at my terrace, which often makes me feel vulnerable when tending to my garden. Their behavior was my motivation to put up an "urban hedge" — a bamboo trellis which will hopefully soon be filled with flowers from the  Honeysuckle Vines that are being trained to crawl on the trellis. In any event, I have received a heartfelt comment on that blog entry from D-Man, which reads, "Very nice garden!  I wish I could get privacy from those neighbors also. They just stare at me and smoke when I tend to my garden." D-Man is a young boy who lives in the building which is in between my building and the building that has the terrace where gawkers and smokers abide. He maintains a garden on a terrace one level below mine, and he is new to gardening.
It is very exciting for me to see his earnest  efforts as it reminds me of a quote from My Life in Art, a book by Constantin Stanslavski (a "pioneer" method acting teacher), which is "you must love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art . . . ".  Stanslavski was speaking to actors who loved themselves in the field of theatre rather than finding the theatre within themselves, but I think the quote applies to so many folks involved in a variety of pursuits, including gardening. So many gardeners that I know are more concerned with the outcome of their gardens than with the the nuances that come from nurturing of them; however, this is not the case with D-Man. A refreshing example of his demure can be seen in a You Tube video that he has produced which can be seen by clicking on this link: My little Pumpkin Plant: :DDDDD: ":DDDDD"


As for D-Man's concern about his privacy, I gave him my extra bamboo stakes so he could build a trellis, which he has done, as you can see in the photograph posted below.

I look forward to D-Man's progress both with his garden and his blog, My Little Pumpkin Plant.