At an Edge, Reporting Back

Jacob and I like Yo-Yo Mah's saying:  The job of the artist is to travel to the edge and report back.  Today Jacob took us to an edge that is actually running through our town but deeply hidden, sort of like an underground drainage system.  He had spent some time looking at freight trains in a railroad yard in the old industrial district down by the river (today known as the River Arts District).  He wanted to go back down there and try to get some shots of trains from above.  Here are two quick, quick sketches of him climbing up a train car to see what he could see.  Soon a train man showed up and very nicely told us we couldn't actually hang out in the train yard;  then he suggested some other places where we might get some good train shots.

As we were walking to the car to drive over to a bridge the man had suggested, I spied a hair weave lying in a gutter.  It looked like it had just been flung out of a car.  This was an edge for me, having never seen a hair weave.  Jacob said he sees hair weaves flying around the cafeteria in his high school whenever there are girl fights during lunch, so it wasn't new to him.

Above the hair weave is a quick drawing of a little shrine that we found down by a very old train bridge that goes over the river.  A cross was firmly attached to a pillar of the bridge.  The word "Festus" was carved and painted on the crossbar.  This bridge was a fringy place for both of us.  My drawing on the right shows a bit of the graffiti that covers the underpinnings of the bridge.  The pillars are rather ornate.  People were sleeping in tents under parts of the bridge, so we didn't venture very far.  Jacob finally got some shots that he liked of the bridge from this vantage point.  No trains though.

After I got home I made my favorite lunch, black beans and rice on a bed of fresh garden greens and topped with chopped chives, lemon juice, Tamari, and olive oil.  My friend Sue gave me this recipe may years ago and told me it was macrobioticly balanced.  I don't know enough about macrobiotics to understand this concept, but I do love the dish, and it's super easy to make.  It makes you feel so good after you eat it!  It's on one of my evil eye plates.