RUNOFF FROM THE WELL | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 2

RUNOFF FROM THE WELL | SPECTATIN' and SPECULATIN' 2 bret harold hart VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/kTGUXSBmq3c?si=GV53hHWqI9117HA8 Why?, Whuffo?, and Howcum? are better community puzzles to solve in Life than Whodunnit?...., circuitously detailing the creation & subsequent 'devolution' of art, sculpture, plantscaping, & assemblage on our "Art Yard" since 2002..., while sitting in an old cemetery. 0:02 hi this is Brett um I'm 0:07 sitting sitting here near Patterson 0:10 Street with an interesting view and 0:14 uh it's a real nice 0:17 day feels like it's about 0:20 60 0:22 95 degrees right in that range there's a 0:26 real light bleed breeze that'll make the 0:28 flag wiggle but not 0:31 wave kind of 0:34 dance there's a few flags next to these 0:37 stones that are dancing around right now 0:43 and 0:45 [Music] 0:52 uh looks like there's a certain level of 0:55 respect here not seeing a lot of things 0:58 toppled i'm going to talk on the subject 1:01 of runoff from the well 1:08 and back 1:11 in I think it was 1:15 2003 after we'd purchased our house 1:18 first 1:19 house a real fixer upper not as bad as 1:23 the one in my video called fixer upper 1:26 certainly not that bad uh but it it it 1:30 really was uh it in in a whole variety 1:34 of ways 1:36 uh it was in need of tender loving hard 1:39 work and expense uh in order to get it 1:43 up to a place 1:45 where you could live in the 21st century 1:48 in it and these things have involved 1:51 roofing and you know getting rid of the 1:55 old iron pipes you know that were all 1:58 blistery and leaky uh getting the 2:03 electricity in the house grounded so 2:05 nobody got killed when they plugged in 2:07 their guitar amplifier or something and 2:11 um oh a host of other things you know 2:15 fixing eaves and gutters 2:18 and all that you know and cutting down a 2:21 mess of big bothersome trees that 2:24 basically kept the roof shady and 2:27 covered with leaves most of the time 2:28 which as most of us know doesn't work uh 2:33 you know that's when your insurance 2:34 company says "No that's your problem." 2:38 and um all that you know so anyways we 2:41 bought the house and I've been I'm still 2:43 working on it a lot less i'm old 2:46 everything I do makes me hurt 2:50 anymore i got such a dayong stretching 2:54 regimen you'd think I was you 2:57 know 2:58 freaking on that kung fu TV show just 3:02 you know my wife says she can hear she 3:04 can hear my neck pop from 5t away 3:08 anyways 3:10 um the well yeah so um after about two 3:14 summers I guess it was give or take 3:18 uh late spring summers and falls I had 3:22 uh realized that this property was just 3:27 a trove of art 3:29 supplies um it's been my motto for many 3:33 years or is it a motto or an ethos 3:37 um the Lord will provide art 3:42 supplies i believe that right now i 3:44 believe that I could walk a 3:48 circle of 50 yards around me just about 3:53 anywhere and gather up enough stuff to 3:55 make a pretty cool assemblage 3:58 uh that would stick to a certain theme 4:00 uh I might even run across somebody 4:03 throwing out a 4:04 stretched print big old painting 4:09 looking print made in China that they 4:12 paid a hundred bucks for just sitting by 4:14 the road they'll take it home paint over 4:17 it with white paint and bam free canvas 4:20 um but anyways 4:22 uh yeah the Lord will provide art 4:24 supplies 4:27 so one of the very first times I was 4:29 mowing my back property and and what I 4:32 want to say is that it's about 20 steps 4:34 from the porch to the sidewalk out front 4:37 but it's 4:39 about 200 steps to get to the back of 4:43 the property i got about a half acre 4:45 back there and so I fenced it all in my 4:48 son and I fenced it all in 4:51 um and you put posts in and put some 4:55 good 4:58 tall with a good shelf life kind of wire 5:01 fence up and uh you know wrapped it up 5:05 so we could give our dog dogs over this 5:08 the years it's been about five of them 5:11 uh place to run around and have a good 5:13 time but anyways um I decided because I 5:17 showed up I got a job first at a print 5:20 shop running their computer room they 5:23 did that and back then they were doing 5:26 it on these giant 2-in thick tapes on 5:30 spools that were super noisy and I'd 5:33 have to degas them and stuff like that 5:35 it was just a bunch of fun um I got 5:38 hired by a guy that used to be in the 5:39 Navy like I was he was a he was in this 5:41 he was a submarine guy and uh he hired 5:44 me pretty much on the basis of being a 5:46 veteran and I worked for him until I 5:48 started teaching maybe 6 months later i 5:51 really appreciate that uh shout out to 5:54 Jeff 5:55 Lawson and 5:57 uh and then I started teaching and right 6:00 away people would walk into my classroom 6:03 and say "Is this the art room?" I'm like 6:04 "No this is an English room." "Oh looks 6:07 like an art room." 6:09 I'm like well you know I I I for for the 6:12 ones that best express what they know by 6:15 drawing something I give them ways to 6:18 let me know that they know 6:19 it and sometimes they look cool and so 6:22 we put them up and uh then people you 6:26 know and then I got Oh yeah and then I 6:27 got a a small little art show at the 6:31 public library and after that uh all of 6:34 a sudden um you know people love novelty 6:38 and so here's this guy that moved in 6:39 from out of state he does art he's weird 6:42 and he plays guitar and writes songs and 6:43 stuff and he's married to this woman and 6:47 you know they got the step kids with the 6:50 new baby thing going on and it's all 6:52 just a bunch of fascinating stuff to 6:54 gossip about and 6:57 um that's a paradigm I've watched repeat 7:00 about 25,000 7:03 times thousand times a year since I 7:05 moved here but um anyways uh yeah so um 7:11 you know so arts artsy people we were 7:13 meeting artsy people and I thought well 7:15 you know what let let's do a little one 7:18 day Saturday outdoor art show here on on 7:22 our property in the backyard you know 7:24 like zone it out tell people you got to 7:26 bring your own table and you know how 7:29 much room you need and uh we had a 7:32 really cool gathering of a number of 7:35 artists that day 7:37 um and uh I won't I won't the only one 7:41 I'm going to name is uh Ivon 7:43 Eastston and um who was a dear friend of 7:47 ours uh my wife was the first person she 7:51 called when she had the stroke that 7:52 killed her um lovely gal uh and some 7:56 other people local artists and 8:01 uh oh yeah and there's this one guy they 8:03 call Fish from Ridgeway Virginia who's a 8:06 welder but he uses his welding equipment 8:08 to make these crazy sculptures he's got 8:10 a dinosaur in his front yard and and he 8:13 came down with his motorcycle he's got 8:15 this amazing Harley and it has I I I 8:18 can't even describe it except to say 8:20 it's otherworldly 8:22 um with all kinds of biker iconography 8:26 all over it you know skulls and stuff 8:28 that he's welded about anywhere you 8:30 could weld something it's beautiful 8:33 really is makes you worry about going to 8:35 hell really to look at the thing like 8:37 Lord have mercy is that what the demons 8:38 ride over your head with and um anyways 8:42 he had that bike there too oh the 8:44 children that came loved it they just 8:46 flocked over to that thing you know and 8:49 um looking at the art and stuff we ended 8:51 up having a sudden rainstorm land on us 8:54 that day so we must have been doing 8:56 something right um that the powers of 9:00 the air come down against us quickly but 9:02 fortunately we actually had tarps and 9:04 plastic and stuff just in case it 9:06 happened and I don't know how many 9:08 people might have got some little water 9:10 on something of theirs i hope it didn't 9:12 do any damage but otherwise it was a 9:14 pretty good day and 9:19 um I don't know maybe about 6 months 9:22 before that show which was called fear 9:24 not with an exclamation point um I made 9:28 a sign and put it right over the arch 9:30 that goes toward the backyard where the 9:32 steps go down that said the well and I 9:35 called it the well because every time I 9:37 dipped into that yard I I was able to 9:39 pull out art supplies uh I remember 9:42 mowing the backyard one of the first 9:43 times I was mowing the backyard the 9:45 blade hit something i'm like "Oh Lord 9:48 hard enough to make the engine stop I 9:51 pull it back and there's a piece of pipe 9:53 sticking out of the ground." I'm like 9:55 "Oh man." And I get pulling on it cuz 10:00 sometimes you know you just pull it 10:01 right out i get pulling on it and it's 10:04 coming up laterally like in a line so 10:07 this is a this is like the elbow i've 10:10 got my hands on this this this little 10:12 2-in elbow on the end of a that's 10:15 screwed onto a longer straight pipe and 10:17 then I'm watching the the ground come up 10:19 as I pull it and I pull it and I pull it 10:21 and pull out comes about a 12t long pipe 10:23 with an elbow on the end of it and I'm 10:26 thinking what in the and as I'm 10:29 wondering why you know I can I guess I 10:31 could imagine somebody dropping a pipe 10:34 in their backyard but anyways 10:37 um but I noticed that when I pulled that 10:40 one up way down at the other end there 10:41 was a spot where it kind of hung up a 10:43 little bit and then came out and I 10:45 looked and I there was another piece of 10:47 pipe that had a little bit been 10:49 unearthed when I pulled the first one up 10:51 and I'm like what in the world and so I 10:54 spent I stopped cutting grass that day i 10:57 just started walking around looking for 11:00 pipes that the lawn mower might hit and 11:01 finding them and honest to God I found 11:05 well over a ton of pipes 11:10 conduit even I I think scaffolding 11:15 uh you know lengths of parts of 11:17 scaffolding all kinds of metal all up 11:21 under the ground out in the 11:23 backyard and I got them out of there as 11:25 best I could and leveled it back off and 11:27 stuff and 11:29 um and then I 11:32 uh a lot of them don't exist anymore but 11:34 I but I use those materials to make um 11:38 sculptures that had some element of 11:40 balance or balancing in them you know 11:42 like you think about Libra the 11:44 constellation where I 11:46 would you know use the joints and welds 11:51 and bends and so forth in the pieces of 11:54 metal that I found to make things that 11:56 would stand upright often starting with 11:58 a tripod of some sort that might be 15 12:01 feet tall and and then find ways to 12:04 attach other things to it without using 12:06 any kind of welding or wire to make that 12:08 happen and when I could get something to 12:12 a place where I I thought I liked the 12:14 way it was looking then I'd come in with 12:16 the wire uh when I when it was able to 12:19 stand by itself without anything falling 12:22 off um and some of them were really big 12:27 um I'd go in and kind of hard literally 12:30 um hard wire with wire uh at the various 12:33 places where pipes intersected and a lot 12:35 of these things stood 12:37 for 15 years there's about two of them 12:39 that are still 12:42 up everything's finite down here ain't 12:44 it um but I decided I was going to call 12:46 that place the well and it still is you 12:50 know it's it's amazing 12:52 um in so many ways this property has 12:56 provided us 12:57 with good stuff you know not memories um 13:02 you know the perfect tree to hang a tire 13:05 swing from um a very good place to build 13:10 an outdoor enclosure for a pet 13:13 um a very large space 13:17 for children to run around safely and 13:21 have a lot of room to have a good time 13:23 where there's very little danger you 13:25 know where there's nothing you might 13:28 that's sharp that you might fall on that 13:32 you know wasn't growing there 13:36 um you know and you know 13:40 uh the street that we live on I was 13:43 driving down it a long time ago 20 26 25 13:47 something years ago 13:49 and somebody was throwing out a long 13:52 yellow fiberglass slide they sell these 13:55 at you know the big you know Lowe's and 13:59 Home Depot uh where you can buy things 14:01 to make swing sets and they're expensive 14:05 right and there it was just laying out 14:08 there with a pile of other stuff for the 14:10 big clamp truck to grab and take to the 14:12 line landfill and I'm like you got to be 14:14 kidding me i grabbed that and threw it 14:16 in the back of my truck and brought it 14:18 home and took it out there and attached 14:19 it to the same tree that the rope swings 14:21 on and the tire swing and um it's still 14:26 there to this day our kids could use it 14:29 our grand able to use it 14:32 um the well every time I dip in there 14:36 sometimes when I'm bored I'll just go 14:37 out there and walk around and it'll 14:39 provide me with something to do because 14:42 a big limbs come down you know one of 14:46 them big limbs that's got too much 14:48 English ivy or Virginia creeper on it it 14:51 just weighs the tree down to the place 14:54 where the old branch just comes right 14:55 off and uh sometimes I find a place 14:59 where I have to fix the fence 15:02 up sometimes it's connected to a branch 15:04 coming down and 15:08 uh sometimes I chance upon something 15:11 that I have not seen in years and years 15:14 and 15:15 years you know like the remnant of a 15:18 sculpture that has 15:20 just decomposed you know it was made out 15:23 of wood or something organic and it just 15:26 kind of give out like we do and I'm not 15:31 real precious about the stuff I make 15:33 people like "Dude you use a stapler to 15:35 put your paintings on the wall." I'm 15:37 like 15:39 "Yeah you're going to lose your mind 15:41 about a couple of little tiny pin pricks 15:45 in a 15:46 canvas why that that's not what you're 15:50 supposed to be looking at stupid." 15:52 Um but anyways 15:55 uh I'll find a remnant of something i 15:59 was out there yesterday chucking 16:01 branches you know over into the branch 16:03 zone a lot of bamboos come down and 16:08 uh I look down I'm like well damn and 16:11 right there I see a black leather shoe 16:15 and I realized that it's it's a band 16:18 shoe from when my youngest girl was in 16:20 band playing horns and 16:26 um the uh there was a year 16:29 that the county gave them a big hunk of 16:33 money to replace the band the marching 16:35 band uniforms which 16:37 were really really long past their shelf 16:42 life and had certainly not been dried 16:45 cleaned often enough okay I'm just I'm 16:47 going to leave it right there okay think 16:49 about marching bands in the hot summer 16:51 sun and um anyways uh the the county one 16:57 year this happened one year it was an 16:59 arts win for high school bands uh gave 17:02 the high school uh a big chunk of money 17:04 to replace their uniforms and the band 17:06 the director of the band was like "Hey 17:08 any of you guys want some of this 17:10 stuff?" Because I I suppose and I don't 17:12 blame him he didn't want to have to 17:13 carry it to the dumpster himself you 17:16 know my god this band 17:19 At one point I think we had 80 kids in 17:21 it when we were on the band boosters 17:23 back then it was right big um it was it 17:27 was really something at any rate 17:31 uh my daughter having been 17:33 raised by a daddy who was always saying 17:37 "The Lord will provide our supplies," 17:40 said "I'll take some of that." 17:43 She might have been thinking about 17:46 me actually I'm pretty sure she was 17:49 thinking about me because there's much 17:51 of it that she that she still has let me 17:54 put it that way but uh my daughter came 17:57 home with a whole mess of band uniforms 17:59 and them funny hats with the pointy 18:00 feather things sticking out the top and 18:03 all kinds of this cheap sort of military 18:06 looking uh you know little eagles with 18:09 flags and stuff like that that would 18:11 attach to the fronts of the hats and u 18:14 you know little fake brass things and so 18:17 forth i cut my finger on a couple of 18:20 them when I was going through them 18:23 you know the well the well the well is a 18:26 place that just where art supplies show 18:28 up and uh it's pretty cool we actually 18:32 were able to give those band uniforms to 18:34 u a local uh theater group uh you know 18:38 that does plays and stuff uh I can 18:41 imagine there's plenty of context where 18:43 something like that might come come in 18:44 handy you know like if you were doing a 18:46 version of the Nutcracker around 18:47 Christmas time you could probably whip 18:49 out a couple them uniforms or if you 18:51 were doing the Wizard of Oz you know you 18:53 could have the the guy at the gate 18:55 wearing one of them or something like 18:56 that um so anyways yeah so we were able 18:59 to take a thing that came to us at no 19:01 cost and pass it right along to somebody 19:03 who could use it uh eight years later 19:06 and and all it cost us was having a 19:10 place to put it until that happened i 19:12 think that's the best use of storage you 19:14 know I think a lot of folks pay for a 19:16 storage space in order to you know it's 19:18 kind of like that thing in the Bible 19:19 where it talks about you know I got to 19:21 build another barn for all my 19:26 stuff how'd that work out for you boy 19:29 you know I don't mind storing stuff if 19:31 it's got a place to go but at some 19:33 point me and Tana have been downsizing 19:36 for years we just give stuff away you 19:39 know I don't even have a recording 19:41 studio anymore i I just I gave it to one 19:44 of my girls why well because she was 19:46 wanting to record music and actually 19:48 trying to do it and didn't have the 19:50 tools and so I'm like well it just seems 19:53 natural that I'd pass my my recording 19:55 equipment along 19:57 to one of my own kids who's carrying 20:00 that forward see now that's not 20:02 generational sin that's 20:06 generational creativity i like that you 20:09 know we were created by a creator who's 20:12 creative and if we're made in his image 20:15 I guess we're supposed to be creative 20:16 too you know in some way some way art 20:22 cooking building things 20:25 whatever you know leave something behind 20:27 that is better than what was there 20:29 before you got 20:30 there so anyways runoff from the well 20:34 the runoff from the well is what happens 20:36 when we reach in and yank out a bucket 20:39 full of art supplies and 20:42 uh turn them into things um 20:46 or set them aside for the future use 20:50 that will be revealed about them you 20:53 know it's still going on i was just out 20:55 there today and I realized that the yard 20:57 back there actually looks bigger and 20:59 brighter kind of right now this year for 21:01 some reason and it occurs to me that 21:04 it's because the tree trunks are getting 21:07 taller and the shady stuff is in a 21:10 different spot with cast 21:12 shade that like I was able to do when we 21:15 first bought the place I can once again 21:18 drive in from the back with my truck and 21:20 get within 20 ft of the house um because 21:24 the trees are big enough that I can get 21:25 up under them again uh which is kind of 21:28 nice i mean Lord we have a pine tree out 21:30 there that 21:32 uh our grand one of our uh 21:34 granddaughters well we only got one 21:36 granddaughter we got a great 21:37 granddaughter um our granddaughter 21:39 brought home this from a I think it was 21:42 vacation Bible school she came home with 21:44 a Dixie cup with a little tiny pine tree 21:48 seedling growing up in it that was about 21:50 4 in tall a really long time ago 20 some 21:54 years ago she gave him she says "You 21:56 want to you want to plant this out there 21:58 in the back can we plant this out there 21:59 in the back?" I said "Come on now." And 22:01 we went out back next to where the 22:03 trampoline used to be and uh stuck it in 22:07 the ground you know it was it had a kind 22:10 of a it was in a sort of an enclosure 22:12 that I would never mow in there so it 22:15 was safe by God that thing that that 22:19 thing is taller than this weird obelisk 22:21 that I'm standing next to uh right 22:26 now i reckon that tree is probably about 22:29 25 ft tall now so some things get bigger 22:33 like the Bible it gets bigger every time 22:35 you open it and some things aren't 22:39 supposed to get bigger and we're 22:41 supposed to give them away and 22:43 uh so anyways whatever your well is I 22:47 hope you're scooping good stuff out of 22:48 it and 22:50 sending that good 22:53 stuff where you know it ought to go.