Moki Cherry

 The ICA are holding a wonderful exhibition of the work of Moki Cherry which closes on Sunday 3rd September 2023. This has been co-curated by her granddaughter Naima Karlsson. The exhibition especially benefits from being seen in the flesh. I went along with my old pal Sacha.

The mood of these works is playfully organic. Although Moki was a skilled pattern cutter, free reign is given to her enchanting child-like style. In that sense the work is of a kin with her husband the musician Don Cherry’s own naturally unfettered improvisation, itself rarely abrasive or ugly, often straying back and forth between comforting jazz tropes and extemporised flights into freedom. I swear I hear a lot of Vince Guaraldi (via the Snoopy soundtracks) in Don’s piano work.

I couldn’t resist posing under this tapestry which was used on the actually not-so-great “Hear & Now” LP. Funnily enough this LP also cropped up in the relatively recent Tantra exhibition at the British Museum.

Moki’s beautiful tapestries were, for a number of years, fixtures on Don’s albums covers. We wondered, rather sadly, what happened to the relationship between Don and Moki in the end.

If you have time please watch this vintage documentary to get the feeling of their life together in Sweden. I used a small excerpt from it, of the team all reciting the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra, in one of my Retreat videos.

An exquisite drawing. There’s much evidence of both their fascination with Indian music. He wasn’t one of the main disciples, but Don was a student of Pandit Pran Nath’s at one point. Moki herself played Tambura pictured here.

Again with the Tibetan Buddhism. Tara, or Green Tara, is alongside Chenrezig the key Tibetan deity. Tibetan men identify with Chenrezig, the women with Tara.

Moki is a perfect figure for today’s revision of female artists. Equality here means just that; equality between different races, genders, even generations.

Some of Moki’s videos were playing on a loop. Here’s a fleeting shot of her Chenrezig tapestry.

Later the same evening that I visited there was a concert by the improvisor and percussionist Kahil El’Zabar. El’Zabar’s background was with the Chicago organisation AACM. The hall was decked with Moki’s tapestries.

This was an excellent concert. Kahil El’Zabar conducted the “orchestra” – by sonic queues and gestures, guiding what was more a free-ranging groove than the skronk traditionally associated with improvisation. In some sections it reminded me of CAN at their quietest and most rapturous. It was a thrill to see Neneh Cherry providing background vocals, the whole exhibition and concert somehow having a family feel. It was as though the whole diverse audience were being welcomed into their Cherry family. Thank you, Naima. Thank you, Moki.

Epic Melon Fail

 It all started so well in April. And for a while I was convinced that my cunning plan to grow melons in my study was going to work.

23rd May 2023.

June 25th 2023.

When the flowers showed, and indoors in the absence of insects, I thought I would have a go at pollinating the plant myself.

I tried to identify male from female flowers, once I’d found what I thought was a male flower, I stripped its petals away to expose its pistil, and jammed it into the female one. Fascinating that some of the flowers are bisexual!

What I guessed was a male flower with its petals removed.

This was a really hopeless shot in the dark. It was really hard to tell which gender was which, and obviously there was no indication that what I’d done was correct. No visible orgasm for instance! Right there I gained yet more respect for the work of insects in pollination.

Insemination unlikely.

1st July 2023.

Then at the start of July I started to notice a mould on the leaves. I tried spraying the plant with a very mild solution of bicarbonate of soda – which is supposed to help. However, jammed up against the window it was hard to get at all the leaves. The problem is apparently lack of airflow but there could be other reasons why the mould had spread.

It was quite sad seeing this mould spread so I decided that, given that the roof garden area is very warm, and because central London is a concrete heat island, there might be a chance that the plant would survive outdoors. I reasoned I would be able to give it a proper spray outside also, and that might help.

I very carefully took it down and transported it outside. I had done the same thing last summer with a tomato plant I started in my study (until it became too unruly), and that had worked very well, so I reasoned I stood a good chance of making this work.

At first it looked pretty good. And I was delighted to see some hover flies working the melon’s flowers. Somehow, then, it might stand a chance of being pollinated and therefore bearing fruit.

15th July 2023.

However, recently it started to look in very poor health.

Some of these leaves look particularly unwell. Others I guess less so. But it seems highly unlikely these three plants, sown so lovingly and with so much hope for their future, are going to bear fruit. Sick veg for real.

Nigella

 My son Sam’s biology teacher gave him some Nigella seeds. I sowed them in October 2022 over where I had previously grown Buckwheat. The Buckwheat, which is leguminous and puts nitrogen back into the soil, was with a view to restoring the container to use. Before the Buckwheat I had grown Broad Beans, itself also leguminous.

Over the past three years I haven’t dug up any containers or pots. This has been to see whether the no dig principles work in this context. I have never pulled old plants out by the roots (unless they have been Beetroot or Carrots!), only cut them off at the base of the stem, and have just dressed over the previous patch with some compost.

Over the course of a season the soil level subsides. This is partly owing to compaction through gravity but is also because the plants’ growth is the soil’s output of matter, of carbon. So it does make some room for compost to be layered on top. So far this has worked fine for me.

In January 2023 I could see some slight signs of growth, but really I thought these were weeds, or possibly the Buckwheat growing back. I’m not expert enough to identify plants at this size.

These were taken in March and April. I was excited about the growth, but was still pretty sure that this was a weed or the Buckwheat growing back (itself sometimes viewed as a weed!).

By mid May the growth was looking luscious and I was beginning to be hopeful that I’d had some success with the Nigella seeds.

Then it became clear from their alien bulbous heads and magnificent flowers that this was Nigella and that the experiment had worked.

These two images below taken on my phone through a magnifying glass I got for my birthday. There’s a pretty chromatic aberration and a lovely background blur from the shallow focus. The architecture of these flowers is just exquisite.

In the first week of June things really took off. There is some kind of ecstasy at this time of year. Indeed, in the period leading up to the summer solstice on June 21st one’s garden is truly magnificent. Thereafter the promise of the summer feels like it is ebbing away quite dramatically.

Before I gardened, I definitely got the feeling of summer as being a longer phenomenon. It’s interesting how the practice connects you to the seasons. In London it might still be hot, giving the sense of a perpetuating season, but the reality is different.

I’m still planting new seeds though now directly outdoors: Rudbeckia, Hyssop, Buckwheat, Lady Di Beans, Courgette, Lettuce, Leeks. But this maybe with a view to hopefully squeezing a crop in before the end of the year and expecting less growth.

This was taken on the 8th June – not a great shot but shows the full flowering.

And this on 21st June at the solstice. As you can see all the petals have fallen away.

With the flowers giving up the ghost I got a bit more relaxed about the cats wanting to wander in the bed. Here’s the Grey Cat enjoying herself. I love her expression in the second photo: “I am not here. You can not see me!”

At the start of July, I cut the flowers and hung them to dry in my study window. The day before yesterday I noticed that the seeds had started to drop from the heads onto the window-ledge.

This morning, I put the whole bouquet in a large, clear, plastic bin bag and shook it gently. Then I decanted the seeds into a jam jar.

Nigella Sativa, to give it its fancy name, is an ornamental flower but its seed is also used a spice (sometimes called Black Caraway or Black Cumin) and is also implemented in traditional medicine systems, Unani and Tibb, Ayurveda and Siddha. In this sense it’s also a crop. I will probably try eating some, maybe as a spice on some of carrots, and then sow the rest in the autumn.

With thanks to Julie.