handstories

In Seattle & thereabouts

    There are days when you just need soothing.  Stitching this silky moon from Jude was just that.  Like stitching water.  It grew into the tenth moon cabin block.

    Favorite fabrics, some took a while to find.  Somebody really needs to get some ducks in a row over here.  That pink cloth looks like it might be too much, but I'm hoping it will be balanced out once it's surrounded by other blocks.  Or it can come out later.

    A visit to the Bainbridge Art Museum...

    Upstairs, in the Sherry Grover Artists' Books room, there is an exhibit going on... "Every Day & Special Days".

    What a happy honor to be a part of it!

    And to share a space with so many wonderful works, including dear Velma.

    There has been some searching for my best Self .  She seems to be M.I.A. a lot lately.  It seems Moon and I are working hard to create many memories that we will hopefully laugh about some day.

    Also on Bainbridge Island is the beautiful Bloedel Reserve.

    Most of the photos I took were of water.

    I just love this willow.  It holds the memory of another willow, that held a memory of another willow for my mom.  All of the willows held/hold happy moments.

    The day ended with a beautiful ferry ride.

    Wishing you the bluest skies.

Here

    So it seems photos come and go now... me, too.

    Back to the murder nightmares, balanced with dreams of making salads and trying to host parties while having the house evaluated/judged by a stranger.

    If you have Netflix, do watch "My Octopus Teacher."  It's beautiful.  It brought back so many water memories.  (Including skinny dipping nights in the Pacific with a girlfriend back in college.)

    The "Rhythm" booklet has found a home, it is now a part of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Cynthia Sears Collection!  Inspired by Langston Hughes' wonderful book, The First Book of Rhythms, creating it was a meeting place of a love of books, language, cloth and stitching for me.

    Many of the techniques in Jude's workshops were used in the making- weaving, integrated applique, cloth layering, etc.  I'm full of gratitude to her, Velma and Catherine who have all had roles in guiding the way.  This community is a heart filling thing.

    There is a video of looking through the book over on Instagram, click HERE to see...  Also, you can click on the "Rhythms" category below to read old posts about the process, if you like.

Dreamy

         After watching the full moon rise the other night, there was a really good dream.  K. was surprised, and couldn't remember the last time that had happened.  He's right, they are usually murders and mayhem.  But this one was lovely, with an edge of sadness, but even that was ok.  I was a widow, and had made a tiny handmade paper book that was to be a gift for a new love, who was both a prisoner and the jailer at the same time.  I came to visit each day, sitting in a tiny cottage just outside and stitched while we talked and sometimes danced.  Once while turning slowly to the music, I wept, remembering my first husband.  There was a pregnancy, too.  We watched as the baby rolled and stretched in my belly.  During all of this there was wondering about what to put into the book... pressed leaves, paintings, poems?

    In the morning there was a little more work on the tiny book.        The next night's stories were of visiting Wes Anderson sets-  rooms with pink walls hung with pretty paintings and antlers... all the while trying to convince family members we weren't so different.        Then, in real life, but just as dreamy, came wonderful mail from Deb Lacativa.  This sky is just a bit of a length of cloth that holds so many stories waiting to be stitched, and I wish you could feel and see how silky and soft that moon cloth is.        And I am absolutely in love with this beautiful piece.  I just keep carrying it from place to place with me.

All Stitched Up

    This weekend was the opening reception for the "All Stitched Up" Book Arts Exhibition.  

    I'm very happy to have my "Rhythm" booklet included in this beautiful gathering of artists books "celebrating the work of book artists’ where stitching has become an integral part of the visual design... To stitch is to join together, to mend, or fasten as with stitches – to sew. To stitch is to bring together fabric, paper, wounds of the body, or cultural divides. Stitching can be an act of healing, hope, practicality, creativity, and revolution."

    I really appreciated and admired the creativity of the many artists who went outside of the traditional book shape...

    “Stitching the Forest Together” by Lucia Harrison

    "Trial By Fire" by Catherine Alice Michaelis

    "How a Bandage Works" by Lucy Childs.

    Really wished I could have flipped the pages of this one, "Embroidered Stories of Migration" by Ricardo Gomez, Angie Tamayo & the Jluchiyej Nichimetic Cooperative.

    The exhibit of over fifty books is lovely- in curation, display, and in the variety of medium, techniques and stories that each book holds.  It's an honor to be a part of it.

hills & waves

    Things are their usual end of the school year busy.  

    In spite of the supposed-to, should, could, meant-to-do's...I started this.    

    I'm not sure it will work, but it's worth a try.

    Five weeks until school's out . . .

    (The hill and a the thread of few trees were dyed by Deb, and that blue printed wave up top is by Blandina.)

books are so much easier than technology (or 16 yr. olds)

    "Quiet Prayers" was finished this morning, on what was a nice quiet day.  And then I asked Moon to help film the turning of it's pages.  Not being an octopus, I needed him to hold the camera.  And then it turned out I needed him to hold the iphone I use for instagramming (Blue's old phone, that is no longer a phone, but works with wifi), because camera video cannot be sent to iphones.  And then it turned out we needed to use Moon's phone, because it has better quality, not great, but better.  I got it up on instagram, he knew how to take the sound out (because the screaming neighborhood children drowned out the sweetly chirping birds), but for the life of us, we cannot get it onto this blog post.  And there was no way 16 year old Moon was going to do one more thing around any of this today, or that I was going to ask him.  

    So, if you'd like to see a blurry, badly cropped, dim video of pages flipping...I think, if you click HERE, you can.  Good luck.

and pages

         Working through technical difficulties today. This has been a different kind of a making for me. One that flowed almost instantly and by accident. Cloths that might somehow work together were put into a stack, to pack up for taking to jury duty, and suddenly there was a book-like thing. Pages to flip through. A scrap added, a surprise layer. Unexpected over-lappings. It felt like a meditation/prayer before it was recognized it as such.

    The other night, while visiting a friend, I was stitching the pages together and saw that it wasn’t going to work, some of the stitching was too high and being covered by the binding stitches. Took it apart and sat it next to me, looking at it now and then.

    The answer was too easy and took too long to realize.  

    Finally, “I know what to do.”

    She wondered about my process. “Just looking at it sitting there, you know?”

    "Yep.”        Sometimes I get so stuck in what I thought was going to happen.   

    Same friend, same evening, describing a friend changing plans on her, and how she flowed with the winds of it all…

    He had said, “Wow. You’re really ok with things just suddenly changing?”

    “What else am I going to do?” she replied.

    “Come join us in our crazy clinging panicking places,” I said.

pages of the same story

    Almost done, with this booklet, and with the trial.  Today will be the last day, hopefully.

    I wish I knew more about cloth.  The patched square is actually the same as the base, just the backside, how the weave creates two different stories is fascinating.  

    Now to put it all together, and then to think and feel about it all.

post-yesterday

    The first gift was having Blue come home for his spring break at midnight Friday night, and give the very first greeting for my new year.  

    Yesterday, we drove in pouring rain to see the last stop of the Fiber Fusion show.  

    It was nice to see both of my pieces near each other (top right and in the case.  Leslie Levenson's "Maple Tree" on the left).

    "Wanderlust" Booklet.

    "As It Is and Should Be"

    There was carrot cake.

    And stitching- appliquéing more stones, mostly from gifted cloth.

    They turned into pockets.

    With messages written inside.

    There is more to say about this- the gifts, pockets, messages . . . about gratitude and acceptance, and seeing Self.  I'm still working through it, trying to get clear.  

    There is sunshine today.

storming

    Oh, I don't know.  I pinned these onto one of the pages, stared at them off and on for a few days, and then began stitching them down.  Do you see that faint pink rose printed on the tulle?    

    And then it became an eye.  The golden wing like things are growing.  

    And now weather is a-coming, or is it a-going?  Will it be a squall or just a cloudburst?  Or, perhaps the calm that follows?

    We are back from the memorial for K's mom.  Overall, it was a big lovely celebration of a very full life.  It was strange and exhausting to see people from thirty years ago, most of them were exactly the same, and believed I was, too.  It would have taken too much energy to tell them otherwise.

    A few of us were talking about what we would like for our own passings.  If loved ones get together, laugh over some stories, sing "Ghost Riders In the Sky", and toss my ashes into the sea I will be a very happy soul.