handstories

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.

still Tuesday (I think)

    The pen was found, so pages are being labeled.  Now I'm wondering if I should mess with it more by adding bits of the stories of each thing?

    The start of today's page, Deb's thread.

    Another book, the first one I made, is open next to me as a place to test paints, practice writing, doodle (this one was one of Carla Sonheim's one-liner exercises).

    This morning I stood looking at the mailbox, trying to remember, "Did anyone get the mail yesterday?  Or was yesterday Sunday?  What day IS it?"  While trying to answer my own questions, it finally occurred to me to just open the mailbox and see. 

    The studio table is overflowing.  Things are precariously balanced atop each other- paints, books with painting that needs to dry, thread, cloth, to-do lists, pens, brushes, snacks...  

    This is how things go in our corner of the world.  (FYI- no one had emptied the mailbox yesterday.)

    Two-hundred-eighty squares (69%) finished, 128 to go.

    There was some spinning this week.  A little each day.  It's been SO long, so long that there were spider webs all over it.  It feels good to be at it again.

    And a piece was almost finished.  It's about all of this- how things might be, and maybe, just hopefully maybe, how things really are at the root of it all.

Rosee part 5:

    "I forgot to tell you about moving Tablespoon to the Dude Ranch in the pine hills. I got lonesome for him and his daily bath.

    Back in the summer of '34 when everything burned up in the drought, all the other horses had sore backs so Bill Hatch asked if he could use Tablespoon to ride circle. When they got back he was all a foam of sweat and they were afraid I’d give them hell for overriding him, so they sneaked him down to the pond and scrubbed him down clean before they turned him out where I might see him.

    Every time they turned him out in that pasture after that he’d go to the pond and climb in and give himself a bath.  Also he’d round up all the other horses and drive them into the corral till they finally had to put him in another pasture all by himself.  Anyway I drove to the ranch and rode him 13 miles to Ostendorfs and put him in their barn.  Emmett (her brother) came after me and took me home for the night. 

    Next morning, I came and got him and rode him about half way to the Dude Ranch.  I was standing by the road looking at him and he was looking at me as though he thought I was crazy, wondering how I could possibly get back on with my sore bottom and sore legs, when Empty came driving gaily along in the car. He leered out of the window at me, “I thought I’d find you just about here walking. How would you like to drive the car and I’ll ride him the rest of the way.“  I dearly loved him that minute."

to draw & to the draw

    These weird blurry days.  Has it only been a month?  I'm doing stuff all day long, and it seems nothing much gets done.  Things seem endless, and at the same time the days fly by.  There are weekdays and weekends.  The difference is that K. is downstairs on weekends, during the weekdays he's mostly up in the makeshift office he's set up in Blue's bedroom.

    (172 169 squares to go)

    Moon has torn down the rotting deck (the one I fell through last summer).  New lumber arrives arrived today.  K. and I both come from people who know how to fix and build things, yet neither of us have much know-how.  Moon has confidence, K. has a friend available for video consults, and I'm just trying to stay away from the whole affair. 

    Seventeen masks were made using Dee's links and tips.  The tailor finishes one in a minute and a half, I've got it down to 13.  Some were mailed off to friends in Chicago and here in Washington, including one to my therapist, because goodness knows I want her to keep safe!

    I don't know if it's this strange time in the world, or if it's from reading Rosee's letter, but this new book is meeting the recent urge to document things.  It was made using the next Peg and Awl tutorial (dinner was late that night, gosh, I love process). There had been attempts at writing, but focus with words is just hard right now.  So now, each day I'm drawing and watercoloring something I love into it.

    It will be interesting to see if skills improve, I hope so.  If the good pen is ever found, maybe some words will be added. The much loved wishing star from Jude...

    Rosee part 4:

    "Somewhere in ’35 Stew had a burst lung. Needless to say, none of us knew it was a burst lung. He just doubled over and started getting blue in the face. I grabbed the telephone and squalled at Dr. Randall across the street that he was dying on me, and Dr. Randall came tearing over and we loaded him in the car and they stampeded to the hospital where Dr. Randall stabbed him with his clothes on. He came back and told me he’d never had such a thing before but he’d read about it in a medical journal a long time ago and guessed right.

    Stew was quite a celebrity for two weeks. Doctors came from all over the state to look at the burst lung. They’d never had one before. Dr. Randall said I’d probably saved his life by calling him so quickly or he’d have died.

    Then I remembered that his life line stopped at 35.  That’s the trouble with my fortune telling, after it happens and then remember that I saw it.  He’s 65 today and still going strong. This was kind of a blow to my fortune telling, but maybe he was destined to die with his burst lung and the fast thinking of Dr. Randall beat the fates to the draw."

playdate for new old friends

    After years of "knowing" each other on-line, Deb and I have finally met!  How great it's been to spend time getting to know each other in real-life.

    We're spending time in Coupeville, WA, as students in Christine Mauersberger's workshop.  She has brought us a world of techniques to explore.  

    Here are just a few from the first two days...

    Cyanotype prints- this one had seed beads and buttons on it.

    Geli plate prints.

    Strike-out poem.

    A happy accident with a piece of Velma's beautiful handmade paper.  After dipping the edge into the indigo, it caught on itself, folding up into a wave... more to come with this page.

    The indigo drying tree.

    There's a lot more, too... Christine is filling our minds and time and with creative play, with two more days to go!

woven

    Going through the desktop, I came across the sweet little loom from Velma.  Weaving seemed like a good comforting idea.

    So much went wrong in the making of this little inch of shifu.  I decided to just go with it, and then the third warp thread broke.  Patched the whole thing together as best I could, or good enough anyway.  That third thread was completely lost track of.

    I'm going to love it anyway.  It's how things are.

sights & sounds & silence

    In the middle of my time on the island, I realized that this was the first time I have ever been away alone overnight.  It was very deeply swell.  

    No internet, housework, appointments, to-do lists, etc...  Just the wind in the tall tall trees, eagles, hawks, a heron, birds calling at dusk, and later frogs in the darkness.  

    There was stitching, successful fire building, and a delicious second breakfast.

    Painting happened for the first time in weeks, bad painting, but still, it was good to move a brush.  The guys thought I was crazy for bringing that little Christmas cactus along, but after two years of waiting for blooms, and having them finally show up last week, I wasn't going to miss a minute of them.

    And there was time in a fairy tale with a couple of friends for company... one of Jude's strays marked the spot, while Velma's bear weighted the pages of Snow & Rose by Emily Martin.  ("Snow and Rose didn't know they were living in a fairy tale...people never do.")

    And more stitching and some writing, too...lots of beginnings.  

    During a nice long beach walk with the guys once they came, there was some wondering about how to stitch barnacles? 

        It was all really really good.

feeding self

    On Sunday there was an urge to do something different.

    The little loom made during Velma's wonder-filled workshop was warped and woven with leftover kami-ito (spun paper).  

    There was love for the rhythm of it, the forgiveness in it, and even for the need of fixing it here and there (and more for the fact that it could be mended).

    A few other scraps and threads were woven in.  All the while thinking about story weaving, bringing slivers of tales together...a pink silky ribbon from the Edwardian gown, indigo thread from Jude, a short length of yarn from a long-ago spinning, and a small fluff of tulle that also danced at the ball.  

    The places intertwined with the darker paper... those were penned with John O'Donohue's blessing of a poem, "Beannacht" and painted with prussian, indigo and lunar blue. 

  "...May a flock of colours,
      Indigo, red, green,
      And azure blue,
      Come to awaken in you
      A meadow of delight...."      

     (Excerpt from "Beannacht")

    So, here it is, with some weaving of ends still to do, and awaiting what's next for it, but for now, it's a story all on it's own.  And the more I look at it and think about it, the more I realize that it's not that different from, and maybe just the same as, one of my little stitched boat cloths.  

    Ha, the urge for new led me right back home. 

making Shifu with Velma

    Such a good workshop.  The kind where time flies by, you're exhausted in the best of ways, are surrounded by a very good company of kindred makers, and filled with information and inspiration.  These photos only graze the surface of what the experience held.

    Velma Bolyard

    My wonky "wobble-sabi" (a Velma-ism) Shifu.  

    Thank you, Velma!

Velma!

 

    A few images of Velma's beautiful makings that she had out for us to explore at her talk Thursday eve.  What a delight to meet her in real life!  Artist, storyteller, funny, part-of-the-earth soul, and one of the very best huggers.  

    Off to her workshop!