handstories

Start where you are.

        This place has become forlorn, sorry.  It took a while to get the photos to load today.  I'm also sorry to say that Instagram is so much easier.  I'm Here if you care to keep track over there.

        Things are good. Busy.  Trying to move towards healthier feels like a part-time job.  Walking or swimming every weekday morning takes up five to eight hours a week- a workday.  I do feel better.

    I'm all over the place with making.  Stitching moons, trees, boats, etc... and a few larger pieces.  Looking through unfinished things, I found these...  (Sorry for the bad photos.)

    I think they were meant to be pages.  Made a few more...

    Turned them into a booklet.  You can see it Here.  Remember that small series of books that I made ten (?) years ago?

    Books also happened at the Studio this week.  Every week, artist Brette looks for whatever is new and shiny.  This week it was pretty papers and a hold punch (I should write about the week she discovered a small set of old rusty carving tools. That took some fancy dancing with words to get away from her!). 

    She made a tiny book.

    And gifted it to me.  She rarely keeps things.  It's all about the process.

    The beginning of a new book.

    There are other things going on too, including more time reading, knitting, staring into space, and rearranging agates.

    I'd like to say that I'm going to do better here, but who knows? 

Elegance in Pink

    I just can’t settle down into a routine or direction.

    Digging through a box of scraps until one catches my eye and then another.  On Lucky days, scraps that belong together are near each other.

   The Studio was quiet this week.  The same taxi driver came.  This time parking in front of the door, and avoiding eye contact with me, even though I was waving a "Hi!" at him. 

    At first, Monica’s collage above seems to be just a gathering of pretty pictures that she liked. Looking closer, I noticed all of the pinks and soft greens in the photos, and how they were brought together by the surrounding paint colors she chose. 

    Monica alternates between collage and drawing. Often covering a big piece of paper with rows and rows of small circles.  She is a sweet soul of few words.  Yesterday, she was waiting for her ride, just sitting there smiling. When I asked her what she was thinking about, she responded by slowly, turning her neck and raising her chin, stretching it to look up to the left.  “Swan princess,” she said.
  “You’re thinking about a swan princess?”

    Nodding, yes, she repeated the gesture, gently tipping her chin skyward as before.  “Swan princess.”
    I realized that she was imitating the graceful swooping neck gestures of a swan.  “Are you thinking about “Swan Lake"?”

    Another nod and swoop of her neck. She was a swan princess.

    (A group of swans can be called a flock, bevy, wedge, lamentation, and a ballet.)

Our people

    Hills were in my dreams two nights in a row this week.  In both, they were beautiful, rolling, green hills with a scattering of big old trees full of pink blossoms.  

    In the first one, in a ballgown, on my way to a party with a high school boyfriend, I noticed a wayward sheep.  Getting ahold of its collar, I wrestled and wrangled it on the hillside, trying to get it where it belonged.  Not easy in a ballgown.  The second dream was much calmer, just admired the scenery.  I enjoyed both of them.

Pixie's finished painting.  

And mushrooms.

    This weeks' time in the studio had a few moments...

    Near me, a woman who I hadn't connected with yet, began to fret.

    "Oh no, Oh No, OH, NO!" over and over.  It took a minute, but it became clear that she needed the tops taken off of her paints.  The person who usually did this wasn't there.

    "Could I take them off for you?" I asked.

    "CAN you?"

    "I can!"  What a relief for both of us.

Brette finished the top of her nine-patch pillow.

    One of the artists was worrying about her taxi ride being late.  She went out to look for it a few times.  As things began to escalate with worry, I offered to go out and look with her.  The taxi was there, but across the street and a quarter of the way down the block.

    "There it is," I told her.

    "It's supposed to be right here!"

    It quickly became clear that she would not go to the taxi, it needed to come to her.  Where it belonged.

    I scurried to the car, "You need to turn around and come to the front doors..."

    He informed me that he had called her cell twice, and that she hadn't come out, and that he now had another call to get to.

    "You NEED to get her, AT the front door."

    We went round and round a couple of times, and then he began to drive off.

    "This is NOT OK!" I yelled after him as he drove around the corner (his window was down, so he heard me).  When I got back to her, wondering what to do next, I caught sight of that yellow taxi coming back around that corner, and pulling up to the door.  Where it belonged.

    There were a few more moments of flurry and frustration on all of our parts, but she got in that taxi.

    Elizabeth choosing one of her recent paintings for a friend.

    Back in the studio, one of the artists was taking a photo of a painting with a phone. 

    "Is this your painting?" I asked him. 

    No, but he wanted a photo of it, but the phone wouldn't open.  Looking over his shoulder, I saw a message pop up on the screen.

    "Is this your phone?"  Nope.  "Where did it come from?"  He pointed at the table.  "It would probably be a good idea to put it back."  Nope.  He wanted a photo.  "Here, let's do it with my phone."  First phone went back to the table, we took the photo, he gave a thumbs up, and walked away happy.  He didn't want the photo, just to take it.

The photo.

    Later, sharing about the day with someone, they seemed baffled by my wanting to do this every week.

    "These are my people!" I told her.  "It's great finding ways to make connections with them.  I really enjoy it.  Well, maybe not the obnoxious taxi driver, although I did enjoy yelling at him!"

    She responded, "Of course you did."