slowly she turned

My annual round-up for the year of the time warp.

I didn’t post much this past year, and honestly, it will probably fall even more to the wayside this year. I realize that social media has become more of my journal. However, a lot of it is that I just can’t face much reality anymore. Writing in depth about it is too much for my Vulcan brain and I wander off to some distraction before my head explodes. I thought that maybe I wouldn’t even write this post, but as usual, I found that I actually did a lot more this past year than I remembered. The fog of depression obscured it. I feel better now for writing it.

January 1, 2024 was my first day of retirement – a long desired and anticipated date which was not so sweet since I felt like my hand was forced because my position was eliminated in budget cuts and moved to another department with different duties that I did not want at all. The work itself didn’t go away – it was instead passed over to be handled by my co-workers and faculty with no extra pay. So, there has been a lot of bitterness. I spent the month mostly trying to get my head around not being employed. Later I took some satisfaction in that the faculty passed a no confidence vote in the dean and the provost, which is a huge condemnation and does not happen unless there are egregious circumstances.

In February I turned 63 and applied for Social Security. I began a 100 Day Stitch Meditation practice with Liz Kettle’s Facebook group that genuinely helped my brain settle down and got me back to stitching for simply the fun of it and as an artistic practice. You can see a slide show of most of them on the front page of this site. I didn’t write much in February, but during February through March I returned to the print studio at the Arts Center and finished a couple of books that I had taken apart and made a new one with bookboard pages that had an Asian theme from one of Sharon Payne Bolton’s online classes.

In March, I took a marvelous class for a long weekend at John C. Campbell Folk School: “Decorative Wrapping on River Stones.” Over a dozen grace my front porch and elsewhere now. Another thing that I vow to get back to doing one day. And I forgot to post about it. Here’s a photo from that class.

In April, I started a remote temporary job with Measurement Inc., a company that I worked for in person 20ish years ago. I found it not to my liking at all – all human elements seemed to have disappeared and I was not nearly as proficient at the work as I had been in the late 20th/early 21st centuries. However, I had a big trip already planned in May to look forward to and I had to quit the job early because of that. We took a quick weekend trip to Oak Island with friends and made a brief stop at Lake Waccamaw on the way back. I was worried about Diego, who, despite getting a clean bill of health in January, didn’t seem to be doing well at all.

May brought a wonderful two week trip to London and Cornwall with my sister and my good friend. We are a trio of women who love to laugh and it worked out wonderfully for most of it. After London, we took a train to Penzance, then a train and taxi to Port Isaac (my sister and I are “Doc Martin” fans and it did not disappoint!), then a train for one night in Bath, then back to London to fly home. Lots of posts and photos on the link above.

June was very, very sad. Diego was diagnosed with an aggressive salivary gland tumor and the surgery would have been extremely tricky and unlikely to be successful. He quickly reached the point where the only kind choice was to euthanize him. Sandy and I were wrecked.

In July we took a short trip to Lake Waccamaw. I took a clay sculpture class at the Creative Aging Network and over the summer created a garden totem that I love.

In early August, I got into Bryant Holsenbeck’s and Nicole Uzzell’s wire and paper sculpture class at John C. Campbell Folk School. It was focused on paper on wire armatures and papermaking and natural dyes. One of the best classes ever, and man, did I need some joy! I finished the squirrel that I had begun in Bryant’s 2023 class. When I called my art practice “Slow Turn Studio,” the emphasis is definitely on SLOW. I’d like to make more birds. Lots of photos at the link and there are three posts about it if you go forward and backward at the end of the linked post.

I drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway from Boone to a true fiber arts retreat with my friend/teacher Edwina Bringle and other great weaving friends at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland in mid-September. Most of us concentrated on tapestry. This was a repeat from the year before and a real treat. I returned by the Blue Ridge Parkway and made many stops along to the way, including a short hike at Linville Falls. And boy, was I glad that I did this, given what was to come in the near future.

Late September brought the much anticipated trip to Scotland for Sandy and me, which we booked with a group tour for the first time. Unfortunately, Sandy took a nose dive off the bus on the way to our hotel on the first day in Edinburgh and we spent the rest of that day in the A & E (their version of our ER), which sent him out in a sling with a broken arm at the shoulder joint. After a couple of miserable days, we met with the group tour manager at the first hotel and we decided to give the tour a try. Long story short (which you can read about at the link above) we went on the train/bus tour to the Highlands for five days of the eight day tour before Sandy started feeling sick and had had enough, so we flew home early. I thought that he was an incredible trouper not to ask me to fly home after the first two days. Lots of great photos at the link, but here’s one from the Highlands tour.

We came home in early October to witness my friends’ devastating losses in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene. I participated in my across-the-street neighbor artist’s home show and sold several pieces of different media – tapestry, collage, ecoprints, and painting. On Halloween, on a creative and entrepreneurial high, I signed a three month lease on a studio in a downtown art collaborative. I had a few doubts about the unheated space in an old industrial building, but I really liked the artists I met there. I was chauffeur for Sandy’s many doctor appointments since he couldn’t drive.

November brought that heartache and chaos of what the United States has become. I got sick with a virus that turned into bronchitis and wasn’t able to use the studio much, although I did finish the tapestry of Rascal and Sissy. Pablocito went to the vet for the first time in seven years. Our old Volvo that Tim gave us started hiccuping and those repairs and other issues they found ended up costing a bundle. Still cheaper that buying another car, I keep saying!

In early December, Pablocito had all of his teeth behind his fangs removed. He had a lot of infection and for a while we were concerned that he wasn’t going to make it. So nearly all my energy went into making sure he had pain meds and got some food and water in him, even if it was by syringe. I’m happy to say that he seems fine now, back to his annoying destructive ways, and still very picky about his food.

On Dec. 13, I participated in a group exhibition at the Continental Club gallery organized by Preston Wiles. It was the most fun opening reception I have ever been to, with our talented friend Brad Newell’s String Thing duo playing music and two wonderful burlesque sets of Christmas music from Miss Candice. My art will be there until mid-January. Even if I sell nothing, I was happy to be part of this show. I wanted to see if any of my fabric weavings would sell.

Even though I tried to close off the space in the downtown studio to insulate it more, and Sandy moved his painting stuff into one corner, I felt the bronchitis coming back every time I spent more than a couple of hours there. It was very cold and drafty, even on warm days outside. So I started moving all that stuff back home. I am cleaning out the back building because…

In 2025, the back building is going to be repaired (beginning on Jan. 2) and it will be the new studio. It has a lot of rot and needs much repair, including a new roof and probably the ceiling, so I took out a home equity loan. I have used this space for a studio before, and it was one of the reasons I wanted to buy this house in 2001.

So this will also be my annual “Looking Ahead at 2025” post because I honestly can’t picture much beyond this month. In late January I’m using my air travel miles to visit my friend who lives in Tucson, AZ, and I’m taking a three-day advanced tapestry workshop with Tricia Goldberg there.

I plan to apply for part-time jobs, although I have signed up again for Measurement Inc. if nothing else pans out. I realized that with all these extra expenses that have popped up in the last two months, if I don’t make some extra money, I will not be able to travel and take classes, and that will make me miserable. I had registered for a couple of classes at Art and Soul in Harrisburg, PA in July with Seth Apter and Thomas Ashman, but I am considering canceling them and getting most of the money refunded. What I really, really, really want to do is to go to Morocco with Leighanna Light in late October. The future looks so chaotic and uncertain that I’m afraid to put down deposits or make plans too far out.

However, I do know how fortunate we are. We may live in a mess, but so far we have a home that is paid for, we are warm and dry, and we are still well fed. We have enough money that we can go out to eat and enjoy a few events, like seeing Postmodern Jukebox a couple of weeks ago. We have hobbies that we enjoy. We have the lake that we can go to that costs us basically nothing. I do worry about the younger generations and the exorbitant rent and housing prices that they have to pay, and I don’t have to go into all the other awful things that are likely to come from the new fascist U.S. government in January. Everybody knows, even and especially those who voted for it.