slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • More photos from An Artful Journey

    Stenciling gesso onto bookboard makes both a nice raised design and a resist.

    My work area in Albie’s class. The bookboards above have been trimmed down and painted, and will be bound with a coptic or French stitch using the papers drying in the rear of the photos. A very wee book – I like small.

    This is probably my favorite of the paste papers I made, even though I don’t usually work with these colors. I found that I was most satisfied with the papers that I didn’t think so much about. Even the “worst” papers I did will be useful as backgrounds or in pieces for collage or strips for paper weaving so I kept everything I did, and some of my classmate’s “trash” as well!

  • Heading back east

    I’m sitting at Gate 4 in the San Jose Airport, where I have already purchased my required refrigerator magnets, one for San Jose, and one pack of art magnets which I had to purchase all four in order to get one that is titled “Guido Cat.”

    This retreat was such a wonderful event. I like that it was much smaller and more intimate, the three-day format is much more suited to my needs, the setting was fabulous, and the organizer took incredible care of us with many friendly extras. I would definitely come back to this one, but the problem is that it happens during my busiest time at work. I didn’t get to explore the grounds because the weather didn’t clear up until Sunday, and by that time I was squeezing every drop of goodness I could get in the classroom. Monday morning gave me a few minutes to walk around and gaze up into some redwoods. Then I spent most of the day in my hotel room just decompressing and watching Showtime, which I don’t get at home. I did get out to a restaurant across the street for some Fat Tire drafts and seafood.

    Part of the reason that I stopped blogging was that my camera batteries died and then would not recharge. I think that I have talked about my camera addiction before. I love to take many many photographs wherever I go and I use them a lot in my personal journaling or as jumping off places for other art ideas. It is when I am deprived of my camera, especially on a trip to a beautiful spot like this, that I realize that I don’t experience the present moment because of my addiction. I am always looking for images instead of really looking at what I’m looking at. I would like to find a good balance.

    The blue sky that I spotted on Saturday morning was very temporary. It quickly turned back to heavy rain and then snow off and on all day. The snow didn’t stick but it was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that looking out the window distracted me while I was cutting bookboard and I cut my finger. Luckily, Albie was ready with Liquid Skin, and then although the cut was not deep or that bad, I nearly fainted. She was ready for that, too, and took good care of me without getting anxious or overreacting. She told me that her daughter does the same thing and that it is called vasovagel response. I’m glad to have a name for it so that I can warn people before I get a shot – maybe I won’t get another nurse who treats me like a toddler if I make it sound like an official diagnosis.

  • Day one of Albie’s class

    I need to take more photos, but as usual, I became entranced with what I was doing. I kept going until I absolutely could not do it anymore. Today I have to remind myself to SIT DOWN. My hands are not too bad, but my feet and back were letting me know it last night. We are doing a lot of stenciling and stamping and tearing papers, which means it seems more natural to stand slightly bent over a table. My spirit was willing to keep going; my body said NO.

    Albie is teaching us a lot of tricks and it was hard to believe how fast the time went by yesterday. I spent most of the morning on only two papers, neither of which I was particularly happy about. Realizing that I was over-analyzing, I managed to change my mindset to play and produced several more papers that I was much more satisfied with. I would like to produce a large amount of papers today and tomorrow for books for the gallery and Etsy, and take advantage of being able to use so many different stencils. However, Albie has several examples of sweet book structures that don’t require a lot of fancy stitching so I’ve decided to make one or two books here.

    Cindy O’Leary is the organizer of this retreat and I have to say that we are well taken care of! There are lots of good snacks including amazing homemade chocolate chip cookies, coffee and tea 24 hours a day, good meals, and last night at the instructors’ sale she had some much appreciated wine for us. It is a beautiful, old place with some modern facilities, although the rooms in my building are what you might expect for a 100 year old convent turned college turned conference/spiritual center. I love the simplicity.

    Prayer flags sent in by the Artful Journey attendees hanging in the dining hall. The Pueblo building where I am staying and taking my class is in the background.

    Now I am looking out my window at 7 a.m. and I see the blessed blue sky, something I haven’t seen since I’ve been here. Yay! Listening to the rain come down through the pipes in the hallway, which apparently used to be an outside courtyard, was like listening to a waterfall, but I am tired of wet.

    Time for breakfast, but I believe that I’ll just grab a piece of fruit and go on back to the classroom. We are doing some techniques with gesso today that make the paper look like embossed leather. I am so happy that I made the decision to come here. This is where I need to be right now. Albie is a wonderful teacher, and the knowledge that I take home from this will sustain my imagination for quite some time.

  • The first day of my next half-century!

    Here I am at Great Bear Coffee in the lovely little town of Los Gatos, California, celebrating my 50th birthday all by my magnificent self! It has pretty much been raining since I got here, but I came armed with a good raincoat and an iffy umbrella that tends to blow out in the gusts. I forsook a purse for a small backpack to tote around my laptop and camera and the few other necessities for the day.

    I flew through unusually warm weather over the United States, but Illinois was still covered in snow. Although the flight from Chicago to Denver was packed, I got lucky on the other two flights and had two and three seats to myself, allowing me to catch a little sleep. I looked out the window a lot this time, something I don’t usually do because of a tendency for motion sickness. The terrain fascinated me. I didn’t take photos of the farmland much, although I loved the patterns of squares and circles and textures. However, the farmland in central California was disturbing. It appeared so humanly constructed. There were hardly any trees and each stream seemed to be carved by human hand into the landscape. I may try to photograph it on the way back.

    The Garden Inn in Los Gatos is very nice and I would definitely recommend it on the basis of my one night here. Reasonably priced and in walking distance of many shops and restaurants. Here’s the courtyard, and an idea of the weather I’m dealing with.

    There are palm trees here – I didn’t expect that, because I thought I was farther north. I hear that there will be redwoods where I am going tonight in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I’d love to take a hike along the creek trail here but it looks really muddy.

    Yesterday I stopped in a shop that had a lot of beautiful imports from Africa and Asia. I wanted a piecework blouse that looked beautiful on me but the shopkeeper only took cash or checks, and I didn’t bring much cash and no checks. I didn’t think that there were places left that weren’t set up for credit and debit cards! I did buy a nice light mudcloth scarf. Her prices were so low on those that I felt a little guilty. She took the cash and said that she would pay the sales tax so I guess that she’ll report it stolen! Oh well, that’s her business, I guess. We all have our little ways to rebel. If I can find an ATM I might have to go back for that blouse.

    Then last night, I was so tired that I almost skipped dinner, but made myself go out to a little Italian place across the street named “i gatti.” So clever a name for an Italian restaurant in Los Gatos! I hoped that they might have a t-shirt for sale but they were much too nice a place for that – they were a locavore place. I sat at the bar and had organic roasted beets with a crispy Manchego cheese wafer, microgreens, and candied nuts. Best salad I’ve ever eaten. I was too beat to eat a heavy meal. Since that was so good I figured that they would do a good job with tiramisu. I’m spoiled with tiramisu because we learned to make it at Spannocchia in Italy and there has never been a tiramisu since that has come close to being so delicious. This one came pretty close. The bartender was friendly so I didn’t feel weird or lonely. Then I went to bed at 8:30, woke up at 4:30, but managed to go back to sleep until 6:30, so I hope to be on a Pacific time zone schedule today.

    I have to go back to the hotel and check out at 11:00, but I’m leaving my luggage there since my ride is picking me up there at 3 p.m. Until then I’ll be roaming around in the rain and stopping to hang out in coffee shops. I find it funny that I have not found a book store, used or otherwise, yet. I usually make a beeline for those. My quest today will be to find a fibers shop and the Trader Joe’s.

    Hopefully I will be able to blog the art retreat if I am able to get a connection. If not, you can assume that I am having too much fun to mess with the computer.

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    My focus this weekend is getting healed up as much as possible for my trip and getting organized. I made such a mess yesterday looking for some black linen thread that it looked like it would be impossible for me to ever get my bedroom/studio back to a workable area. But I had to, so I began by taking several boxes of stuff back to the outside studio, which is basically moving and delaying the problem instead of solving it, but it is all I can do at the moment. And I did eventually find my thread in one of my many tote bags, along with a leather thimble I’d been missing too.

    Now I have packed the tools and supplies I need for Albie’s class and if I need any of them I will have to get them out of the suitcase and replace them when I am done.

    Yesterday (see yesterday’s post) I finished up a commission for a gift for one of the PhD candidates where I work. I had to start completely over because I sprayed a very light layer of clear acrylic on the first one, per the advice of one of the teachers I recently took a class with, and the chemical smell was still too much for me a week later. I tried putting the book in the freezer for a few days, which is a trick I heard about for removing cigarette smells from books, but so far that has not worked for either.

    This was a good project for me because it prodded me to think of a template for a book commission for someone who I don’t know. I asked this buyer for a color, a theme, and a quote. I also asked if she wanted a recycled book or an exposed binding, but she left that up to me. I think that I will charge more for a fancy exposed binding or beaded binding in the future because that will take more time and effort. This one seemed to call for a simple binding. So the idea of this template is that I will collage an old book cover with the “theme,” add a favorite quote on the cover printed on paper of the requested color, and use that color on the inside covers and throughout the pages.

    I bought a huge chrome spinning hat rack at Design Archives for $20. They are going out of business. Also picked up a good Samsonite suitcase for only a buck. The rack will hopefully go to Elements Gallery if we get the lease.

    The sewing machine guy returned my machine to me at no charge. He couldn’t find a part to replace the bent feed plate so he tried to straighten it out some and said that he was able to sew with it. So it may be a short term fix. I’m going to play with it some today on some fabric book covers and will consider a new machine later. I want one that can drop the feed dogs so that I can free-motion quilt. Any relatively inexpensive (i.e. less than $200) recommendations or feedback are welcomed.

    Dr. Weingold recommended that I continue with physical therapy for another month, then reassess. I definitely have Dequervain’s tendinitis, no doubt about it now. The next step will be injections. He told me that if my comparison for this is to the steroid injection I had in my hip, that I can be assured that it will not be THAT painful. He said that he had had a hip injection and “it hurt like hell!” That makes me feel a little better about it.

    I decided to take my laptop with me to An Artful Journey this time. Normally I do not take my laptop on these trips, but my classes are on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so I thought that I’d like to blog on my birthday Thursday night and when I am in a hotel on Wednesday and Monday nights, be able to upload photos and such.

    The Friends of the GFCM are basically no more. The city finally crushed us by ending their contracts with us and the only management group that liked us doesn’t want the baggage of our name association. We are in the process of shutting down and paying out our obligations. It will probably rise again as a different volunteer group if the best proposal wins. Too bad that the city let a bunch of liars have power over this situation and didn’t support or appreciate a group of good-intentioned, hard-working people, but that’s politics for ya. Some good honorable people have really been hurt by these actions. We tried to keep going despite the bully but in the end the city found it easiest to side with the bully and we didn’t get enough people to stand up for us because they were scared of the bully too. I hope that you will let the city know which group is the best one to manage the market – they need to hear from you instead of just the bully and his friends. The choice is clear (Greensboro Farmers Market Inc.) if you read the proposals on the city website. I am done with this now and it is a relief.

    Today, laundry, vacuuming, cooking, sewing machine, a little tapestry weaving and catching up on my Hulu shows. I’ll try to squeeze in a ride to my friend’s house in Summerfield. He and I are discussing a barter for display work and a website.

  • Sunrise tapestry and book commission

    Latest progress on the Sunrise Tapestry. I could see doing a series of these from the photos I took of this one particular sunrise. But I’ll need to order or dye more purple silk.

    A commission that I just finished. It is a gift for a historian.

    I’ll write a coffee pot post tomorrow morning.

  • Whoopsydaisy

    Everything this week was all messed up. I had a lot of things that needed to be done at work, and had to weigh that against spreading the germs of this nasty bug that I am STILL sick with. My co-workers had serious medical things going on in their families or were sick too. I had to cancel my physical therapy and doctor’s appointments for my hand. There was lots of stuff going on in the background that I wasn’t even aware of, thanks to kind friends who didn’t want to upset me. I am somewhat up to speed but I have decided to spend the day in bed, napping when I can. The goal is to have this bug whipped and behind me by Monday morning.

    I am sad that I have two friends right now who are seriously ill. The downside of this time of life is that you increasingly experience your friends and family’s problems and losses. It is a hard adjustment, and it is one, like aging, that is unavoidable and keeps going no matter what you do. My mother struggles with it a lot, since she is now one of the eldest women in her community. So the trick is how you react to it. You can’t control it, you can’t change it, but you can control your reaction to it. You have to maintain a reserve of strength.

    I’m only a week and a half away from my Artful Journey, during which I will turn 50 years old! I am so excited to be entering my 50s. Some of the most together people I have ever met were in their 50s when I met them, and my admiration for them fuels my enthusiasm for aging well.

    I have a commission for a book this weekend but I am going to wait until I am not so germy to make it.

    We watched the first three episodes of Breaking Bad through Netflix this week. What a strange show. It is excellent and unnerving on many levels. Like the Sopranos, there are parts that are funny and parts that are sad and gory and awful and they are all knit together like the complicated web that life is.

    I’ve also been watching the first three seasons of The Practice, which I missed when it was on. It appears that I am about to come to the end because I haven’t been able to find Seasons 4-8.

    I’m finishing up I Thought It Was Just Me by Brene Brown. This is not a quick read – it is a thoughtful book about the differences between shame and guilt, and how blame relates to them, and how to build shame resilience. I recommend it highly to everyone.

    I am starting The River King by Alice Hoffman and eating ice cream out of my coffee cup. It feels so good on my ravaged throat. I can barely talk, but I do feel a whole lot better.

  • Sick day. It is now 4 p.m. I had to cancel the doctor’s appointment for which I have been waiting for weeks. The good news is that after getting serious about resting my hands, they do feel better.

    And, shhhhh (looking around) – I did some stitching today. Just a small wallet for myself as a test piece. I wanted something to hold my credit cards, ID, and plane tickets that is small enough to slip into my pocket or tie on a cord around my neck. I’ve been trying to wait for my sewing machine to come back, hopefully fixed, on Feb. 10 but that is 9 days away! So I used Wonder Under to fuse one of my batik fabric pieces together and then stitched a bit on it. I found a great resource for embroidery stitches: Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘N Thread. There are some fancy stitches that I’d like to try and she has posted how-to videos of individual stitches.

    Because I got sick with this nasty cold, I missed the board meeting of the Friends of the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market last night and will miss the Handmade Triad meeting tonight. I don’t mind so much because sometimes I wonder what possesses me to join groups when I enjoy my solitude so very much.

    My fabulous trip to California is almost two weeks away! I’ll think about that instead.

  • Wrapping up January

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    Theo says hello…

    Here we go, my stream of consciousness until the coffee pot runs out.

    I think that I will have to give up most of my gardening this year. Sandy wants to redo the Back Forty into a more “traditional” format of straight lines. This hurts my feelings and artistic sensibilities and the permaculture spirit of the Back Forty, but I am tired of fighting this fight. I’m not sure that I am up for it this year.

    He wants to do this every year but once it gets hot he doesn’t want to do any of the work. When we had grass back there he literally let it grow three feet tall, which is nice if you live in a dry prairie or have goats, but we have mosquitoes and I don’t want grass seed all over the garden beds. It took a lot of work to get rid of that grass. I asked him to consider planting white clover if he wants to convert any of it back to a lawn – it’s mowable and a nitrogen fixer and if I ever come back to gardening it can be dug under for fertilizer.

    If, and I mean IF this happens, I will keep control of my herb and garlic bed and the raised bed on the south edge – I already have perennials and biennials there and I think I can work those. But it makes me sad to think of losing that lovely garden design just reaching its maturity to an idea that will probably be abandoned. I only think that I’ll give in because I need to concentrate on getting my hands better and to work on my art. I have to choose my battles.

    This year we paid a guy who works the yard a few houses down to mow the small area left on our lot that can be mowed. This was a great relief to me and he didn’t charge us much at all.

    We took the sewing machine to JoAnn’s for the sewing machine tune-up/repair day. The – whaddaya call it? – sewing machine fix-it guy? – mechanic? – man took the machine with him because the plate over the feed dogs was bent and although most of the other parts are standard this one wasn’t. He says that if he can get a part for this 60s machine he will let me know if it is worth the cost of fixing it. I had hoped that I’d be merrily sewing book covers this weekend but so be it.

    The countdown to An Artful Journey (and my 50th birthday) has begun…20 days left in my 40s! I am not looking forward to a flight in mid-February across the country but maybe, maybe all this freakish weather will have worn itself out by then. I’m going to concentrate on painted paste papers for my books while I’m there – and soaking up everything that I can!

    I bought a couple of yards of Wonder Under so I’m going to fuse together a slew of fabric book covers and fold book signatures in preparation for binding. I tried to do some of this last weekend but I overdid it in the kitchen on Saturday (the danger of feeling better in a long healing process) and I found that all that interfacing that I had bought was only adhesive on one side. Tch. It will still be useful to stiffen fabric but it was not what I needed.

    The news from the person organizing the co-op is that we are in negotiation for the lease now and it looks good. The projected date for re-opening Elements Gallery is March 1. That is only a month away!