slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Journalfest 2010 Journal

    I finally finished my Journalfest journal yesterday while waiting at the doctor’s office. I’m posting some of the pages here in case you think that art journaling is hard or requires special talent or something like that. An art journal is just for you, and it contains a combination of art and writing, or maybe just art that reflects where you’re at or what you’re feeling that day. I mostly use photography in my art journals. I played with a cheap little mini watercolor set with this one too. Some of the pages were not scanned because they contained some personal thoughts or weren’t very legible.

    I did some of the pages at Journalfest and added them in later. Since I didn’t realize I would decide to use this particular journal, they had to be cut down to fit. And I didn’t want to cut down the pages I made in Orly Avineri’s class, so they are not included, but I included photos of them in the making.

    Sometimes I thought that a page looked awful and then when I looked at it the next day it looked so much better. So always hang on to the pages you don’t like for a little while. You can always work over them if you decide that your first impression was correct.

    The pages are different sizes and shapes. Sometimes I added business cards to the edges and folded the edge of the page over. Sometimes I glued stuff in. I used two-sided tape. I made pockets for treasures. I cut pages into shapes that suited me. If I messed up, I colored or collaged over my mistakes, or I left them there. It’s my journal. I make mistakes and I’m cool with that.

  • Weekend update

    Laura asked me what I accomplished yesterday. My answer was too long to go to waste so I’ve copied it here.

    I mordanted some cotton and wool fabrics with alum/soda ash and alum/cream of tartar respectively. They soaked overnight. Sandy and I went shopping mostly, but to fun places like a neighborhood bazaar in Glenwood and book stores – there is a great little bookstore on Grove St. called the Community Book Store, I think. I bought three great magazines at B&N – Handwoven, Quilting Arts, and Artist’s Cafe and Sandy spent his Christmas bonus on books both places and CDs at Deep Roots. At Deep Roots I bought a few interesting things to try for dyestuffs from the bulk herbs and spices – calendula, star anise, and eucalyptus. Also cream of tartar for the mordant. Last night I scanned a page of music from Handel’s Messiah and I printed it on about ten pages of my handmade paper for Christmas cards. I am now trying to decide if that is enough – they are awesome but simple – or if they need some angels. Leaning toward angels. And I played a lot of Scrabble online.

    Today I rolled up a wool scrap with Yoshina cherry leaves, wrapped rubber bands around it and I am soaking it in a jar filled with calendula petals and hot water. The other fabric are drying on a rack. Now I have pulled out a bunch of remnants that I squirreled away and I’m washing them along with my laundry. And I have a cast iron pan full of locally and humanely raised and produced brats on the stove, along with a pot of butterbeans from my garden.

  • Saturday Morning Coffee Pot Post

    I’m sitting here with Miz Jazz in my lap, and we are both watching the other three cats tear back and forth through the house. Guido is the oldest of the three, and he seemed to be winning at first. Then Miss Lucy got into it, and Guido dropped out somewhere. Now Theo is running back and forth by himself. Theo is so fat now that he really needs that exercise. He likes to play with the cat whip, but running is better for him.

    Miz Jazz is so much better. She walks almost normally now and doesn’t squeak when I pick her up. Thursday I caught her grooming herself in her nether regions, which she had stopped doing and her thick fur was getting matted. Her left leg was high in the air just before I took this shot.

    I’ve been down this week and it’s been hard to say why. Maybe I’m feeling my otherness – that is what my dreams seem to be saying. Usually I can celebrate my otherness, but every now and then I feel worn down. I think that following politics and the ever-deteriorating insane way that the Friends of the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market are treated by the city is getting to me. Fortunately, there will be some news forthcoming that may change that for the better. The Friends will either grow stronger or disappear, and a lot of that depends on the support of the vendors and customers of the GFCM. Watching and listening to Bernie Sanders old school filibuster for eight and a half hours yesterday was uplifting. Made me want to move to Vermont, and not for the first time.

    When I feel down, I walk around with my camera and try to look at life from different angles. Most of all, I like to look up.

    Today I plan to play with paper and glue and paint and yarn and thread. Here’s my to-do list for the weekend.

    Collage Christmas cards and address them
    Tear pages for book signatures
    Paint pages
    Finish color book
    Put string heddles on loom and start weaving tapestry
    Begin to prepare and mordant fabric and fibers for dyeing

    That should be way enough.

  • Lately I have fallen in love with India Flint and her very organic use of dye and resists on fabric. I bought her book Eco Colour and I’m devouring each word of it. My plan is to spend the week after Christmas with soy wax batik and dye pots, cotton fabric scraps and paper pulp. I’m going to explore dyeing with teas and spices too.

    India began a blog where we can share our work and a project of establishing sewing circles around the world at found stitched dyed. If you have an appreciation for cloth that has a story, that bears the marks of its life and its connection with our lives, and feel the urge to connect with it in the present by adding stitches and dyes, please visit either of her sites. In fact, if these words spark any interest in you at all, your mind might open wide to these ideas once you look at India’s work and the other fiber artists who are joining in. I know that I will never regard a stain in the same way again. I intend to pull that cotton blouse with the rust stain on its openwork collar out of my rag pile for a start.

    I’m also excited about tapestry again. I had purchased a small pipe loom that breaks down for travel in a mailing tube a couple of years ago, but put it away in my zeal for bookbinding, then forgot about it when I had to take a break to heal my injured hands. I pulled it out this past weekend, and made string heddles for it yesterday. Now I have a couple of designs in mind from my photos from Journalfest and I should be weaving by this weekend at the latest.

    My brain has expanded to possibility so much in the last few weeks that I can hardly focus on ordinary functions of life. So Friends, if you thought I was ditzy before, be aware that “ditzy” just ratcheted up a few notches.

  • How to be Alone

    For my friends who are alone or feel lonely…I think that most all of us feel alone from time to time for different reasons. I love solitude but I do get a little freaked out by it sometimes. Our culture doesn’t value it and we are conditioned to see it as a bad thing from the beginning of our lives. There was a time when I lived alone for a while and I felt horrible. I couldn’t handle it. I was always searching out people to be with. Nowadays I value quiet time and I love my self enough to enjoy my own company. But I do feel lonely sometimes from the perspective of feeling different.

  • Randomness

    We ended up with a couple of inches of snow on the ground and the weather has turned unusually cold for December around here. I didn’t take any snow photos because I stayed inside, cooked soup on the woodstove, cleaned and did laundry, and begin warping up a little tapestry loom that I bought about two years ago and forgot about. Good weekend.

    I’m getting excited about having the week after Christmas off at home. I pulled out some books and some fabric and I believe that there is some soy batik and fabric painting and dyeing in my near future. I saw an online class advertised somewhere for dyeing fabrics with teas and spices. Well, heck, I could do that on my own, and I have the stuff to do it. Sounds like fun!

    I saw a small red-tailed hawk in the front yard last week. I’m guessing here. It looked like a mini-version of the hawk that hangs out at UNCG. Wife or child?

    Tapestries of sunrises and sunsets. And beets and carrots. And cats. Yes.

    I love texture.

    These photos are ones that I’ve taken on my walk to work lately. I’m never on time any more – I get so distracted. No one seems to care, though.

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    I got a late start this morning – that bed felt so good! We are about to swing by the animal hospital to pick up a bag of fluids for Jazz on our way to the farmers’ market as soon as Sandy finishes his computer game and gets dressed. First things first, you know.

    Last night’s Indie Market was a success for me. I sold one book, a matted color woodcut print, and two Squirtly cards. The guy that bought the turnip print said “I just unloaded a truckload of these yesterday!” What luck, a turnip farmer! As he paid he said, “Bet you’re glad that I turned up!” Haw haw. That right there made the whole night worth it.

    The bad thing that happened was that I screwed up my new pop-up tent. One of the legs is jammed and in trying to deal with it another part of it popped apart. I’m pretty sure that we can fix it – I’m just happy that I was able to get it into the car without it hanging out the window.

    Miss Jazz is doing great. She is putting some weight on her back leg and is walking much straighter. She also gained a little bit of weight. She goes back to the chiropractor in two weeks.

    We’re leaving now – I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Build a snow fort! In these part of N.C. it is expected to snow but no accumulation. Good excuse to fire up the woodstove and make soup though!

  • Happy Thanksgiving!

    nullToday I am thankful for my husband, that he is still with me despite a heart attack and my menopausal hormones.

    I’m thankful that I have a job with people that I enjoyed working with, and that has health benefits and time off to live my life outside of work. I pray for those who do not have jobs and/or health benefits, and that those in Washington and Raleigh will open their hearts to compassion for those in need instead of blaming them for their circumstances.

    I’m thankful that my family is well and happy, and that my mother is able to live an independent life and have fun at 87 years old. I pray that I become like her.

    I’m thankful that Miz Jazz is looking and feeling better every day, and that we made the choice to keep her with us a little longer.

    I’m thankful that Theo is such a cuddle-bunny and gives me comfort and joy every day. I’m thankful that fate led us to be together after he was left at the shelter, rescued for adoption and in foster homes for so long.

    I’m thankful that I am able to live my life comfortably, with enough money to provide shelter, heat, AC, and nourishing food, as well as art supplies and travel that nourishes my soul.

    I’m thankful for old friends and new. I don’t have many, but I cherish the ones that I have. You are special.

    I’m thankful for you, if you have read this far. Blogging has been a therapeutic activity in my life, and I have made good friends with readers whom I’ve never met face-to-face. I never expected that bonus. Thank you.

  • Blechh Friday

    I am not a shopper, y’all. I’m going to spend the day being thankful for what I have instead of what I want. It helps that I don’t have children.

    I have been sleeping SO MUCH for the past few days. I gather that my body is catching up on the insomniac nights that I spent for a couple of weeks. This morning the cats were kind enough to let me sleep until 9:15. That was 11 hours of sleep – good grief! I guess I’ll set an alarm again.

    My good fortune continues: a reporter for the News and Record contacted me through the Handmade Triad website. Her editor had seen my work at the last Indie Market and picked me for the regular “Meet An Artist” feature that they run in Go Triad, the entertainment supplement that comes with the paper on Thursdays and is free and available all over town. This freaked me out in a good way. Now that the interview and the photography session is over I’m a lot more relaxed but I sure do wish that I could see that article and photos before they go to press! I’ve been in the newspaper before for an Eat Local Challenge and they did a huge spread on me in the Life section – it was good but the reporter didn’t record our conversation and some things got a little twisted through her personal filter, like a remark that I didn’t mean for people to give up Doritos (actually, I think that would be great) and something about communion wafers. I’m an ex-Southern Baptist – we communed with cubes of white sandwich bread with the crusts cut off and grape juice – I’ve never had a communion wafer in my life!

    But I was pleased for the most part and since Erin recorded our interview I feel pretty good about it. I just don’t remember much of what I said. A whole lot about connections. I’ve come to believe that’s the driving force behind most of what I and most other people do.

    I plan to enjoy this rare three-day weekend at home making soup and cooking a ham roast with peach preserves spread on it. I bought a lot of veggies at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market on Wednesday morning so I have a lot of good food to play with. My main focus will be to make a couple more books and to weave. I don’t know if I will decide to finishing warping my loom that I began back this spring when the pain in my hands stopped me, or work on some mini-tapestries in progress, but I feel very good about what’s ahead this weekend.

    I think that I’ll go to the Sojourners’ meeting at the Church of the Covenant on Sunday morning if I don’t sleep too late. After talking about it yesterday I realize that I miss it and I should go back soon before the minister retires. That’s a very liberal service for people who don’t like church or organized religion, by the way. I like the description of it as “Quaker Lite.”

    Time to kick Theo out of my lap and set up my worktable. I wish you all a great Buy Nothing Day. Save your money for tomorrow and spend it with your local small businesses and farmers!

  • Buy Nothing Day

    Buy Nothing DayIf you’ve known me on the Web for a while, you know that I am an advocate of Buy Nothing Day, which is celebrated in the United States on the day after Thanksgiving. I try to live frugally and make careful choices about what I buy. That means that I have tried to purge those items and activities that I have to come to realize that I only buy or do because I am expected to, not because I need or particularly want them. This is why I have been able to do a lot of traveling and I don’t bitch about the cost of healthy food. I drive an old car when I need to drive, I wear my clothes until they are worn out, and I don’t have a large fancy house, and it is usually a mess because I consider my time and energy more valuable than money. I seldom watch TV anymore and I buy used and handmade items when possible.

    Black Friday, so-called because it is the frenzied day that will put some businesses back in the “black,” is a dark day to me because it focuses on what dismays me about this society – our priorities are all about stuff and how to get more money to get more stuff. In fact, we are told that to be patriotic, we must participate in the rampant consumerist mindset of this country. I am not alone in my disgust for this focus on money and stuff during the holidays. I know many others who say that they will not be in the stores on Black Friday. And a few very wise folks turned the tables on Black Friday to make it an official holiday for us who are not consumed by the thought of hitting the sales at 3 a.m.: Buy Nothing Day.

    This year, I noticed that another day has been established: Small Business Saturday. That’s a shopping day that I can support. Small businesses are in danger of becoming extinct in this country. If you must shop for the holidays, please consider the positive impact that shopping locally has on your community.

    Our family decided a few years ago to not exchange presents for the adults on Christmas, thank God. When I do give gifts, I try to give handmade.

    The First Friday Indie Market will be downtown Greensboro again on Dec. 3 from 4-9 pm, in conjunction with Greensboro’s Festival of Lights. You’ll find lots of unusual and beautiful gifts at the market and in the shops on Elm St. Please save the money that you would have spent on Buy Nothing Day, and bring it to downtown Greensboro on December 3rd!