slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • The walk

    I walk a short distance to work Monday through Friday, and my eyes are always sweeping the ground around me for natural or manmade found objects that I might be able to use one day. I am a natural scavenger. Often I bring home a stray earring or a feather. Today I plucked some dried iris leaves (for making paper) and picked up a yellow plastic toy part that might make an interesting stamp pattern.

    Sometimes I force myself to look up the whole way and that makes for an entirely different walk. In winter I get to see the bones of the trees and I am taken back to my tomboy days when my biggest goal in life was to climb every tree within a certain distance of my house. I was allowed to roam the woods in the winter when the snakes were hibernating, and was told once by a hunter that I nearly got shot.

    When I walk through the parking lots, the sky above is empty and I get a sweeping view of the clouds and the tops of the buildings and trees around me, although the sunsets and sunrises are obscured by buildings.

    The railroad runs next to my walk to work, so I get to see the graffiti on the boxcars and hear the rumbling of the wheels on the tracks.

    Usually the daycare kids are outside playing when I walk by and I listen to them laugh and shriek and cry and watch them climb up the sliding board and roar like monsters.

    I know where the mockingbird’s territory is and where the cowbird attacks himself in the sideview mirror of a certain car. In May, I stop to pick mulberries for snacks. In October, I gather black walnuts.

    When it rains, I know where the muddiest places are and the best route to avoid them. The iciest places are in front of the church and the museum.

    Once a deer with antlers galloped by me as I walked this route to lunch with a friend. There was a lot of traffic and people walking on the sidewalk. He hung a right at the corner and disappeared. I’ve always wondered what happened to that deer. I hope that he found his way.

  • A 2009 Retrospective

    January 2009 – thrilled over Obama’s victory and I started making bigger, more complicated books. I started a woodcut class at UNCG. I struggled with hip bursitis until the end of June, and that’s all I have to say about that. It needed to be put out there because it really affected my gardening and my spirit, hence, not a lot of blogging going on.

    March 2009: I liked this epiphany, much more for the reason that I’ve pretty much held to this manifesto! Concentrated mostly on the woodcuts, from what I can tell. Funny how I don’t remember much else about this part of the year. I must have been in serious daydreaming land. That’s okay, the year would get much better!

    April 2009: Looking forward to the day when I can weave baskets again. I spent a lot of time in the gazebo, birdwatching, journaling, goofing off in general. Probably the most important thing that I accomplished this month was totally stepping away from the Slow Food leadership team. I still share the mission of Slow Food, but man, was I burnt out.

    In May 2009, I made my second trip to what looks like will become an annual event for me: the Art & Soul retreat in Hampton, Virginia. This year, I learned longstitch binding from a couple of different instructors. It opened up my color muse and fed my desire to make things from cool old books and papers. Planted a LOT of butterbeans. Seriously fretted over upcoming budget cuts and the economy in general.

    June – the month of dot addiction. I painted dots on everything. I cut off all my hair and took a History of Photography class 4 days a week. Finally I succumbed to reality and got a steroid shot in my hip. Ow, but it fixed it.

    July was a major month of firsts. First whale, seal, and bald eagle sightings. First glacier. First icebergs. First snow in July. First cruise. First and hopefully not last trip to Alaska and British Columbia.

    Well, THIS trip was hard to top. I wore my camera completely out. I actually sat on the deck of a ship and sketched. Yeah, I want to go back – but maybe not on a cruise this time.

    August 2009: I blogged every single day except Aug. 1. The month began great with setting up a table at Art Oasis with Susanne and selling a couple of my handmade books. I set up an Etsy store (not in operation at this time). Started my transformation into Betty White. Ended the month in a world of dental pain which didn’t get resolved for six weeks. Bought a fancy new DSLR camera.

    This green cotton and dozens of figs were my positive garden surprises this year. I spent most of September in a fog of painkillers and antibiotics. But I made a lot of paper and spent a lot of time shelling butterbeans and field peas, enough to actually freeze some for the winter.

    October was full of travel. Susanne had to cancel the Italy plans for summer 2010, so I decided to spend the money I’d saved for the trip on other fun things. I bought a small upright freezer to store paper pulp for winter papermaking. Sandy and I took a 3 day weekend trip to the Black Mountain/Asheville/Hendersonville area. I worried about catching swine flu and not being able to go to Journalfest in Washington state. Little did I know that I should have been worrying about my clumsy feet instead – I tripped on a curb and fell on both hands.

    The Journalfest posts are here. I will definitely be going back again next year. It was held at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington, right on the Puget Sound. I saw the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life there. I took an enormous amount of landscape shots. I took two classes with LK Ludwig and one class with Dan Essig, two book artists with completely different styles who I greatly admire.

    Then, at the very end of October, something truly amazing happened. We found Theo, an 8 year old shelter cat up for adoption at Petsmart. He is the exact image of my little Squirtley Dirtley that I lost two years ago, except healthier and with a more assertive personality. Remember Puss in Boots in Shrek II? Yeah, Theo has that vibe down pat, especially the kitty sad eyes when he wants to be loved. He is spoiled rotten. His rise to Top Cat was rapid and unexpected. It has pretty much been all about Theo around here since he came to live with us.

    We made a brief trip to Sunset Beach for a family Thanksgiving, a place that is familiar but constantly changing with the currents.

    And here we are at the end of December. I’m planning my trips for the year ahead, and taking art classes online. The art history class at UNCG this semester will be Modern Art. Tomorrow I may or may not list my goals for the year, keeping in mind that they are usually interesting in retrospect but seldom reflect what really happens in the future. I would not have guessed the events of this year a year ago. I hope to have another great year, except that I’d like to order a lot less pain, please. Hello, anybody up there hear that?

  • Once again I am struggling with my desire to do art and the reluctance to get started. I really do not know what is up with that. Maybe it is because I can’t do it with Theo on my lap. Now that I have the time to do it, I’ve been in a total slug mode, playing computer games, watching movies, a little bit of reading…I have some paper pulp thawed out and ready so I am definitely going to crank up the woodstove to make that space inviting and cozy and make paper tonight after my movie date with Beck.

    I did get my car serviced and I called the plumber to make an appointment to change the fixture on our clawfoot tub. It is so old that changing washers doesn’t stop the leaks, and my water bill is beginning to show it. At some point this year we will remodel that bathroom so that we can turn the water up to more than a trickle without blowing out the handheld shower head – in other words, we might have a real shower/tub combo instead of the junk that we rigged up seven years ago.

    Sandy and I had a real date and we went to see Sherlock Holmes and had drinks at Fishbones afterwards. I love Robert Downey Jr., but this has solidified a growing like for Jude Law, too. It’s a great action flick. I read an interview with Robert last year where he said that he was tired of doing quirky independent films that nobody pays attention to and he wanted to be an action hero. Well, he does a good job of whatever he sets out to do, despite the drug habit.

    This afternoon I am going to see It’s Complicated with my friend Beck. She is one of my oldest friends and we shared an apartment for several years. It’s nice to be back in touch with her, since we had pretty much drifted away from each other totally for the last 15 years or so.

    I picked a small amount of broccoli in the Back Forty today, but with some prolonged temperatures at freezing and below coming our way I have a feeling that will be the end of it. I am not doing winter gardening this year, although I have the wire hoops set up for Reemay tunnels, and I do have a variety of winter-hardy greens. I never even got the summer garden cleaned up. Maybe once my hand is healed I’ll get a fresh start. I received catalogs from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Pinetree this month, and I am very interested in planting some more colors of cotton in pots. I think that I’ll stick with Cherokee Purple for most of my tomatoes this year, and buy pepper plants instead of growing them from seed.

    I signed up for an online embroidery class called Fertile Earth with Susan Sorrell at Creative Chick Studio that begins in January, so I’m hoping that changing my technique will give me a little jumpstart. I’m seriously considering this workshop with Kelly Kilmer to keep my art journaling stoked too – I’ll probably end up doing it simply because of all the people who rave about her. Maybe these classes will keep me sane until Art & Soul in late May. Going to these art retreats is wonderfully addictive, but there’s only so much vacation time and money to do them! Sandy and I played the “what would you do if you won the lottery” game while traveling this Christmas, and quite honestly, I would probably just travel and take art classes all over the world.

  • Christmas in Marietta, 2009

    I’m not sure, but I think that this was the first Christmas that we’ve had an inside dog at Mama’s for Christmas since Janet Planet went with us down there. Casey was such a GOOD DOG.

    Sandy and I have been meaning to take photos of ourselves with the Marietta City Limit sign for a long time. The city limit sign used to be in the middle of “town” and the signs were on either side of one post. Marietta has since expanded but as you can see, the houses did not. I’m standing in mud because this ditch was full yesterday. I lived about a mile down this road in the heart of Marietta, North Carolina.

    We had twelve people at Christmas dinner, including my nephew, who I think is one of the coolest people in the world. I’ve decided that my New Year’s resolution will be to learn to play blues harmonica and speak Italian so that I can convince him that I am the coolest aunt in the world.

    I spent a good bit of time fretting over Theo’s health, because when we left he had been throwing up for a few days and was a little lethargic. I convinced myself that I was worrying for nothing because today is the anniversary of Squirt’s journey over the Rainbow Bridge. And I was. When we got back, there was no vomit and he was playing hard and pretending like he didn’t know me. Damned cat.

    I’m really looking forward to this week at home.

  • Paying it forward

    I’ve been trying to think of the right way to celebrate this holiday season without spending my money on gifts that are not needed. There are many worthy organizations to give to, including Heifer International and Oxfam. Then I was catching up on some of the many blogs that I enjoy but don’t get to read often enough, and I came across this post at Red Thread Studio that hit me just right.

    So dear friends and readers, I have donated a sewing machine to Women for Women International in your honor. Thank you for your friendship and support over the years.

    I wish you all a Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) full of peace and joy.

  • We have a two-hour opening delay this morning. How nice to relax with my coffee on a Monday morning!

    I hope to have a few photos of my latest book and new project in progress later this week. My camera battery died. Yes, it is rechargeable, but it won’t hold a charge. I didn’t read the part in the manual that recommended I take it out of the camera when not in use. This explains the problems that I’ve been having with the camera behaving oddly lately. I found one on the Internet that is supposed to be compatible for a reasonable price, but it’s likely that I won’t get it until after Christmas. I did manage to get a few shots off of the remaining life in it, but I can’t unload the photos off the card. :-(

    Sandy noticed that I’ve been feeling depressed, although I thought that I was hiding it pretty well. He took me out for an expensive meal at 1618 West Seafood Grille last night. It was a beautiful restaurant with elegantly presented food. Sandy had scallops and I had Chilean sea bass (yes, I know, not on the sustainable list! bad me). The bass was so sweet that it reminded me of scallops. I also had a glass of Censored Copper Ale, one I haven’t see before, that was very tasty. I’ll have to look for this one at Bestway on Walker Ave., which has an awesome selection of beers.

    For lunch, however, I made a Tuscan stew that was delicious and mostly local: Tuscan kale harvested from the back yard in the snow – incredibly mild, as well as a beautiful winter plant. Sauteed with olive oil, garlic, onion, tomatoes that were harvested in late October that ripened inside, fresh basil frozen in ice cube trays. Added organic navy beans that simmered on the woodstove the night before, certified humanely raised sandwich ham, and chicken broth. All from the garden or Deep Roots Market. I made cornbread in my iron skillet with popcorn cornbread mix and buttermilk from Homeland Creamery. The cornbread was fantastic – not sweet like a lot of people make it around here, but with a hearty popcorn flavor.

    The Fabulous ZhaK and I had sushi at Sushi Republic on Thursday night, and Becky and I had dinner at Aquaria last Sunday night, so I’ve been eating really well lately. Now I need to look ahead to Christmas and prepare to go to my sister’s and my mother’s this coming weekend.

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    We are at the tailend of a winter storm here in North Carolina. The Back Forty is covered in snow and a crust of ice.

    Just kidding. This is a bit more manageable.

    Sandy gets off work at midnight and the roads were treacherous. He managed to get home safe and sound but I had to help him park the car on our street while he and a neighbor pushed. I won’t be driving anywhere today. I’m so glad that I don’t have to. I still have memories of the December when I managed a bookstore in Burlington and it snowed three weekends in a row. Once it was pure ice and out of some misguided dedication I drove 30 miles to the store where there were no customers fool enough to go out and I ended up in the median of I-40 with lots of company on the way home.

    I have no milk. Grrrr. I even bought an overpriced pint of milk at the C-store yesterday just so I would have milk for my coffee and cereal this morning. I left it in the office refrigerator. Thank goodness for hot cocoa mix!

    Most of my work for the semester is done. I’m resting up for January when most of my workload for the year begins. Spring semester is when I really earn my salary – I have graduate student applications to organize and next year’s course schedule to plan and load all at the same time, along with the normal stuff. I love my job. Seriously, I really do.

    I am finishing up The Birth of Venus by Sarah Durant this morning. I found it slow and dull at first, but it picked up speed about a third of the way in. It’s a novel that takes place in Florence during the time of Savonarola, the mad monk, during the Renaissance. I have so many good books to read right now, and almost all were free, either from the free shelf at Ed McKays or from a professor that retired this semester and gave me my choice of her book club library. I also ordered When Wanderers Cease to Roam, by Vivian Swift, whose blog is a real kick to read. She has now made my list of extremely cool people.

    Woodstove is fired up. I’ll probably cook up some soup on it later. To the studio, onward!

  • I haven’t qui-i-i-i-te been drawn into the Christmas spirit yet, but there’s still hope. Today I wore a Christmas sweater and I mailed off two giveaways that I did on the Art Journal list and a surprise package for a friend in Alaska. I might even dig out my Christmas earrings. Ooh, sparkly!

    Monday night I participated in some civic engagement. Our historic district neighborhood association is fighting against a developer who wants to build a huge dormitory in a little space without the streets to support the traffic about a block and a half from my house. I would be sandwiched between this behemoth and the university. Needless to say, most of us ain’t happy about it. We’d like to see the property redeveloped, but almost anything else would be better. So we filled the zoning commission chamber and we won the first round – the zoning commission recommended against the development. The biggest battle will be next, in front of the City Council, who can still approve it over the Zoning Commission. Which begs the question – why the hell do they even have a zoning commission or spend money on comprehensive plans when they don’t bother to follow the recommendations?

    But being a part of the winning team on Monday night was heady and fun. The lawyers for the developers sat behind me in the chambers and they were clearly stunned from the beginning at the way it was going against them. They had about 5 supporters in the chambers other than themselves and the other approximately 80 people were opposed. They fretted and muttered and sputtered. They had a powerful lawyer named Henry Isaacson whose practice is built upon winning these kind of cases. At the end, I turned around as I put on my coat and caught his eye. We locked eyes for about three long seconds, and I simply grinned like a happy fool. That felt good.

    Don Vaughn, our state senator, was our lawyer and he did a great job. I didn’t like Don before because he named Craven Williams as a role model at one time, which led me to believe that he was either clueless, gullible, or crooked. However, I have to admit that Craven had a ginormous number of good people fooled – most people did not have the perspective and knowledge that I had of his true character. (I used to work at Greensboro College where he was president for years.) So I’ve changed my opinion of Don and I’m happy that he is my state senator.

    A lot of people just don’t get why we don’t want this project here. It’s a beautiful thing, all right. But it needs to be over on Lee St. or some other area nearby that is a large enough tract and has large enough streets to support it. That’s not so hard to understand if you live here and deal with the parking and traffic on the streets every day. And they seem to think that these students, rich enough to rent a room in this high-end residence hall, won’t ever drive anywhere. Or at least they want us to believe that students never go anywhere but class and home.

    Plus, we wouldn’t necessarily mind apartments. But this is for 725 students, aimed at the age group of 18-22, rented by the bedroom. What we’d really love to see is a mixed-use development with small shops, offices, and living areas.

    Some of the morons commenting at the N&R say that the College Hill residents are afraid of losing rental income to this development. I don’t know anyone who opposes this who has rental property. And students aren’t the only people who rent in College Hill. These commenters make huge assumptions that have little basis in reality, yet they won’t shut up. What makes people speculate in public about subjects that they are totally ignorant about?

    The development company has claimed that UNCG is in favor of this development, but UNCG has not spoken out. In fact, UNCG wanted to buy this property but were outbid by this company. Yet they have raised the name of UNCG again and again as if they are partners with them. I think that this backfired on them, because one of the zoning commissioners pointed this out.

    Just the fact that I’ve had my faith somewhat restored in my government this week has made me pretty happy. What a rare feeling. Guess I’d better savor it while it lasts.

  • The definition of Slow Food

    Slow Foodies are often asked to define Slow Food, and it can be difficult to come up with the perfect “elevator” pitch. There are many misconceptions about Slow Food. It is definitely NOT vegetarian, as a fairly recent TV news story implied. It is not about cooking or chewing your food slowly. It is not even about organic or “health” food, although we think that food produced in this way is healthier for our bodies and our cultures. Here is a good, concise definition of Slow Food from an article about Carlo Petrini in the Independent:

    From producer to plate: What is Slow Food?

    Slow Food – Petrini’s term – is used to signal awareness of a food’s origin, on the part of the producer and “co-producer”, the movement’s name for the consumer. Slow Food shies away from the word “consumer” because “by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process”.

    Promoted by members of the organisation, the term stipulates that the food should “taste good, that it should be produced in a clean way which fully respects the environment, human health and animal welfare” and that “food producers are paid a fair wage”.

    Slow Food is necessarily regional, promoting and protecting local produce. Its aim: “To counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how food choices affect the rest of the world.”

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    This week has been consumed by studying (I’m pretty sure that I aced the final exam) and the arrival of my new laptop. I’ve been limping along for a long time on old computers that can’t quite handle the new technology, at least not well. My husband loves to gather up old computers and reassemble the working parts together to make a new computer. He bought the laptop I previously used for $60. It was a good deal, but it was just about to kick the bucket. Now I have a CD/DVD player that works and a battery that charges and a processor and memory that can handle more than one thing at a time. I can use iTunes again. The only thing left to do other than finish transferring my files (in progress) is to hook up the wireless to our router.

    It finally turned cold here and the Back Forty is done except for broccoli, kale, parsley, and various lettuces and mustard greens.

    It has been funny watching the competition for Top Cat play out. The social hierarchy is different for the various cats. Jazz is the tiniest and the oldest. Lucy is the biggest and the youngest. Theo is the newest and next to the youngest and next to the heaviest. Poor Guido is just confused.

    Jazz and Theo’s new pecking order:
    1. Jazz
    2. Theo
    3. Guido
    4. Lucy

    Guido and Lucy’s new pecking order:
    1. Theo
    2. Guido
    3. Lucy
    4. Jazz

    I’ve been exceptionally lazy and a bit depressed about my continuing problems with pain. Last night I managed to get it together enough to do some cleaning and some laundry, make a soup that is kind of like clam and corn chowder, but low-fat, fire up the woodstove, and read some good books instead of watching Hulu or farting around on Facebook all night. I finished A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, and began Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life as Spiritual Path, a collection of essays and excerpts from some of my favorite authors such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Natalie Goldberg, and Frederick Franck. I hope that this will give my spirit a positive boost and improve my perspective, which can only be described as kind of blah. I don’t really feel much of anything.

    I do feel some irritation toward people who have totally equated Christmas with shopping. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it this year. It’s hard for me to keep my smart-ass mouth shut. For example, a woman from my childhood on Facebook is outraged because a Walmart near her has not decorated for Christmas and is not playing Christmas music. Doesn’t sound true to me, but whatever. She is a Sarah Palin fan, if that explains anything. I want to say – Miss ******, what does Walmart have to do with Christ’s birth? Isn’t it actually LESS offensive if they are not tying in with Christmas? But the paranoia of the folks who have been convinced by the right wing that the libs are trying to take Christ out of Christmas is deep-seated now. They don’t trust anyone else, so I try to stay out of it, other than voicing my opinion here. But it is hard, and sometimes I don’t succeed.

    I am a little excited about some woodcut ideas that I have, and I hauled my woodcut and printing supplies from the studio in the back (which I think will be converted over to storage) to the second bedroom where I have set up a workspace. It has to do with family history and autobiography in visual terms. I want to make some Christmas cards too.

    Tomorrow is supposed to be a cold rain again (we are weary of it here, but our drought seems to have been broken) and I plan to get together with a good old friend that I haven’t talked to in years. So I do have a bright spot on the horizon to look forward to.