slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Scotland Highlands, Saturday, Sept. 28

    Up early to eat a marvelous breakfast at Glenspean Lodge, and since the day’s plans were almost entirely on the bus or the ferry, Sandy decided to give it a go. I wore some acupressure wrist bands that another tour member gave me and took only half a Dramamine. This worked very well and didn’t knock me out, which was good since normally twisty roads on buses and boat rides can trigger my motion sickness within a minute.

    Oban from the ferry

    Our bus took us to Oban, where we were cut loose for a little while. Sandy nosed around the shops some before returning to the ferry terminal to sit. His shoulder and arm weren’t the only parts of his body hurting. I ventured a bit farther away and bought us a couple of toboggans at a Harris Tweed mill shop that looked very old fashioned compared to the ones that we saw everywhere.

    It was quite comfortable on the large ferry over to the Isle of Mull. The weather was a bit wet, but the scenery was pretty.

    Dunollie Point and its castle ruins
    a smooth ride
    Lismore Lighthouse in the fog
    on the ferry
    Big ferry! I wonder if these two knew each other. Maybe there’s a story there.

    We were whisked onto the bus and transported to Tobermory, a beautiful little harbour town. They served an excellent seafood chowder at MacGochan’s Pub and Kitchen.

    There were palmettos in the parking lot. In Scotland! The Gulf Stream is a powerful force on the west coast of the British Isles.

    I rushed out of the pub to take this photo of the rainbow that appeared beside the rainbow colors of the harbour buildings.

    After lunch we didn’t have much time to look around Tobermory. This was my main criticism of the tour. I appreciated the time spent riding, especially since Sandy was in pain if he walked too far, but I wanted more time to poke around. The small area I had time in had some photo-worthy scenes though.

    Once again, our bus whisked us away to another small ferry. On the way, the bus driver pointed out that these boats were some of the most photographed boats in Scotland.

    I often couldn’t tell if he was kidding, since his humor was so dry.

    The roads were mostly one lane with places for one vehicle to pull over to let the other lane’s vehicle(s) pass.

    I finally figured out that if I wanted to take clear photos of the countryside, I would need to take short videos from the bus and trains. Since I always rode just behind Gus, it was very much like being on the front seat of a roller coaster. I did okay, though!

    This ferry had room for a few cars and our bus.

    We went back on such isolated roads that I didn’t see any houses or cars for miles. When I remarked to Gus that we were taking the back roads, he said “Oh, this is the main road.”

    I think he was joking.

  • Edinburgh to Roybridge, Sept. 26-27, 2024

    Looking down Prince Street to Waterloo Place.

    On Thursday morning, we slept late and then took a taxi to our next hotel, the Apex Waterloo Place. That night we would meet our tour manager and group, have dinner together, and decide whether Sandy was up for doing the tour.

    After leaving our luggage, we went to the corner cafe for brunch, where I had my first of many salmon dishes of the trip – a smoked salmon benedict.

    smoked salmon Benedict at the Society Bar & Kitchen

    Sandy wants to make our getting haircuts in other countries a tradition, so we walked down North Bridge then South Bridge Streets with a few stops to sit and found a barber shop with no customers and a walk-in sign. I wasn’t going to get my hair trimmed, but I ended up doing it and was glad of it.

    getting haircuts in Edinburgh
    the Royal Mile
    the Royal Mile
    the Royal Mile
    a “close” is an alley
    North Bridge St., an interesting modern building in the background

    It was a long walk for Sandy on even a good day, but I’m glad we both got out together in Edinburgh for a bit. It proved that Sandy could probably handle the tour, since most of it would be on buses and trains and boats anyway. After talking to both tour managers, we decided to go for it. Our room was very nice and dinner was excellent. We enjoyed meeting two other couples at dinner, and we’d end up hanging out with them quite a bit. I think I slept well for the first time. After breakfast at the hotel, we boarded a train and left for Glasgow.

    Platform 8e at Edinburgh Waverley station.

    We only had a brief stop in Glasgow with enough time to walk around the square in front of the train station. I would be interested in staying in Glasgow if we ever return, especially after talking to a couple of Glaswegians. Our bus driver was from Glasgow, and would only refer to Edinburgh as “that other city.”

    the square in Glasgow on Queens St.
    Glasgow
    detail from Glasgow building entrance

    I took a lot of blurry photos from the train to Fort William, where we would board our bus to Glenspean Lodge. I had taken a dramamine to ward off motion sickness and I struggled to stay awake. Later I figured out a solution for both problems.

    The views from our corner bedroom at Glenspean Lodge were beautiful and dinner was fantastic. Our tour group members were all Americans and the hotel owners knew what we wanted, so they provided top flat sheets on the beds and washcloths. Yay!

    view from Glenspean Lodge bedroom window
    view from Glenspean Lodge bedroom window

  • Edinburgh, Scotland, Sept. 25, 2024

    outside our hostel door: St. Giles Cathedral
    Barrie’s Close next to the hostel, which led down to the lower level of central Edinburgh.

    Wednesday was mostly a rest day. We both slept a lot and I slipped out around mid-day to let Sandy sleep and explore a little bit. I went downstairs to the coffee shop where I explained what was going on with us to the manager (there was a lot of blood in the room), and she bought me a cup of coffee. I took a cheese scone up to Sandy, but neither of us could really eat. I had to sit on the floor to eat and Sandy could hardly sit up in bed.

    I booked a room for that night at a “normal” hotel that said it had wheelchair accessible rooms. I canceled our bus tour that was toward the end of our stay, and contacted our tour manager for the Highlands train tour to get his feedback and to say that we might have to cancel.

    After a quick trip to the closest grocery to get bandages, antiseptic cream, and ibuprofen, I headed to Dovecot Tapestry Studios, a short walk away and an item on my bucket list. I wanted to go there more than any other place in Edinburgh. I ended up getting there after the gallery to see the tapestry studio had closed. I had already seen the Chris Ofili exhibition in London when we went to the National Gallery in 2017, so I wandered about the cafe and looked at the small tapestries on the walls there, and picked up a few things in the gift shop, including a book about Archie Brennan. I told the staff at the desk that I had studied under Archie, and why I probably could not come back when the gallery was open. They made a call and escorted me up to the gallery so I could see the tapestry weavers at work and the exhibition around the balcony walls.

    Here are some photos from Dovecot. Click to see the enlarged photo.

    outside of Dovecot
    History of Dovecot
    The weaving studio with its huge tapestry looms
    weavers working in Dovecot
    weavers working in Dovecot
    back side of the tapestry loom
    another shot of the studio space and looms
    preparation for weaving “Seamark”
    preparation for weaving “Seamark”
    “Seamark”
    “Seamark”

    Here is a gallery of the small tapestries in the cafe area of Dovecot. Click to see the enlarged photo with the artists’ names and titles.

    Around 5 p.m. we took a taxi to a Leonardo hotel near Haymarket, where we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. The room was comfortable and had plenty of space to maneuver, but had a bathtub. When I asked, they said all their rooms, including wheelchair accessible rooms, had bathtubs. Because Sandy’s leg strength is compromised by polymyositis and he depends on his hands to keep him steady, he had to bathe at the sink again. Don’t think I mentioned that he broke his dominant arm? He couldn’t stand the pain of it being touched, and he was wobbly.

    That’s okay, we would head to another hotel the next day. He was going to give it one more day to decide whether to go on the tour or go home. He was a real trooper!

  • Edinburgh, Scotland, Sept 24, 2024

    St. Giles Cathedral and statues in front of our hostel off the Royal Mile

    We left Sept. 23, Monday night, for Edinburgh, Scotland, where we planned to spend a few days before and after a tour to the Highlands for eight days. Our plans would be changed quite a bit on Tuesday, Sept. 24. That’s when, on our way to our hostel, my husband Sandy took a nosedive off the bus from the airport onto the sidewalk and busted his face and broke his arm at the shoulder joint. Thus, we spent the rest of Tuesday, Sept. 24 in an ambulance and hours in the local hospital.

    I need to acknowledge the incredible help of the bus drivers and a homeless man at the site of Sandy’s accident. Rob, the homeless guy, was the first to help. He had a first aid kit and put his raincoat over Sandy until I could get situated to help him. He would NOT take the money I offered him later. The bus drivers, Gail and Ryan, stayed with us and provided more antiseptic wipes and called the ambulance for us. The EMTs, Ashley and Haley, expertly and compassionately guided us through the process and brief paperwork and into the hospital.

    We had heard stories of other people experiencing emergency care in the UK and Europe, and still we managed to be surprised. Nobody mentioned money or insurance AT ALL. The ambulance ride was free. The hospital care was free. I was told when I asked that if he had to come back to the hospital for a second visit there would be a charge, but he did not so we’ll never know what that might have been.

    When Sandy fell, we thought for sure he had broken his nose. He had scrapes and a big cut on the bridge of his nose and bled so much from inside and outside his nose that it was scary. (He takes blood thinners.) They thought he might have dislocated his shoulder. It was after he was taken out of triage and into the emergency department and x-rayed that the v-shaped crack in his humerus (upper arm bone) was found. They checked out his head thoroughly, and as I already knew, it was very hard and he had no brain trauma or breakage. They couldn’t put a cast on it so he was provided with an arm sling and painkillers and discharged with the instruction to keep it immobile and an orthopedic doctor would follow up with a second opinion.

    The waiting room and bathrooms were not fancy like our hospitals here in Greensboro. There wasn’t artwork and carpet. The floors and walls were scuffed up and the seating was plastic. There were vending machines for snacks, cold and hot drinks. Maybe our medical system here should consider cutting down on the expenses for everything to be pretty and stylish and just spend their budget on patient care and hygiene and maintenance and salaries for health care workers. Just saying.

    The doctors, nurses, and staff were all young, patient, friendly, and compassionate.

    The only real concern I had was that I wasn’t given documentation, either on paper or electronically, about the details about what happened to him and the care he was given. I had to contact a legal department and they contacted me 9 days later. Same with the follow up call about his condition. By that time, we were on our way home to the states. I’ll get a package in the mail at some point with this paperwork and a CD of the x-rays, hopefully.

    Anyway, we took a taxi to our hostel, and he fell AGAIN trying to get into the cab. Hit the back of his head and laid in rain puddles. For a little while I wondered if the cab driver and I were going to be able to get him on his feet because his legs had just given out and his thigh muscles weren’t working. Finally I managed to get his feet under him while the driver lifted his torso without hurting his arm (this was the biggest challenge), we got him in the cab, and up to our hostel room.

    We had reserved a small private room with a bathroom at the hostel, and while it was quite cute and interesting, it turned out to be the tiniest room I have ever stayed in. It might have been fine for one person, or a young couple used to camping in a tent, but it had to work for the first night. The hostel had been a former jail so the rooms were former jail cells. The bathroom took up about a third of the floor space, the bed was against the end of the room in a way that I had to crawl over Sandy to get to the other side, and our luggage took up most of the rest of the floor space. I went out at 10 pm to a take-out place to get us food, since we had not eaten since a pitiful airplane breakfast early that morning. At that point, we had been awake for 36 hours.

    Thus, there were no photos of Edinburgh from this day except a photo that I took of Sandy on the sidewalk, which he doesn’t want public.

  • Leaving Wildacres, Part IV

    Rascal makes his appearance.

    Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. I am 3/4 of the way through! I may even finish this in time for Christmas!

    Sunday’s coffee view from the studio

    Although we had to vacate our rooms by 9:30 a.m., my classmates cleaned up the studio and we trickled out until it was just Edwina and I, working on my tapestry and her on a potholder loom, at 10:30 a.m.

    I met April and Carolyn at the Switzerland Cafe. Yes, the food was incredible. April and I had smoked trout BLTs on croissants. Carolyn is vegetarian and they had plenty of choices. The desserts looked great, but we were too full to sample any. I stopped next door at the general store and picked up a six-pack of Lazy Hiker Wesser Evil porter (yum!), some stinky cheese (uh, yum?) and a fresh baked warm loaf of bread that Sandy and I want more of – guess we’ve got several reasons to go back!

    Since I had the whole afternoon to drive by myself home and the weather seemed decent enough, I decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway back and stop several times along the way.

    Then I stopped at Linville Falls. My leg was healed enough that I felt like I could do most of the moderate hike of about one mile. There were a lot of people and dogs on the trail and it was hard to get clear shots. I didn’t hike to the upper falls.

    resilient hemlock – very tall

    I stopped at Stack Rock Overlook and the Tanawha Trail, which is also part of the MST, Mountains to Sea Trail. I didn’t go far because I was a bit nervous about the steep trail and my tendency toward vertigo these days.

    I found later where the trails were that gave you an overview of the Linn Cove Viaduct, but I decided to stop at the Linn Cove Viaduct parking area, where the trail took you UNDER the bridge. That was a more manageable walk anyway, and I found an interesting little area to explore.

    The history of building the Linn Cove Viaduct – amazing
    view of the bridge from underneath
    Part of the boulder field that was preserved by the construction method
    you know I couldn’t resist peeping in
    jewelweed was in bloom – and I think this is cow parsley, may be wrong

    Wild turkeys crossed the road. When I neared the intersection to go to the Moses Cone Manor, a car flashed its lights at me. Around the curve, I saw why. A doe was nibbling on something on the road and was not frightened of the cars. I stopped beside her and she was near enough that I could have reached out and touched her. Instead I scared her out of the road. I hope that she stayed away.

    After this, I resisted most of my urges to pull over at every overlook. But here’s one last one.

    I pulled off the Blue Ridge Parkway at Old Hwy 421, then sailed downhill to my home in the Piedmont Triad. It was only a little longer drive than taking I-40 from Marion, and much, much more pleasant.

    Now I want to go back. I love my street here in Greensboro, but I long to live in the mountains.

  • Wildacres Fiber Retreat Part III

    Friday-Saturday, Sept. 13-14, 2024

    The fog and a few showers rolled in. The rain was needed though. Dust covered the cars in the parking lot from the drive up the roads to Wildacres, which were partially paved.

    detail of ceramic totem pole outside pottery studio
    Edwina demonstrates making felted soaps.

    I finally bound my “Dark Forest” book, although it could use a press under weights and I still need to do the endbands. The briar on top can be easily removed to press the book, though, so I’ll do that now that it is home, and post a video of the whole thing once it is really finished. This section of common greenbrier is a very hard tough piece of wood that I picked up at Lake Waccamaw and I’ve saved for years with the intention to showcase it on a book cover or collage. The covers were painted, sanded, burned, and drilled in Dan Essig’s class at Pocosin Arts in the summer of 2022.

    Friday’s stitch meditation
    Saturday’s coffee view
    evidence of rain
    sun makes some attempts to peep through the clouds

    Here are the small tapestries I stitched to canvases. These will be for sale at my upcoming show(s).

    I have always planned to do a large tapestry of the bottom one – I may be inspired to do it after I finish the one on my loom now. It is an abstract of a view of wooden stairs from a window in a room at Fort Worden in Port Townsend.

    Lichen inspiration
    Saturday’s stitch meditation

  • Wildacres Fiber Retreat Part II

    Wednesday-Thursday, Sept. 11-12

    A gorgeous day beckoned, and we decided to go to the Switzerland Cafe for lunch. However, it was closed, so we checked out their general store and the awesome book/coffee/gift shop next door, Little Switzerland Books & Beans. This is the kind of bookstore I’ve always dreamed of having – an old house with lots of levels of used and old books, unusual gifts, and coffee and baked goods. I’m going to make it a point to go there every time I’m nearby.

    This little block of goodness is at the intersection of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Hwy 226A, an extremely twisty road that I took the first couple of times I drove up here. Apparently it is a rite of passage for motorcyclists.

    We ended up going to lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of Spruce Pine, Puerto Nuevo. I am not a huge fan of Mexican, only because I’m a little burned out from eating too much of it, BUT this place was outstanding. Best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten and a salsa bar with six kinds of salsa. There was mole on the menu, which is unusual for American Mexican restaurants. Another place to which I would definitely return.

    Meanwhile, back at the lovely Wildacres Retreat, I made great progress with my tapestry, jumping past my left brain’s objections had made that stopped me cold for so long. I have a group show coming up in mid-October (more about that later this week) and an opportunity to be in a group show in a local gallery in November-December, so my other major project was to get some of my small work mounted on canvases. Edwina suggested that I paint the canvases with an acrylic wash first, so I did that. As much as anything, this week was valuable due to being able to spread out, get focused, and get feedback.

    I had taken a tumble the first day on campus and strained a muscle in my thigh, so I didn’t get in the walking that I hoped to do while here. I was breaking in my new hiking boots for my big trip to Scotland, which is very, very soon. But this was a gorgeous place to relax and heal.

    Still sunny enough for shadows
    Wednesday’s stitch meditation
    Thursday’s coffee view
    We met in the upper pottery studio house, which was set up for a print studio

    I took a long break to photograph the wildflowers along the path from the lodge to the studio.

    the gardens below the lodges, plus squirrel on fence, clouds moving in

    Holly talked about Gypsy Hollingsworth, who was her first weaving teacher, and showed a couple of her weavings. (This is April holding one up.) She was an amazing character and artist and benefactor to other artists. I wish I had met her!

    Thursday’s stitch meditation
  • Wildacres Fiber Retreat, Part I

    Wildacres Fiber Retreat, Part I

    A vista from the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way to Wildacres

    Monday-Tuesday, Sept 9-10, 2024

    Edwina Bringle, that fascinating and multi-talented artist who has been a teacher and mentor to so many fiber artists, held a second fiber retreat at Wildacres Retreat, a mountaintop retreat facility near Little Switzerland, North Carolina. I attended last year, and jumped at the opportunity to go again this year.

    Because my brain was full of squirrels, I packed a large variety of art supplies and unfinished projects. I could do this because I drove the Volvo wagon up there. I decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway from Hwy 421 near Wilkesboro and Boone, which was a great decision and as long as the weather is good and I have a bit of extra time to travel I will take this route from now on.

    I realized that I had never driven (or been a passenger) on this stretch of high country, so on both drives I took advantage of being able to stop on the overlooks. On the way there I stopped at Moses Cone Memorial Park and Flat Top Manor. Driving across the famous Linn Cove Viaduct on Grandfather Mountain was a visual treat. I wasn’t able to find a spot to take a photo of it, but it is a widely photographed bridge and has a fascinating history.

    After about 50-60 miles of stunning Appalachian scenery, I rolled up into Wildacres where two young deer greeted me at the entrance. Later I would see the largest wild turkey I have ever seen in the same spot.

    On this trip I took a photo every morning to document the changing weather. It was warm and sunny for the first few days, despite the ominous forecasts of heavy rain coming from Hurricane Francine to our south. I never had to put on my raincoat or lift my umbrella, though. When the rain came, it was after I left and came from the east in another storm.

    the view from my bedroom window, Tuesday
    lichen and mosses caught my attention on this trip
    one of many artworks outside on campus
    Where I picked up the slow progress on this tapestry I began in Summer 2023
    almost every night I did a stitch meditation inspired by my surroundings

  • John C. Campbell Folk School, Part 3

    Well, gosh, I nearly forgot about posting this third part of my trip to the Folk School August 4-10. I have almost always stayed in Keith House, which is the oldest building in use for housing on campus, and I love the vibe there. This time I shared a room with two women from Tennessee and California in one of the newer places, the Little House. It was between the Farmhouse and the Festival Barn. I enjoyed the stable air conditioning and a bathroom off our room! Everybody was happy.

    There were chestnut trees between our building and the Festival Barn. They were infested with what looked like web caterpillars, which is sad but they seemed pretty healthy and the caterpillars made some lacy leaves to pick up.

    Also, my class was in the new Book and Paper Arts Studio, which was a fabulous space. It was only in the planning stages the last time I took a book arts class.

    Here are photos of some of the paper sheets drying on the doors and tables in the studio. I’m sorry that I don’t remember who made what. That’s mine at the top right, and maybe the kozo paper on the left. I know that Nicole made the green paper out of onion stalks from the JCCFS garden.

    I never played with the cooked gingko leaves. I needed to make some choices, and they were hard decisions!

    Nicole’s green onion and iris leaf paper:

    When we started working with the dyes, I made certain to wear this tank top which I drip and slap dye and clean my hands on every time I dye. The lace made some nice prints. Unfortunately I didn’t do an afterbath to set the dye so much of it washed out later.

    front
    back

    The sunset clouds one evening replicated the lacy kozo of our paper sculptures.

    A fledgling robin (I think) visited the deck at the studio and let me walk up close to him before flying away.

    Here’s a sunset photo from in front of the Little House:

    Of course I had to pick up this huge beetle because I wanted to see his underside. He flipped around and grabbed onto my fingers and I freaked out and shook him off in the grass. He was about as big as a fifty cent coin. Aren’t his legs interesting?

    I was really pleased and honored that Bryant asked me to read this poem, which is one of my favorites, to the class during our last day, which was Friday.

    On Friday night, I went over to the Crown, the restaurant/bar over on the main drag of Brasstown, and bought a wonderful loaf of whole grain sourdough bread and visited my classmate Susi’s art table at the little market outside. I drank a Highland Gaelic Ale at the bar and wondered why I hadn’t come over here before. Oh wait, because I always spend any time I’m able to stand or sit upright in the studio, and the studios were closed on Friday night!

    Afterwards, I went down to Brasstown Creek and waded around a bit, picked up a few rocks.

    We were incredibly lucky with the weather. Although some days were hot and humid, the rest of the state was getting flooded by a tropical storm. This time I didn’t have to drive home in a driving rain! We were sent home after breakfast on Saturday and I did my usual stop at this overlook

    and again in Dillsboro for a pit stop. I found a very cute shop called the The Fox Burrow and bought a couple of gifts, since the craft shop at the Folk School wasn’t open on Saturday morning until 11 a.m. I had planned to make another stop at the Folk Art Center in east Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but traffic got incredibly snarled with a detour off I-40 and then a crash on the detour. I gave up my plan to eat lunch in Asheville and I made my way through the River Arts District and out through Biltmore to the highway home.

    Where I have an incredible amount of artistic energy and ideas still brewing two weeks later!

  • Wire and paper sculpture at John C. Campbell Folk School, part two

    Indigo vat, walnut dye, and oxide pigment station in class.

    My personal experience in this class, and the overall experience at JCCFS, felt transformative. My emotions were all over the place, and I was overwhelmed on Monday and Tuesday morning. There was so much to discover in such a short time – such a wide array of possibilities to follow – how would I choose a path? I needed some kind of focus to keep from spinning off into the universe, and as a neurodivergent person who can have a panic attack when a plethora of goodness is presented to me, this was a concern. I had given up papermaking because of my back pain issues – would I be able to last the week?

    I talked to Nicole late on Tuesday morning, then skipped lunch to take some alone time in my room. There, I figured it out. It was like a switch flipped on. The same lesson I have to relearn over and over. I’m not here to produce. I’m here to learn and have fun while doing it. Fortunately, that is a key part of the Folk School mission. I stopped worrying about a direction or getting to try everything that I wanted to learn, and suddenly, I was free. I played.

    We used a pour and drain method of papermaking because we weren’t after perfect sheets. We were going to tear them up while damp to wrap our armatures. The paper pulp available was overbeaten and so had a high shrinkage factor. This meant that it was tough and tight on the armatures when it dried. We used bleached abaca, flax, and later in the week we beat our own cooked kozo (mulberry bark strips) and used it in paper and in strip form.

    I had come there with the intention of learning to make the wire/paper bird sculptures that Bryant was creating, and I did make three little birdies. But there were so many abstract ideas emanating from the materials themselves, especially from found sticks. Bryant started us out with making random weave wire orbs.

    The orbs dipped.
    Two orbs at the end. They don’t look like much now, but they will look awesome with lights inside.

    I wrapped sticks with some lace I brought and different papers and kozo strips, then I dyed some of them.

    My first birdie was dipped in bleached abaca pulp, then later I wrapped some paper on it. I dyed it in indigo, then glued (with methylcellulose) a light piece of paper to its underside. I might color it later to make it look more bluebirdish. Also need to add eyes.

    drying after the first dip
    This one is about as big as my hand.

    Towards the end of the class, I made a bird with just the flax pulp, and the wire rusted beautifully. Then I had one odd little wire orb that I had used to experiment with wrapping cloth and paper on, and I found this rusty hook that I brought home from a Cornish beach, so it became a duck/dragonfly kind of hybrid.

    Duck/dragonfly and flax pulp birdie

    I intended for this wire to become a big birdie but it had other ideas. The spiral bit came out of the trash can. This paper was almost dry when I covered the shapes but it still had some shrinkage in it.

    future mobile? hanging?

    For this one, I was playing with strips of kozo and a sheet of paper I had made with kozo strips embedded in it, but it was not behaving so I tore it in two and attached it to this trio of sticks. The “back” has the lacy kozo bark that you tease apart but as much as I like the look, I found that the process made my blood pressure rise when I had trouble controlling it.

    “front”
    “back”

    Maybe one of my very favorites – the lesson of stopping at the right point. The stick did break off at the top later, but it still looks good, like a leaf.

    This tray was filled with rocks I picked up there and a cone of some kind that I dipped in paper pulp. The tray is kozo of different forms. I dyed it with black walnut.

    Finally, Miz Shirley Squirrely. I began Shirley in Bryant’s “Wrapping Wild” class last summer, and brought her with me to finish her in this class. I wrapped the dyed lace around her neck and front, attached a pulp-dipped pine cone for her tail, made ears out of lace and used bits of ink painted pine cone pieces for her eyes and nose. The silk leaf is her “party dress.” Her paws are leather from an upcycled belt.

    Miz Shirley enjoys the outside porch.
    Miz Shirley with her party dress on.

    I didn’t come away with many sheets, but here’s a shot of a kozo sheet I made and dipped in indigo and poured black walnut dye over it to get that almost black color.

    Since most of the art work I do takes a lot of planning and is very slow, it was very refreshing to have lots of little projects going at once. While some things were drying, I’d be making paper or dyeing or making another wire structure. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!