slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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    Suddenly I feel like Miss Piggy today. Couldn’t tell you why.

    A lot of things have happened since I last posted. I stopped paying to have my blog ad-free and the ads are pretty disgusting, so I may break down and upgrade to a paid account. I hate to do it, because between that and paying for my photos to be hosted on Flickr, that adds up to over $100 per year. I can’t really let the Flickr account go because I have linked most of my photos to that account. That would be an enormous amount of work to correct that. Plus, I really am attached to my domain name. I’ve had it since 2005. The thought of letting it go has become more intolerable to me.

    I am going to convert this over to more of an artist website, and my postings to Facebook and Instagram should appear on the sidebar. But that will take a while. Maybe over the winter break. I’ll have made a decision about whether the cost is worth it by October.

    ^^^Pablocito, studio assistant, and the reason why there is aluminum foil everywhere. (He doesn’t like it.)

    I took a week’s vacation at home in late July because it was slow at work and I have a lot of vacation time built up. It was marvelous. Really, I almost preferred it to traveling.

    The first thing on my agenda was to warp up this “new” Beka rigid heddle loom for a sakiori workshop later that week. It was not anywhere near as simple as I thought it would be, and by the time I rewarped it and got the tension right, it took three days and some help from a friend! However, now I know some things I should and shouldn’t do with this type of loom. For one thing, I doubt that I will put three yards of warp on it again.

    This patchwork from Jude Hill’s online class (see below) really scratches an itch for me. I love that it is portable. The only problem is my hands can’t take as much hand sewing as I would like to do. My sewing machines (plural) are a constant pain in my ass to keep running and maintained, but I did abuse them pretty badly when I was doing the denim and t-shirt quilt projects. It still amazes me that you can buy a new cheap machine for as much as it is to repair one.

    Anyway, bitching aside, I LOVE making these little “puzzle pieces” and putting them together in different ways. It reminds me of my favorite toy growing up, which I think was sold by Tupperware. It was like Legos, but with tiny little pegged pieces in different shapes that could be pushed into a plastic grid. I constantly played with it sitting on the den floor, and I still have a box with the pieces somewhere. It drove my father nuts because he was always stepping on them.

    Later that week when I felt like dealing with warping a loom again I caught up on the Rebecca Mezoff/Sarah Swett “Fringeless” online class that I began LAST SUMMER, and by the end of the week, I had this Mirrix loom warped and ready to go. The warping method produces a four selvedge tapestry that is ready when it comes off the loom, no sewing in ends or hemming edges required. To be honest, it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it.

    Then on Saturday, I went to the sakiori class that was taught by Dawn Hummer of Saori Song Weaving in Chapel Hill, and sponsored by the Triangle Weavers Guild in a great space that they rent on an ongoing basis in an old school near Durham. I didn’t really learn that much, and I don’t need any encouragement to cut loose and play, but it is always good to hear how and why other artists do what they do. I got to see Saori looms and how they work, and that was really cool. It was fun and that was the whole point. I decided to make some pieces to use as book covers. Here is the first one. There is room on the warp for many more.

    In other news, I’ve had to learn how to live without air conditioning for a few days. I hope it won’t be much longer. It is good for me to be reminded not to take this for granted. Work is revving back up with the fall semester classes beginning in only two weeks. The Tapestry Weavers South retreat is in nearby Elkin, NC on Labor Day weekend, so I have that to look forward to. After that, I doubt I will be able to afford any other art retreats or workshops because I am going to have to dip into my savings to pay for the Ireland trip before January, and to be responsible I will pay my savings back. It will be totally worth it to go back to Ireland, where I belong.

  • just ramblin’

    Next week I’m taking a staycation and I have a lot of projects in mind and a couple of events to attend, including seeing Gordon Lightfoot in concert at the Carolina Theater in Greensboro – a great venue for a great artist.

    Today, I’m considering my priorities in what I want to accomplish and what I need to get done. I’m taking a small weaving workshop on sakiori (Japanese rag weaving technique) that is not far away, so first on the list is to assemble and warp my new-to-me Beka rigid heddle loom, and cut/tear half-inch strips of rags for this workshop next Saturday. This is mainly an exercise in creativity and fun, and usually no matter what the subject is, I learn something from a new teacher.

    Secondly, I am going to spend some time catching up on the online courses I signed up for LAST YEAR and this year, with the priority being to warp up my new-to-me Mirrix loom in the four-selvedge technique I’ve learned in Rebecca Mezoff and Sarah Swett’s “Fringeless” online course. I hope that this will lead to me weaving small tapestries for book covers and even pages. Making a tapestry book has long been a goal for me.

    Other priorities are preparing “puzzle piece” squares for Jude Hill’s current online course as a traveling project. I’d like to do some more cloth strip weaving and make some bags like the ones I made in India Flint’s “Bagstories” course last year.

    Another prep project is to make the components for several books, covers and pages, to have them ready to bind. I want to bind at least one book with some of the signatures I made in Leighanna’s workshop at FOBA, and it is mostly ready.

    Also, I just finished the first season of “Stranger Things.” As usual, I am behind on popular shows and normally I can’t handle horror shows or flicks – I tend to have nightmares – but this struck me more as a combination of “Freaks and Geeks” and Stephen King. I will probably finish watching the series next week.

    I will need to get my battery replaced in the car. We jumped it off after some difficulty after it sat for a while and I drove it to the mechanic’s shop, then made the unwise decision to drive it back home and see if it cranked in the morning. Now it won’t even click when we try to jump it. If we can get it charged again, I will leave it at the mechanic’s shop and let them replace the battery and check out the rest of the electrical system. Fortunately I walk to work and we can get by with one car most of the time, but it limits what I can do during weekdays when Sandy is working unless I get up at 6:30 and drive him to work and pick him up at 4 p.m. I don’t really want to do that.

    Once the heat wave settles down, which according to the forecast should happen around Tuesday, I am going to fire up the electric dehydrator and dry a bunch of cherry tomatoes, which are beginning to produce a lot more than we can eat. The UNCG garden is producing plenty of lemon cucumbers, which I have mostly given away, some zephyr squash, and the Roma tomatoes are beginning to ripen. The pole lima beans are now healthy looking after a Japanese beetle attack, but it has been so hot that they have not blossomed, so I hope for a fall harvest. I’ve harvested and eaten onions – the first onions I’ve ever grown from seed. The garlic bulbs did not separate into cloves so I’ll have to figure out what went wrong. We have had a few peppers of various kinds, mainly Italian frying peppers.

    Other than that, I am daydreaming about my plans to go to Ireland next June, probably by myself!!! and Sandy has applied for Social Security, so he can retire at any point he wants to now. Since we can’t retire to Ireland, I want to try to come up with ways to go there fairly often. I have an app on my phone called Hopper that is good at alerting you to price drops and rises in airfare on certain routes and days, and I’ve found quite a few AirBNBs that are very inexpensive. If you reserve way ahead of time, you can usually find good prices. Also, I learned on the recent trip to Oregon that I do just fine with a loaf of good bread, sharp cheese, fresh fruit, and nuts for my meals. I’ll be at an art retreat for a week but I want to spend another week walking on the coast.

    Yes, I am trying to maintain my mental health during a time of political horror in my own country. At least the racism is out in the open now, but these fascists are scary. My father fought in World War II. What would he say if he were alive? It’s hard to imagine that we are in this place of meltdown, and I will probably end up writing about my helpless feelings about the fall of our civilization at some point. What do you do when people refuse to believe the truth? It is beyond my comprehension.

    Honestly, “Stranger Things” is much less scary and a whole lot more believable.

    I will add a statement on the sidebar about the appearance of ads on my blog beginning July 28. It is part of my expense cutting to push my money toward retirement, travel, and art expenses. I won’t see them or have any control over them, but I’m not spending any more money on this blog, and that is when my bill is due to prevent ads. Please, just ignore them. Don’t click on them. I hate advertisements and I do not choose the content.

  • Focus on Book Arts – Surface Design on Metal and Paper

    I have so much fun with Leighanna Light’s techniques that I decided to take both of her classes at FOBA this year. I took a break on Friday because I have finally learned that I cannot go full charge for five days at an art retreat without falling apart before the end. Kathy went home. So that was the day I roamed around town by myself and took photos. Susanne and I sent three boxes full of stuff that we bought or no longer needed for classes back home by Priority Mail. I repacked everything and left the suitcase with one wheel in the garbage can.

    On Saturday, Judy joined my class, so it was nice to reconnect with her. She gave me an accordion flag style book she made with her handmade paper and photos she took of the textures at Yellowstone National Park. Such a nice memento of our time together there. I’ll post a photo later. Also sitting at our table was Virginia Sumner, attending her first art retreat. She was kind enough to give us a ride back to the MAX line station so that we didn’t have to lug bags too far. You can check out Virginia’s artwork here. I love making new friends at art retreats, even though I didn’t try very hard at this one.

    ^^^On Saturday morning we concentrated on the techniques that would have to dry for a while. The first thing we did was make gesso photo transfers on metal. It’s a very simple technique but I always have problems with any kind of photo transfer. I think that I will try to rub a little more paper off.

    ^^^I had some extra tin so I played with gesso and stencils again.

    ^^^We went out and picked leaves to do leaf prints on copper and brass. This is a technique that Leighanna developed. The brass turned the copper a bluish color where they were stacked – or was it the copper turned the brass blue – aw heck, I’m mixed up, but it was cool. I think that the brass is the bigger piece.

    ^^^We spent the afternoon painting and stenciling and stamping watercolor paper with gesso, let them dry, then painted over them with dyes and chalk paint. I could do this for weeks and I don’t know why I don’t do it more when I am at home. I am resistant to getting paint on my hands and I hate gloves so I guess that is it, but if I am somewhere else in a workshop I am happy slapping wet stuff on paper and getting it all over me. I kept going back and adding more color here and there.

    ^^^The following day we tore our papers into signatures and bound them into a book with a canvas cover with a longstitch binding. I can make three more books with the extra signatures I made.

    ^^^Then came the tough decision – what metal plate to use on the cover? I would have been fine with several of these. It helped to cut down the leaf prints into smaller sections. Once I did that, one stood out and I went with it.

    We attached the metal with a metal punch and little nuts and bolts. I originally bound the book with red thread to give it a pop, but after I attached the plate I rebound it with black thread. Part of the look was to hang ribbons and yarns and odd bits to the threads hanging off the spine. I like that kind of thing, but I didn’t go for it with either of my books. I preferred the simple look of the plain black thread on the spine, so I brought the ends of the threads to the inside as in a pamphlet binding.

    I still need to glue the back and front papers to the cover, but I’m very happy with the results I had in both workshops. I don’t expect to come home with something that I am so satisfied with, because the idea is that I am learning and playing, so this was great.

    Susanne and I flew back on the redeye from Portland to Greensboro late that night. PDX is a great airport, with good shops and restaurants at normal prices. I end this series with the amazing banh mi from Bambuza Vietnam Kitchen, which I washed down with a “Made Marion” marionberry cider from 2 Towns Ciderhouse. I will miss the food and drinks in Oregon.

  • Focus on Book Arts – The Construction of an Art Book

    My first class at Focus on Book Arts was with Leighanna Light, titled “The Construction of an Art Book.” Susanne and Kathy joined me for this one. For two days we collaged, painted, and stenciled a strip of canvas that was folded and glued into a book. We also stenciled onto metal pieces and applied chemicals for a “faux etching” effect.

    ^The process

    ^Painted canvas strips drying

    ^Photo by Leighanna Light

    ^^^My book and each page spread

    ^Faux etching with stencils on copper and tin

    ^photo by Leighanna Light

    ^Leighanna with the students’ books

  • Forest Grove Eats

    We ate well in Forest Grove, but mostly from two places: the downtown farmers’ market where we shopped on Wednesday evening, and Kama’aina, an award winning Hawaiian restaurant that we could not stay away from. We went there three times: on our first night in town, where I had the limu ahi poke bowl that I have dreamed about since the last time we ate there in 2017. We went back after our first class finished on Thursday night and ate garlic furitake fries and edamame appetizers and then Susanne and I went BACK on Saturday afternoon and did it all over again. They also had the best porter I found in town on tap – D’Visionary from Pono Brewing Company in Portland. I wish I could find it here!

    ^^^Kama’aina

    ^^^On the same corner with Kama’aina was Slow Rise Bakehouse. Susanne bought a loaf of seeded bread that I ate with almond butter and sliced pears three times – oh yum. The last morning I stuck my head in just for the smells. I had bought this bread two years ago at the farmers market and swooned over it then too.

    ^^^FG Sushi, very popular, very small, very good. The salad had a particularly wonderful citrus dressing.

    ^^^Downtown

    ^^^Valley Arts

    ^^^off 19th St.

    ^^^garden gate

    ^^^Bathroom sign in Ridgewalker Brewing, where I enjoyed a couple of beers at the bar on Friday, my introvert recharge day.

    ^^^Great posters in the bathroom at Waltz Brewing, where we dodged a hail storm walking home from the farmers’ market. I had hoped to buy a growler of the delicious coffee porter like last time, but they didn’t have any dark beers on tap.

    Hey, I hear you, where are the photos of this amazing farmers’ market you carry on about every time you go to Forest Grove? Well, sometimes an event fills up your senses and you don’t remember to take photos. Also, a bad storm was cooking in the sky and we loaded up and left in a hurry. We bought strawberries, blueberries, two kinds of raspberries, two kinds of cherries, another loaf of rye bread from a different baker, lemon hummus, tabouli, tzatziki sauce, pita chips, and a jar of almond butter made with coconut oil. Behind the Farmers’ Market we picked up two delicious cheeses from the Urban Decanter. We munched on these goodies until we left Oregon.

    I would like to continue eating this way.

    Final note: We were very sorry to see that Maggie’s Buns, another of our favorite places to eat, had closed. We weren’t the only ones who were sad about it.

    Okay, the rest of the posts will be about the FOBA classes.

  • Forest Grove, Oregon

    On Tuesday morning, we hit Powell’s one more time, then packed up our stuff and walked to the nearest MAX stop. I lost a wheel on my luggage with the heavy art supplies, but between the two of us we managed. We took the MAX all the way to Hillsboro, where we caught a bus to Forest Grove. Had it not been for the broken wheel, it would have been easy. I won’t mind taking public transport again to this conference, but I will buy a heavy duty wheeled carry-on bag before my next trip.

    We both are in love with Forest Grove, Oregon. I long to live there. The weather was almost perfect, temperature wise, anyway. That was a relief since the last two visits were during awful heat waves.

    ^^^Front of our AirBNB

    ^^^Angel and daisies

    ^^^Yummy black raspberries for free munching

    ^^^Chickens and guineas

    ^^^View of our apartment and balcony from the trail

    ^^^Sign that convinced me to not walk on the trail

    ^^^I like the color scheme of this historic house

    ^^^Gorgeous flowers and gardens on our walks from our B&B to Pacific University.

  • Portland, Japanese Gardens, Day 3

    Monday was a day for exploring. I had been to the Portland Japanese Garden before, but Susanne had not, and I sure did not mind revisiting that wonderful place. However, I decided that I could no longer stand my hair so first we got that taken care of. After the Japanese Garden we went to Oblation Papers and Press and Dick Blick’s, and of course another trip to Powell’s. I took advantage of not having to pay sales tax or shipping for a few items at Blick’s, but I was good only because I did not have much room in my luggage.

    ^^^View from the room

    ^^Haircut

    ^^^Roses at the International Rose Test Garden

    View of downtown Portland and Mount Hood in the distance from the Japanese Gardens

    ^^^”Forest of Dreams: Ainu and Native American Woodcarving” exhibition. This “Statue of Fusa Sugimura,” by Takeki Fujito, was carved from one piece of wood including the base.

    ^^^Susanne

    ^^^iris

    ^^^koi

    ^^^So much here is about shadows and light

    ^^^A bite to eat and tea at the Umami Cafe

  • Portland, June 2019, Days 1 & 2

    My friend Susanne and I headed out to Oregon on June 22 to attend the Focus on Book Arts conference at Pacific University in Forest Grove. We decided to spend a few days in Portland first. We got out there early and took the MAX light rail line and walked the rest of the way to a sweet AirBNB in northeast Portland on the edge of the Mississippi Arts District, something I will not do with heavy luggage again, although I would stay there again. The neighborhood was full of Craftsman houses and creative gardens and the historic Peninsula Park Rose Garden was only a block or two away.

    We had heard of an awesome store named Cargo, so we called a Lyft and went shopping on Saturday afternoon. While we were there, we bought snacks and take-out dinner from the Japanese deli within, called Giraffe, and then drank a smoked marzen and pear cider at the brewpub next door, Hair of the Dog.

    ^^^Entrance to Cargo

    ^^^Happy Susanne in front of Cargo

    The next morning we walked to a coffee shop for bagels and caffeine, then strolled around this historic park:

    ^^^Peninsula Park Rose Garden

    My friend Cat picked us up from our AirBNB at 11 and we ate brunch at Gravy, then walked around on Mississippi Avenue.

    ^^^Lovely dying tree in front of our AirBNB

    ^^^Mississippi Avenue sidewalk

    ^^^Cat and I at Gravy


    ^^^Cat, Susanne and I somewhere on Mississippi Ave.

    ^^^Susanne, Donut Bitch, in front of Blue Star Donuts.

    Cat dropped us off at McMenamin’s Crystal Hotel, where we dumped our luggage and immediately went to Powell’s City of Books, our happy place.

    ^^^The Crystal Hotel

    ^^^The Gillian Welch “Revelator” room

    It’s kind of funny that we got the Gillian Welch room since the one concert that I attended with my friend Cat was a Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings show.


    ^^^”TriPPPy” Cider at Al’s Den in the basement of the Crystal Hotel, and the last photo with long hair.

    We ate take-out from the Whole Foods deli across the street the rest of the time we were in Portland. I don’t usually shop at Whole Foods, but this time I was thankful that it was next door. Plus we had all those damned doughnuts to eat. It was just terrible, forcing me to eat doughnuts like that. I got a chocolate donut with CBD and the server seemed really concerned that I might not know what CBD is. Uh, I feel like I am pummeled with information with CBD constantly, so I am not that out of touch, thanks anyway, now for your own safety, remove your body from between me and that doughnut.

  • Changes

    As I am in a life transition of sorts, I think that I’m going to change this blog, drop the domain name, and add a gallery. Most people are on Instagram or Facebook these days anyway. Plus, there is a truly repugnant blog out there now called slowly she turned dot com where this man mocks his unfortunate wife’s journey through menopause. He seems to think he is funny. There’s nothing I can do about it. I should have bought that domain name too, but who knew that would happen? I didn’t want a dot com domain name because I wasn’t selling anything. I liked using dot net because of my connection to fiber arts and my focus on the web of the world around us.

    So, beginning September 1, 2019, my URL will likely become slowturnstudio.wordpress.com and I will develop more pages. I’ll still blog, but there might be ads. I’m currently paying $30 per year to keep ads off this blog. I am cutting my budget in many ways and the expense of this blog is one small cut, but it all adds up. I truly hate the ads, especially since I have no control over the content, so we’ll see if or how long I can stand it.

    We will all need to transition to the new world, so I know I am not alone. We will all need to find what it is important and let go of what is not. I plan to retire at 62 and travel as much as possible and live frugally as I can. Hopefully there will be plenty of art and gardening and front porch sitting. Who knows what might be ahead? It doesn’t look pretty from here, but I’m going to grab as much beauty from it as I can.

    I may begin selling books and fiber art again, but it will probably be through here or Facebook. This will be how I will raise money for travel. Lots of ideas are percolating. Stay tuned.

  • Two additions to the family and two additions to the studio

    Meet Bernie and Liz.

    Bernie is a scrappy little thing and he bit the shit out of Sandy twice when he moved them from their very small cage to the new one we bought for them on Saturday. He hung on like a snapping turtle too. Maybe we should have named him Snapper.

    We love birds but we have never wanted pet birds. This spring and summer Sandy bought bird feeders and we have enjoyed watching them and learning to identify them from the front porch. To me, a bird in a cage is a tragedy. However, these birds needed rescuing from a sick relative who had them both crammed into a 13x13x10 inch cage and they had been neglected. We didn’t know about them until he called from the hospital to ask us to feed them. When Sandy went over there, he brought them home.

    They are very stressed out and I was half convinced that they would die. Sandy was working a late shift late week and I have had a phobia of being attacked by birds since I was little, so I had a major panic attack before I settled into accepting it. Their cage was nasty and we don’t know a thing about caring for birds. But we are learning. Friends have been giving us advice on Facebook. I hope that we won’t need to take either of them to a vet for a while, because they understandably hate us.

    Anyway, here is their new abode, on a sturdy shelf in Sandy’s man cave, where we can shut the door when we aren’t home to keep the cats away. The cats don’t seem interested at all, though. I hope that they become happy. We will try.

    The week before, I snagged a Mirrix Little Sister loom at a local thrift/reuse store for only $8.00! It would have been a bargain at $80.00. It appears to have never been used. At the same time, I picked up an old Beka rigid heddle loom for $6.50. I’m looking forward to playing with these this summer.

    On Saturday, Susanne and I will go to Focus on Book Arts in Forest Grove, Oregon for the fourth time! We love Forest Grove. I keep checking the real estate prices there, but compared to Greensboro, everywhere seems more expensive. We will spend a couple of days in Portland first. So there will be more travel and book art blogging in late June or July.

    I am almost to the end of that long twill gamp that I will use for curtains. Then the plan was to tie the other half of the warp on and weave another set. Whew, that does not sound very appealing right now. I had planned for it to be double weave rugs, you see. Then when I started warping I realized that I had misjudged this warp. It stuck together in the reed so badly that I put half of it aside and switched gears completely. We need curtains. Of course, Diego and Pablocito will destroy them, but that’s life with cats.