Today is the first day of October, and a lot is happening: The Portland Marathon [I am not running], sorting bins [yarn, stuff, and fabric], running, gallery show, and looking ahead.
THE DECLUTTERING CURE
ART
PERMANENCE
Bees, long hoped-for goals, the illusion of permanence, photographs of the shore. The shifting tides and movement of sand and stone shoved in and out by the ocean.
ANNIVERSARY
Yesterday was the 49th anniversary of our wedding. Gary and I were married under the pagoda tree in my parents’ backyard. We wrote our vows, a friends officiated, I made the wedding cake, a fruit cake, from a 100-year-old recipe, Joyce brought lasagna, The Chieftains sang on a record, and my dad toasted us from Shakespeare as his “warrior children”.
Our anniversary rings, more about goldsmithing, the Hood to Coast relay, and my preferred running conditions.
Continue readingFEARLESS fear less
On being scared and eventually… working again in a metal shop. I ran two miles this morning and my first four-miler this year the day before yesterday, building toward the 10k Bridge Crossing in October. Sometimes life is like running: you just have to keep doing it.
the Summer Night Market in Cannon Beach is CANCELLED
As of ten minutes ago. No Night Market this summer.
People, this is the decision of the Cannon Beach Arts Association, not me. It’s not delayed, but cancelled, and I do not know why.
Hi Artists,
I truly regret to inform you that the July 1, Summer Night Market has been cancelled. This is the result of some very unforeseen circumstances, I apologize for the inconvenience.
Scott and I work really hard to never cancel anything, and it was all unforeseen. (I promise we are not usually flaky)
—Scott and Summer
[Should I mention here that this has now happened to me in two out of three openings?]
Stay tuned in case I am able to find a date for “a pop-up shop” in July or August.
In the mean time, I have ruanas, shawls, baby blanket, and scarves. Email me for photos and I can ship. email: andpride@gmail.com
[The quilt below is here merely for the color.]
CANCELLED
This coming Saturday—CANCELLED two days before! I have been offered “pop-up” gallery space. Might do that.
I will have woven pieces for sale—24 shawls and ruanas (if I can finish the ruanas in time!), maybe an afghan, and two scarves—in a variety of colors, mostly hand painted Canadian merino by Koigu with hand-dyed and handspun wool and some silk blends just for fun.
I began making Christmas stockings for my grandchildren. They are pieced differently front and back or have a plain backing, and use rich fabrics with metallics, cuff, and lined with silk, velvet, or cotton print. I can include a name on the stocking.
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I did not plan to have stockings for sale at the Night Market, but I can make them to order in colors to suit. They are meant to be entirely personal. The one shown was made for my husband who has conservative tastes in colors and patterns but I gave him gold and silver along with his greens (silver silk toe and heel). Children’s stocking are more playful. Delivery no later than Thanksgiving.
WAITING
I’m waiting till 6:30 to go for my run so that we can stop at New Seasons on the way home to pick up tomatoes and avocados. Maybe cheese.
The sky is absolutely clear overhead—faintly aqua to pale gold around the edges with strands of pink clouds east of the city. Windows wide open. My coffee within reach. Gary reading news on his phone in the other room.
GOOD NEWS
I knew this was coming because the editor had contacted me, but it was still a surprise. I had been working so hard on the novel that when Gary brought me the mail, I wondered why I’d gotten two copies of the OEJ. My essay about “Best Teaching Moments” was chosen to appear first in the Oregon English Journal right after the Editor’s Note. I began by confessing that my greatest moments teaching were those in which I was among those learning. It’s true.
Continue readingMOHS SCALE
This post began, the idea of it, last month when I was supposed to be working on the novel. I left a stub and then folded the post away.
I cannot believe it took me so long to actually look up the hardness of glass. It took Duck-Duck-Go all of two minutes to find everything I wanted to know.
When we search the beach, aside from agates and the odd diabetic needle or florescent tube, or the wonderful and rare fishing float, what we are really looking for is sea glass. I have wondered if glass floats more easily than stone, is its specific gravity is lower? Is it lighter and softer and that’s why glass is rare? It wears away?
IT MIGHT BE BULL… or not
Even if you never took Art History, you might recognize this mural, a fresco in an ancient city on the Island of Crete. They put it on the cover of a recent translation of The Odyssey, which is a story about people living in a different part of the Mediterranean Sea and at least seven or eight hundred years later in history… which shows how much publishers care about accuracy, but never mind for now.
I want to brag about my progress in NaNo, but first I want to carp a bit about assumptions made any people who should know better.
Continue reading
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 