Hello world. I’m writing about covid and my BMI and tidying up. You might want to stop right here and not read any more. The pizza was wonderful, btw.
SO MUCH WANTS DOING
ART
WEAVING WEATHER
I promise to post a photo of the blanket when the three lengths are finished and seamed.
My studio degrees are in ceramics and metal. I exhibited while still an undergrad and completed commissions. But after I graduated I never really went back to clay or gold. Instead, I went for fabric.
Important influences include Kaffe Fassett’s Glorious Color, Randall Darwall’s breathtaking silk weaving, and my grandfather’s wife Genevieve and my friend Toni who gave me looms.
Continue readingYESTERDAY
Things I have not accomplished in the last 24 hours:
- blueberry muffins
- weaving
- a walk this morning or Tuesday because of weather
- finished a book
- made decisions
- cleaning of any kind whatsoever
Things I (or we) accomplished in the past week:
Continue readingVITREOUS
Vicious, viscous, victorious, vitreous. That last word has been humming around in my head for a week. Vitreous describes a material such as ceramic which has melted into itself, creating a glass-like and waterproof material. Clay molecules “stick” to one another as they are heated to liquid and taken to a high enough temperature the molecules melt into a solid mass. Vitreous porcelain, as one example, has been fired so hot that the clay molecules melt into one another to make an impervious whole. Thin enough, you can see through some china.
In about 1973, Bob Sperry gave all the Ceramic Art majors an assignment to collaborate—the throwers he worked with would pair with the hand-builders who worked with Howard Kottler and Patti Warashina. Together they would create something. As a hand-builder, I paired with a thrower, Sam Scott, whom I had known since we both hung out most of the day in the ceramics room during high school. I gave him my low-fire white clay body to substitute for his usual stoneware on the wheel, and a design profile for a covered casserole dish.
The result of the experience changed Sam’s work. Turned out he loved white clay and began throwing with a porcelain clay body as he had previously thrown stoneware—thicker than people generally throw porcelain but a perfect canvas for his iron and cobalt brushwork. (Another friend threw stoneware thin as porcelain.) My family was hard on the many pieces I bought from him, but I managed to hide a few survivors. A massive platter and some bowls. They are handsome pieces.
Vitreous.
Continue readingBAD AT NAMES
I am forgetting words, but this is nothing new. Proper names have always been a problem for me, a significant handicap when I was teaching 150-200 students a term. Is the girl there in the corner desk Patty or Michelle? I generally tried hard to resist pretending that I knew names. I would warn students on the first day of class of three things: “I talk too fast, so don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask me to back up—your classmates will thank you; I am naturally a bad speller, though I work to get it right, so if you notice I’ve spelled a word wrong on the board, don’t be afraid to point that out, you won’t hurt my feelings; and I am bad at names and will still be struggling to remember your name halfway through the year. That’s not your fault; it’s all on me.”
I was not exaggerating.
Continue readingNO GOOD DEED
Until last March, Gary and I picked up trash during our daily walks. In 2018 and 2019 we gathered about a ton of garbage, mostly tiny pieces or broken plastic and bottle caps, but also entire bottles, fishing tackle, toothbrushes, take-out containers, candy wrappers, toys, commercial and sport fishing gear, lengths of plastic rope a few inches or many yards long, and as you might guess from the photo below, polystyrene foam. We both seem to collect.
MORE, PLEASE
I laid different shawls/scarves out on the bed yesterday afternoon, and then another row on the cedar chest (above), but already the light was too dim in this north and east facing bedroom. Ten stretch out full length over the bed, and another eight are folded at the foot. The photos are from this morning. Still not much light, but I’ve made no attempt to “correct” anything as the colors look accurate on my screen. (The greens suffered a bit.)
Continue readingTHE COVID WEAVING
I planned to have a dozen shawls/scarves woven by this past December. But stuck at home, I began weaving and sometimes went on from dawn to darkness. The results are lovely, soft, and variously hued. Not to mention numerous.
Here are a few. They are each about 23″ wide, 65-75″ long plus fringe, and after weaving and fringing, they are washed in cold water with shampoo, hung to dry overnight without blocking, and then labels sewn on. Others like them are owned and worn by both men and women.
QUILTED PANDEMIC
My work is meant to be handled and used. To that end, I do not make wall hangings or “art” pictures. My shawls belong on shoulders and my quilts belong on beds. I completed or pieced seven quilts in 2020. The five quilts below are all sewn from hand-dyed cotton batik fabrics, usually 60-100 different fabrics in each, shading dark to light and one hue into another. The photos are the best I can manage in such tiny form.
Continue readingTHE MESS
The blanket will only be 45″ by 85″ unless I put on a second warp and weave another (third) length. I could do that. I still have some handspun. As I work on the second length of this warp, I think more and more that I want that third length. It is a goal, and I need goals just now.
There are the needs of my husband, children, grandchildren, friends, students—the people who matter most—and then the things I do—reading, writing, playing with color and making meals. I read the newspaper every morning online—several newspapers. I look at real estate I cannot afford, I draw houses, something I have done since I was a little girl. I have worked for contractors and architects and directly for clients, and I have seen my plans built, but it won’t happen again. Next door someone is shoving mud around in the rain. It is a messy job. And my brain feels a little like that sometimes.
Continue reading
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 