ART

GENTLE RAIN

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The rain has come and gone and come again—sending torrents, sprinkles, showers, mists, and what my grandmother called “pitchforks and hammer handles.”

My feet are still up instead of walking for a couple more days, Jeanie Tomalek’s painting has been lost by the UPS since 19 May, the Russian doll and the CD from Estonia are still somewhere between there and here even though the Atlantic is not so big as the Pacific Ocean, Butterfly Fontanelle has been submitted for the third time (did I already mention that?), the left side of my jaw remains tender (I may never chew on that side or anything crunchy ever again), my son helped me download software that removed the (thirty-eight!) malware things on my computer, I have been revising work for a collection of slightly-to-seriously non-realist stories in order to submit (to someplace), and I am laying out yarn for a “Strawberry” warp. I might not have all the colors I want for the weaving, but I tell myself that sometimes forging ahead with what I have works out best. In between writing paragraphs, I move skeins around. Continue reading →

continued SHIPPING ADVENTURES

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The rabbit ate every single leaf off this rose last summer. Gary put her in a cage and she’s blooming. So is pretty much everything!

Some good news and some other news. Mostly funny stuff. Mail, stories, running, television.

The TV remote fell over the back of the couch last night and we could only turn the television on and off, but we could not use the up/down/side-to-side button that would allow us to access anything online. Continue reading →

STRANGE FISH

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I am more than a little bit obsessed with the sky.

Gary went to the Post Office yesterday and we received a “limited edition” 2021 calendar from a nonprofit. He considers this an act of optimism, not merely because they hope we will give them money, but because they think we will need and use a calendar next year. That seems almost naive. In the mean time, I now have three packages temporarily missing if not actually lost in shipment. The painting is still lost (for two weeks) and now also a small yarn shipment I wanted for my next warp seems to be misplaced, both carried by UPS and last seen in Hodgkins, IL; the third shipment is from an artist-friend in Russia, so that would be Russian mail or a ship sank or a plane went down, or it burned in New York. And Gary has a CD that will get here eventually from Estonia. I wish I could explain why all this is so funny because we both think it is hilarious.

My novella was shortlisted by a very good magazine and rejected three days later. They would like to see more of my work, and I wish I had more to offer. I have sent the novella off again to another magazine. Assuming it is also rejected there, I will submit it at least twice more. If no one chooses to publish it by then, I will stop. These are carefully chosen markets with smart editors and if they do not find it publishable, I will accept their judgement. I was telling a friend that I have submitted one story at least 58 times and received some quick rejections and some very kind ones. I revised that story after each rejection, and many other times besides, starting it different ways, altering chronology and point of view—hundreds of hours—so you see how I have over-invested in it. However, whatever is wrong with that story, I still love it though evidently I am the only one. Enough already.

The lost packages will be found, or money refunded, or some combination, or not, and my novella will find a home or not. I am entirely resigned about publication. Instead, I will create my own little book with a spectacular cover illustration, print off ten or twelve copies, stitch the binding, and give them away. Sometimes I just need to see the process completed. Maybe I will write more of the story as Tula sees it, or Rosetha, or the Daughters. Or maybe I will just be done. It is good to finish things.

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Just a bit of the pieced top in progress—you’ll have to trust me that this photo does not do the fabrics justice.

Since I do not have the yarn I need, I turned in another direction for the sake of sanity. Mid-March I ordered vintage Indonesian cotton from Cargo Inc. in Portland, hand block-printed and batik fabrics. I wanted to visit the store, but we were already self-isolating “in an abundance of caution” as people were starting to say then. The fabric came quickly by mail with a lovely string of little bells. I wanted to piece the front and back of a quilt. They had sold out of one fabric, and another was too blue so I thought for a while, sorted and arranged, pre-washed and ironed twelve yards of fabric, fiddled and rearranged. I had what I had and could not get more. I dug through my grandmother’s cotton threads and decided to sew with red. That was a happy choice. Piecing the black-and-cream backing took only a day and I was satisfied. Then there was the long period of staring at the rest of the fabrics, of accepting that the original vision would not fly and seeking an alternative. Eventually, pieces began to settle in my mind’s eyes. Yesterday morning I started working on the front, cutting and sewing. It is a center diamond pattern, a simple and classic America design. Two frames in red, an inner and outer border. When I ran out of red thread, I used pink. Strangely, no major glitches along the way. I work fast once I figure out what I am doing. The top and backing are finished already, the top in one day, and are pressed, folded, and ready for quilting. I began this task before eight and kept at the task unsteadily for the next eight hours. This morning I ache all over from my efforts and am grateful showers and downpours will likely keep us from a long walk. It is currently pouring rain, a great dark cloud moving in from over the ocean.

[Gary has stripped the bed so that there will be no question of going right back to bed after we eat our oatmeal. Tempting.]

 

Emails have carried many messages of solidarity from museums and news agencies, social activists, and yarns stores—from virtually everyone I know virtually! It is heartening.

“As always, we hope you’re well, and we hope you’re safe. We took a break from knitting this week, to speak from our hearts about the deep-seated problem of systemic racism and anti-blackness. We just haven’t had the heart for our normal chatter about knitting.”

And perhaps heartening of all, the NFL has finally reversed their stance on players taking a knee. A white player has apologized for his wrong-headed condemnation of protests over racial injustice: “Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag,” New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees wrote. “It has never been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities. We did this back in 2017, and regretfully I brought it back with my comments this week. We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systematic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial [and] prison reform.”

One of the greatest accomplishments is to change our mind.

 

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Eyes gone but the teeth . . .

Seriously, anyone recognize that mostly-eaten fish up top? Teeth! What looked like a dorsal fin. The eagle got most of it. I think our resident pair have eaglets they are feeding. We have seen a great deal of them. Seagulls had dragged the tail off to a safe distance.

The osprey has been fishing in front of our house.

The ravens do a fly-by just to be sure they aren’t missing anything.

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Most of the tail with the toe of my shoe for scale.

 

SPROUTS

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At the base of Hug Point, above, there is a roadway cut into the stone. You can see it, the cliff drops straight down to a short level place and then a little hump just to the left. That is how my great grand aunts, my grandparents, and my mother and her sister got to the beach from 1911 until the mid-1930s. They drove over a rough roadway cut into stone.

My tomato seedlings are growing their second set of true leaves, a sprouted mango pit needs to be put into soil, and the other night I dreamt about a former student, the only student I’ve ever had who I would still have said I disliked. Continue reading →

BEAUTY

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The students in the high school where I taught are taking classes remotely. It seems like most people are doing things remotely these days, attending poetry readings, visiting with family, working. Some businesses have already announced permanent changes. They are closing, or intend to allow employees to continue working at a distance if they prefer. After confessing I had purchased a work of art I really cannot afford, I almost made my first sale accidentally and remotely just the other day. That was heartening.

Accepting that beauty matters is an act of faith and hope. The expectation that a moment’s grace, a moment of noticing, a few seconds of admiration and appreciation are worth something. Maybe they are worth nearly everything. Continue reading →

TWO EAGLES

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There are eagles in the sky most days. All that beauty in the air.

I pulled out my weaving: merino baby blankets, shawls, and lap-robes out of the tansu chest and stacked them up in a chair. Twenty-three—I turned the photo sideways so they would fit my screen. More than half these soft things have been woven since we began our personal lockdown on 10 March. I have a new warp on the loom now and I began weaving the second shawl yesterday just before 8pm. I mean to stop at 4, and then I go back and work some more, and then I think 7pm is a long day when I’ve been awake since before dawn. But I wanted to see how the hands-spun I have been hoarding for a few years would work on this warp, and it’s lovely, subtle and tweedy. There will be twenty-six weavings by the end of next week. And then I will start winding skeins for another warp. Continue reading →

BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS

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fullsizeoutput_1208By the time my watch alarm went off at 6:30, we were already on the beach. Not much luck with glass today, but two dozen whimbrels. (Gary counted fifty-one gathered the evening before in front of our house.) They moved out of our way as if we were just another harmless animal. And that is what we are. Gary will tease seagulls by calling “Kitty kitty kitty” but we are both careful not to disturb the whimbrels. They were not here when we first moved to the coast in 1979. They had been here, of course, but many of the birds we treasure each day had mostly vanished and have begun reappearing in the decades we have walked the shore.

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one whimbrel and part of the large flock of very fat sandpipers.

Yesterday we saw a large flock of Western sandpipers and were hailed on twice during our morning walk! When I was a runner, I was always too hot and I enjoyed cool, damp days. But even then I drew a line at hail. Yesterday we came home soaked but the little hailstones did us no harm. The sun burned off all the clouds before we’d fully warmed back up in the house.

The rest of the day was all blue skies and tourists. Today there are high clouds but no sign so far of rain. If the beach remains empty, we might even get our second walk.

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Three “Marigold” shawls

I also finished the “Marigold” warp yesterday, washed and hung the three shawls to dry. This morning I folded them and put them in the cedar chest. Each one has gorgeous hand-painted handspun yarn in the weft, which I should steam press to flatten, but I tolerate a bit of ripple. I meant to make a mostly black-and-white Indian black print quilt next, but what I really want to do is put the next warp on. I have yarn for green or brown, but I am waiting for more Koigu. I might try for another peacock warp.

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Gary rebuilding the bottom ten feet of our path, washed out last night.

The high tide wiped out the bottom ten feet of our path, but Gary has already rebuilt it. We (or really I) used to build the path the end of March each year. Sometimes it would wash out entirely and I’d have to start over. This one is wide and softened with sand Gary hauled from the beach.

TWO DEER

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IMG_5799A few days ago Gary was out on the road when he saw the first deer. He backed up against the garage door while she passed. He felt sure there was another. He didn’t want to spot them, though they had passed him before—running straight past as if he were not there.

There have been two does in the neighborhood so he was halfway expecting to see the other one come along.

 

And then it did.

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She seems to be moving along just fine. 

The second smaller one came trotting by and Gary thought it might be lame, seeing some small hitch in her movement, and wondered if it was the one we’d seen in the surf a while back. The pair is known. We often see their tracks in the sand heading north. Last Sunday we walked two miles north to Arcadia Beach and followed their tracks most of that distance.

 

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The top half is nearly clear and colorless. The bottom is basalt, I think.

In the mean time, we’ve had long walks and found sea glass and agates. This one is milky quartz still attached to matrix. Each of us has found these on occasion and labeled them “teeth.”

I think today might be a day to ignore the news. Neither of us slept well last night, and we need a break. Since we do not drive anywhere except to pick up mail and groceries and drop off recyclables (no mail delivery or recycling pick-up in our community) and we are trying not to order from Amazon, we’ve saved some money. But Gary ordered a CD box set yesterday, and that might mean I can order a couple of pieces of kimono silk on Ebay.

I have a couple in mind. I go visit the silks sometimes.

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The horsetails are coming up too. I started seeds for squash, green onions, kale, and tomatoes.

The middle garden Gary has been working on is looking beautiful. The daffodils are done, but my irises are budding, the daphne is still scenting the air, and the rugosa roses look like they are happy. In the “front” yard facing the ocean, we have done nothing, but volunteers are making a show with lamb’s ears, snow-in-summer, and violas.

I am weaving a new warp called “Marigold.” The second shawl is nearly done. I might take a break before weaving the last one with more yellow. I feel like sewing.

In preparation for that next quilt project, I have pre-washed vintage batik and block printed fabric from a favorite store in Portland, which is filling online orders. Cargo has marvelous, odd and wonderful things and they are good people. Calli wrote us a note and urged me to send photos of the quilt I make from the fabric she sent out the other day. I will certainly do that!

I am also taking a break, of sorts, from creative nonfiction and fiction writing beyond this blog. All my submissions are done, I have only a Brevity blog post coming up in a couple of weeks. I want to debrief about “Butterfly Fontanelle” and then maybe I will post a couple of off-the-edge short stories that need homing. I have one particular short story that means a lot to me. I often receive personal rejections in response to this one, but always rejection (close to 70!) every time. Editors have suggested revisions, but have not reached consensus about what is not working. (Tipped my hand too late or too early?) I’ve revised it dozens of times and stopped counting drafts after thirty-eight. Maybe a reader here can tell me what’s wrong with it. I’d like to get it right.

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ARCHITECTURE + CHOCOLATE

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My dad used to tell a story about his first job at a California aircraft company. The new head offices had a problem. The roof leaked on the President’s desk and the famous architect who designed the structure refused to address the problem. “It’s a work of art,” he is supposed to have said. The CEO tore the entire building down.

I was reminded of this while reading an article in The Washington Post about how office layouts might change to ensure distancing and a healthier work environment.

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A student took a photo of me into Hagia Sophia so I could say I’d been there.

Gustav Pundt was among my favorite professors at the University of Washington. Hermann Johannes Gustav Pundt (28 August 1928 – 15 September 2000) was a leading architectural historian and Professor in the University of Washington Department of Architecture. I took his architecture history series in 1971, I think, and he introduced me to such wonders as Hagia Sophia (in Istanbul, Turkey), which is among the beautiful buildings in the world. His photographs of the interior, taken at a time when it was forbidden to take such photos, completely captured my imagination. Light flooded from a circle of windows at the base of the main dome. Magic. I have wanted to visit ever since. I really did love the guy for that.

As a student himself, Pundt participated in the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House (1909, above) in Chicago, a beautiful building in the Arts and Crafts style, showing the influence of his Mentor, Louis Sullivan (the “father of skyscrapers”, but also a designer who appreciated detail). True, the Robie House was designed to have no blinds or curtains on any room, the leaded patterns dividing the glass was intended to ensure privacy. How did that work for the occupants? You decide. 

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Windows in the Robie House. Most of the window is clear with only small bits of colored glass.

I was not a fan of the architect. The Johnson Wax Headquarters (1936) was a nightmare to my way of thinking: too many specialized brick forms (over a hundred molds which looked less innovative than inefficient to my 19-year-old eye), the glass tower continuously leaked (this was later corrected by the Johnson Wax company’s innovations, not Wright’s), Wright’s special three-legged chairs fell over, and it included the dehumanizing “open office” plan he’d used in an earlier office building.

The Larkin Administration Building (1906) is touted as the “first modern office” with entire floors left wide open for secretarial pools. If you have seen The Apartment with Shirley McLaine and Jack Lemmon, the open space where Lemmon is working at the beginning of the film is Wright’s fault. This “regimented approach, where workers sat in lines of desks with managers in offices surrounding them”—what fun. Today it’s blamed for the spread of colds and other viruses in offices. How to prevent the spread of covid19 in such wide open spaces?

The saddest part of this might be that I know all this because Pundt told his students all about Wright, warts and all. He loved the guy whose architecture placed function below innovation. So I did not agree about Wright. I want to have my cake and eat it. Give me a beautiful building that is also a pleasure to live and work in.

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Wright proved that his beautiful reverse “lily pad” columns could support weight. He did not prove that people enjoyed working in what he envisioned would resemble a “factory floor.”

Don’t even get me started on Falling Water, with the dysfunctional stairs to the water and unremitting damp (again, a detail thanks to his admirer—it was an unliveable house). Beautiful site and stonework, but, like so many of Wright’s designs, it fails its primary purpose. It’s a showcase, not a functional building. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is showy too and notable for forcing visitors to look at art from a slanted floor. Yeah, I’m sure it looked spacey and futuristic in 1959. Now, to me, it’s just an ugly airport parking garage or an out-of-scale child’s toy.

Speaking of frustration and scale: We are waiting for two and a quarter pounds of chocolate to arrive.

I bought three bars of Theo baking chocolate back in December. Organic, gluten- and dairy-free, Fair Trade, and made in Seattle. Practically local. I meant to make vegan chocolate pots de creme when our sons and their families came for Twelfth Night. I ran out of cooking motivation before I got to the pots, however, and the chocolate remained in my baking cabinet until last week. I used two huge chocolate bars and pecans to make brownies last week. They came out so thick it was hard to get my mouth around them, and dark, very dark. I love dark chocolate. We each had a square the other evening and again yesterday because I put some in the freezer before we could gorge.

There is also a single 4-ounce bar left in the drawer, so I went to the Theo website to order more baking chocolate. It’s sold out. I checked Amazon, but they only have the same high cocoa content in 3-ounce bars. Back to Theo. Sadly, this Seattle company sells their candy cheaper on Amazon than directly from their own website. I ordered a dozen bars last weekend. Yes, I am weak.

Amazon Prime shipped FedEx. You probably see where this is going. Oakland. Seattle to Oakland, so far. Had it shipped USPS, I’d have my chocolate by now. It would have gone Seattle to the regional center in Washington, to Portland, and here. Three days. Instead, it shipped right past Oregon to California. If it were in Oregon by now (630 miles back north), that would not be so bad, but you know FedEx doesn’t work that way.

This is my current entertainment: watching FedEx ship my chocolate around western states. It left Oakland yesterday afternoon. Idaho next? Eastern Oregon? I was actually looking forward to finding it had gone to Wyoming, but this morning it is in Portland. There is still time for the order to wander through a few small towns or head back to Washington state. FedEx can prove that the meandering delivery routes are actually functional. Unlike some of Wright’s designs that were unusable, my chocolate will arrive at my house after it takes a tour, and is functional. I will make more brownies.

I am easily entertained.

CARNIVAL

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My third day working on the “Carnival” warp with just ten inches woven. (I discovered that the acid green I’d hoped to use was from a very old first dyelot of the color and the yarn itself thicker than the others. I finished off a very old blue skein like that in the recent blue warp.) Twenty or more inches today, I hope, and I will bake bread. We had salad last night for dinner! Such a relief after no fresh greens for a week. Salads for the next couple of weeks, and I have leeks to make leek soup, potatoes to go into the soup or for oven fries, cheese!, green beans I will roast tomorrow. Potato chips are a treat.  Continue reading →