Process

I thought I would make this picture into my little art card offering for the respondees of the October Art Giving post. It is kind of a tautological, visual comment on process, if you don't mind the philospohical analogy. The picture is of dolls as I was making them, printed onto muslin and fused onto a backround made from the trimmings of my Daughter Jen's curtains. Already you can see there are many processes at play: photography, printing onto fabric, curtain making, stashing the remnants and fusing just to get started. Then I couched some thread around the edges to frame and secure the edges. I printed some letters onto freezer paper to use as a stencil, which I ironed on, and used acrylic paint and gold pigment ink to make the words. I added some grommets and signed with a rapidiograph. Plenty of process. I hope they are enjoyed as the final part of the process-being received.

Abundant Harvest

We will be dining with Jen and Jason and our combined families. I bring this apple crisp to the table and three of my four children will be amongst us. Katy is spending the day with her dad so we will be missing her.
I will not be dieting:) o happy day, nor driving as that is Mike's job. Nor even cooking more than this here crisp. I am recording two cds from the Glass Castle by Jeanette Wells about growing up in a dysfunctional family, to listen to on the ride to Brooklyn and thinking about what to wear. Hmmmm do I even have tights to wear with a skirt or will it be jeans as usual? probably the latter and since one of my lovely daughters has absconded with my red lipstick I shall pass on that as well.
As fo growing up in a df, well, I have my own book. I am interested to see how the book ends-if there was resolution of any kind. I do not know either what my own resolution is. I guess that is my biographers problem. Hahah In my mind I have a biographer....I crack my self up.
I hope whomever reads this has a lot to be grateful for on this day of gratitude. Today and every day. and so it is and so it ever shall be, amen.

Things to do list

If life is cyclical, then mine is at the full end of the 'accumulating things to do' cycle. I want to finish my journal quilts for November. I want to finish the Moondance quilt before Christmas. I want to re arrange my sewing room, paint it, shelve it, add a cot, a chair and new lights--well I can dream. There is no room for any more furniture. maybe if I move the fabric shelves into the closet-which is mildew-y-so maybe not. To get rid of the mildew I have to tear out bathroom on the other side of the wall and there you have a whole new to do list. Probably the floor and sub floor too, and why don't I just put in a real foundation for the house while I am at it and who is going to pay for all this?
I want to make a Charlotte doll for which I have cut out the pattern and will probably not realistically get to before next year. Next year already. Hardly seems possible.
I want to finish the two sets of sampler blocks that I have begun and think about a setting. I have four or six postcards to finish, and some knitting to begin as well. I am thinking a mobeus scarf for someone, black with a white i-cord edge. Well I have the yarn but I have not yet put it on the needle.
I want to do the Bailey portrait. Note: I said 'do' not 'finish' because I think I am going to comepletely revamp it- that is start over on an entirely new canvas, possibly smaller, or maybe not. I don't know, and I have heard it said that if you don't know what to do, don't do anything.
And I spend alot of time on the computer, which I need to abbreviate if I am actually going to get any of this stuff done.
Next year I need to also do some more glass. Maybe new windows for the front porch. What the hell there are only twelve windows...
and I need to go back to work full time and make alot of money.

Caption : I told Bailey that my generation invented the computer and she said no it did not and I said well then my generation invented food. And she cracked up. Bailey laughing.

on leaving

notes on leaving the body

I was thinking about this yesterday
about how survivors say they leave their bodies
and how some people some
professionals
pedants
say that this is a false representation

exactly
I think
they have hit the nail on the head
and they don’t even know it,
I was thinking

when boundaries are defiled
and everything
every means of resistance withdrawn
every covenant and trust is broken

then you scatter
you leave\your body becomes
an oto
a shrine

a shadow vessel
your faint trajectory traced in a memory

...

I shall try to master slowness
I wrote this in a journal of quilt notes

for where does a body gain its rest
lose its corporal tether
join the dream body with itself
if it is all removed

I wrote this in my food journal
chronicling my passage through this life of invisibility
leaving only these small testimonials
of my
return

Today in Long Beach...

What a morning! Mike ran-that is him in the picture, next to the lady on the bike. I rode my bike and took pictures, trying not to run over the walkers who drift into the bike lane. Yes we have a bike lane:) So nice to have a place to ride and not worry about cars. The boardwalk is 2.2 miles long, a nice length to ride and walk or run.
The stained glass window I made for a guy who did work in our house. He lives a couple of blocks down from us and he is a fireman in the city. I love seeing a piece actually installed! Thanks Duffy. Today when I took the picture, I went to ask permission, since his wife doesn't know me and I didn't want to startle anyone, walking down the driveway with my camera, I got to meet his wife and kids(and the dog) and she likes the glass too. Made me feel good. I like to think I am doing some good in the world with my little creations.

Bailey painting-I finally put some paint on it, in the dim light of the porch at night. i will probably change the colors-a little lighter perhaps? I stood on the porch for hours, painting, listening to my ipod-probably causing my future deafness, but it is heavenly, standing there in front of the easel, the music chasing away the negative chatter in my head, and I am in "the zone". Later I was so stiff I could hardly make it up stairs, but I was happy. And Bailey likes the painting. To me there is no greater compliment than if the subject says," it is like looking in the mirror." I am, as I said, happy.

Long time no blog & Moondance

It has been a while since I wrote, or thought about writing. I guess that can be good if it means I am doing other things.
I did turn fifty and have a party, and gain a half a pound. I have been home a lot because Mike has been home on vacation and we have been feeling lazy. It was one of those vacations where you plan not to have a plan.
Picture is of Moondance by Beth Ferrier, which I have had in a box since a couple of years back. I have revived interest in it, and have been attaching the flowers, a couple or three a day. I hope to have it done and assembled in November. I am trying to keep it on the table until I do work on it-maybe I will use Hanne's
hour a day on it and see what I can get finished.
I have also been job hunting which does take up time and energy, and does threaten to encroach upon my daylight creative time. But it is one of those necessary evils. Money and all that.
I have not been entirely a hermit, in my life, but mostly. I am more of a contemplative than an interactive type of being. But I do know how to observe and facilitate useful conversaion in a corporate environment and it it there that I point my interest. I do have a job, come January, if I want it, in the kitchen design business. I cast my seeds widely.

Happy Birthday Alex

We love you!!!