Daryl's Blog – Page 132 – The World from a Weaver's point of view!

On coloring books and peeps…

On Friday afternoon, my middle sister emailed me to make sure I had sent an Easter Basket to my son at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Ooooops… I felt like I was just awarded the bad mommy of the year award, in fact not only had my sister sent a care package, so had my mom. As a matter of fact, I had forgotten all about Easter baskets, my children are 17 and 20. When does this stuff stop? I asked my 17 year old daughter if she needed an Easter Basket this year, and her response was sort of vague…

“Gee mom, didn’t you just buy me a video game last year?”

Mom’s response: “Does that work for you again this year? What game do you want?”

Her response was vague, sort of an, “I’ll get back to you on that…” and I went about my day.

Yesterday morning, while she was at work, she texted me the following:

“what i want for easter is a coloring book…or two…and mabey sticker sheets” (OK, she is a math genius but can’t spell, just like her father…)

COLORING BOOK? At 17 years old? I asked if she wanted Crayons too, and she replied:

“i have colored pencils that i got from CVS at 9:55 one night cause i had the irresistable urge to color and i didnt have any” (Apparently she got in the car and drove herself over to CVS one night for a late night craving of something to color with.)

Here I replied something about being quite sure there were coloring pages available online for those late night cravings.

“i know but they dont print right and half of them are no fun. and it doesnt matter what the coloring book’s subject is…as long as it has lots of stuff to color” (Here she explained later that having a black outline of a squirrel from the internet isn’t much fun to color, she wanted the whole setting, the squirrel in the tree, with birds, and nuts, etc.)

I remember coloring books. I grew up with them. When a relative came to visit, it wasn’t unusual for them to bring a new coloring book for my sisters and me. I actually loved to color. And I was absolutely the best at staying in the lines. Sort of says something about my personality. I prided myself on my perfect careful coloring. And trees were green and the sky was blue.

Of course all the coloring books we had around the house were tossed probably around the time my daughter turned ten. So there weren’t any to satisfy those midnight urges, who knew? It was an odd Easter Basket request, and I wasn’t even sure who sold coloring books in town. We use to have a Cost Cutters, good for stuff like that, but they went out of business when Drug Fair went bankrupt. So I went to CVS, and it took awhile to find the right aisle. It was back behind the cosmetics.

Can I say here that coloring books aren’t what they use to be? Mostly the books I saw were combination activity books, designed to teach numbers, letters, reading, and general preschool life skills. Not really appropriate here, my daughter is top of her class in Honors Calculus and Physics. There were lots of Sticker sheets, and those were fun to look through, finding ones that my daughter might like, ones with puppies, Japanese animé, etc. But as I searched for the perfect coloring book, I was suddenly taken back to my childhood, and how much simpler life was in terms of play. I had recollections of books that had mazes, and “find seven hidden objects”, and puzzles like that, but the skill of just coloring, without trying to learn to read at age four seems to be outdated. I remember paper dolls. I loved paper dolls. Carefully cutting on the lines was an amazing centering skill that took patience and practice. I played with paper dolls until I was well into my teens. I had younger sisters and at some point, we began to design our own. (See essay I wrote on designing my own paper dolls)

I found a couple of books that could work, one had stickers in the middle, but it wasn’t until I hit Walgreen’s that I found a plain old coloring book with scenes from Winnie the Pooh. Even the texture of the paper brought me back to my childhood. I picked out a couple of card games, my daughter and I love to play cards, Quiddler, Five Crowns, and Bananagrams. They had a deck of Scrabble Slam, so I added that on a neighbor’s recommendation. I picked up some Sweet Tarts Bunnie Gummies, and of course, no Easter Basket is complete without Peeps. We don’t really like or eat Peeps, but it is a sort of tradition, especially after viewing the winners of the 2010 Washington Post Peeps Show. If you haven’t seen or don’t know about this event, it is fabulous, entries come in all over the world with themed dioramas involving marshmallow Peeps. My daughter and I collectively cheered when we viewed one of the five finalists this year, a perfect recreation of “Good Night Moon”.

I don’t know how long the Easter Basket thing will continue in our house. But I learned something this weekend. You are never too old for coloring books, and marshmallow Peeps, and Easter Baskets.

A Tale of Two Dish Towels, 4000 pages later, and other random stuff…

A good weaving buddy of mine recently contributed to a series of interesting comments on my Facebook page after I wrote on my Wall the following query:

Daryl: Do two days off equal a vacation?

Ginnie: Does it feel like it? What’s a vacation?

Daryl: I don’t know exactly, but I see some people talking about them on Facebook.

Ginnie: Maybe you and I need to research this!

Daryl: Sounds like a plan, I’ll add “research the definition of a vacation” to my to-do list.

Daryl again: Actually, I just heard that when you have off on a Saturday and Sunday, that some people call that a “Weekend”. I’ve never experienced something like that, so I can’t verify.

Ginnie: Ah, I have heard of “weekends”, said to be invented by labor and teacher unions…. There’s a banner in our town to that effect!

Daryl: I don’t think there is any such thing as a labor union for the self employed artist. That’s probably why I am not familiar with the term “weekend” or “vacation”. Might be something else to research, it was great to have two days NOT in my studio.

Truth is, I had two glorious days last Saturday and Sunday, where no one expected anything from me, and there was nothing on the calendar for me to worry about or deal with, or get in a car or on a plane for, and I sort of didn’t quite know what to do with myself. A gift. There is nothing more to be said.

So I spent the last three days, gearing back up for the next event, a conference in Northern California, CNCH 2010, I leave April 8th. I cranked up the trusty HP printer, and printed no less than 4000 pages of handouts and monographs, bound everything, packed two large Priority Flat Rate Boxes, and shipped them off to California this afternoon. Huge exhale, that job is complete. I paid all my bills, and now have to tackle a pile of documents due tomorrow.

On a completely different note, in a recent string of emails, about the tie up on a Tools of the Trade Loom, of which I own four, see blog post from last year, I ended up solving the problem and then deciding to purchase the loom from the person who posted the original email. This is a sister loom to my TOTT floor looms, I own two 25″ and one 45″ floor loom and regret never having purchased the 36″ version. I have found that, although I don’t have space for another loom there have been times where I wished I had a second bigger loom. It would of course have to have 8 shafts, and big bonus, it has two back beams. I wish one was a sectional, but I can deal with that. So I will head to Maryland in April, to pick up my newest addition, and then figure out where the hell heck I’m going to put this puppy.

A Tale of Two dish towels…

I don’t weave dish towels. I have been weaving since 1974 and I have never actually woven a dishtowel. Is that some sort of record? I did weave place mats, runners, scarves, throws, all kinds of products on my loom when I was in production in the 1980’s, selling my little heart out on the weekends in craft fairs, I may have mentioned that, but I never wove much less sold a dishtowel. I don’t know exactly why that is. It isn’t like I don’t use dishtowels. I go through them like water, use them until they fall apart, and buy new ones at the grocery store and use them until they fall apart. I can’t say I’m one of those who go by the motto, “It’s too good to actually use”, for goodness sake, I chop up my handwoven fabric, and make garments and wear them until I’m tired of them, they wear out, or they go out of style and then I cut them into something else.

For some odd reason, I’ve never made a dish towel. But in the last couple of months, I’ve actually acquired two. The first one came from Laura Fry (hey, if you are going to have someone else’s handwoven dishtowel in your house, you might as well have one from the best!). Laura was offering an incentive on her blog, after the disastrous earthquake in Haiti, a dishtowel, to anyone donating to Doctors Without Borders. I had planned on doing that anyway, I donate on a monthly basis now, just like I do for public radio, but I took her up on her offer and she sent me a lovely aqua cotton dish towel. I didn’t use it, just looked at it. OK, to be fair, we have a dog. And this has been the rainiest March in the history of the state of NJ (and for those whose US history is a bit cloudy, we were one of the original 13 colonies. George Washington slept in almost every town in the state in the late 1700’s or so they say…) Which means that our lovely back yard is a swamp. Swamp + dog = muddy paws. Dog comes in, nearest textile gets grabbed, and by the back door off the kitchen, it is usually the dishtowel. So I haven’t actually wanted to put my lovely Laura Fry dishtowel out because it would be covered in mud within about 10 minutes.

On the drive back to the airport after my recent trip to Columbia, MO, Debbie Schluckebier, my lovely workshop coordinator and airport chauffeur, presented me with a thank you gift from the Columbia Weavers and Spinners, one of her beautiful handwoven dishtowels. The universe was trying to tell me something. That and the three hour trip to the Kansas City airport allowed Debbie to convince me that it was silly to have handwoven dishtowels and not love them and use them. So I’m using them. Both of them. No one has died, and none have been covered with mud yet, and they are really pretty and I feel good when I use them. I am getting dangerously close to actually wanting to warp up one of my numerous looms, all of which are naked at the moment I’m embarrassed to say, with some cotton warp, and weave some actual dishtowels. They don’t have to be prize winning, and they don’t have to color matched to my kitchen. And I don’t have to turn them into clothing. I can just use them in the kitchen, and be happy, and if they get used on muddy dog paws, there is always the washing machine… I hear they won’t disintegrate in the washer and dryer…

A day off?

I woke up this morning, an hour later than usual, actually I woke up at my usual 6:20am, but stayed in bed an additional hour. It is after all, Saturday. My daughter works at a kennel on Saturday’s, and our agreement is that she will actually eat breakfast if I make it. Having a female 17 year old hormonal daughter I know the value of starting the day with a good breakfast, NOT a toaster strudel. The day goes better, there is much less drama, and my daughter stays healthier. I made her breakfast, and then, are you ready for this? I went back to bed. Yep, slept another 2 hours. I battled the head games that I do with myself, “You wasted the whole morning, think of all the things you could have done…”. I just smiled, got up, and went down to the kitchen for tea.

I stood in front of the refrigerator sipping my tea, and stared at the box on the calendar that said March 27th. There was nothing written on it. I kept staring at it for a good five minutes. I had forgotten what it was like to have a whole glorious day with nothing written on it. Sure there are plenty of things on my never ending to do list, but for today, there was nothing in that lovely glorious empty box.

At 11:00am, I sat at my computer on the second floor in the studio, just checking email, and my husband wandered in. He pulled the blinds aside on the huge wall window at the rear of my studio, which looks out over the back yard and then down through the neighbors’ back yards. I asked what he was looking at and he pointed to some odd smoke wafting up through the pine trees a couple of back yards down the row. We both stood for awhile and looked at it. It started to increase, and since it was 30 degrees, and 11:00am in the morning, we figured it wasn’t a barbecue. We decided to call 911. Within five minutes, the police were there, and the smoke had turned into thick billowy acrid smoke, the neighbor’s detached garage was definitely on fire. For the next hour we watched the smoke and then towering flames shooting up from the pines, there is that eerie fascination with the power of nature, of fire, that makes us stare with huge respect at the power of fire, all the while devastated for our neighbor’s complete loss of a garage. The fire was finally put out late in the afternoon, once the roof caved in and the building was knocked down. The main road was closed off for hours, and of course everyone gathered in the street to comment on the tragedy.

Not wanting to tear myself away from the whole affair, I started wandering my own back yard, picking up buckets full of sticks, broken from the trees in the hurricane like winds that came through a few weeks ago while I was traveling. The air was cold, and crisp, and smelled of that sickly sweet fire smell, but it felt good just to be outside and NOT in my studio or on an airplane.

My husband came out, and together we puttered in the yard, he tilled the garden, (forgetting I had already planted the peas), and I replanted more peas and the lettuces and spinach. I’m giving my garden one more year, since we got the dog in September, I am hoping Bjorn will keep the yard free of large furry rodents that dine on baby lettuces and anything else green in a fenced in garden that they somehow manage to find their way into. I Shopvac’d the decks, the only way to get rid of all those droppings from the maple trees that get mushed under your shoes and tracked into my house, and then I started on some of the spring yard clean up.

Around 4pm, I came in and washed up and sat, yes I actually sat in a rocker and read my book for an hour. I felt positively decadent, but the truth is, my back muscles were killing me from being so horribly out of shape and bending over picking up sticks in the back yard for an hour. I made a wonderful dinner, tillapia baked with butter, wine and lemon juice with fresh parsley over a bed of sauteed baby spinach leaves with olive oil and garlic, over a bed of pasta. 🙂 And then, I actually made cookies. Ginger snaps. OK, I used a bagged mix, but I made real cookies, and baked them and actually thought for a brief moment that there was more to life than taking care of business in my studio. I even got to play some new recorder music I picked up when I rejoined the American Recorder Society. And now it is only 8:30 and I still have my evening ahead of me. I could fill the tub and soak my weary back muscles and read more in my book. 🙂

Meanwhile, the mail brought news that I was accepted to teach at the Mid Atlantic Fiber Association Conference in July 2011. I heard a couple of weeks ago that I was accepted to teach at Midwest Weavers’ Conference in June 2011. Sadly, I was not accepted to five of the art/fiber exhibitions I applied to. I long to get back to the sewing machine, to the loom, to anything creative, but for today, I made cookies, picked up sticks, and planted peas. And I have some work for next year. Life is good…

All is well…

I think this has been the longest stretch without a blog post from me in more than 15 months. Overwhelmed is an appropriate description of my current status, the length of my traveling finally caught up with me, and flying directly from Missouri to South Carolina, via Newark last Wednesday, to attend my son’s graduation from Boot Camp, just about finished me. This past month has been an emotional roller coaster for me, difficult yet powerful, and the truth is, I just couldn’t sit down and even begin to make sense out of any of it until today.

For those who follow my blog, which is really about life and creativity and how they parallel, please bear with me while I share photos of a huge event in our lives, because this is one of those times as a mom, that emotionally I am all over the map. And it directly impacts how I see everything else right now.

On Thursday, my husband, my daughter and I attended what is called Family Day at Fort Jackson, SC. We met in the stands and watched as smoke bombs filled the air and the 1-61st battalion marched through the smoke, my son’s company came through first, and they proudly marched onto the field for the ceremonies. There were almost 1300 graduates, one of their largest classes in a long time. I have never been so proud.

After the ceremonies, we all met our soldiers on the field, and there probably wasn’t a dry eye in the place, and this was the best hug I’ve ever experienced in my life. I never wanted to let go.

We spent the day wandering around Fort Jackson with my son, ate in the mess hall, tried to understand speech that is peppered with acronyms (you don’t go on ‘a group run’, you do an AGR), saw my son’s quarters, where he actually made his bed and his locker was almost tidy. He took us to the area where he did his PT (physical training) and gave his sister fitness pointers. His shoulders are so broad from all those push ups, and he looks so well and focused and happy. After spending the day with him, I understood that this is the life now that my son has chosen, and he is in essence “married” if you will, to the military, and my work here is done. I knew I needed to let him go and follow his dream. And it is hard. He said to me at one point, “Mom, do you realize I spent the last 10 weeks learning how to kill people?” As hard as it is for me to understand and accept that, becoming a soldier and fighting for this country is his choice and I am so proud and happy for him. And he still sings, although his voice is hoarse from all the cadences, he still sings constantly, when he wakes up in the morning, much to the annoyance of everyone he bunks with, and he is still Eric, just grown up.

We got through graduation on Friday, and then we were allowed to take him off base. It was interesting to see how difficult it was for him to walk out of boot camp into civilian life and know how important the structure and discipline of the military is for him and how well he is trained. He flew to Oklahoma, Fort Sill, for his artillery training, he is training to be a fire support specialist, and he will be there until the beginning of May.

Meanwhile, we flew home Saturday and I began to play catch up, unpack, try to find my house, it was under there somewhere, and begin the reentry process.

I started by cleaning the lowest level of the house, which was my son’s room in the basement. Can I say that cleaning the room of a child who has left for the military is as difficult as it is cathartic? Each little piece of him I held and dusted, and occasionally rolled my eyes over, and then carefully replaced it . It was an emotional couple of hours, and I was completely ready for a big bottle of wine!

After no less then 10 loads of laundry, completely scrubbing the kitchen, downstairs bath and den, the rest of the rooms are on the list, and getting everything ready for my husband’s birthday, I felt like I had just come out of boot camp myself, armed with a fire extinguisher, and all I did for the last 48 hours was put out fires.

I knew when I agreed to teach an 8 week class at the Newark Museum starting today, I’d regret the timing, and of course I was right, but I agreed, and I did my best to go at it with a happy face. I was NOT, however, a happy camper when I was informed I had to come in three hours early, thus taking out my morning, to meet with the HR people to file all my paperwork to rehire me as an employee at the museum. It of course took all of 15 minutes to do, leaving me with almost 3 hours to kill before the class. I was NOT in a good mood. I was introduced to the instructor from Studio 3, Lorraine Niemela who was teaching a watercolor class, when she walked into the director’s office. When I left the office, still NOT in a good mood, she asked politely if I might want to join her watercolor class to kill some time. I was really sort of speechless, and about to kindly decline when I thought, stupid me, I am NOT in a good mood because I have three hours to kill and a gift was just dumped in my lap and why wouldn’t I go and join the class. It took her about three minutes to set me up with my own little table, and a tray of watercolors, and a brush, and there on the big table in the center of the workspace were some lovely primroses. I smiled. And I dove into the watercolors. I’m not very good with watercolors, I don’t get the idea that you need to work quickly and begin with the light, and then go darker. I keep wanting to add a touch of bright, or white, or pastel and you can’t do that once you have something dark on the paper.

Still, what an amazing hour, and it was just what I needed to clear my head, get me centered, and moving in the right direction.

I finished up, with still an hour to kill, and I left the museum, and headed over to Halsey street to a hole in the wall fabric store, that’s been in downtown Newark for years, and poked around to see what sorts of things they had, so I could tell my afternoon students about a good local resource. It is convenient to know that Halsey Fabrics is literally around the corner if they need thread, linings, zippers, or some lovely fabrics.

Then I stopped at the most adorable little cafe, called Art Kitchen, in the back of Newark Art Supply, where tables were set around walls of paints and brushes and art supplies, and you could order all kinds of panini’s and smoothies, and there was free WiFi, and I felt suddenly free, and happy, and back to center, and very very grateful for my 3 hours to kill. What a gift today was, and when it finally came time for the class, I was delighted to find three of the four students had taken a workshop with me last fall in the same location, and I loved all of them, and I was really really happy I did commit to teaching this eight week class. This is the kind of class where I’m challenged constantly, and I get to really test my skills and knowledge, each student has their own agenda, involving garment construction, and my role is there as mentor to make sure it happens.

So I’m back, and actually in NJ for the next two weeks or so, before heading out to California and a conference there, and slowly my house is getting cleaned, and slowly I’m getting control back over the things I care about, and now it is time for a well earned sleep. Stay tuned.

Almost home…

I am writing this on the plane, winging my way back to the east coast, after an exhausting but remarkable 7 guild tour in four states in just over four weeks. It seems like just a dream that this time last month I was just finishing up in Southern California, on my way to Arizona, and this last stop in Missouri, in the middle of America’s heartland, brought a very special closure to a very special trip.

I love what I do, I fly to all sorts of places in the United States, and occasionally Canada, and I meet so many different people, all devoted to creating something with their hands, and I meet the people who love them, daughters, sons, husbands, and occasionally wives. I meet many folks who are retired from one part of their lives, who have recreated themselves again in another. I get the privilege of staying with some of these wonderful people, who open their homes and their kitchens and their bottles of wine to me, and we share a little bit of each other’s stories, and I can’t imagine my life being nearly as full if I didn’t have this opportunity to travel.

This trip ended with an address to the Columbia Weavers and Spinners, and to my delight, they let me pick the topic. So I chose my standard keynote address, which is my story, as it parallels the work from my hands, and from my loom; the two intertwine, warp meeting weft. I love telling this story, because when I am finished, I am flooded by audience members who come up to me and tell me small pieces of their stories, that have unfolded as I told mine. We all have a story, and I always feel privileged when I am able to tell mine, and have someone listen, and then share theirs.

On Sunday, the guild members worked feverishly to finish up their vests in the two day vest class, sewing machines were chugging along, and I ran from student to student trouble shooting where I could, and helping to make each vest turn into a personal statement for each of them. It was great that eight of the eleven students came wearing their vests at the Tuesday night guild meeting, even though there were still quite a few pins, and unfinished handwork. And I took a photo of Bonnie’s vest, since she was the lone felter in the group, and I am always thrilled when I have a felter in a group of handweavers because the end result is so organic and freeform. Bonnie’s vest, coupled with the silky teal shirt, looked like she was swimming in a coral reef.

My hostess Mary Jane endured a lot having me stay with her, because I arrived last Friday evening, with the beginnings of a cold. She provided many boxes of tissues and many bowls of hot soup, fresh bread, and a comfortable room where I could disappear and recover. I hate when I am on the road and I get sick. But I was lucky to have some down time on this trip, and I was able to curl up with my laptop, or a good book, and take some time to recover. I did go to Facebook as often as I could, since the news from home was grim, a weekend storm caused severe flooding in my town, we lost one of our maple trees in the back yard, which took out the chain link fence on the side of the back yard, preventing the dog from using the yard until my husband got out there with the chain saw. I saw photos of homes surrounded by water, landmarks I recognized from home with parking lots filled with water, and my son’s friend and another friend’s father, canoeing down the road using brooms for paddles. I am sad for the devastation and for those still evacuated from their homes and their lives. I was safe in the middle of the country, but my heart was heavy for those who couldn’t escape.

The highlight of my trip, was a dinner with Amy D. Preckshot, who is a member of the Columbia Weavers and Spinners Guild. Amy is a special person and a testament to the spirit of the handweaver. Amy is in her mid 90’s, and has a 24 shaft Toika loom visible from the parking lot in her apartment in a retirement facility. I want to grow old and be just like Amy. Most handweavers will recognize Amy’s work, if you have seen an ad for Webs Yarn Store, recently, you’ve seen Amy’s work. The inside cover of the current issue of Handwoven Magazine features two of Amy’s giraffes in the Webs ad. Amy is known for her clever handwoven stuff animals, and has written a book called, “Weaving a Zoo”, describing the animals and how to make them, and they are the first thing to sell at the annual guild sale. My hostess Mary Jane had a collection that spanned years. Amy graciously let me take some pictures of her whimsical animals. She was planning the next one, I hear she is working on a red fox. Amy told me that I praised her garment in the fashion show when I did the technical critique at Convergence in Grand Rapids in 2006, and that she never forgot that experience. She hadn’t identified herself in the audience, so I never knew Amy was connected to the work I was critiquing. She is an accomplished tailor, years of training behind her, and I was privileged to reconnect with her, and meet however briefly on the crossroads of our journeys. I hope our paths cross again.

So I am winging my way home, only to turn around in Newark airport and meet up with the rest of my family and head south to the Carolina’s for my son Eric’s graduation from boot camp Friday. More than likely I’ll need another box of tissues to get me through graduation, I know I’ll not be able to get through that ceremony without shedding a few tears. Stay tuned…