Author: Sandy Webster

I think the time is flying by in weeks.  Here it is Saturday again. So the day starts with laundry and vacuuming. Latte and English muffin. Water the gardens (which are minimal). Accepting an invitation to meet neighbors later this weekend. Once all of that is done, then pick up with my audio book from the library and draw something.

The basket makers of Tasmania were gathering again so I had to add more to my Gathering Book.

The other day on the way back from the gym.

Night before last my television decided to quit. a year and a half was all it had in it. I spent over an hour on the phone with a heavily-accented technical help person who slowly, very slowly took me through all the steps to get it up and running again. To no avail. I ordered a new one. It will come on Monday. Perhaps when my cleaning lady is here. Hopefully after I return from my early morning every five-week hair appointment.  Then it is just unplug one and plug another in. Simple, right?

Tomorrow morning I will mix up some insect control compound to spray around the house. My cleaning lady says I will only have to do it twice a year. It is time, as the crickets like to come in from the chilly night. Mostly they stay hidden until the cats coax them out. They won’t eat them, which I am happy for. But a lonely male, whining, cricket hidden under a bookcase is not something I want to hear all night.

I went to poetry this week and read Old. The critique comments on the copies returned were positive. But I think that is mostly due to the easy association they had with the idea of arriving in that place themselves. I need to get back to writing more. Since I have decided to not make art work that will only pile up, I need something for my creative mind that will not slow down. This next week I should promise myself to finish a short story and get The Fairy Book available to the public. I do have it all laid out and only need to go over it again. Re-read the introduction and send it in.

I have yet to understand my fellow writers’ need to be recognized and published in esteemed collections. What does it matter? It is the writing that seems so much more important than having some distant and unknown “authority” claim you have been accepted and now recognized. I see that it might matter greatly if you are adding it to a resume that will get you further in a career. But otherwise, just write and then write some more. And do it because the words can’t stay bottled up inside. They need to be lined up on a page, one following the other, until it is said, and then you can get on with the discovery of what comes next.

Here is a bit of philosophical observation from this morning.

There is still way too many “things” still taking up space in my house. Mostly here in the studio….materials, books, tools. How much of this will I even use once I  realized that it won’t be needed. Without students that I would meet on a regular basis, there is little opportunity to get the things into hands that can use it to help their visions be realized. It is hard to keep our work spaces from looking like an old man’s shed full of the “just in case I need it” accumulation.

But, it will find its way out of here one way or another.

I think I am going to pour an early  glass of wine and listen to a man read me a story.

Til later….

Lovely mornings going into the gym. This was the last photo taken with my IPhone XR. It took well over two hours in the store to get my new Apple 15 pro phone up and running. The connecting and charging cords have changed to be universal and compatible with androids which added even more expense to the store visit. But it is done and my photographs are supposed to be so much better.

So I tested that earlier today by taking pictures of the back yard.

I notice the better quality in the close up detail of the first image here. Nice.

I have another roll of phyllo sheets to use up. So this afternoon I am going to sauté onions and mushrooms. Add in cut up roasted chicken, spinach with cheeses and an egg to get a filling to fold into the well-buttered three layers of phyllo sheets. Once cut lengthwise, I can put a healthy scoop on and fold flag fashion one end to the other. Brush with more melted butter and bake. Then put in the freezer with the others I made using ham and spinach with cheeses to make for quick lunches or dinners. The only thing I don’t mind making from scratch for just myself is shrimp and pasta. And that has spinach and tomatoes in it.

A trip to the liquor store to ask what I should buy to make some margaritas resulted in my bringing home a premixed bottle of everything I need but salt on the rim. Margaritas are the problem if I want to go out to a Mexican restaurant with a friend. So now I have it solved. We will get take out chips, salsa and taco salads. Then come back here, fix our drinks and settle in to the Mexican restaurant experience.

By nine thirty this morning I had my laundry finished, floors vacuumed, trip to the store and back home to make the bed back up and fold laundry. Now for some baking and I can call it a day!

This week I needed to stitch around more pages for the little book about night time. My mind can go anywhere once a needle is threaded. No wonder my mother always had her sewing bag close by.

Well, I better get busy in the kitchen.

One more thing. When I told the coffee men that I was getting a new IPhone in hopes of getting better pictures of the full moons, they told me it would never happen. I asked why and was told the moon is always moving. Those boys are worth their weight!

Til later….

I am walking to and from my tai chi classes again. It feels good.

And my drive to the gym earlier in the morning put the full moon on display over the library. I miss seeing the moon in the skies from my old place where there were no buildings and power lines.

I had a small dinner here for the group at the table at wine tasting this past week. Four under thirty and four over (well over) seventy. A good mix. One manages the old courthouse functions here in town and they have an auction once a year. I showed her work I had no use for and asked if they would like to have it for their auction. She said yes and hopefully she will come back in a couple of months to pick it up.

I have no use for some of the pieces I still own and have no other way of getting rid of it. No, it is not enough to hire another back hoe to bury it. And I am reminded of the last time I said I had some work available to sell. A neighbor from my old place emailed me that she did not want to pay the asking price and offered half. I still do not have much to do with her as she comments on my public posts. I will give work away before I encourage those who do not value other’s time and efforts. If you like something, buy it. If you can’t afford the full asking price, make arrangements for payments…but never offer half the price as if you are buying day old bread.

When I was looking for work to pass on I found this piece from years ago….a combination of my printmaking, cloth and stitch. I like it and think the only other one like it is in somebody’s home in Australia. I loved finding text from old paper back books to clip out and add to the image. Then writing a short statement in my own hand and selecting paint, fabrics and thread to complete the collage. What will happen when artists no longer know how to do a cursive writing into the image?

This piece is only 9″ x 12″ in its mat. Surely I can find a place to hang it and remember what was going on in my head when I put it together.

So now at eighty and looking for something to busy my hands, I found a cigar box filled with these folios I made by folding 8″ x 4″ text block paper in half and stitching around the edges after brushing gesso in the center section on each side. If I make a signature with two folios each, then I could make a book. A book of nightfall til dawn. Each small painting will have an opposite page for text.  If nothing else, it gives me something to play with and easily fits in the trash when I conclude it simply didn’t work. Here are the pictures done in watercolor over gesso, sanded, and paint moved around once more.

that is about it for now.

til later…..

 

Since I have no new pictures this week I thought I would talk about the boxes I have made. Not all of them. Certainly not the boxes made from the countries I have traveled to (I showed them not too long ago on this blog). But just a variety of them filled with interesting things to complete their stories.

First is The Green Tea House that I still own. It was inspired by an early teaching job at Arrowmont School in Tennessee. I was totally taken by a young clay student’s celadon tea bowl. So once home I built this house for it, a shifu rolled up rug, drawer for green tea, etc. One could have their own private tea ceremony using this box/house.

The rug fits in the attic. A strainer I made from small cane sits sideways in the shaped space. Green tea is in the drawer. A votive candle in a frosted holder sits on its own shelf. A spare candle is in another drawer with matches. The light’s shade folds into a space made for it. The book for writing a meditation fits next to the tea bowl on the bottom floor. The roof is a shaped and hammered copper. And the door closes with a bamboo latch.  I loved making a house-shaped box to hold all the parts.

And then this one…The Traveler’s Box. It sold at an exhibition. Finding and making just the right pieces to fit in their spaces was an adventure. I put myself in the traveler’s head and simply collected.

Only the lower half unlatches to drop down and show the interior…a journal and his collected bits.

Here is what it says behind the mica in the upper right.

From the Traveler’s Box

By S. Webster

Once he returned from his travels,

there was so much to sort through.

So many memories.

Which ones to keep and which to let go.

Who to remember and who to forget.

This next one was for a miniature book challenge of a book making group I belonged to in Asheville, NC. I made my miniature book and then made a house to hold all the books made.

And the house-shaped box that all the pieces fit into.

It was auctioned off to raise funds, won by a friend’s husband, kept for several years and then given to their grand daughter.

And these that I had such a good time making. All but the one I kept had sold of The Curiosity Boxes.

This one titled, The Witches Daughter (named after a poem in the tall book I made to house it, now hangs over my bed as part of a collection of “things that matter”.

A friend sent me a post card from a museum shop that showed this Chinese puzzle box. I just had to figure out how it was assembled to make a couple for myself. I only had the one view and no instructions of how to make it work. The center section must be removed or the doors will not open.

Here is The Chinese Box.

And what is hidden in two of the doors. And old man’s shop and the sewing room.

The Chinese one has a harmony ball in its center and the Japanese one below has something I forgot behind the mica windows.

There are copies of wood cut prints behind this door. A Japanese garden with sand and rake behind another, lotus pods, etc. behind the others.

This box/book I made while receiving instructions from Gian Frontini on how to use my kangaroo hide to shape over the book/box. I used a disassembled traveler’s compass to embed in the cover and use as a latch to keep it closed. Inside is a collection of things from down under and a reproduction of an Australian painting titled, The Traveler.

And another box with collapsing sides housing an old padlock. The key is on the cover.

And one of the last series of boxes I made…Self Portrait from the Shelters Series. Evidently I have used up all the space for today. So til later….This post was fun to do.