Catching Up

Posted on by Sandy Webster

My return view on the Riverwalk this morning. The early morning sun on the river is so peaceful and clarifying of what all can be done with the day ahead. Along the way more sun and an abundance of geese.

Yesterday my Tuesday lunch friend came early so we could wrap bundles of papers and cloth with Eucalyptus and other plant material. Now we just wait until next Tuesday for the reveal.

Some were steamed, some immersed in an iron bath, some pressed between tiles. Always a surprise.

I have kept up with my stitching and drawing sketchbook.

I have ordered the rest of the frames for the night critters. Now I just need to locate some off white mat board to mount them on and order glass cut. I will add spacers between the glass and the textiles to let them breathe.

The young man I am giving my board shear to came to look it over and agreed to take my very large metal flat file as well. I will give him some papers that I no longer need to use in his classes.

After bringing all the furniture back home from the memory care facility and then taking some to Lee’s new room, I am left with a twin bed to get rid of. This week I will make a call to a charity organization to come take it away.

The cats are hiding from the cleaning lady upstairs and keeping me company down here in the studio. I think today I will ink up the wood block of the male figure. Then continue designing the center woodblocks for his interior space. Three figures should complete the set and when they have thoroughly dried I will back them with something to make them more accepting of needle, thread and scraps of cloth.

Til later….

Birthday – Seventy-Seven and Doing Okay

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I trimmed the bolted lettuces, nasturtiums and blooming parsley from the pots on the deck just now. Some shoved in with the ever-present rosemary stems I keep on the counter.

My drawing yesterday had to do with my birthday coming and going and a turned bowl Lee made several years ago. I love that he was such a practical use wood worker who seldom made things just to appreciate their forms.

These bits of stitching added to the book remind me of what it has taken to keep things together. They are small autobiographical patches of who I was and am becoming. It is so soothing to hold the pieces together with stitch. Touch is so important to holding onto ourselves, our memories, our need to record days gone by in a very physical, tactile way. Like my memory of places I long for in Australia stitched into this long panel that hangs over my love seat in the den. It is much longer than this detail…fifty some inches by six.

I was recently advising a friend in Australia that getting through hard times on a daily basis could be helped by stitching into a long scroll. Each day with its good and bad can be marked in some way with scraps of cloth and threads and then rolled up tight and held in the non-stitching hand waiting for the next day to be recorded and hidden. I was not only inspired by my own strip of longing for Australia but also a stitched piece of textile artist, Carolyn Sullivan. I think hers was more about recording a place in her extended travels throughout Australia. I loved how at times it appeared to be an endless documentation lovingly told through stitch and cloth.

After recording and rolling the days up tight they can be stored next to each other in a box. And later pulled out unwrapped and viewed as the beautiful strips of cloth they will end up to be….hopefully the hard times will give way to the beauty of release. In the meantime each is a meditation on the struggles life can toss our way that need tending to.

And about that birthday! The evening dinner from Patrick…more oyster shooters with popovers and a lovely Caesar Salad.

He has gone back home now that all his work here is finished, not least of which was helping to get Lee settled.

And I dug out my night critters pieces wondering how to frame them up. 8 x 10 frames were too tight. So another backing of cloth enlarged them enough to fit nicely into 11 x 14 frames. Now I just need to order some more in that size.

Today I am going to paste in an old etching I did of Australian landscape that has patched cloth added to it and on a facing page I will draw the Eucalyptus leaves someone sent me. I am missing that country today and this will help get me past it. Like rolling the scroll up, I can turn the page tomorrow and think of something else. Maybe these small pieces of driftwood my daughter put in her rock tumbler to make them irresistible to the touch for her father and me.

Til later…

 

Not Yet

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I think Lee is getting closer to being moved to the Nursing Home near me. It has been another week of distress as paperwork gets to the right places. It is so complicated and difficult to keep track of that I keep a stack of different pads of paper for each person involved as we work through the process.

Surely next week…..

In the meantime. Walks to the dam.

This morning I decided to look in the other direction and focus on things that depict a more hopeful perspective.

Surprises from friends and family.

Coated strawberries arriving via FedEx with a lovely note from “The Gs”.

A take out order of Oyster Shooters from a favorite restaurant that thoughtfully threw in popovers and a lovely bottle of Pinot Noir.

Patches needed to spend the night at the vets due to a severe upper respiratory infection. Patrick picked up the cat, the tab, and the oysters before coming back home. She is so much better.

I did another page in the book using an old print of myself on cloth. Then drawings of parts of sticks Lee brought in and a bourbon straight up.

It is nice having someone here to share meals with. It gives me practice with being around other people. Covid and Lee’s and my circumstances have had a way of keeping me isolated these past few years.

Today Patrick is putting in a higher speed modum for the computer system, installing a “see-all” camera for the doorbell/front door so I can see from the studio who is here. Then he will readjust the dryer vent outside so that I can reach it to clean the screen of accumulated lint.

And today I went back to carving.

This an old pine plank that I carved of a male figure based on some work I was doing on masculinity in graduate school. Now I am completely removing that section of “feelings” to fill in with smaller prints of how things change in the life of a man. How “what matters” is so temporary. I would like a long series of them in a row on some Japanese kozo paper that will take the number of male figures I would like.

It feels good to carve away what was there and think about the small carvings that will fill each one’s center.

Til later…..

 

 

Better Today

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I still had plenty of these posters I made from a flag book several years ago. I will take it down to the Memory Care facility to put in Lee’s room.

After a very rocky start, Lee is now under psychiatric care at the place he needs to be. At first they wanted the original paper of commitment from our doctor and not the faxed copy. So turned around and left him there at Memory Care. I got the call and rushed to the doctor’s office to locate it on the top of the “to shred” pile. Then drove quickly down to deliver it during a gas shortage and made it before they were coming a second time to pick him up. Next I get a call from the psych ward that they are sending him to yet another hospital because his bruise has gone all the way down to his foot and they want more tests. I am a bit incensed at this point and enlist the aid of head of Memory Ward and the home health nurse who has been working hard to get Lee some pain relief and settled at the new home for evaluation and treatment.

No calls in the middle of the night and first thing this morning I get a call from the psych place that he is there…followed by a very gentle call from the psychiatrist that Lee will be given a stronger pain reliever and get treatment for his mental outlook. He will call me every two days with updates. Hopefully within two weeks he will be back at the Memory Care Home and under the watchful eyes of the people there.

This morning Amy and Ben left for home right after the doctor’s call. They were amazingly helpful and yesterday hung the Australian egg temperas where the cow hung near Lee’s chair.

Ben made sure I had a bottle full of tumeric syrup to continue with treatment as needed. It was wonderful having them here and the introduction to birding.

I promised them I would continue the walk this morning and found it quite flooded in places but great for taking pictures.

Our son, Patrick will come down mid June for two weeks and like Amy and Ben will work remotely. It is very helpful having them around. In the meantime Patrick had six bottles of a very nice pinot noir sent and this amazing stress reliever.

A dammit doll designed to take many hard whacks when things get rough. Perfect thing to have these past few days.

And finally after the cleaning lady left I had quiet time to sew on an interpretation of the Riverwalk. Amy and Ben took away all Lee’s computer, printer, etc from this table in the den. Perfect for sewing and sketching in my book. This will be my newest stitched piece to add to a drawing of mountain laurel I did from a whole new bunch Amy and Ben picked before leaving.

I feel I can breathe today and will get back to a new normal place. Again thank all of you for the many cards and letters and messages of kind concerns. They make me cry but even that feels good to just let it go.

Til later….