A Very Good Day on the Burial Pieces

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I found this beautiful remains of a Luna Moth yesterday. He seems old and worn out and fragile. I am sure he did his best. At a place where I was teaching a few years ago I would find just the wings of these moths and others at the base of a street light. The bats would go for the bodies and the wings just fell to the ground….loads of them. I think I will put those that I saved in the ground as well. I have already used them to make up bugs from my own imagination.

This series of watercolored insects on gessoed boards will not be buried. It never was exhibited but my daughter wants them, so they will have a good home.

Anyway, all the specimens from Expedition to Elsewhere have been wrapped and shellacked today.

Most everything from the exhibit is bundled.

The three dioramas will be placed in the cloths that were earth pigmented.

Hopefully there is a place for the burial site close to the studio like this place is.

Some of the things were hard to bundle, like the carefully arranged specimen jars/bottles. But the doubt passed as they should all be together.

The maps and tools will go with the dioramas. There is not much left.

Always loved looking into the dioramas.

 

I am keeping the guest book for my kids to enjoy. They both came down for the fun opening I gave myself when I rented a space for one week of exhibit. It was fun! I even served Expedition White and Expedition Red wine…..some very cheap wine that I made my own labels for. The food was crusty breads, cheeses and fruits.

The other thing from the exhibit that will be saved is the game played on board the ship of explorers. Native and Conquerors I think is what I named it.

Just feeling the carved pieces in my hand and the realization that this is what happens, the wealthy feel entitled to what little the poor can hang onto. The natives attempt to preserve a way of life but there is something on their land or in their huts that the conquerors covet. I love how neither of them have much room for negotiations.

I am keeping this one as a companion to the one I made with parts from Australia, called Cultural Exchange.

Here the two tribes face off in a rush to get to the other side and walk in the shoes of the others. I really love this game and the rules I made up and the arbitrator, Jimmy, named for Jimmy Carter. Sometimes he would rule that there are bad starts with good intentions and send some tribesman back home.

Anyway I am keeping both these games….one each for our kids. They are both a good lessen to play fair….or not.

That is the latest. All the bundles have been moved out of the way of the window washers coming later this month so I have plenty of time to wrap up dioramas, maps, tools and call for a grave digger.

Til later.

A Good Week

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Lee picked these for me this morning….Mountain Laurel that surround the house. They are fading a bit now. The deer have eaten the tops off of the sunflowers. Irresistible green leaves sprouting up. But there are plenty left in the beds. It is just the cost of feeding deer in the yard. Everything we have out there is considered part of their food source.

And here is the Australian Scroll at the framers. If I was two inches taller I could have gotten both ends in the picture. The matte will be sort of like this counter top….Mississippi mud color. Then it will have a dark frame with hints of rust on the edges. In three weeks I should have it in place over the small couch where I sit and hand sew while watching TV with Lee.

I might just do more of these with the scraps of fabrics and threads I have left. Maybe even incorporate prints from my two small presses.

But first I need to get the art works wrapped and shellacked. Now I am onto the Expedition to Elsewhere: the Evidence.

I am filling up the long boat with bugs and other specimens. Behind are some of the cabinets of curiosities, etc. Here is one of my favorites all bundled up.

But some big bugs will be wrapped today.

Some of the stands these specimens are on will just be tossed in the hole with them….too hard to wrap with the thin wires being the only attachments.

I do not think I will wrap the large dioramas with stripped cloth as I have several large drop cloths from India that I colored with earth pigments to use as backdrops to the exhibition.  Might as well use them up as well. Empty cartons are everywhere to be broken down to take to the dump for recycling.

Once all of the pieces are wrapped from this exhibit and a few more personal bits I found, then I can call for the hole digger. Not sure I want this immense and growing pile outside my studio when the window washers come later this month. Too hard to explain.

I am finding it easier to breathe in my studio as I take out a bag a week to the trash.

Til later.

Clearing Out

Posted on by Sandy Webster

About two weeks ago I took this picture of the pollen on the lake during our morning walk. The next day it was gone.

My mind has been like that….a bit clogged.

Bundling and tying and shellacking whole bodies of art work and giving them a place to wait out of sight for the ending has helped.

Sorting through books has helped. Many boxes went out this morning. More are boxed in the studio and ready for pick up.

With the books I am coming face to face with the earlier thinking that, “I will need that one day”. And really how untrue that is. Others who could have used what I kept were ignored because I was so sure that these things would be just what I needed….some day.

And what I needed all along was the space that they cluttered up with false promises. I think after all of them are removed from the studio, the best thing to do would be to remove the shelves as well.

I need clear blank spaces.

I need to find a way to get back to my yoga and tai chi practice in that cleared space.

The studio had become a place of reminders of all the things I can either no longer do or am no longer interested in doing.

Today when a friend from the art group came by to collect the books, we parted thinking that we will get together in the studio and just make prints together when I am ready. I look forward to that, sharing what little I will have left in a large open space…..just playing, no thinking, no worrying about what will become of the results, no thinking beyond making marks and printing….and learning.

When I take my blood pressure at the gym three times a week, I mentally go to a place I used to do tai chi. It was very early morning in Geelong, Victoria Australia. And I would sneak off to just inside the tree line of a Eucalyptus forest, carefully take my bow and begin to move my feet over the shed bark of the trees and listen to the whispering of that. It was so peaceful and so invigorating…all that slow breathing with the whisper of Eucalyptus.

My blood pressure is well within the  “good” range under those glaring florescent lights with the distant sound of feet pounding on treadmills and groans of physical exertion. Because I am not even there. I am in that forest.

My studio is going to be that forest for me when I get everything that is not necessary to that feeling taken away.

Much more to go, but getting there.

Til later.

War Bundles

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Two works pertaining to war are all there is left. Both are by artists touched by the situation in the Balkans. The artist proof above is titled Bosnia….now broken into three pieces so as not to be heard the way it was. And the one below about what I remembered as the profanity of war. One of the worst Serbian leader’s name was on it, so I bought it.

One hangs in the bedroom, the other in the office.

And now all of the war pieces are bundled and shellacked.

The pile is getting quite large. The detail below is how I feel at times….just trying to keep everything together and covering it up.

There are days when I just do not want to talk and that is probably a good thing as there really is no one I want to talk to right now. Sometimes talking will lead to things said that later are regretted…..so best to stay silent.

And honestly I don’t want to listen either. Hearing of someone else’s fun and free-ness is usually a good distraction but other times a reminder of another life…..one I had just a few years ago. So I am concentrating of clearing out artwork, getting rid of loads of books that may just end up in the trash as so few people want books anymore.

We do not live in a good area for a garage sale and I am completely out of touch with anyone looking for books. I might just take them to a recycle place. Many of them I was going to pass on to the Art Group. Too late for that. I should have been paying better attention to the drifting off of the members of the group. I missed how much they were ready to lean away from the one thing that made me look forward to having them here….talking about art based on feelings strongly held.

My plan is to strip my studio of everything not related to printmaking. All those bits and pieces stuffed on shelves and in drawers needs to just go. All walls empty except for the tai chi figures that have been there to remind me to breathe. I need to do more of that and stop panting with worry about what I am supposed to do next.

We had a good walk at the dam this morning in the fog. Here is Lee wandering off into that fog. He knows where he is, where I am….he just can’t find words. No wonder I do not want to talk so much right now. I am doing it for both of us and listening to figure out what it is he wants to say.

That is enough for now…..but I love this picture.

Til later.