Travel

Our family has started the long drive home. The deer have come and gone. What corn and seed they didn’t eat is picked over by turkeys and anticipated by crows.

It was a fun and relaxing Christmas this year. We kept it simple. Each of the three who came to visit will return to keep Lee company while I am in Australia. After getting all the guest rooms put back together I photographed each of the kitchen cupboards and drawers with their contents. I noticed that not too many of them knew where things go. So now when they open a cupboard there will be a picture of what goes in there…..and how. A good idea I think. When I return things should be pretty much where they need to be.

Our daughter received a new sewing machine for Christmas and tried it out making catnip mice for her cat friends…our’s included. I still  had her business card from forty years ago when she hired her brother and a neighbor girl to stuff them with catnip. Her closet where the “hired help” were kept working on the line was a bit of a sweat shop with dried catnip, fabrics, sewing machine and stuffing. A local paper did an article on her entrepreneurship that resulted in several callers wanting her to come and harvest excessive amounts of catnip. Here are the three she made using a scrap of two sided cotton I bought from the Dairings in Australia and a bit of pink felt and book binding thread.

She also got me sorted out with my new computer and gave me a battery docking station for traveling and away from a power source for charging an iphone. And for fun some lenses for the iphone. Here is the studio using a combination of lenses.

Blurry but pulls a lot into the frame. And then the macro lens alone to do this detail of a luna moth wing.

I like the macro lens. And here is the new computer, an Asus Zen, that is very lightweight. The image for the wall paper or background is from a picture I took of the scarves I dyed at the Botanical Studios in Australia. The last of those were given to two of our three guests and our masseuse who comes the day after Christmas each year to give each of us an hour of heaven.

We also had time to finish off some pincushions to get in the mail.

 

And then before you knew it the week was over and it looks as though no one was here. In about three more hours they should arrive home.

I did have time to work on another of the boat series. Still not sure where this is going but don’t they feel like some sort of travel back to childhood? I will just keep working on them.

The next one will be air ships floating up into the sky like an ascension of balloons.

And from our son came the makings of a pretty drastically bad drink made with only the cheapest whiskey one can find mixed with diet Fresca and about four ice cubes. What makes it palatable is that is should be served in a Jefferson Cup ( metal similar to pewter and bowl shaped). He actually found a set of four to present along with the mix and cheap whiskey. We only drink these when we want to remember our friend who passed shortly before her 100th birthday. This was her favorite drink that she often served with popcorn cooked just right. She, Pacia, was also the reason we decided to come up with the book I wrote and editioned titled, The Spirits Bar. It is about a bar we open when we miss those who have gone before us. The ones we loved sharing a drink with, the ones we would like to see come back for “one more round”. Here is the book. My friend who comes each year with the kids got it out so I could read it while we ate popcorn and drank Pacia’s favorite drink.

I will take a new picture with the Jefferson Cup. I am finishing off the Aristocrat whiskey and Fresca while having a five o’clock phone visit with a friend. We usually drink scotch on these calls but Pacia is still on my mind as well as the thoughtful son who found these ingredients to make a perfect gift, not to mention his encouragement for me to write this little book.

Til next time. I am off to the Spirits Bar.

 

Friends I have known since 1988 arrived this week. Ed hiked the Appalachian Trail with a group each day and I collected Carlene to work with me in the studio. I wanted to get started on my piece about my travels in Australia and she needed to work on some assignments in embroidery studies.

First off I made the prints from the etched plates and only used fabrics colored in Australia. They are four different images of my shadow on the land there. Then I collected all the etchings that I had done there or at home using photos of gum trees as inspiration. Next came the pile of botanical prints made on paper while at Beautiful Silks last March and some of the handmade papers I made in Claudia Lee’s class last July. The palette was exactly what I was looking for.

Several pieces of Thai kozo had to be pieced together as I wanted the work to measure one square meter. Above is the first strip of pieces placed together. The botanical and dry point etchings had to be sanded down to make the papers more pliable. I added scraps of rusted papers done by a method I learned from Adele in Australia. It was like putting puzzle pieces together and Carlene had such a good eye for helping with the placements.

These are my “walkabout” tracks across the land into the country. The problem was that I needed to cover the pieced seams of the kozo paper and placement was not where I would have wanted it. So, logically I changed the size from one meter by one yard, using both measuring systems as it is about my being there and dragging my own sensibilities with me.

I pinned it to the wall on Wednesday just before a dinner party with several friends.

And here is the table with loads of BBQ ribs and veggies.

And Lynda’s kale salad that was the best!

The feed back was good from the textile women who were there as well as our artist neighbor who had been watching my progress with the piece I have decided to call, “Walkabout”.

Here are some details:

I intend to use the spun paper shifu threads that have been colored with the soils of Australia and some of the watercolors made from pigments gathered there to work in older tracks onto the background. Not sure about that yet as right now it is all about the stitching my own tracks into place. Keeping with the theme of being there I am punching the stitch holes five millimeters apart.

And of course the thread I am using was purchased in Hobart at Wafu Works. It is a lovely loosely plied cotton with a nice sheen that slides easily in and out of the holes.

So today I will punch and stitch the last of the six tracks in place and begin thinking about the tracks that came before me flowing over the ground below.

Til next week…..and I really hope it goes as well as this one, full of friends, food and fibers.

Here is the snake monster finished!

And his frightened victim about to be bit in the face. Something fun in the woods by the driveway.

I went to Asheville this week and stayed over with a friend. We shop and then we stop at the Grove Park Inn for a drink at the Edison bar….mainly for the view.

The drinks are of course over priced and often we will have a bit of something to eat…just a snack. I think that there can be a problem when chefs are left unchecked. Would you believe that they removed a decent home made potato chip plate with cheese, served warm, only to replace it with complete confidence because it is now printed on the menu, tepid stale homemade chips with chopped beets that appear to have mayonnaise stirred in. The mound of purple and pink sat in the middle surrounded with limp chips. I think we are going to find another place to have that drink.

The view from my bedroom yesterday morning looked like this.

From there off to Trader Joe’s when it opens at 8 am and then home by 10:30. I took a bucket to put bottled water in so I could fit in lots of flowers from TJs. Here they are on the table and should hold up through the art group meeting here on Sunday.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing that lifts spirits like bunches of sunflowers and Eucalyptus.

The latest work on Driveway Messages are now framed behind glass and ready to show Art Group.

Also this week I returned to the Specimen Journal….Here is a catch up on that as well.

This last page appears to be some sort of record keeping of a hatch happening near the water. So the next several pages will be about the things he spots around the water….including some of my favorites like the water bug.

Now I am headed back into the studio to make the leather journal covers for a class in Australia. In Asheville I found the best worn looking pig skin for them.

I think that is enough for now. Back to work.