Feature Works

I was sitting on the porch the other day and thought that soon I won’t be here anymore. So I took last pictures of the view I have taken for granted for seventeen years.

Then I turned and saw this.

The porch bar with high stools that Lee and I bought before we moved into the house. We took a couple of beers over to sit there for the evening. The electrician was working late and took pity on us. He turned on the electricity to the porch so the two of us could pretend we were already living there.

They are ready for new owners.

I took a walk over to the house earlier.

My shoes were soaked! Another drawing in the Meadow Book….

Yesterday a friend came over to have what is likely the last lunch on the porch. The furniture refinisher brought back the table and counter stools.

They are so much better than when he took them away. I can’t wait to see Amy and Patrick sitting at the table they grew up with.

The yard man came later in the day and took all the pieces from the yard to the new place where he will do some grading, etc. before getting it all placed.

This morning there were more changes at the house.

Just the bench to place in the shower…

And flooring!

About one third of the house is laid.

Today I went to the window treatments place and will meet them at the house this coming Tuesday.

The cats start their boarding time at the vets on the 26th. My movers come the 29th, I follow them to the new house and we unload all boxes with work tables and shelves in the garage. The furniture will be set inside the rooms they go to and appliances put in the kitchen and laundry. I take my pre-packed suitcase and move into a friends apartment closer to my new house. On the 30th cleaners come here to this house to spend the day. On the 31st is closing at the lawyers and I start a new chapter.

Yesterday while eating lunch on the porch I was fidgeting with my loosely folded paper towel/napkin. I thought if I folded it in quarters then I could try to tear a perfect circle. Here it is.

There is something about this torn paper that says so much…it could be an entire short story ,,. or poem.  But for right now it was a making of something that represented more than a torn paper towel.

My friends in Australia are getting themselves all sorted out for their workshop next March and their stay at the house we all shared for several years.  Some of them are following the yearly challenge we set for ourselves, some are lagging behind. One is preparing for a teaching tour for the Embroiderer’s Guild of America. Five weeks in nine different states. The thought is daunting! All of them have such energy and so many ideas for their art making. I look at my torn napkin and it reminds me that we have long been a circle,  the six of us.

Sometimes, with being so far removed physically from them, I feel a bit empty. And then I think of how they will all be together next year and they will do an early morning call that comes when I am having an evening wine. (I make sure it is Australian). They will crowd together in front of the camera to say hello and then individually show the work they did in the class, what they learned without me being there to hover and suggest. Next we share how far we did or didn’t get on the goal for the year. We wave goodbye and they get on with another day of making. I take a deep breath, a deep sip of wine and this next time I will have a nice place to lay out my project to start the next morning.

This torn paper towel is such a wonderful image and so evocative that I think a book with the hole slowly filling in, getting smaller is where I will start as soon as I get moved and have my things where I can make ideas come to life.

Til later….I have talked myself into a glass of red.

The more I put in boxes the more of me disappears. It’s not so bad if the box is still open, but once the flaps go over and it is sealed up with strap after strap of packing tape, the more of me is gone. The artwork is the worst. Slices of myself are hidden, out of sight, and waiting to come back. I won’t see them or myself for more than a month. I won’t be in the new house for probably six more weeks. The new owners will move in sooner than that. So I take my cats and an overnight bag, some food, certainly wine and scotch, a computer with no internet, and stay in the studio apartment that has been reduced to a single bed and a few towels. I am glad they are letting me wait out these last days in the apartment. Hopefully I can get some writing done while there. It should not be long.

The builder is letting me me have the movers store everything in the garage at the new place. He says some of the big things can be moved into the house. Surely the refrigerator, washer and dryer. And hopefully the beds and dressers…all the heavy things.

I am hoping to get the area rugs cleaned and rolled up here so it is easier for the movers. Also a local furniture refinisher is willing to pick up my dining room table and the three counter stools to work on next week. Every time I go to the new house I try to visualize everything in place…and every time I wonder if I kept too many things. Almost all the cupboards have been packed up. I will keep a plate, bowl, mug, glass, single place setting and a pan to cook in over to the apartment. Everything else will be in boxes. My yard man will come sometime soon to take all the things from here that will be in my very small Japanese garden at the new place. He will even put in a small pond and waterfall….nice.

So onward and upward……

I love this meadow and the sky views when I walk from the gym to the house. The tile man working on the new shower lives on a hill that overlooks this spot and he told me yesterday that an occasional bear and even once a mountain lion was seen out here. Grey foxes, deer and ground hogs wander through as well. Trying to keep the observations recorded in the Meadow Book.

I have moved the necessary sketching materials to this one basket that I can carry wherever I go. That grey computer case was a perfect fit for my wooden watercolor box. The pockets have all my pencils in one, homemade pigment, glasses and eraser in another and my new set of small watercolor brushes in the third. The basket also holds a legal pad, the old laptop, house and meadow books, sketchbook of Burke and Wills story, spray for graphite drawings and a paper towel.

Like I said I met with the tile man and we double checked the tile choices and discussed how he would do the small corner bench and niche in the wall of the shower.

Doors and the interior are going in.

That is my kitchen pantry door. The refrigerator will be just to the left.

And a detail of the trim around windows and doors.

All the lights and fans are sitting in the garage here waiting to go over when I get the call. The mantel Patrick made from Lee’s wood has been taken over but still sitting on the hearth. It is best if I only check on the house twice a week. That way it seems like more is getting done.

There is progress. And in two months I should be all settled with nary a box in sight! My etching presses will be set up with work tables in the garage and maybe, just maybe I will be sitting out there with a carving tool in my hand. It’s a plan!

I am off to seal a bit more of myself in a box…

Til later…..

Only two large pieces of artwork yet to get ready for the move. Artwork and the mirrors are the worst! That’s what I thought until I started on the book cases. It took twelve milk carton square boxes to just do one set of shelves. And even that is hard to pick up and stack!

I went back to the store to get more of those boxes and had my first ever “collision” accident. Both of us backing out at the same time. He was in a very low old car that had no horn and no passenger window. Now he has no usable passenger door. I have very few scratches and no dents. Since I had no idea what to do and remembered we were supposed to exchange insurance information, I asked the kid to show me his and found mine. We photographed each others papers and went on our way. He had to get to work, I had to meet a friend for lunch and see the builder.

After that I stopped at my insurance company and got their advice. Then to a body shop for an estimate and before the day was over, I had a claim sent into the insurance company. The bumper will get the next available opening in early October. Much simpler than I thought it would be.

So today another workout at the gym and a walk over to look at the new house.

and found all the interior doors have been delivered.

And all rooms painted.

Speaking of painting, the new owners here brought more things to store in the studio and showed me their paint samples for the walls here in the big open space. Their choices are simply gorgeous….all my old patched up white will be the colors of a lovely French chateau….even the natural wood cupboards will be painted with an over wash. And perhaps one of her quilts hanging in the foyer where my Australian aboriginal work hung. I will love seeing the new incarnation.

Today I had to take over the mantel that Patrick made from a piece of yellow pine that Lee had left over from making the long bench in the foyer. It will sit above the stone work and the young chap who unloaded it was pleased with Patrick’s finish and rounded corners. It will be nice to see it hung and even more fun to place artwork on the wall above and the River Lethe sculpture on the mantel.

Passengers climb down the ladder to store their baggage and go below to take a seat. They flow through their losing memories because they have drunk the water from the river. Little pieces of past tense text hang onto threads of waves. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your outlook, the ferry man also had a drink along the way taking the passengers to the River Styx, and he forgot where he was going so just tied the boat up until someone who has a memory of where to go next comes along and gets them all going again. I believe the destiny was Hades…but I forgot.

Today I took the day off packing…which is a pain when doing it alone….and just sketched in the two books, Meadow Book and House book.

A fairy ring of toadstools I saw last week and some other fragile ones this morning.

Love this low wheely chair found in the house. I would like to see who uses it and why. I think it is perfect for scrubbing baseboards.

I think it is time to post this and pour something into a glass.

Early tomorrow it will be laundry and filling boxes.

Til later…

Now Sadie has packed herself up. We are getting so tired of piling up boxes and waiting for the new house to get finished. The new owners dropped by the other day to put some things in the shop to store. I am wondering if I need to get some place to put all my things if the house gets even further behind. But will cross that bridge when it comes. I took a walk on the dam and then stopped by the house Friday morning. All the taping of drywall was finished and I suppose next comes the painting. I will check tomorrow morning to see if anything new happened since.

There was a walk through the meadow and some drawing in the book.

Lots of rabbit sightings in the clover along the path from gym to house site.

And at the house interesting things to draw in the book about its construction.

This morning I hauled five more bags to the trash.  Yesterday packed a few more boxes of teapots, cups, candles and candle holders. So much pottery from the dining room cupboards. I will miss all these built in cupboards but have found out once something gets stuffed back in….it is simply not used. So many things I saw, liked, bought, and put away to use someday. Silly. There are days I think of taking one plate, one place setting of cutlery, one cup, one bowl and letting them sit on the kitchen counter waiting for the next meal to be ready to eat. But maybe someone will visit and I will need more, so more gets packed and I am hoping there is enough cupboard space for them to come out of those boxes.

In the meantime I enjoy the little pleasures of what stays behind.

Tomorrow I will call and see if a rug cleaning place can come and roll up three or four area rugs to take away, clean and return all rolled up for the movers. Two of them have been in every house we’ve had since ’93 when we moved here and never had a professional cleaning. If I can’t find a local cleaner then I roll them myself and they go as they are.

There are still paintings and other things on the walls. And two framed documents are making me wonder if I should take them in their frames. One is my undergraduate degree and the larger one is my Masters of Fine Art degree. I had them framed when I received them because no one in my family ever went to college, some did not graduate high school. I hung them over my computer desk in the office downstairs and thought of how my parents died before either of these degrees were earned.

When I was trying to pay my way to a two year Associates degree after high school, my father took me aside and slipped me a $100 bill. I had never seen one before, and knew he had not seen many. He told me it was for my tuition and a couple of books the following semester. Tuition was $70 and used books about $10 each. That was almost sixty years ago and I still remember his wanting to help me out.

The degrees only mean something to me personally. I was the only one who needed to see them and remember the struggles of achievement.  Maybe I can hang them side by side in my new walk in closet over my massage bed, or behind the ironing board in the laundry room, somewhere, I think. I will let you know where they end up.

Last night I fixed myself a Turbo Tonic. It was a good idea but unlike a gin and tonic, there was not a desire to have a second.

Til later….