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This was the last of July this year and the last time meeting with old men at MJ’s coffee and mailing center. She is retiring to a new life in Georgia and will soon be moving there. Only returning to dog sit her regular customers and go out to eat with her old friends here. I will miss her being the answer person for everything local and movie related. She is a font of knowledge.  Her mother graduated two years ahead of me at a school in Florida. We live in a small world and I will miss seeing her five mornings a week over coffee and old men talking. Nothing lasts forever. Several years ago when I moved here, I gave her a letter of how to get into the house, where the cat food was and who to call in case I missed showing up without letting her know first. I had to retrieve that letter this week. Not sure there is anyone as dependable as MJ has always been for many of us. We did find a new place that is happy to put the coffee pot on for a bunch of geezers and myself if we remember to bring our own mugs.

I am doing a bit of tidy up here at the house. The front door is painted and one of the new rugs in place. Tomorrow the painter will return to do some touch up and help get the next rug under the bench.

I am trying to get the Lost Time book into a Publisher layout so I can see if I want to publish it at KDP on Amazon. The problem is getting the color and contrast right. Also Microsoft keeps reminding me that Publisher will cease to exist after October 13 this year and to move files into Word. I will eventually, but now need to take a day or so to switch them all to PDF files. I wish companies would just leave things alone. Publisher has been so easy to use. But again, things change and I need to adapt or come up short.

There is not much else new going on. Monday I can sleep in if I want but may just get an early morning walk in. It is still so bloody humid here…like everywhere else!

I went to “Shut Up and Write” at a local library and wrote the following. It is part of a longer piece written in the one hour allotted.

There are things needing doing. And they are taking too much time to do right. So, slightly wrong becomes good enough. We can so easily lower our level of satisfaction. So easily settle for less. And what strikes me as odd is how we are so easily satisfied with “the less than”. How little it matters if the upper sheet has a fully tucked-in corner or the dishes are completely wiped dry before going back in the cupboard. Or if a shower has to be every morning. And these “less thans” ease their way into other parts of our lives. We stop being attentive to old friends under the guise of minding our own business. We skip a meal because not cooking is so much easier if there is a container of yogurt and some corn chips to go with that glass of wine. We are not quitting doing things. Just managing what is left of our time. And becoming overly proud of what has been done, with so little effort. Now we have time on our hands. We can go to bed earlier, sleep in, watch the whole season of a British crime mystery. We are not going to take up a new hobby. We don’t need to learn anything new because we know so much already.

Some will arrange the memory objects of their former selves within reach. When touched, they are holding on to what they know. There is a kind of comfort in that, re-living what they have knowledge of. Holding it close and they are what they were. I’d rather not do that. Not now when I can keep everything and everyone at a distance. Far enough away to feel the freedom of moving on at my own pace. I don’t need to look behind me or touch the past. I just want to be in my own skin, dressed in comfortable clothes, and ready to react to each new moment heading toward me. Convinced that none of them matter enough to hold on to. Isn’t that an interesting way to be? Isn’t that wonderful?

Anyway, it seemed worth sharing in case you are tempted to understand someone who is settling into old age.

Til later….

I finally finished binding the old explorer’s book. Remember the one where I built the specimens from scraps of Nature into interesting things that could be then water colored onto gessoed boards? Now they all hang in my bedroom.

I still have the original “bugs” boxed up in the garage. Here are some being documented to paint on boards that took forever to gesso from scratch only to find they were still not good enough for egg tempera. So, why not water color I thought. I think this snail made from a beach shell near Melbourne, a bamboo leaf from our yard and tiny Eucalyptus pods is my favorite.

Here they are being drawn onto the gesso boards.

After all the specimens were painted and framed I decided that the explorer who found all of these quite likely had a sketchbook to record his findings. Thinking of the undecipherable Voynich manuscript, I decided to give the book its own unknown text. The story could be deciphered through the pictures of what caught the explorer’s eye. There are even some pages devoted to drawings of his tools for handling specimens. It must have been a couple of slow days for discovery.

Now after some Coptic stitching, hot glue, rice paste and water coloring edges, the book is now finished! These were old wormy chestnut off cuts that Lee had and were perfect for such a book. The illustrations abruptly end. Not because I got bored with the idea of a recording of the explorer’s finds. But more likely he drowned trying to catch a couple of water bugs…and only the sketchbook survived. I can assume this because the last drawing is of something floating…..and the water soaked appearance of the finished book.

I think that is enough for today. I really  should do a tidy up and have lunch. A blueberry/banana smoothie should do it.

Til later….

 

 

A good week for looking back and moving forward. A neighbor told me of old friends still coming to town to do workshops together. Lee and I would have them over for dinner and share what we were making. The neighbor told me they asked after me and then proceeded to talk me into going to visit them. I thought of all the excuses I could to not go…just stay home and leave the past in the past. It had been maybe fifteen or more years since we were together. Lots happened in those years. But I went anyway (in spite of myself). Naturally, I got involved with the students projects. Old habits of teaching and listening surfaced. The person who bought my house came in to visit a friend and we caught up on how they were doing. I am so grateful they love the house so much. I spent over an hour catching up with them and making a slight agreement to come back next week when one of them is assisting a class on natural pigments. It was a good visit. And here we are. Sally, Sandy and Ida.

 

I also went to the writing group at the Hiawassee Library called Shut Up and Write, an international organization that encourages just writing, no reading, no critiques…just write for an hour and go home! Each time I go, I find I have an interesting bit of writing when I leave. Preoccupations with getting old have dominated, but also an open mind to other ideas that need to get written down before I lose the will or ability. I played with the poem about Ralph and his neighbor a bit more to get the rhythm right. The poetry group enjoyed it. Now I am starting on the next picture of drawing into the negative space between Eucalyptus leaves. It is fun to do the drawing first and then write the words that a child can get caught up in.

The Dimming           S. Webster

The light is leaving.

A soft mist seeps along the edges

of what I am trying to see,

what I wanted to talk about.

Words stumble out

in barely heard whispers

of feelings rushing

to beat the silence

of darkness.

The negative space drawing reminded me of two books I made several years ago. I have found them and am considering publishing through Amazon so they are available again. Last time each one was printed and assembled at home. Most went and were sold to Australian friends. So far I have not found the original drawings but have been able to photograph the pages of my copies of Lost Time and Down the Rabbit Hole. Originally the Rabbit one had no words. I counted on the “reader” to follow the story of a spiteful farmer seeking the rabbit who only shows kindness in return. This next time I will add a minimum of text so it can be read aloud as the images tell the story. Both were illustrated using chemically rusted papers leaving evocative spaces for drawing in my ideas of the story. Here are a few of those drawings.

Lost Time

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Later today I will search for the original drawings and get some proper photos of them to resize and adjust contrast.

I have way too many papers left in my stash. Somehow, like most old artists, I thought I would use all the things I brought with me. No, I am not. And furthermore have no interest in making more things that take up space. I have been thinking of just the right person to hand them off to. My writing and drawing in sketchbooks is enough for me now…that and having a nice drink before dinner.

Well, at least there are more pictures in this post than last week. Now off on the search for old drawings. Which reminds me, my pregnant hairdresser will be getting the last poster I made many years ago called, ABCs in the Woods.

Okay, enough.

Til later….

 

 

 

 

I did see if I could figure out the binding with hidden starts and finishes in Coptic.

At least the spine stitches are neater. Not so with the inside. But I will give up because I do not need any more blank journals to fill.

In looking for cover material, I found this sheet of all cotton paper I made in John Risseeuw’s class in 1994 or 95. He taught at Arrowmont for a week and it was all about making paper and assembling books. Even the paper content had to relate to the text of the book. It was a super workshop that emphasized the importance of doing work that was unique to the maker.

At the time he was deeply involved with making and exhibiting work that was politically based. I was working on a series of coats showing the duress of women in Sarajevo. I still admire his politics long after his retirement from University of Arizona. We share comments and views on Facebook. His views give me hope for another generation down the line….one I am sure to miss because of the catastrophic situation being perpetrating on the world through our government and republican party that will take a generation to mend.

Anyway one of the papers I made that week was from scrap threads from my sewing stash. It came out a lovely lavender color. Lovely to touch. And like all workshop results the paper became precious and unused. Nothing quite worthy of cutting it up! How familiar is that?!

So I used it. Used a rice paste to glue it to double boards inserted between the folio making up the covering. Because I hate waste, the long cuts from the 11″ side are now folded in thirds and will be pasted to make a collar to slip the book into. This is necessary because like most landscape Coptic books, it has a tendency to slide into a fan shape easily.

And because it is 3.5″ by 5.5″ I decided to use it for haiku writings with small illustrations.

It has been hard to concentrate on writing under the dark cloud of politics, so I decided to escape into more children’s stories or poems. That and lose myself in drawings that require concentration.  The first story of Ralph was well-received at poetry reading this week. And it occurred to me that I have done this drawing into negative spaces before. Remember “Down the Rabbit Hole”? And the one “Searching for Lost Time”? I wonder if I should hunt up those drawings and publish the stories for a larger audience. I will give that some thought.

I wish I had more pictures in this post. But it has been hot, rainy and reclusive this week. I’ll do better next time.

Til later….