I spent a couple days this past week stitching some of Aukje’s silk fabric with other cloth bits to add to the gathering book. I knew they were coming together to stitch and weave baskets in a favorite place in Tasmania. I loved going there and teaching workshops. My book, covered in a paper I made in one of Claudia Lee’s papermaking workshops, only has so many pages and I am getting near the end.
The book opens to this page showing a drawing of one of Anna Lizzotte’s baskets I bought at a gathering years ago from her. The cutout window reveals a twined base for a small basket.
Here are some pages from a year ago.
The cottage where they meet and a detail of one of Mahdi Chandler’s pottery contact printed baskets visible in a cut out window. A small cottage is stitched onto handmade paper with drawn palm inflorescence (a favored basket material of the makers).
And this one closely related to the coiled baskets made from old blankets that are repurposed. I especially love this large two page drawing. Getting the look of a soft wool gently coiled around was fun to do.
I work on the pages for this book because it makes me feel like I am there with them. Often a glass of red wine from a vineyard down under will be sitting nearby.
This past week I went to the monthly wine tasting event here in town. I was delighted to see the wines the sommelier chose were from New Zealand and Australia. I bought two bottles of MT Yengo Riverina Sparkling Beelbangera Australia. It tastes much like champagne and the vineyard is owned and operated by Aborigines with all proceeds going to their schools there. Both bottles are in my fridge right now, one for me and the second for a thoughtful neighbor who loves champagne. I bought one bottle of William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir from Gippsland, Victoria. And then two bottles of Sunspell Cabernet Sauvignon from the Barossa Valley. The sommelier reminded us that all the wines were superior to the mass produced ones shipped to the states…Yellow Tail and Alice White. Most of us laughed out loud because we keep Yellow Tail on hand for whenever someone stops by.
She reminded me of the bottle shop owner in Australia who told me years ago that we Americans have no taste and will buy anything with an Aussie critter on the label. He called those “Critter Wines” and waved me off to the section they could be found in. I happily bought them to take back to my hotel room, but never missed an opportunity to accept a ride to one of the many wineries in Australia’s countryside.
We no longer get Alice White here. Lee and I loved it probably more for the soap opera that continued on the back label. The hero was Nick (I think that was his name). He was always barely surviving something dangerous while meeting up with Alice who suffered from amnesia. You had to buy the next bottle to see if he recovered from whatever or if Alice got her memory back. The last we read of the two of them was that Nick suffered a croc attack and Alice had a flash of memory that she might have been a nurse in her former life. A not so good wine with a not so good continuing saga, but certainly good marketing…and yes there was a kangaroo on the label.
I have not done another anti-trump book with his sycophantic cabinet because I am just so sick of the bunch of them. Have you ever seen such incompetence! Please, please let us borrow Canada’s prime minister until we rid ourselves of this craziness.
In the meantime I am thinking how my book will start with a mailman hauling his bag down the sidewalk. I know how he looks and have named him, Paul. He is only there to start the the first of the letters but I have to know him before I trust him to open the book of correspondences. I was also wondering if mailmen/women feel more of an urge to write letters than those of us not seeing handwritten names and addresses. Do they understand how much more important written letters are than emails and texts. Emails and texts seem so impersonal, hurried, unimportant…and yet, that is what communication has become.
Enough! The wine is calling!
Til later…..