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Oh the things I want to do...
Grace sent me pine needles, they are much longer than what I have.
I want to try making a basket but haven't gotten there yet.
She also sent me the beginning of a square. I have started adding to it.
A blanket can hold so much.
Community can be far and near.
Thank you Grace.
Today I played some more with pigments.
Doodling with ink.
And then some digital layers, another kind of doodling.
Blending the homemade and local with technology.
It's the world we live in.
I finished listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer today. It's as beautiful as an audio book as when reading it page by page.
Thinking about that...oral traditions and written.
As I listened I went back and forth between shelling beans, cleaning the kitchen and making ink.
This is the best crop of beans I've been able to grow. I think because I was more careful to keep the soil moist as the seeds germinated.
I will eat some of them and save some to plant.
I grow beans because it is a connection to one of my grandfathers. Today I thought of watching him shell beans, of him sharing his collection of bean seeds with me and the stories that went with them.
Also I grow beans because they are beautiful.
Two of the inks that I made today, one with onion skins and the other with coffee grounds.
The coffee sample on the right was made with coffee grounds still in the liquid. I brushed them away once it was almost dry to have a better idea of the color. The coffee sample on the left was diluted a bit. The coffee was roasted by Mom, another connection.
The onions came from my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box. I love these onions enough that I might need to grow some just be sure I have them. I love this ink because I know who grew the onions; I know where the onions were grown and that they are local.
The other ink I made was with indigo. The indigo was purchased from a business I feel good supporting. Not quite local, but not too far away either.
Thinking about how a family tree of pigments could be created and about stories.
About how stories and relationships lead to care...
This one has a few special details.
Sometimes we need to find different ways to listen, different ways to speak.
Cat approved.
Sunrise yesterday. These are the greenhouses near where I work.
Everything outside is covered in ice.
Even the seed heads.
I have no running water at the moment (except for melting snow), thinking about what we take for granted.
And I am grateful for shelter and warmth and family and friends and the kindness of strangers.
Imagine...
Sunrise: 8:00 Sunset: 4:16 pm, 8 hours and 16 minutes of light today.
I measured about 10 inches of snow yesterday morning. We've barely been above 20 F for the last two days, colder for the next two days and wind. It's powdery light snow which really isn't typical for us. More snow in the forecast.
"I heard a bird sing, in the dark of December.
A magical thing and sweet to remember.
We are nearer to spring than we were in September
I heard a bird sing in the dark of December."
Oliver Herford
Happy Solstice...
Christmas probably won't be white...but solstice will.
I had intentions to do more today but really haven't done much.
Even the "ta-da" list is short.
A little bit of sewing, a little knitting, a little cleaning, and a lot of being entertained by the cats.
I finally strained the rose petals that I have been steeping in vodka.
The other container is rose petals in honey, very good on yogurt.
They both taste like summer.
Sunrise one day this week:
Layers of light.
Sorting I stacked a paper star on top of a painting I had done.
Hmm...
So here it is another version (three layers, one filter).
Another way to be.
I've shared this before but for those who wonder, the text is:
Crepuscular midnight stands at the road,
Where the stars have spilled from its purse.
You cannot go over the road past the fence
Without trampling the universe.
"Steppe," by Boris Pasternak
Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I listened to a conversation with Katy Payne (On Being). The discussion was about listening to whales and elephants.
As I lay in the dark listening, I imagined there were whales singing deep in the ocean, right then at that very moment. Elephants rumbling at a pitch just below what humans can hear.
Something to think about in the middle of the night when it is dark and quiet.
Speaking of whales singing, Payne says:
"And so what that has done for me is to make me feel that what lies ahead to be discovered is absolutely limitless. We are not at the pinnacle of human knowledge. We are just beginning."
I've spent a lot of the weekend rearranging things...
When I paused to look at what was stacked on my table I had to shake my head...pigment making supplies and pigments, dye supplies, the baby indigo vat, sewing projects, paper projects, books, drawing supplies, a water color set, yarn, gifts from friends, the occasional cat and an iron that I rarely use.
So many things that I am interested in.
So many things that I am or want to be.
And a kind of chaos.
Looking closer,
There was also lunch:
Toppings: pears, smoked cheese, walnuts and radicchio.
And dye experiments.
The fabric on the left and middle were dyed in the baby vat, two dips for the cotton and one dip for the wool. The wool on the right was dyed in the ice water dye bath.
And that brings me to my reading...
One of the concepts that I find so validating in Ways of Being is the idea that it isn't about either/or. On a personal, small level for me, there is comfort in all the examples that Bridle gives. When I look at my table there is very little either/or. There are possibilities. Why identify as one kind of maker?
And then there is a discussion on the importance of randomness. I am thinking about how that relates to creativity, how we define creativity.
More thinking...in this week's newsletter Krista Tippet links to a podcast by Kevin Kelly. The discussion is about technology, what it is and how it is shaping our world. It's a great conversation, I especially like this:
So we have this world where, basically, answers have become cheap and ubiquitous and pervasive, and they’re everywhere, and so what’s much scarcer are good questions. And good questions are kind of like a discovery. They’re kind of like a way of exploring “what if?”
What if... :)
The baby vat:
I am so excited it works!
The strip I did today has better color, I think because the water is warmer.
Here is the post I did on the process last year with links to where I gathered information and inspiration. To recap what I did this year:
Next year I want to make a batch where I use the water that the leaves are chopped in as the water the leaves are fermented in rather than dyeing with it to see if I have a different result.
Here is the first piece of fabric that I dyed as the center square for my Good Enough quilt.
I like the idea that this center square will be bigger...it will be easy to find when I go looking for it.
I think a lot on cloudy days about what is behind the clouds, what we know (or think we know) to be there...sun, stars, moon, planets, birds, the mountains, planes, birds or something else?
It becomes imagined or remembered at that point.
The full moon as I arrived at home last night.
Focus.
Zoomed in, moon out of focus, color altered some, filtered...
Field notes: Rain, 45 F (not supposed to get any warmer than that), winds from the south, 17 MPH, gust of 24 MPH possible. Deciduous trees cleared of leaves for the most part.