bee creative

character development

Warning:  I am climbing up on a soap box but it seems like a good time to state intention.

Wishing everyone moments of peace and joy.

Paper + stitching, digital layer.

Layers of paper + a digital layer.

A couple months ago I had a discussion with someone about how she felt guilty for being joyful. That it was how she approached life and yet how did that make sense when our world is so full of conflict and grief? 

My response was that the world needs our joy. It does come easier to some of us and we need to share it. 

Life isn't one thing.  

It's also needs to be shared with respect. Right now I often feel the need to check the news before I post something here...

I am wondering if I post something, will it seem insensitive to what is happening in our world?  If I focus on the joyful, will it seem as if I am hiding my head in the sand?  

I've decided I can't worry about these things. It makes it too easy to freeze and not sharing anything. 

They survived the cold snap!

I chose to blog because I wanted to participate in a conversation about creativity; and ultimately about resilience and sustainability. 

I am on vacation this week...well staycation. 

One of the things that I want to do this week is spend 3-4 hours each day working on projects. 

All sorts of projects. 

All the projects that bring me joy. 

All the projects that I see as forms of activisim.

All the projects that help me be the person I want to be, the energy I want to put out into the world.  

Yesterday I considered story telling, collage and Jane Hirshfield poem, "The Bowl."

Cauliflower + pasta + toasted bread + lemon olive oil + olives

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Lunch inspired by a recipe in The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson.

Images inspired by a Carla Sonheim Class: Portraits with Aris Moore

Research on how happiness might be genetic can be found here.

Ross Gay, someone who is so good at exploring the idea of joy even when it isn't easy.

 

resiliency

Today...just at sunrise, snow.

It's gone now but there will probably be more over the next few days.

And then there were two zoom calls. 

The first a wrap up for the rust mark making class with Alice Fox.

I tried stitching a face into this one but didn't like it and pulled it out. 

I love it like this. 

A face and heart imagined. 

The mind making meaning and telling me a story. 

While I had things out on the table I realized the rust marks (iron and tannin), created a color similar to the mussel shell pigment I made (on the right). 

Another perspective.  The color inside the hole is mussel pigment and the top is some of the paper I made with a rust mark.  I tore the paper in the process of making. 

It's still beautiful and full of potential.

I love that the marks are a chemical reaction and are about change. 

That they contain iron, something that each of us carries within our bodies. 

That iron is a building material.

That stars contain iron.

All this reminds me of Ada Limon's poem, "In Praise of Mystery."

 

The second zoom call was for the book discussion on  Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler) and A Paradise Built in Hell (Rebecca Solnit) hosted by the Studio for Playful Inquiry.

It was a wonderful conversation about resilience (the focus for the month) and how it might show up in our lives...in particular for this group, while working with children.

Throughout the afternoon I kept thinking about the ways that those of us who explore creativity practice resilience.  The need to experiment and consider multiple ways of doing things.  The knowledge that not all things work and that we might have to try again; problem solving.

layered image

That we need to create meaning. 

That we are storytellers...

 

pictures in the dark

Moon over the house.

Moon through the trees (that shade of blue above the tree line!).

Decided to try the paper bag snowflake again this year (directions found here, I used glue stick). 

The above image is with no filter. The one below has a filter applied.

I think it's always worth experimenting...

practice or play?

It's both.

This is three different drawings that I layered on top of each other, keeping the parts I liked the best. 

following up

Did the baby vat work?

Yes it did.

The silk worked the best but the cotton picked up color as well. The darkest of the strips is four dips.  It's still a little wet so some of that darkness might not stay.  Still...home grown indigo used to dye cotton!  As much as I love silk, it just isn't very practical for me so I am very excited by these results. 

I roughly followed the directions from Maiwa for making a fruit vat. For the fruit I used the core and peelings from one pear and about a cup of water. 

To recap, the vat is a mixture of the fruit water, a tablespoon or so of the indigo pigment and the water the indigo leaves were fermented in that had calx added to it.  Like everything else I do it isn't very exact and I only did one measurement...the PH was around 11. 

I am also still enjoying playing with the transparent papers for the Carla Sonheim/Aris Moore class.  This is a photocopy of a couple of the pages layered. It looks like I am needing to refill one of the ink cartridges but I love the way this copied as well as the little bird I drew. 

Glad that I have more time to play this weekend...

 

 

lost in the garden

After spending so much time focusing on house painting, the garden is really out of control.  Today I discovered some of the prunes were ready to pick. 

I haven't had a chance to make more paper yet. This is from the indigo batch.  The ink in the middle is indigo ink.

It makes a wonderful digital layer.

Still reading Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross and am really enjoying it.  Lots of research but easy to read and very interesting.  Found this quote yesterday. 

We are driven to learn.  We long to fit the puzzle pieces together, to solve the mystery, to figure things out.  We are a curious and questioning species by nature.  Our desire to learn is inate, and if we're lucky, we won't have it tamped out of us.  The best kind of learning sparks curiosity and, in return, endless discovery; it's your own renewable energy source."

Yes...

play

Playing with scraps, arranging. 

I think I want to set myself a goal of doing this every Sunday.  Gathering a few things, assembling them, taking a picture, altering the image when it seems right (this one was altered-a filter for color and a layer to patch a spot) and then sharing what I've done.

I've been reading Your Brain on Art by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen.   The book makes an argument for the arts/aesthetics being just as important for our health as good nutrition, exercise and rest.  That our brains need to make meaning out of our experiences and that the arts (and this is defined very broadly), give us the opportunity to do so. 

Which brings me back to paper and ink...

My next batch of paper is drying on the front porch.

To be continued...

threads

Adding thread to the paper I've been making has been on the to-do list. I tried it this evening. 

One strand, as an experiment.

Little ends. 

This is mostly what I want to do...as a way to use them. 

I tried it two ways.  First laying the threads on the wet pulp while it was still on the screen and before flipping it on to the towel and then for the second attempt, just pressing the threads into the wet paper. 

This is some of this batch of pulp as dry paper.  The indigo rinse water has made a nice soft blue. 

I'll share my results tomorrow. 

My long term goal is to set up one corner of the covered porch as an outdoor studio...for dyeing, pigment making and paper making.  Oh...and basket making. I've signed up for a class on basket making, something I've wanted to do for a long time.  There are so many possible basket making materials in my garden.  It's another way of connecting to what is local, to place. A kind of field note.

Other things...

Sour cherries at Mom and Dads.  I have enough to make jam and plan to do so tomorrow. 

A wee little box.

Playing with filters. 

The boys are working on their scynchronized head turning.

And an interesting conversation:  Sam Lee (Emergence Magazine Podcast) talking about singing with nightingales.

"And the space you held as a singer is all about the gaps you leave, because that’s the orchestration, that’s the arrangement, that’s where the listener can enter in. That’s the invitation. And learning from those old singers, you know, I really learned a lot in that art, and here was the nightingale doing exactly the same thing, even better, with such grace. And the timing that he leaves between expressions was formidably brave. And in that space, so much is happening. Although it’s silence, you know, it’s a very rich and fertile place for the imagination, for listening deeper into the places that one never knew they could hear, inside and outside."

 Here is one of my favorite Sam Lee songs:

 

 

 

projects and more projects

Two in a box.

Timber likes someone to snuggle with.  First he tried me but I don't stay put enough.  Then he tried Widget.  Widget thinks he still smells funny from a trip to the vet (teeth cleaning) and wants nothing to do with him.  Luckily Gibson was in the mood for company and made room.

The paper boxes have dried well.  The one on the right needs a little trimming along the top or a layer of paper over the edge.

This morning Jude has me thinking about things we store in boxes.  About open boxes or boxes with lids.  Pandora's box...and stories.  The thing about a box is that there always is a way out, always the hope of a way out.  A cube...well that would be a different story. A cube would have to be carved or smashed. 

Another paper project.  I am mending a paper lantern rescued from the "go away" pile at work with pieces of the paper I've been making.  The plan is to cover the whole exterior with handmade paper. 

And another "waste not" project.  A shirt made from what was leftover after making a summer skirt.  The shoulder pieces are scraps from another project.  The pattern is the One Yard Minimalist Top.  I need to make the neckline just a smidge smaller on the next one.  This pattern has so much potential....

I have the next nine days off of work and am hoping to do so many things.  Someday it will include a new floor.

 

moments

Gibson in a box...I looked up and saw him there, framed.

Filter added to adjust the color.

At Mom and Dad's. 

They have a small pond in their front garden with a few gold fish. I love the lilies and also love the color contrast of lily with the yellow greens. 

And isn't this magnificent? 

In my garden I am celebrating celery (along with every berry that I find!).  Some of the celery is planted in my mini-hoop house with an olla and some in a raised bed without the olla.  This is in the hoop house and is doing very well.  The olla's in the planters are working wonderfully and I am going to use more of them next year.

And...

A dot.

Last month's flower moon ink and the ink made from black/deep purple pansies.  I think I added a bit too much clove oil to the flower moon ink (as a preservative) and it made the ink separate some. 

Always learning...