“We are totally attuned to information that’s threatening. The rattlesnake, we’re wired to pay attention to that. We’re also wired to love puzzles…. I do think that curiosity is the only thing that’s biologically as strong as threat. Goodness is not a thing, and that’s why I think some of these public journalism, civic journalism things didn’t do that well because they were like broccoli kind of things.”
The "broccoli kind of things" made me laugh but the part about curiosity was really helpful...
It's how I want to approach the world (and the news).
Oops... a little more time has passed than I intended.
I think mostly because time is just flowing past for me right now...
Last night I had dinner with Hazel and we talked about how 15 minutes is a manageable time for making.
This is my latest stitch book page (blue fabric from Jude, yellow is marigold dyed).
Something like this is easy to work on a little bit at a time.
Strangely enough, so is this (still in progress).
I have been taking a class from Christina Romeo (Carla Sonheim Presents). It is a process that lends itself easily to 15 minutes or so and is lots of fun.
Both of these projects are also great for larger periods of time when everything settles into place and it's easy to be in the moment making.
This all has me thinking about making/art as a process of healing and mending our own frayed edges.
There are signs of spring in the garden, this also brings joy.
As of this month I have been blogging for 19 years. I am pretty sure that I have it in me to keep going.
Writing and sharing with others is different than writing for yourself in a journal.
Out in the garden yesterday I found a huge chunk of ice that is still melting. It's been over 3 days since we started warming up and it's still 2 1/2 to 3 inches thick.
It's 43 F and raining now.
Next week we might be sunny and 60 F!
I spent a lot of the day at the table thinking about the garden and what I want to do this year (time to start some seeds!).
This is a year for a Victory Garden. Vegetables and fruits for food; flowers for the pollinators and for joy. Herbs for other flavors and healing.
There was also time spent sewing and watching a cat drama unfold.
The basket has been on the table for awhile, full of bits of fabric that I am using for patching holes in the Good Enough quilt and the stitch book.
Gibson discovered he fit quite well inside the basket. He likes to be contained.
Timber, as always, needs to be included so he climbed into the basket as well.
It's a tight fit.
Gibson goes along with it for awhile but eventually feels crowded and crawls out, leaving Timber in possession.
After about 30 minutes Gibson returns and crawls back into the basket which annoys Timber.
Timber crawls out and decides to relocate to the rocking chair with Widget...more room to stretch out.
The likelihood of Widget trying out the basket is small. She likes places where she can exit quickly or to hide under the bed.
Current location of cats:
Widget, beside me insisting that her head be rubbed.
Timber, unknown.
Gibson, in the basket.
Poems under consideration (and that I am returning to).
Theodore Roethke, "The Rose.""I think of the rock singing, and light making its own silence." Every time I return to this poem I find more that I love.
On Thursday I had some time so I made inks, lake pigments (still in the process of finishing them) and a few rust experiments. All based on onion skins or the remains.
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Thinking of onions.
Layered and complex.
Raw, they might make you cry.
Cooked, they are sweet and subtle.
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One bottle above is an ink made with onion skin and water. It's the base for the other four, each including a different modifier to shift the color.
One of the lake pigments.
A bright spot.
I also layered in some of the onion skins with fabric to make rust prints.
The hearts you might find are deliberate, not the product of chance.
“I realized that we’re co-creating culture every second with every breath we take, every word we say, every choice we make and that it’s possible to practice the world that we want in the spaces between us.” Valarie Kaur
One of the things that I am been thinking about is the need to practice making decisions; for both adults and children. That this is a muscle that we need to exercise in small ways so that when the big decisions come we won't freeze.
How do we practice?
Within the process of making and being creative are so many opportunities to make decisions.
The figure above was originally the back of a project. I decided that I liked it better and so it become the side that would show.
I was going to stitch the features of a face in but I've decided to leave it empty, without expression.
Two On Being conversations that I have revisited recently:
And there’s so many forms for making.... I love reading the dictionary. And the Oxford English Dictionary has I don’t know many pages devoted to “to make,” and “making,” and all of its possibilities. And I think that’s like making — it’s the same as making a list of all the materials that exist in the world that you might transform in some way. It’s like, if you make that list and you take the list of every — all the possibilities of what “making” is, that can just keep you busy forever. Ann Hamilton
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.
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.
For January, February, and March the local farmer's market is once a month.
Today was the day!
The weather has been so mild up until this week that there were still things like radishes and lettuce (hoop/green house grown though). I'll use some of the radicchio for a salad with oranges.
In the garden I still have celery growing in my little hoop house. I used some of it on top of my lunch today.
Yes, I almost burnt the cashews.
The recipe I followed (more closely than usual) was one for "Sticky cauliflower with cashews," from The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson. I've been wanting to try it for quite awhile and will definitely make it again.
I mention going to the farmer's market frequently, that I try to choose local as much as possible. It's important to me for many reasons, but mostly because it is a way I can participate in my local economy. To be clear, this isn't about valuing local over global, but about valuing both. And this brings me back to my current reading...
I am only about half way through Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built in Hell, but would say that a major take away is about the importance of building community and of knowing your neighbors. Ideally before a disaster hits, but definitely afterwards.
(For those who have read Parable of the Sower, consider how Lauren keeps building communities.)
This bit from Solnit's book has me thinking:
The religious language of awakening suggests we are ordinarily sleepers, unaware of each other and of our true circumstances and selves. Disaster shocks us out of slumber, but only skillful effort keeps us awake."
Staying awake...staying curious, noticing, being present, participating when we can.
Those things seem like something we can do, something that I think many of us are already doing.