bee creative

lost in the garden again

The azalea and the lilac are making the garden smell incredible.

There are bees and birds and neighborhood cats for company.  I haven't seen signs of or chased the doe out of the garden for about a week now.

A small project...daffodil lake pigment.

Also a bit that I loved from the last On Being podcast with David Bornstein:

“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).

rust marks

I wasn't going to...

but then I did.

I took Alice Fox's rust making class.

(I love this.)

It occurred to me that it's another form of pigment making, or rather collecting.

That it could be a way to collect story and history.

The top image includes a print made from a horse shoe from one of my grandfather's ponies. 

The other prints made from a variety of things my parents had.

It is another way to explore location and time. 

Another way to document.

There will be more. 

It's part of the story I want to tell. 

Really, it's all about story. 

 

january blue

Field note: the last two mornings it's been 25 to 28 F.  The next few nights we are supposed to dip below freezing as well. 

Out in the garden I stopped to check the indigo.  Every time I think it's done, it's started growing more leaves.  This is probably it though.

I picked as much as I could and made a small fresh vat to see if there would be any color... 

January blue.

Imagine!

Some of my other indigo batches were used to dye yarn for this sweater.

I think this is year three of working on it?

(It's category is "percentages, a working title.")

I am trying to stick with this project, it's so close to wearable.

It's a soothing project for right now too. 

90% local yarn (including the dye for the green, indigo and marigold), 10% yarn from a small business located in the area where I was born. 

100% a sweater made up of meaningful and sustainable materials...

100% love. 

 

ethereal

Mussels are not recommended for making pigment...at least not on a regular basis and not without safety precautions.  They accumulate toxic metals in their shells.

Just once I wanted to try it.

On Wednesday I gathered a small handful of shells (and a piece of brick) and brought them home to make pigment with.

The brown below is a soil pigment.

The mussel pigment is ethereal...

 

good enough

Time to get back to "good enough."

I need a few more squares to fill in some gaps.

Another look at the earth pigments: The one from the beach (right) and from the lake (left) are actually pretty different now that they are dry.

And...the hellebores are blooming; tattered but more than good enough.

field notes

Last night I almost posted these images and the title "quietly;" along with just a few words like ...look at what's blooming in the garden still and here's another pigment.

I decided to wait though, there was something more that I just wasn't finding the words for. This is some of it..

Yesterday Grace wrote about "field notes." 

It's an idea I've loved for a long time, the idea of gathering observations and documenting what is seen/experienced in the environment.  As a way of documenting, I love that there is an intent of curiosity and of noticing with field notes.

(I am thinking a lot about the aspect of research versus participant though...something to consider later.)

I believe that we take care of the things we notice (loved Nancy's noticing); that we take care of the things we feel a part of.

And that brings me to Christmas...

This year I am really aware of how it is a holiday of care giving.   

Last week while picking one of my brothers up so he could get his car, I gathered a bit of clay from the bank of the road he lives on. 

I will give him a few pigment dots tomorrow, but want to make him something more.

It won't be done as a gift for Christmas this year. 

He won't mind.

P.S.  It is interesting to me how close in color it is to what I collected at the beach.  He lives about 10 miles inland on a lake.

windfall

A yearly tradition for me...a wreath made from things from the garden and foraged. 

Tomorrow I am going to try making an ink with some of the pine cones from the fir tree along with some other things I have been wanting to experiment with. 

And since the indigo vat is still working...maybe some moons?

Windfall... something falling from a tree, unexpected good fortune. 

color play

It's been stormy, but not as stormy as other places. 

One day last week I heard someone call out "rainbow" and went outside to take a peek.

And then it rained again...hard.

This weekend I processed what is probably the last of the indigo.

(I may have said that before...but there was more! No hard frost yet.)

The leaves were fermented and then calx added.  There is a step where the liquid needs to be aerated; the hand blender works beautifully.

  This (Caitlin ffrench) is where I learned about processing the indigo this way. 

There are two layers of pigment here.  The top is where the foam settled and the blue sitting on the bottom of the pot is the remainder of the pigment. 

And this is a sample of the pigment:

I've set aside some of the pigment and calx water to see if I can make a baby indigo vat. 

Until later...

U and V

It was a hard choice to move on to U and V.  There is so much more I feel like I could explore with R, S, and T but I am thinking there is a way to do this under the umbrella of "value."

And so for at least this week, maybe longer...I am thinking to post at least one picture a day of something that I value. 

Some days there might be words, other days not so much. 

I am leaving comments on for now, but might turn them off.

Here is today's image:

perspective

Revisiting "putter."

It was a slow day after a busy week.

The cats wanted lots of cuddles (purr).

There are things to preserve...pears from the garden and local prunes.  It was the best crop yet on the prune tree (about 20) but that's not enough to fill up the dehydrator and I love dried prunes.  They have so much more flavor than what can be purchased at the store. 

I am thinking about things that are precious, things we want to preserve... About how seasons come and go but it's never quite the same.  Some things age and new things come about; we change. 

Today everything is filtered through smoke from wildfires. 

Perspective.

Two pigments.

On the left is what I think is a piece of cement.  I picked it up on the beach.

On the right, soil from California.  Soil that fed redwood trees. From a place where I played as a child.

Pigments are so much about place for me.  And place is one of the most important things that I care about.  Local and global.  That we are part of both.  Thinking about soil as earth. Earth as soil and earth as planet.

Products...things that have been made. 

Paper and twine.

The little purple dot is pigment too...from the corn husk that I was twining.

I think I will probably make some ink from some of the corn husks. 

More play.

The twine was made to bind the top of a basket together. I might, with the next batch of paper, try placing other twine into the pulp to see if it will hold in a different way.

P.S.  I really can't write the word "precious" without thinking of The Hobbit... a whole other perspective.