Low tide.
Sea stars...I grew up calling them star fish.
The first time I heard them called Sea Stars was in a college biology class. The instructor specialized in Marine Biology, "They are not a fish" he would say.
It wasn't quiet down at the beach (quieter than during the summer though), but it always quiets me.
I probably won't be able to post every day for awhile, maybe every other.
I will keep going with the alphabet until I get to "Z."
A coffee ink dot that when turned just right made me think it might contain something, hold something.
A dot that had the potential of something else (like a stone or an egg?) even though I liked it just the way it was.
Like this.
Or this.
Everything holds the potential to be something else.
I wish I had been able to capture the immense and incredible blue of the last few nights. No Aurora B but I am okay with that. I’ve seen it green and blue and dancing across the sky in the past.
My brother (the local one) was only able to see a green glow, captured with his phone. Maybe it was there when I went out? Maybe it was what was creating a blue that seemed extraordinary? I like that idea...a layer not quite visible but changing the usual color. Or maybe it just felt good, to be standing outside on a warm night looking up and out into endless blue?
I am still spending a lot of time in the garden. So much to appreciate there.
The lilacs have been amazing.
I have also been making blue dots.
This one is the pigment I made:
I want to sew something blue soon.
There were a few things I hoped to find as I was sorting.
This was one of them.
It's a strip of squares pieced together.
It will eventually be a fabric basket, cube shaped.
One panel is a sleepy baby dragon made during one of Jude's classes.
I am hoping to work on it for about 10 minutes each day until I can call it done enough to assemble.
I've been thinking about what it means to finish something since I wrote this as a comment on one of Jude's posts,
I think for me, when I think of unfinished…it’s the stage between started and useful for something other than the process of making (which is a useful thing for mental health!). Once it’s reached functional… I guess I think of it as in a process of change, and maybe just that? Maybe this is why I gravitate towards blankets/pillows/containers/clothing…. I’ve got to think about this more.
This continues to feel true to me. Once something reaches a point of telling a story or being useful, it feels finished to me.
But this doesn't mean that there might not be more to do. There will be.
The story might change; the purpose might as well. There may be mending to do. Everything is up for revision. Everything is always transforming as it ages, always becoming.
The garden is always growing.
Perhaps it is only finished when it is consumed? I have finished the last of the peanut butter...it is consumed.
Can an idea be consumed?
Alder: I haven't made it into a lake pigment yet but did dye some fabric. I was hoping for pink (as seen in my copy of Wild Color/Jenny Dean) but it's a soft yellow brown.
I am going to collect more cones (lots of them in the parking lot at work) as a supply for tannin and more experiments.
Playing with paper and colors.
Not quite done with this one, I'd like to draw lines across the windows.
I am still reading Interaction of Color, Josef Albers. One section had me going to listen again to an interview with Yo-Yo Ma on On Being.
Albers writes, "Our concern is the interaction of color: that is, seeing what happens between colors.
Yo-Yo Ma says, "You look at the sky and you start wondering: where are we? How do we fit into this vast universe? And to Casals saying that within the notes that he plays, he’s looking for infinite variety to Isaac Stern saying, the music happens between the notes. OK, well what then do you mean when you say music happens between the notes?"
Found in the garden today.
I'm just going to let these be...I think.
A perfect spring day, mid winter.
The fabric that I dyed with snow and pomegranate and madder. I can't get a true picture of this. It's brighter, but still gentle soft pinks and yellows.
The colors make me think of roses.
I am making a lake pigment with the leftover melted snow and should be able to share that tomorrow.
And
and
Brick pigment + oak gall/iron
Three dots, sometimes followed by a fourth.
They make me think of liminal spaces...
I like to imagine three dots as an endless amount of possibilities; the fourth dot as a finite amount.
Just before sunrise this morning...
My aunt sent these to me, something she found at my grandparents and thought I would like.
I do, thank you!
Yesterday morning I woke up mid dream.
Mary Oliver was telling me something.
I wish I could remember what.