Kathe Todd-Hooker

After the break-- second part.

2012-01-18T18:48:00.001-08:00

Shyness is one of the reasons that I write on this blog. It’s suppose to be therapeutic in helping me deal with my shyness. The first of December I hit a wall with posting blogs. It was one too many and way too much for my shyness. Life was fine. Totally full but fine. I just didn’t want to write in such an open format. I refused to even think about it. I retreated. I didn’t even post the first part of this blog and it was very close to being finished. Maybe 2 hours adding pictures and playing with fonts, which I really enjoy.

Do Rya or Not!Since then I have finished Chene’s piece with the rya border. Haven't decided whether I want to leave it or not. I have had at least one person tell me they dislike the rya border.On the other hand they might just hate rya in any form. At least one other person has told me they love the Rya and it suits the piece, the comfort of the blankets, Chene's contentment, and possible it making a statement about the fribbles and attitudes from the time of my formative years when I first learned handwork and women's relationships to hand made things. It reminds me of the pillows that were made just to keep ones hands busy. I was thinking about trimming the rya{(making it more disciplined and now I wonder if I will. I like the untamed overgrown quality of the rya. The border is actualkly a series of triangles done in embroidery floss and hand dyed silk ribbon. It’s almost an expression of Chene’s personality. It’s so in your face. Surrounding a calm soothing portrait of a sometimes(?) hyperactive dog.

So what have I learned form doing rya on the two pieces with Rya that I have been working on.

1-how to make the rya to lay in the direction I want it to go to frame something on 4 sides. Rya will always lean away from the bar of the larks heard knot. In order to outline a rectangle the first rows across the fell line that hangs down away from the center have the bars on top and are tied in what one normally sees in rya design.

2. To match the density of the knots running across the fell line you have to deal with 2 warps and 1 knot. To do the sides you can use groups of 2 warps together and knot around them or you can knot around one warp and skip a warp between the knots.

3. In order to get the top knots to lean upwards the knot is tied upside down to the way it was tied on the first rows of knots that pull down and away from the center.

3. The stand up density of the rya is partially controlled by the amount of passes between the rows of knotting.

4. The best joins for the verticals slits created between the tapestry and the knots is a single interlock between the warps. Other joins such as shared and dovetails warps leave a notch that can disturb the smooth transition of the slits visually.

5. At 20 epi a doubled embroidery floss averages 100 knots to the square inch. When thinking about the size of the pile one needs to think in terms of a cone-the knot begins tight and flairs the ends out into a cone shape that takes more space as the ends lengthen and can cause the tapestry to buckle and curve to the back. If the rya tails are long most of the design becomes indistinct the longer the ends.

Shelley Socolofsky’s new Piece with rya and detail called Frontiers at the OCAC Instructors exhibit.

6. If the materials you are using are slick and difficult to stay put-mohair, monofilaments, hair and silk weight as you knot. They often times will set a curl or twist and make them stay in place better.

7. When you measure a piece or a cartoon that has rya on the edges. The rya is going to increase the width of the piece when it lays down. Hence the piece I was going to send to ATA unjuried small format show is now an inch and a half to big for the show. 10 inches became 13 inches. I have a 3.5 inch warp left beside Chene’s piece that I will now be weaving frantically on for a piece in that exhibit. Thankfully, the piece wasn’t due at the same time the entry was. IT gives me a month to finish a piece to take it’s place.

Cape Arrigo and Sunset Beach in the rain Christmas day

As for other things-

Chene as pillow and and me with my kindle

Pat and I are almost finished with updating the Shaped Tapestry book. There is a new section that has 3-d weaving for shaping-using feathers pulled warps and rya. Plus we took the section on mounting tapestries a little further to reflect the way I mount small format tapestry now. Updated the tools section. Updated the gallery and added more tapestries.We are really happy with the update. It is just amazing how technology has changed in the layout and publishing world since 2004. ONe of the new Gallery shots in the Shaped Tapestry book the tapestry is by Bev Walker and is called Gateways. It helps to illustrate the pulled wefts and soumack in the book.

We spent Christmas at the ocean recharging our Batteries. There is a motel in Yachats that has beautiful rooms that overlook the ocean with huge windows. We spent 4 days there. Reading, walking listening to music. There was absolutely no internet or phone connection, TV, and so quiet you could hear the ocean and the birds. Long enough for Chene to run from the wild rabbits-semi wild and decide walking on beach sand beasts walking in the desert. He learned to fetch his sweater when he was cold and attempt to put it on. Hasn’t quite got the hang of putting his feet in the leg holes, but he tries. But he has learned to back himself as soon as he sees a suitcase.

Yes, we are still waiting on the solar panels. Everything has been done for the solar panels. We are now waiting for permits from the city of Albany and the energy trust of Oregon. We told it could take 3 days to 3 months for them to come through. We took the sign down that they put in the front yard, because people kept stopping to ask where the solar panels are that are waiting on the bureaucrats. It seems like we may be one of the first people in the city of Albany to get home solar panels. Browser books is the only other business in town with solar panels.

The windows are now all upgraded and Anthony is working on the laundry room and small bathroom that seems to serve as the entry between the studio and our home. No one who knows us ever uses the front porch.

My walk is almost done that allows me to chase Wry and Chene across the hopefully soon to be flower garden. Once it’s cleared of boards scaffolding and rain. It’s typical Oregon winter weather. My new lake with submerged walk way. Not water spots and splash circles above the walkway.

Another take on renovating old Houses. If one looks closely you can see the old house and it’s free to a good home. Somewhere on the Utah border. We were gassing the car and just happened to look over and see

the sign and the house after a rather discouraged discussion on what was left to be done to our house. Maybe they have the right idea.

Back in two weeks!.

kathe

So belated-Redefining normal-again

2012-01-18T18:47:00.001-08:00

The post that I almost finished before it became too hard and I needed to take a break. The second post is where I am now. Decided to post it anyway. Even though I never finished. TO get a better idea of what I am doing now read the second post that will go up within minutes of this one. Almost another month has gone by since this post.

“In behaviour, normal refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average” wikipedia with the editorial change to British spelling.

Since I last wrote in this blog almost 2 months ago I have managed to keep myself frantically busy-too busy often times to be doing what I really want to do.Which in my thoughts equals 3-4 blog entries in my goal to make an entry every two weeks. I have allowed my home schedule and accomplishments(?) to be dictated by reaction rather then action. Which usually leaves little time time for what I wish or want to be doing in my studio.It’s not as if I am sitting in a corner doing nothing, but it feels like it sometimes.

I have incredible memories from this summer and fall from traveling and teaching.

I finally got to see Canyon De Chelly and the place that weaving began-Spider Women Rock.

“The name chelly (or Chelley) is a Spanish borrowing of the Navajo word Tséyiʼ, which means "canyon" (literally "inside the rock" < tsé "rock" + -yiʼ "inside of, within"). The Navajo pronunciation is [tséɣiʔ]. The Spanish pronunciation of de Chelly [deˈtʃeʎi] was adapted into English, apparently through modelling after a French-like spelling pronunciation, and now English pronunciation: /d ə ˈ ʃ eɪ / də·shā′”.wikipedia

We arrived sparsely/scarcely before sundown and between two storms. (The we, of course, is Chene, Spencer and I)We ended up driving all night to beat another storm into Utah and points north. I spent time with old friends-not as much as I would have liked.

Explored Santa Fe again. Saw a show on depression jeweler and saw an incredible recycled jewelry show at the Wheelwright museum. It was amazing seeing the recycled materials used to create the Thunderbird jewelry of the Santo Domingo Indian Silversmiths during the depression, battery cases, celluloid from combs and brushes, old phonograph records-anything that could be cut up recycled to sell to tourist on route 66. There was also a show in conjunction with the Depression thunderbird stuff of modern recycled jewelry. It was extremely thought provoking. For the last several years in my silversmithing forays I have been playing with (and collecting) the idea of using recycled jewelry in my pieces.

I bought a small piece of weaving from a weaver at Tec Nos Pec.The weaver is Ruth Elthie. It’s a double sided all edged finished with twining birds eye twill –6.5 inches 10 inches. I saw an incredible amount of Navajo pictorial tapestries in a room off of the Service station and small store. Thanks to Diane K. I learned a bit about British water colours and traded a future tapestry for several of her paintings in that style of watercolour. Discovered that Susan Seuter one of my Village wool students has been making has been making woven balls from the Shaped Tapestry book.

On the other hand-I have painted most of new window sills, had the front porch rebuilt the porch,added rails on the steps, redone the studio door, gotten rid of the holes in the walls from the exited failing electric heaters etc.

Wry still sits at the blocked holes and morns the loss of his play grounds and hidey holes in the walls. He seems to becoming content with banging the attic door until it opens and he can sleep in a nice warm place that Chene can’t get into. Still some things-yet- to be finished. Anthony Secedo our contractor has done a wonderful job. It all just takes time and working with other peoples schedule.

The solar panels for the studio are being prepared-waiting on the engineer and then the installation. Can not believe how long that has taken to get through the paperwork. Of course, with the amount of air stagnation and fog we have had in the last month I am wondering just how productive they will be.

Understanding that there is time for doing everything in it is proper time sequence isn’t always logically for me or does it feel right. It just is the way things happen.

Weaving with Shelley has taken a slow down for the month of December. We are too began 3 days a week again in January.

I have been doing things-many things, but not as much weaving as I thought I would be doing. It’s time for a deep breath and another beginning.

I postponed working full time on “And He…” for a bit, because I need to finish a couple of smaller pieces first. I did start the black soumack roses on one side that needed to be.

I have the bottom border done on a small piece of Chene. I think that their will be 3 pieces in this series. The first is done. The bottom border on the nw piece is rya done in silk ribbon and embroidery floss. It’s relatively easy to knot rya so that it lays down or up, but I have arrived at the point that I want the rya fringe to lay horizontally.In order to do so I have to tie the knots around two warps rather then between two knots. When I arrive at the top I’ll the revert to the other style of soumack but tie the knots up side down so that the knots will "hang straight up(?)”

I had so much fun on our trip back from
Albuquerque taking pictures of odd pieces of architecture.

Pat and I are redoing the Shaped Tapestry book-updating, adding a colour gallery , a slightly different stronger cover, a little more on mounting, and adding a few things. Should be to the printer by the end of the month-maybe'/hopefully. Times change, products change and there is always what you wished you had done differently or left out or in the first time. We are adding too the 3-d weaving section with rya, ribbon boutonne, and feather weaving. Adding a few more patterns for shaped purses and a short intro for a kumihimo strap for the purses. It’s a lot of new layout work for Pat. The book was published in 2004, but publishing programs have changed so drastically in the intervening years that all of the layout has to be updated and put into a new program in order to interface with the new programs the printer is using.

end

Passwords and passages

2011-10-25T17:44:00.001-07:00

“A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource (example: an access code is a type of password)”.Wikipedia

without which there is no passage to what I need to be doing-such as weaving or writing or existing in more then a half life-anymore.

1. The act or process of passing, especially: A movement from one place to another, as by going by, through, over, or across; transit or migration.b.The process of elapsing: the passage of time.c. The process of passing from one condition or stage to another; transition: the passage from childhood to adulthood..d. The right, permission, or power to come and go freely:e. An occurrence or event: "Another encouraging passage took place . . . when heads of state . . . took note of the extraneous factors affecting their economies that are “beyond their control" .F. A segment of a written work or speech.Music A segment of a composition, especially one that demonstrates the virtuosity of the composer or performer: a passage of exquisite beauty, played to perfection.h. A section of a painting or other piece of artwork; a detail.
None of which is going to happen until I remember which password is for which thing.

Probably an easy guess!
YES! I have messed up my passwords-again- with a great deal of help from a dear person who will remain anonymous and the help of a Comcast techie. Fortunately, John the FFP techie saved the day and life is good for now! AND, AGAIN, I can never remember which I used for what. It’s amazing how many passwords we/I can accumulate in say a year. I can remember everyone of them with the exception of our Etsy account(a series of symbols), but not which ones I used for which. That, of course, doesn’t even count the 4 temporary ones given to me by Comcast to use until I could get ones that I can remember again. The one constant on my laptop until last night was the fingerprint swipe, which I have discovered doesn’t work after several days of intensively weaving tapestry. Passwords are an endless…pain!
Drop off at Niagara Falls!
Weaving progress so little to show
I have been so involved with trips, weaving with Shelley, yard work and pass word problems that I really haven’t woven much since the last time I wrote. Put as one can see. I did weave a tad more on the blue peony and have started the soumack outline of the black rose on the right side. It’s companion black rose which will be on the right side will be solid. I am weaving the two black roses from a photo of a very deep red rose bud that I received when my mother died this summer.
Thank you to the person that returned my soumack sampler. It was greatly appreciated. No questions asked. I don’t means to sound greedy but could you also return the 4-5 others that were with it.
Thanks so much.
ENUFF SAID! ONWARD!

RYA---It’s been a million years since I have thought about weaving hairy stuff not fiber-pile. Well, at least since grad school in the barely 80’s. Now, I am researching rya weaving(?)/knotting. Up until a couple weeks ago when I started weaving with Shelley Rya was my cat. Mostly people think about rya as a Scandinavian, with a little(a lot) eastern influence thrown in for good measure. In the Seventies it seemed rya was a major influence on everything. It seemed to show up in every major textile artist work. Mildred Constantine's and Jack Leonard Larsen’s book The Art Fabric: Mainstream had dozens of pictures of major weavers of the time using rya and tapestry and just about every other technique as a woven ground fabric. I never felt really excited enough to really attempt to use the technique in my personal designs. I do remember seeing several rugs very white rugs that Pat Spark wove when I was in graduate school that had Islands of long, short ropy and smooth rya. It was my first introduction to sculptural rya that wasn’t dark and dingy looking.   I was too fascinated with flat woven tapestry to try anything else beside tapestry. The things that did interest me about rya was the wild and hairy historical samples of early Viking rya blankets and wall hangings, tufted Navajo saddle blankets, Apache blankets and a few samples of South American weaving. They all used tufts of fiber or in the case of Apache blankets stripped rabbit hide.I have seen at least one pictorial example that uses rya knots in an Apache for the tufting in either my Amsden, or James I am just to lazy to look it up right now.
Some of the things I am learning about rya in the last couple of weeks analyzing the process in my mind and weaving with Shelley is what it takes to control the pile. Shorter closer together knots make a more stand up stiffer pile. Long and luxurious pile is created by longer tufts of the rya and more counters or ground fabric between the rows of knots. The type of fiber used in the knotting and tufting can also completely change the texture of the pile and perhaps it’s symbolic meaning. Designs or patterns of the pile become very defused the longer the pile. The more the distinct the designs in the knots the shorter the pile needs to be and the closer the knots need to be together.
Another technique I have re-fallen in love with is zilli. I have worked with zilli a little bit in several samplers, but never in a large tapestry. I had with it in samplers and discussed the results in my Lines and Tapestry book. Worked with it in samplers and discussed the technique in several lectures that I gave to docents for various exhibits. I have come to realize while working with Shelley on the new tapestry that the floats are nice, but there is a second element that I had never considered the counter or plain woven line that also creates a vertical. So, like with pick and pick you could create a second image within the vertical stripes running up the warp, while the floats create another image.

Crenulated weave structures are always fascinating. I tend to think of them as very very small hatches like over one warp thread. Of course there are many types of the structures. The Scandinavian weavers used them for deign and technique. The middle Eastern weavers used them as both design and ways to close large slits structurally.   At times in English there is a bit of slang that calls them zippers. Shelly uses a lot of them in her weaving. She views them as sutures which gives them a heavily laddened sense of symbolic meeting for her. I had never really looked at the crenulated structures as anything but a technical element to close slits, make borders, and being related to hatches when stacked in a certain way. Totally unattached in my mind as part of meaning.   This is a detail from the large tapestry that Shelley and I are weaving. In middle eastern weaving they are used in a less random fashion and usually in the borders and surrounds. This is a border detail of on one of my favourite Afghani rugs of a crenulated border.
I should mention that the diagrams are from my books and Pat Spark created them.
Other things-Somewhere a long the way when weaving on my own tapestries there is a point where there is suddenly a knuckle bump moment, high five, aha when one knows it’s all coming together and the idea has jelled enough in the weaving that a sense of joy or a knowing that it’s right happens. Seems to take a little longer when I am working on someone else's tapestries. I have finally reached that Point in “And He...” I am roughly a quarter done.
One of the questions I am frequently asked(other then how long does it take) is what is the difference between weaving ones own design and weaving someone else’s designs. When I am working on someone else's tapestries and the decisions aren’t mine to make it still takes time to find ones comfort level. Weaving someone else's design is a different thought process. As corny as it sounds, it’s almost a negation of self and it is definitely a test of self discipline-not a bad thing. It’s a different mind process when trying to make ones personal style conform to another's dreams and images. The easy part is the technical part of weaving. The not so easy is remembering it’s not yours to mess around with. BUT, it’s a fun and dynamic change to be weaving side by side with Shelley on one of her designs-again.

Sunday Chene, Spencer and I leave to teach in Albuquerque, NM. at Village Wools. WE are driving! I am so looking forward to the trip. I understand there are a few more spaces left in the class if anyone wants to join us. The class is a Beyond More. It’s about designing for tapestry and making the techniques of tapestry work right in your weaving. The class is a multilevel class.
cheers,
kathe

Of waterdogs and black berries…

2011-09-26T18:55:00.001-07:00

Fall is here!

The rain is back!

The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year"

Classes start again. Tomorrow will be the first day of Better Bones and Balance. Can’t believe how badly i have missed that class. It so hard to exercise on my own, but I do.

Nostalgia strikes or is it really?

The leaves are turning colour. So many things not done. So many things ended forever. Autumn always brings a sense of relief. The hot weather is gone. Summer ended. The beginning of the rush to be ready for winter. School begins and schedules change-not so much anymore now that Spencer is retired. But, Autumn always feels like change.There was a time in my life when summers end meant hours of canning and preserving.

Dad, Grampa and not so happy Chene at Giant Springs overhang.

The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form. The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". It was described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy, in the Early Modern period, and became an important trope* in Romanticism. Liberated from Wikipedia
*a word that I love.

I no longer do this. I have been liberated and no longer have the time or feel the need with home life being just Spencer and I... To be truthful-Something I mostly, slightly, actually, very little regret. I grow a few vegetables, because tomatoes, cukes and peppers never taste the same as the store “botten”-even when purchased at the farmers market. Makes me me wonder how much of the taste is real and how much the romance of the doing. Wondering how much is enough to last through winter and late springs? It was an urgency I inherited from my Grandmother who lived as a subsistence farmer in the Mountains surrounding Blachly. OR for part of her life-the later years.

Time is viewed differently when you live as your ancestors lived. Her only concession was to build a house that overlooked a valley with old houses covered by Blackberries that made great places to tunnel into and read and draw. We only played in them by day because the cougars roamed and screamed too close and the waterdog protectors retreated into the safety of the mud or shapeshifted into something else at night.

Of course, we were also required to pick the blackberries, can,bake, dry, make fruit leathers with the berries, dye with the berries, and dig them out of the places they always seemed to be, but weren’t suppose to be…Check out those thorns. Occasionally, we were set to work dredging blue Camas and eliminating white Camas from my Grandmothers pastures. Once we we were old enough and responsible enough to safely dig and separate the two. White Camas is deadly, Blue Camas is edible.We had to wait for them to go to seed, before we could dig Camas. So, that they could replenish what we ate.

Good Blue Camas-edible-right

We picked and dried nasturtium leaves and seeds to substitute for black pepper and pickled fake capers. Then it was time to go to the Todd’s and my other Gramma was always so horrified with the deep stains and scratches on our hands, but even worse she hated nut stains from hazelnuts and walnuts that stained our fingers yellow like we had a serious nicotine problem. To her way of thinking Ladies might work and play in the sun, but should always protect themselves so it doesn’t show. Gramma Todd was always concerned with freckles, but I have never had one in my life- a gift or a legacy from my other Grandmother-that and copper eyes. She was always threatening that I would get freckles. AND, so frustrated that I didn’t have any from not doing what I was told and wearing a hat. Shane seems to have inherited all of the freckles with his red hair and light coloured skin. Would I want to relive these experience? no. My mothers death last month has made things float through my mind to be reexamined and laid to rest-again.

My childhood was often not a pleasant place to be, but It made me what I am and I can truly say I am easy with the past and I have no regrets-now. The biggest gift from my Mothers side of the family was thinking in symbols and symbolic languages, a firm belief in the unreal and myths and things that are not to be told but hinted at. Not a total loss.

A piece I had forgotten about that was returned to me from my Mom’s estate. Done sometimes in the early 90’s for a mini textile show at Anger’s in France that I was in. It’s 5x5inches.

Best of all's-

I have woven constantly for the last two weeks-6-8 hours-a day. I am a fourth of the way done with my piece. I will weave every day for the next week. It is 19 inches wide. I am at the 7 inch march.Yes it is really going to be at least 24 inches tall- It just needed to be. I hope to be a third done by the time I leave a week from Thursday. I will be leaving to teach at EGLWC Conference in Chautauqua, NY. Unfortunately the class at Mirrix Looms didn’t fill. It would have been so much fun weaving with Claudia and all. SO, I won’t have the week in between for Museums and visiting friends. Next time.sigh!

I thought I would have a Month before going to Albuquerque and teaching at Village Wools. Enough time to get very close to finishing the piece. It will be nice to see Diane and Shelley and others-again. My plan is to arrive a day or so earlier then my class to do some research and visit friends. Two days in in Santa Fe, Albuquerque the surrounding areas. Yes, I am bringing Chene and Spencer.

Then “And He” all slows down, but in a good way. I will be weaving as many hours, if not more, but on two pieces, two different formats and two different designers.BUT, instead, I am going to weave on a piece with Shelley Socolofsky- 3 days a week in her “studio” and 3 days a week at home. Shelley and I have woven several pieces together and it is always interesting and mind boggling. She designs and I weave. the last piece we wove together was based on Fata Morgana and other things or what between us we call Kathryn's piece. It was in the Corvallis exhibit of the 4 teachers and their students that she and I were in along with Dee Ford Potter and Rosalie Nielsen this summer. I am so excited the new tapestry includes Rya and is Shaped and it looks to be pretty large. I’ll know a whole lot more about it when I began on Saturday.

My spare time for the last several weeks has been on finishing my PowerPoint presentation on warping the Mirrix loom for tapestry with a continuous warp. Haven’t quite decided whether to leave it as a slide show or make a brochure or small book showing the way I warp the mirrix. It’s something I get a lot of questions about. It has almost 50 slides and I need two more slides of turning the warp with a tapestry on it around the bottom beam and then it is done.

Chene trying to stay warm and hiding his bad haircut after being felted-accidently.

I am also in my spare time reweaving several samplers that disappeared while I was at the ANWG conference teaching. It’s the first time I have ever had samplers disappear from a class I was teaching. I keep hoping someone accidently picked them up and will return them. SO, I am taking time I don’t really have reweaving my soumack sampler and a small sample that illustrates what happens when you unbalance weft bundles. It is a series of hatches done in inch increments with different size weft bundles.

Gone Missing!

Please feel guilty enough to drop them in envelope no questions asked and return them to 604 first Avenue East, Albany, Or 97321.

FFP

is beginning to work on another booklet that will be ready for publication by Convergence 2012 at which Pat is teaching. Pat and I had fun choosing a name for it today.

It’s to be called--

The Viking’s should’ve. It’s Pat’s exploration into using felting, Viking knitting, felting beads, felt dreads and other things. It’s really cool. Viking knitting is a interesting metal working process that is probably relate to nalbinding. It’s really fun to do and Pat has some really interesting ways to use it with felt. The dreads as in dreadlocks are just plain fun.

Giant Springs on

a sunny day in

August!

Tell Next time!

kathe

And So it begins again…bits and pieces

2011-09-06T17:42:00.001-07:00

S0 without thinking I filled my time with-

Busy work a term for work or assignments that are time consuming, but not useful. It is typically used to refer to school work which is time consuming for students but not educationally valuable, but can also refer to procedures or paperwork in a bureaucracy which is unnecessary. Work that usually appears productive or of intrinsic value but actually only keeps one occupied(condensed Wikipedia steal)

wall·low; wallowing wallowed

/ˈwɒloʊ/ Show Spelled[wol-oh] verb (used without object)1.to roll about or lie in water, snow, mud, dust, or the like, as for refreshment. 2.to live self-indulgently; luxuriate; revel: to wallow in sentimentality and Crypsis.

3.to flounder about; move along or proceed clumsily or with difficulty. 4.to surge up or billow forth, as smoke or heat: Waves of black smoke wallowed into the room.

So been there -done that.

It’s been a long couple of weeks and a little more then a month since I have written in this blog. In some ways longer and in others a million years longer then long. I managed to circumnavigate the US-mostly. Albany to Gettysburg, PA to Maryland through Texas back to Albany down to Oakland then too Great Falls Montana and back to Albany in less then 3 weeks. I taught at MAFA(a wonderful experience-don’t get me wrong), visited with Kids and Grandkids, My Mother died and we attended a 100th birthday party and finally back to my loom. I can’t even begin to count the nuisance trips to Portland. Love visiting with my Dad, but hate the spur of the moment(nuisance) trips because he’s misplaced his cell for the check in calls and I can’t get hold of his other backups an hour and a half of wondering is a little too long and an hour and a half home wishing things could be different, but how…. So I am working on(?if there are any acceptable-not Dad’s fault but lack of programs?), friends, and living relatives) longer term solutions. Sounds dismal, but it did have some really great highs along with the really low lows.

…Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephen Crane,
III, Dark Rider and other Lines

It’s been enough that I pulled out my Stephen Crane Dark Riders and Other Lines and reread 111 or 3 to help gain a proper perspective. Once recognized-

once again-It’s time to move on.

One of the things I have been focusing on is my weaving for the last 2 weeks. I am really excited about is where it is going. I like what I have been doing. It will probably be close to 24 inches tall when I am finished. Amazing what one can weave in two weeks-definitively not busy work-a plus.

The piece is 19 inches wide. I am 1/8th of the way done. The warp setting is approx.. 20-22 wpi. I have redesigned “And he…” and have begun to weave. I have added several more elements a black rose and a Stephen Crane Beastie to reflect what’s been going on in my life. It really is a narrative based on elements of the past present and future events. I have been working on my little black rider monsters that will be hidden in the piece. It seems like forever since I have done any caricatures or cartooning. Actually, to be truthful, it has been ages. Since my sons were little. It’s something I always loved doing the little creatures, but somewhere along the way realism caught up. My deadline for finishing is October 28, so that I can enter it into a specific exhibit. If it looks like I won’t finish it in time I’ll probably work on a smaller piece-much smaller-in order to finish something for the deadline-perhaps another Chene. I have a photo of him laying on his back that I think I would like to do. This isn’t the one. The one I want to do is of him playing dead dog with his feet and his curls sticking straight up in the air. Of course it was in the other computer that is now being debugged-again.

Mirrix Looms

One of the things I am back to and have taken all of the pictures for is a PowerPoint presentation on warping my mirrix. It’s amazing how many questions there are about warping the Mirrix for tapestry. I am beginning to put the jpegs in the PowerPoint program and starting to get the labeling correct. It’s very detailed perhaps too detailed. It’s many small steps, but when finished one has a great continuous warp that works really well. It will probably end up being a small booklet. The more I work with my mirrix the more ideas how I have on how to adapt it to make tapestry weaving easier and more practical to the mirrix. I am really excited I am supposed to teach a class at Mirrix Looms the week end After I teach at EGLFC. I hope it fills. If your interested in taking the class contact Elena at Mirrix looms.

Eastern Great Lakes Fiber Conference

I am also really excited about teaching at the Eastern Great Lakes Fiber Conference,Chautauqua, NY. IT’s a class that will be more about design technique and the techniques to make the design happen the way you want them to be. Much more about designing for tapestry and making the tapestry and tapestry technique come together in a skillfully woven design. I will be teaching how too design for tapestry and incorporating those ideas needed to design cartoons that are weave able. The class at last count as 16. It’s a nice sized class for passing around ideas. Should be a lot of fun. Spencer, Chene and I are driving out. We will be stopping in Montana-Great Falls and Hardin on the way. I am also hoping to see a certain Coptic Enthroned Madonna in Cleveland.

Sometimes I get so lucky. Spencer has an eBay business that specializes in ephemera and other stuff. Consequently we spend a lot of time at garage sales and flea markets. I go because I am the navigator. A very very important position when you hit between 10 and 30m garage sales in a day.The trick is to get the driver to go the direction he needs to go according to the map. I am convinced it is a guy thing to always go the opposite direction that the navigator dictates.Only one U-turn and I really lucked out. We were taking a quick look at the last sale of dismal day and I found an Afghan war rug and an afghani Kelim. I began to talk to the proprietor of the sale, who grabbed me as I was leaving and asked if I was interested in more rugs. I told him yes. He introduced me to his Mother-in-law who is an professor emeritus in textiles at Oregon State University.. (above is detail of bonnmonstre in the light coloured areas composed of white diamond pulled slits. Pesisan Senneh. Small medallions are crammed weft –blisters.)

She has rooms full of kelims, Gabbehs, carpets of middle eastern rugs-literally hundreds stacked against walls with piles as tall as I am. I bought several from her and am going back for more.

I was able to purchase 4 soumack kelims and 2 Kelims that contained bonnmonstre and crammed wefts-blisters. I have been spending the last several weeks documenting and studying them.

(next 4 pictures above-Kelim that is composed of plain woven tapestry and soumack.)

Afghan Kelim with long pulled slits and an interesting crenulated border between the pink white and blue vertical stripes. Medallions are crammed weft so that they form a blister or puckering of the surface

Last two pictures- Silk and cotton kelim kneeler-non reversible-front and back. Seems unusual because most of the soumack I have seen, which isn’t much is usually double sided. Does make it easier to study though.

Even more amazing- I have actually been doing a little bit of silversmithing in the form of weaving and studying soumack as it relates to silver. It is an amazingly adaptable technique to silver wire. I have been making cages and beginning to work on.

Love the rainbow- continued for 2 weeks!

Cheers and All,

kathe

Pending, processing, and at what point procrastination?

2011-07-21T19:09:00.001-07:00

pend·ent /ˈpɛn-dənt/ Spelled[pen-duhnt] –adjective Also, pendant.

1.hanging or suspended: a pendent lamp.2.overhanging; jutting; projecting: pendent cliffs.3.undecided; undetermined; pending: a lawsuit that is still pendent.Origin:
1275–1325; < Latin pendent- (stem of pendēns ), present participle of pendēre to hang; replacing Middle English pendaunt < Anglo-French ( Old French pendant ), present participle of pendre < Latin pendēre; see pendant—Related forms-pend·ent·ly, adverb,non·pend·ent, adjective; non·pend·ent·ly, adverb,sem·i·pend·ent, adjective;un·pend·ent, adjective—Can be confused: pendant, pendent, pennant, pundit.(dictionary.com)

I have done very little weaving in the last month. It will be a month tomorrow since I last posted to this blog.No guilt about being 2 weeks late. I have been to busy for guilt. I have done a lot of teaching and thinking. Hopefully, processing the pending. I was also able to spend some quality time with my family, which never seems to be long enough or often enough. I was able to a little research take a few pictures. In all a good productive break from weaving. Now I am anxious to begin weaving-something anything.

Spent a lot of time at the Native American Museum at the Smithsonian while in DC. While Troy was off being 15, Spencer#2 (his preference to avoid confusion with Granpa)had a great time looking at mask, discussing how they were used and winter counts. It took him very little time to understand the concept of pictograms and that events were being depicted and stories told. We also enjoyed the parfleches that are one of my favourite things and favourite memories of the past. Spencer#2 seems to have inherited the Todd gene that loves gadgets and how they work.I think his favourite thing was the wall of weapons used against the American Indians to Pacify and destroy native American culture. It was the diversity of the weapons and the time and evolution of the weapons that he found fascinating-not the killing. On the way back we danced and played in the heavy warm splashy rain and listened to the Thunder. Warm rain isn’t something we get in Oregon. Then we spent the rest of the day lost as we tried to find the Coast Guard base and Asa and Kathy. The architecture in the old sections is beautiful and we saw a lot of it-planned and unplanned. We are never going back without a GPS. Lakota Parfleche

Reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. A still more broad definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist, not just in the mind, or even more broadly also including what is only in the mind. Wikipedia

I am trying to settle back in, which may or not be possible I have roughly 2.5 months before my schedule becomes full of teaching and traveling-again. Well, in the those 2.5 months a fairly busy time with private students, FFP stuff, writing, and a to do list that seems endless. Pretty tame stuff, but not all consuming. The reality is that I want to maximize my weaving time- make every second count.focusDowN, but, I am wasting time and losing weaving time trying to decide what I want to weave, what needs to be woven, researched and written.

Hindu Calendar

It’s definitely not bracelets. So, the unfinished peacock bracelet design will become a small tapestry. It seems to be another colour study without substance-a time killer another way of procrastinating. (finally, something at least one definitive decision-a beginning.)

Is there Time?One of the things I am trying to process is timing, what are my new deadlines and why do I allow myself to be drawn into constantly exhibiting if my designs are for myself. I think it goes back to graduate school-again-publish or perish philosophy and the need to show at least 4 times a year to be considered a professional and not just an academician or a dilettante. Another issue is metanarrative. I want to tell more stories based on my reality of betweens and outcomes, I need several new pieces to enter in shows. My mind wants to redesign …And He... Is time an issue-suppose I don’t get it done in time? It’s a big piece. 4 times larger than I normally work at 20 epi. I need at least one more smaller piece-under 100 square inches. I have also promised myself an hour a day for redoing missing samples and at least an hour a day working on silver.

I enjoyed teaching at MAFA. The class was fairly large-14- and filled with interesting people. It was fun seeing Bobbi Irwin again.She was teaching a class on Irridences. Someday when the stars align or some such thing, I want to learn pictorial twining from her. She wrote a book called "Twined Rag Rugs" that totally fascinated me. I had some interesting times with a very cold room and accidently spending the night in some one else's room.

Lately my brain seems to want to do more or add more visual texture to my tapestries. When I say it that way it almost conveys vertical soumack

memories of the 60’s and 70’s where structure was more important than design and everything was big and oversized and definitely structurally 3-d. That’s not what I am looking for. I still want a flat surface-just visually more textural and of course still at 20 epi. This seeking all began when I discovered that I could make what looked like a knitted structure by using tapestry and soumack together-side by side. I have had a fascination with using cavendoli knotting (related to the dreaded word/technique macramé’), twining, woven bonnmostre(extra weft woven through pulled slits), flying shuttle, (actually vertical soumack)and soumack(structural) for what seems like a hundred years. Cavendoli knots

Same Old Same Old-Vertical Soumack Sampler

Coptic with a bit of V.Soumack

A Bit More About Family and Culture

My family has a very different lifestyle then mine. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it is something I would never have dreamed of for myself. And, here I am a tapestry weaver one of the simplest of all looms and one of the most ancient of textile techniques. An early memory from my childhood was of my Grandmother coming to our home and seeing a TV for the first time and thinking it was witchcraft and praying for our souls. Another explaining to Spencer#2 and Troy what a typewriter was/is or carbon paper and a time without microwave ovens. Another remembering Vietnamese friends coming to the US and not understanding our heating systems , appliances and stoves. My grandfather before he died-before the internet told me what an amazing life he had led. He had lived From no Electric, no planes, antibiotics and modern medical devices, barely cars into an a time that bore no resemblance to where he had begun. So what will my life span?

So many computer gadgets that have become a necessary way of life. Appliances that are all digital with way to many functions and choices. Too much texting not enough actual face to face conversation. People sit side by side texting each other. In some ways it makes parenting easier with the constant contact. Shopping and getting meals delivered to the door. Kids and people from all over the world coming together 6-8 at a time to play games and interface over headsets and only seeing. Books and research done on kindle, I-phone apps and droid programs. I want to be obsolete. I don’t mind it in the least. By the time I came home I was/am ready for a less complex life or maybe dropping out to live like my Grandmother and the realization of how obsolete my way of life is becoming and that I don’t really care as long as I have tapestry to weave and metanarratives to tell…

Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service or practice is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order.

Definitely me.

Does one really need to add more tech to ones live, why, and just because we can should we.

kathe

Episodic adventures into the enigmatic and the ambiguous

2011-06-22T18:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the 13th- I spent 4 hours trying to figure out how to put up a blind (x4) in my studio with impossible to read diagrams and written notes. Fortunately, for me John (one of two wonderful husbands only one of which is mine that float through the studio. Pat’s husband. SO don’t worry I am not really a bigamist.) helped me out and with only a few problems and had (X 3)them up in no time. I still have one to go that I’ll need to use a ladder on.

Demon Blind’s from you know where!

This week was about following directions. Directions for putting up mini blinds, working with Gimp and a few other things.

Last week for me was all about giving directions that were understandable and could be followed by the participants in my ANWG workshops. It’s a good thing Last week was first.

I am not sure which was harder. The giving of directions that were understandable to my students or trying to understand directions from someone or something else. Sometimes both seem like a challenge. I think every so often an experience like the demon blinds from you nowhere with anAse Blake’s Sampler from Color and Tapestry ANWG workshop

enigmatic attitude of “oh, put any one can do it/ fiasco is necessary and is very beneficial. It’s so easy to forget how difficult taking direction can be. If nothing else it’s a good lesson in humiliation.

enigmatic - not clear to the understanding; "I didn't grasp the meaning of that enigmatic comment until much later"; "prophetic texts so enigmatic that their meaning has been disputed for centuries";difficult to understand; resembling an oracle in obscurity of thought; "the oracular sayings of Victorian poets".

Or, Directions written by non-resident

idiomatic English speaking residents and engineers that reside some place between never never-neverland, Oz and the Red Queen of hearts domain in Through the looking Glass. that create most of/many of the inexpensive goods we all seem to have a need of and are no longer manufactured in the US. definition by author of blog.Don’t get me wrong I love my new blinds-the directions not so much. It’s just the vagaries of modern life some times drive me a little buggy-maybe more then a little.

Origin of ENIGMA

1. Latin aenigma, from Greek ainigmat-, ainigma, fromainissesthai to speak in riddles, from ainos fable

2. First Known Use: 1539

Meaning-. 1. Pertaining to an enigma. 2. Mysterious.3. Defying description.

. Synonyms: closed book, conundrum, mystery, head-scratcher, mystification, puzzle, puzzlement, riddle, secret

Ambiguous is another word to describe the situation with a slightly different meaning.

"the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible"-

A. Einstein

ambiguous - having more than one possible meaning; "ambiguous

words"; "frustrated by ambiguous instructions, the parents were unable to assemble the toy"

am·big·u·ous/amˈbigyo͞oəs/Adjective

1. (of language) Open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning. 2. Unclear or inexact because a choice between alternatives has not been made. Latin ambiguus, from ambigere to be undecided, from ambi-+ agere to drive; First Known Use: 1528

So putting aside ambiguous directions and enigmatic results…

It’s time to admit I have done absolutely no weaving in the last 2-3 weeks other than a few class demos. This week will be little better in weaving any quantity of tapestry as I have a private student for the next 4 days.

Cathie Beckman. Cathie has wove a rather startling tapestry. The subject matter resonates with me because of family circumstances and it is a deep seated fear that haunts people of colour in the US who have family members of colour. The subject is from something she witnessed in the Cincinnati riots about 10 years ago. It’s so easy for kids to get caught up in events they have no control over.

I Think teaching in my studio with just one or two people is so productive for both the student and myself. I loved the atmosphere and the learning experience teaching Cathie for 4 days. Hopefully, Cathie did to.

I find it totally satisfying to work with a student who wants to be totally immersed in tapestry for 4 days 8-9-10-11 hours a day. We worked on some of my favourite thing to teach- Colour blending and colour movement and soumack techniques. While we were working together she wove the cutest partial shoe and sampler. My apologizes Cathie. I took this photo from a weird angle and was so tired I didn’t notice that I was taking it from the side and above and not squared. This sampler is really not misshapen and doesn’t weave in. The chine's and mélanges actually are more distinct in real life It’s the photographer. Cathie left on Sunday. It was a fun 4 days. Thank God! for Calapoia Brew Pub lunches! I swear I have never tasted their prize winning beer, but who needs beer when they make outstanding soups and bring me my favourite drink of unsweetened ice tea with no ice without asking! We have eaten lunch there everyday for the last week while Cathie and I were working together.

Other episodes-in the last week or so!I have been heavily involved in all of the verifiable details-organizing, teaching, procuring supplies, working on my studio, attending an opening, teaching at ANWG taking a few pictures of flowers, making new friends, private teaching, and catching up with new friends, catching up FFP stuff, father’s Day, getting ready to teach at MAFA etc., etc., etc. and et al. The only thing standing in my way of weaving is finishing this blog.

But, the best Adventure of all!

I think yesterday-a day late- was the best Father’s Day I have ever spent with my father in years. For the last year or so he’s been talking about the trucker special in Rufus, Oregon. It’s roughly half way between College Place, Washington and Portland where my Dad lives-160 miles. Rufus was the meeting place for shifting kids back and forth between parents and Grandparent. The place to rest half way home and have this embarrassingly huge truck driver special-Grilled Steak and whatever else went with it.It was always the Old Highway with the windings curves, before the Dams, before the freeway, before Celilo Falls and the fishing grounds were covered, before the council stones and rapids were covered-100 feet below where the road now runs(I-84) So, I told Dad we were taking him to lunch and took him to Rufus for lunch.

Dad, Me, Mom Pregger’s with Mike, Linda, and Dad’s truck for hauling freight all over the NW, while flying and testing cars.

We took the old road through the Gorge and looked and waterfalls, trail heads that we walked thousands of miles on while growing up and wild flowers. Dad never fell a sleep once on the whole trip. He was riveted to the scenery and remembering. I had salad and “homemade bread”. None of us finished the Trucker special-so we had “doggy bags.” Chene will eat for days and Dad will have steak for several evenings. It was one of those days that will live forever and makes everything all right in the end and leaves one with very special memories.

But, finally it is the 22nd of June.

Today I’ll put a new warp on my Mirrix for samples.

Today I’ll wake him up

and paint his eyes

A bag of my samples went missing at ANWG.( Which may be a good thing- I have always wanted to have a note book of samples of different techniques that were all basically the same size instead of being almost 35 years of variable scraps of weaving that always give me the feel of being disorganized as I hunt and peck through them in a class that I am teaching.

How’s that for turning lemons into lemon aide. Perhaps I won’t have to take Pat Poggi’s advice and stuff them in my bra where they can do some good. )Pat Jehan Rohani are two people from the early years of the Tapestry list that I really miss. Unfortunately this is the

Pat Poggi’s cats

only picture I have of Pat's work. I would love to have a picture of her piece with the women in the bathtub with her toe in the faucet. I laughed for hours the first time I saw it. Pat's been dead for over 10 years. Jehan I spent hours writing back and forth to. He had away of putting being a between into perspective and the balancing act or razors edge that we all walk.Past history-good memories.

And begin work on two new cartoons. A small 5 x 7 inch and reworking “And He…”Will be the biggest small format(medium format by size)/ small scale piece piece I have ever done. My intent is to have it done in time to enter into the ATA exhibit with the deadline the end of October.

I have a little over 2 weeks until I leave for teaching at MAFA. I am really excited to see how much I can accomplish in the next two weeks.

I am extremely happy with the exhibit in Corvallis. The show was hung and curated by Pat Spark and the Corvallis Hand weavers Guild. Two other persons - John Stahl and Angie Purvianse also helped hang the exhibit. They did an incredible job!!!!! I was really happy to to see the small gallery hung with work by Edith Miller and Evelyn Ball. They founded the guild just about the time I was born. They have been my mentors and friends for close to 30 years. There part of the exhibit includes clothing and aprons that they wove from the 50’s forward. These 6 phots were taken by John Stahl. Thanks, again John!

Dee Ford Potter and students(right

My wall(left)

Lynn Hart & Lois Hartwig

Peter Rocci and Shelley Quiner several of Shelley S. students

Shelley Socolofsky Rosalie Nielsen and Students

Danger soap box!One of the things I was especially happy to see was that they didn’t stack my work. Because it is small curators and hangers of shows will often put one of my piece above another. I don’t mind it if other persons work is stacked above or below my work, but I really dislike my pieces stacked one on top of another. I don’t think they read well or the same. They are meant to stand alone and invariably I am left with the feeling that the curator had an aha movement about saving space rather then how the pieces read. I am beginning to wonder if I should specify in the hanging directions that the pieces are not meant to be stacked on top of each other. Why shouldn’t small work in the case of multiple accepted pieces be allowed the same space and the same consideration that a large piece receives. Actually what I would like to see the space applied fairly and if pieces need to be stacked by the same doer that they stack the big pieces to one on top of another.

I think I have written enough assuage the guilt for being 2 weeks late with this blog. Never Again. I hate breaking promises to myself.

Cheers for now!

kathe

Continuum Oblivion

2011-05-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

I should just blow up the TV, cut the power cord, turn it into a planter, cat box or some such thing or find away to do away with my willing suspension of disbelief.
(Thank you-again- Mrs. Winter for another quirk in my personality that you helped me develop in Academy.)
(The etymology of the word Television is derived from mixed Latin and Greek origin, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin visio, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person. Irony in itself.)
Ironically, it’s quite evident that the gargoyle guardian of the temple(TV’s reposing place and home of the societal adjustment bureau of the indefensible and the bearer of all knowledge no matter how warped) is failing to protect me from random full bore idiocy. And, yes I really do have a guardian gargoyle on top of my TV. Those words-Continuum Oblivion- have become like a koan-or an unimaginable mantra- without answer-- repeating over and over in my mind. Creating so many ideas and worthless thoughts without end. Yes, I realize I am only getting my just desserts according to the endless lectures I/we endured while at PUA and WWC.
Continuum Oblivion

Oblivion-“The act or an instance of forgetting; total forgetfulness: sought the great oblivion of sleep”.(real-loosely borrowed from Webster on line.)

Continuum-“ A continuous extent, succession, or whole, no part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts except by arbitrary division.”(perhaps real, but liberated-absconded with from Wikipedia)

a supposed captured wormhole housed in an android or Daleks for use as power.-My interpretation of something in a Doctor Who episode I watched in a moment of traumatic/dramatic overwhelming period of boredom and or ennui that became a cycling event that will not let go of my of brain anytime soon.

Well-perhaps now that’s over and stated and
only a hum/drone in the background of my logical(gr) order of sense, I can get down to something important like what I have been doing with my weaving and other things. But, Never as much as I’d like…
BUT,
I did finish Chene’s portrait. I started one of the two of the bracelets. I am about a third done on the feather bracelet and the other is at least on the loom with the cartoon. I stand a good chance of at least finishing…reality check-probably not, because of too many interferences in the next week. On the other hand I am still here. The world hasn’t ended. I wasn’t caught up in the rapture yesterday…who knows what could happen...in the next week before the ANWG conference!?!
I really miss my friend Marge. She’s been dead for 10 months. Pat brought over to the studio a Muri Dai that has a couple of feet of kumihimo that Marge braided. Every time I walk by the table in the downstairs studio I think about her. Her biting sense of humour, her compassion and so many other things that she shared with me- her ability to accept the way things are and just deal with it. She was always so inquisitive about trying things. I really miss her. I know how fortunate I was to know her and realize that she was more then ready for her next step.
Which in
                           away leads
                                           to these
                                                   thoughts-
Rosalie Nielsen was here delivering work for a show that is going up in Corvallis. It’s a show with an interesting premise-
“The professional artists involved in this exhibit have their roots in the weaving world. They have been known as both artists and teachers for many years -- disproving the old adage that Those who can-do, while those who can’t- teach. These artists definitely can,do and Teach. In fact, in Oregon, there is a tradition of this type of co-existence. Many of our fine-crafts artists do this.
The Corvallis Hand weavers and Spinning Guild, who acted as curators for this show, wanted to show how this tradition is continuing by asking four well-known artist-weavers to exhibit their work and for them to choose the work of some of their students to exhibit as well.”
The “students”(?) that are showing in my section are all professionals who have or probably will be part of the next generation of tapestry teachers and are already influencing other weavers- Lynn Hart, Lois Hartwig, Shelley Quiner and Peter Rocci.
26 years ago Rosalie taught a kumihimo class for the Corvallis Hand Weavers guild. There were about 20 of us in the class. 3/4’s of the class has now died of old age. The one thing that hasn’t died from the class is knowledge and influence that has been passed on from that class. It’s legacy, so to say... Pat and I both have taught hundreds of people how to do the simple 8 stand braid that we learned in that class. I have written at least two articles in various journals on 8 strand braids. Pat teaches it to 4-H students and others. I used to teach it in an art camp to several hundred children at a time as they floated through the various stations in the camp. So Many years ago!
SHIFT-Change of mood- please!!
I have been trying to take pictures of my not so abundant peonies this year. The one by the studio door that usually produces dozens of blossoms only has one blooming and two buds. The foliage is rich , abundant and extremely dynamic and luscious blue greens looking more so then most years. The deep pink peony by the door is a deep deep red. The kind of of red that is almost impossible to weave..
I enjoy taking pictures, but the enjoyment is focused on the acquiring images to use in my tapestries and when I teach.

     Last week Spencer, Chene and I went to Sisters, OR to look at things, take photos and just in general relax. I have been going their for mini vacations and thought breaks since I was in High school.
There are several book stores that spencer and I like to browse through. Picked up a couple of great books. Looked in horror at a Peter Collingswood book that was priced as a rare book for over 100 dollars. (Note- if you are looking for one download it for free at Google free books or the Gutenberg project.)
I found an incredible book- Tribal rugs by Jim Opie. The pictures are great, but I cannot figure out why if they are willing to discuss every detail in these books, but not how the technique is done. I was once told that discussing and analyzing the techniques removes the work from the art world into the craft world and looses it’s intrinsic value dollar wise, culturally and intellectual interest.

Yesterday, we saw Pirates of the Caribbean-Stranger Tides an okay fun movie, but with an incredible Hans Zimmer music score. I spent most of my time listening to the movie instead of seeing the movie.
Did recognize a famous Hawaiian waterfall that I took pictures of when when we visited Asa and Kathy. So not all of the movies was shot in the Caribbean.
Need to end now and begin the work week. The list of to do is enlist, but most of it ends on Sunday.
BUT, It’s all pretty much fun!
Cheers and All,
kathe

2011-05-22T15:13:00.001-07:00

OF COMPULSIONS AND PISTACHIOS….

2011-04-27T16:17:00.001-07:00

I am almost

finished with Chene’s portrait-real and not real. I am really liking the rug he’s standing on.Reminds me a little of Cezanne and Matisse. It is so sort of floaty and not photo realistic-Just fun to weave. Weaving Chene has been a challenge all of that blackish and greyish fur and trying to make his face look like him. It’s going to be approx.. 7 inches by 5 inches when finished.

Another 2 or 3 weeks have vanished into into a very grey dismal spring. Normally I like the

rain in Oregon. It is usually fairly warm not to heavy rain with days of beautiful sunshine interspersed. Not so this spring. The rain is freezing and often torrential laced with nasty little bits of hail. In the last month I have had one day where I could walk Chene to class. The only thing growing is grass. The yard is till to wet to work in. Everyone who planted their tomatoes last week is now replanting-We had a killing frost. I bought pepper and herbs but haven’t planted them in the garden-yet. I am afraid they will drown as last years did.

Serendipitous things-Had to do a run to Portland for coffee for my Dad. He was out and wasn’t remembering that he’s not suppose to drive. It was an expensive can of coffee. Have found a solution. Pat is designing a shopping list that will cater to his personal needs and I have discovered Safeway will deliver groceries for less then it cost me to drive to Portland. Two more weeks and he’ll have his scooter. Now if the weather would just co-operate.

That taken care of Spencer, Chene and I drove up to Bingen. The sun was shining. We could even see Mt Hood. For the last 6 months we haven’t seen Mt. Hood because of the rain and fog. I found my rock wall that will be in the redesigned corner of And He…the smaller version. As soon as I make it through ANWG and MAFA it will be going on my Zeus Mirrix to be woven. Don’t get me wrong I love the teaching, but as always I need to weave more and produce more tapestries. It will be the largest small scale, small format piece I have ever woven.

Which leads me to thinking about. You guessed it!

compulsions-again.

Compulsions and tapestry weaving are a little like eating pistachio’s with shells. There are always the last few that are unopenable that need to be bashed with what ever hard object is available before one tears off the last fingernail. Just because they are there and need to be opened no matter what!!!

Origin: 1595–1605; obsolete compulse v. (< Latin compuls ( us ), past participle of compellere; see compulsion) + –ive Wikipedia

(like how can they figure the origin of a word to a 10 year period? This is just plain weird.)

compel and compulse.-not because you want to behave that way, but because you feel you have to do so.

After all of these years I still can not figure out why I feel the need to get up every morning and spend hours a day creating something in an archaic technique to describe a thought process and an internal view of the world that no one but me feels compelled to acknowledge. But, If

I combine the compulsion to weave and design with the word synthesis. I just may have the beginnings of an answer. Tapestry seems to be the one place where everything becomes a whole.

“In general, the noun synthesis (from the ancient Greek σύνθεσις, σύν "with" and θέσις "placing") refers to a combination of two or more entities that together form something new. The corresponding verb, to synthesize (or synthesis), means to make or form a synthesis.”Wikipedia

A flower that I really want to know what it is. It was cozied up to an “Old Vic” in downtown Albany and I really really really want one????!!!!

I have been spending time studying several more interesting techniques that I have found on a couple of weavings that I have found in various places. Anyone who knows me knows that means garage sell or Antique stores. Acquired while Spencer looks for ebay stuff. They usually don’t have a lot of provenance as to where they were created and by who. Makes for some interesting guesses.

Front-little checker boards Back- floats that run across the fell line

I think this is a Turkish rug, but I am not sure where in Turkey. It is also a wide border on the ends of a knotted rug.

The other rug or textile I am trying to determine it’s origin. It doesn’t feel like wool. The design reminds me of Scandinavian designs. Something I may Have seen in my books on Scandinavian weaving possibly in my Book Flat Weaves From Fjords to Forest by Peter Walborg.

What I really want to know is if the outline is twined or if it is a double soumack. It has a very odd warp. The warp looks like it is plied with a light and dark of two dissimilar materials.

Anyway –enuff for today!

And yes I did find my moss

covered wall at Ainsworth fountain on the Columbia Gorge HI way-Oregon side.

Gone, time, and Compulsion

2011-04-05T12:20:00.001-07:00

Gone-Go is historically derived from at least three Proto-Indo-European roots: *ghê, the source of go and maybe gone; *ei and ī, the source of ēode; and a root beginning *w-, the source of went from wendan from windan. All three roots are continually used in the standard English derivatives go, gone and went.

absent, away, left, disappeared, moved out, departed, vanished

used up, spent, finished, consumed, depleted, drained, exhausted

dead, deceased, passed away, passed on, no more

So where does time all go? I guess into some sort of void. I really need to find that void so I can retrieve a few things-One synonym for void and gone both is never. Gone is so laden with should haves, could haves, would haves.

Really! Where does time go? It doesn't seem to be terribly missing because there always seems to be more of it until there isn't.

This is such a screwy spring my Christmas Cactus is blooming at the wrong time of year. Really! Where does time go? It doesn't seem to be terribly missing because there always seems to be more of it until there isn't.

yes,this is one of mine-The late late and almost late

"Webster's New World College Dictionary". 2010. http://www.yourdictionary.com/time. "1.indefinite, unlimited duration in which things are considered as happening in the past, present, or future; every moment there has ever been or ever will be... a system of measuring duration 2.the period between two events or during which something exists, happens, or acts; measured or measurable interval"

The last several weeks have been busy trying to learn the ins and outs of two new computers and retrieving those things that have gone missing from my old lap top. The other new computer is my personal computer sans FFP. I am actually enjoying the process. Frustrating challenges are so much fun. A little like using a hammer on ones head. It feels so good when one quits hitting oneself in the head. I installed live writer into my computer to write my blog. So far so good. It doesn’t seem to have or create the unusual frustrating effects that the old program I was using did. I seem to have more control over picture placement, but we will see.

The weaving I have managed to do has been fun and nostalgic and a little painful. Tomorrow night I am teaching a short session on weaving on boxes. When I was a child My Gramma used the weaving of boxes as a means to keep me busy while she was running the store I would sit for hours and weave interesting designs and materials into elaborate boxes with lids-1955to the 196?’s, I have always wondered how she came up with the idea of using a box as a loom to weave a 3 dimensional shape. I have often wondered if it was something she and her friends came up with the idea or if they found in a magazine or were taught by others trying to find projects for Vacation Bible school.

samples and kits

I needed to regroup and reweave a few of my small boxes. In the past I have given all of the boxes a way as gifts. I have decided this will probably be the last time that I weave a small box at 8 ends per inch. The needle weaving the bottom is just too hard on my hands. One idea might be to soumack the bottom of the loom or do gross needlepoint on the bottom of the loom. Cash Grocery, College Place, WN.

I was about 5 years old when I wove my first box. At one time my Gramma had several of the old Boxes that I had woven, but somewhere along the way they went missing or my Grandfather may have sold them in a garage sale. Not so hard to understand the why as he owned Cash Grocery in College Place, Washington for over 50 years. By the end of his life selling things had become an obsession or maybe even a sickness with him. The sale was everything. He

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
Time in a bottle-Jim Croce

sold several very valuable family heirlooms for pennies on the hundreds of dollars they were worth. The other thing I have always found interesting is that Sara Swett also weaves on box looms. She is roughly from the same area that My Grandmother lived in. Gramma spent a lot of time in I have wondered if it was a regional type of weaving.

My attempt at

Time in a bottle

Someday I should take the time to ask Sara. Of course, it could all be independent invention. I should ask her sometime where she learned. Most of the boxes I have seen that Sara has been involved with weaving or students work seem to be quite a bit larger than the ones I learned to weave and topless. There are also subtle differences in the way we set up the loom. My

Spring Flower that I have never seen before on Mary’s Peak.

Gramma's style always seemed to have lids and were never used as purses that folded over and were fastened with a button and a crocheted loop. The crocheted loop makes sense because my Gramma crocheted, embroidered laces, table clothes and lace clothing. I wish I'd paid more attention and asked Gramma where she learned to create all of the little different odd shaped looms that she taught me to weave on. Unfortunately, she died in the mid 90's. In my conceits Gramma just always was. By the time I realized how unique it all was the Alzheimer's had set in and I was busy dealing with the multitudes of problems of rearing 2 sons and working on my BA and MAIs.

I am finally as of this weekend almost done with my backlogs of things that were overdue. It’s taken me six weeks to catch-up! The article is finished and being edited. All of the required pieces are all snuggled in the various shows that they are in. Love the word snuggled it always reminds of the night before Christmas. Things that needed to be done are done and done before Pat had knee surgery. Invoices and such are up to date and shipped. Pat had surgery on Monday. And, all seems to be well. I have about 2 months until the ANWG conference for my own projects. I am going to work on several new pieces and finish them for the exhibit in Corvallis.

My study for the next couple of weeks is this wonderful rug I bought at Peabody's an antique store in Albany that is going out of business. In the last several weeks I have bought 3 rugs, a bag all to study.

Knotted silk rug that Chene has claimed.

Talk about an embarrassment of riches. I wish I knew how this technique was done. It has floats on the back. I’ll need to spend some time with my woven structures book by Marla Mallert-Woven Structures- a guide to Oriental Rug and Textile Analysis.

She has a wonderful web that I have learned so much from and makes me realize how little I know about all of the forms of tapestry and other related structures.

Compulsion a strong, usually irresistible impulse to perform an act, especially one that is irrational or contrary to one's will.

“...in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on...”

I had written a great deal about the obsessive compulsion that comes over me when I haven’t woven in a while. Well, some how it’s all gone. Not the compulsion to weave just the written confession of an obsessive compulsive tapestry weaver. Just know that I am suffering that compulsion as of right now and have been overcome with the need to weave.

Cheers until next time!

kathe

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

Two parter-Life, death,and rituals and creating videos .

2011-03-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

Dog

This is a two part post. It didn't seem appropriate to put the first post with this post. The first post is about James Koehler and other losses. This post is about my life and times in the studio and trying to keep it all together.

This Dog is done. I am ready to start my next piece.I thought I would never finish this piece. It's only 5 by 7 inches, but it took me way too long to weave and way to many start overs. Last time I wrote my blog I was just tearing out some out of sync soumack. It’s gone and I don’t think I am going to add the lines back. Makes me feel very omnipotent. I just wiped out a whole town on Lolo Pass without a passing thought of guilt only relief.

I have already photographed and sent it into a juried show that I am sick of entering. It’s always something with them and me. My only disappointment in this piece is-- Again, I have woven something that is almost impossible to photograph. Mixing colours such as orange and blue, yellow and purples and of course greens and reds grey out in photo's badly.I love the complementary contrast and the contrast of warm and cool colours within a given colour especially in a weft bundle. In person the weaving creates an active soft active grey from a distance that you can still see the individual colours in the optical blends, but disappear in a photo.
On top of that I may have just tied up several pieces that I really need for a group show in June. Now I need to weave double time if I am to have enough pieces for those shows I do want to enter. I seem to be such a glutton for punishment.

mottled Mayflower

   Like a good little camper I finished Dog, photographed, and promptly mailed it and several others to be juried in a particular international show.
   Now I am really kicking myself and wondering at my mind set. I keep asking myself how many times do I really need to be in this particular show. By the time I thought it through I had already photographed and sent Dog into a juried show that I am sick of entering without thinking it through. It’s always something with them and me.
   After the last 2-3 years of fiasco, why did I enter? There is always a problem when I enter this show, which at this point will remain nameless. Again, it boils down to why does one enter shows and getting ones ego involved. Much better to think of it as a game-win some loose some. I get in to this particular show, but something always happens or goes wrong-bad advice from their office, damaged frames in transit, lost work, CD’s that won’t open, bad colour in their magazine, not publishing all entries, their policy of a piece never having been published anywhere, won prizes and then been disqualified, etc., etc., etc., etc.
And, finally,  Et Al. I have been in it 14 possibly more times in the last 20 years or so. I keep telling myself that I am going to re-think why and the logic for my entering this exhibit every year, but always forget until too late.
OOPS!!! I am ranting again-so sorry! Need a disclaimer! I am turning into such a grouchy old lady.

On top of that I may have just tied up several pieces that I really need for a group show in June. Now I need to weave double time if I am to have enough pieces for those shows I do want to enter. I seem to be such a glutton for punishment.
OOPS!!! I am ranting again-so sorry! Need another disclaimer!

Camellias in bloom

detail of Camellia

Peachy coloured Camellias

Mayflower slightly different

The one show this summer I am very excited about will be at the Corvallis Art Center. Actually, there are several others such as Passages(ATA) and Fantastic Fibers 2011. "Oregon Weaving-The Tradition Continues" Exhibition date: May 28 - June 18 or 25*, 2011. Now I just need to find several of my students and or people who think I have influenced their weaving who would like to put their work in the show. I have no idea who to ask-again my shyness is hindering me. It’s a little like suppose I give a party and no one wants to come. It seems like such a personal question to ask someone “Have I influenced you with my teaching or the work that I do. So perhaps if your reading this missive and I have taught you or influenced you and you want to be in an exhibit with me. You could maybe contact me-please, before I chew my arm off worrying.

I am excited about the new piece I am beginning. It’s a dog-not a mental dog, but an actual dog-Chene. It’s the first time I have woven an animal since I was at OSAC in 1979 and wove a frog from the unicorn tapestries. I am not even sure that counts. It was copied from and not original. Occasionally, I Wish I had a picture, but I sold the tapestry in 1980 to buy more wool for the next tapestry
and in reality I hope it never resurfaces. It was so long ago and I so needed to learn so much more.
I have woven a face-human- and 3 caricatures of faces from several time periods and a Portrait of Pat from a shared project.

Mary of the little dark cloud

Same Old Same Old

Portrait of Pat

That I haven’t done more animals and faces is really rather odd because I began as a cartoonist and was always in trouble for my caricatures of -well-people I shouldn't have been drawing caricatures of doing not very polite things. Basically what one would expect from a teenager-so its been awhile. - way before I knew about tapestry other then needlepoint and embroidery.

If Mary could have....?

The word cartoon according to Wikipedia-“The original meaning was in fine art of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it referred to a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting or tapestry. In the 19th century, it came to refer to humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers, and in the early 20th century it was sometimes used to refer to comic strips.[1]. In more modern usage, it commonly refers to animated programs for television and other motion-picture media.”

Cartoon 5 by 7 inches

Two photos of Chene
that I combined
to make a cartoon

I have been fascinated with the idea of weaving a dog after seeing tapestries by Kathy Spoering and a Tapestry by Ruth Jones that was in an ATA Bienale a few years ago. Ruth Jones was based on a design of a dog in a millefleur and, of course, Dogs are all through historical tapestries...The main difference I see in weaving a Dog and what I normally weave is it has to look like a dog. Everyone knows what a dog looks like and you can't fudge it. Unless you can convince the world that your really working in abstract or an impressionistic styles. But, Somehow I don''t see Chene as a cubist dog.

Videos: The Care and Feeding of Bobbins-5 short videos with video 4 being in two sections. SO there are really 6-4 has a b section.
   Pat (Spark)an I have been doing something that really fascinates me. Well, parts of it does. Pat is so meticulously patient with the process and getting better everyday with the process. BUT, there is so much to learn and search out just in the doing. The process of Pat's doing is fun to watch, but I think the skill of using the program is more then I can do, which is one of the reasons of many that Pat is such a good business partner for me. She has her stuff and I have my stuff that I do.
   We have been working on a series of 5-maybe 6 short video's about the care and feeding of bobbins. The reason they are 5 or 6 and not 1 is that Pat noticed that anything over 5 minutes in length creates a certain ennui in the watcher and can be difficult to download depending on dial up connections and computers timing out in when downloading. I find the process fascinating both personally and technically. I enjoy watching Pat edit the videos, because it looks and sounds like magic.

   On a personal level it's interesting too and sometimes frustrating to realize that I have fallen into some very lazy speech patterns using words like okay, that, this, and okay as an affirmative that whatever was done was understood. It's also interesting to see and hear how ones teachings might be perceived by others and seeing all of the ways and things that one should be doing better. So my goal is to stop using the word okay and do things a little more audiovisually for those that I teach that learn audiovisual. Which is really hard/challenging-okay?(gr)
   Pat has/is downloading the videos to Facebook on her channel at Care and Feeding of Bobbins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDQOVW07_TM to which a person can subscribe. We will be linking the videos to the FFP blog and this blog to the videos. Tommye Scanlin and Pat Williams are embedding them into their tapestry share blog at http://tapestryshare.blogspot.com. Hopefully they will pick up and embedd the next 3.

RITUALS-

My Dad/ Grandpa Todd

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about rituals and ritual behaviour in weaving and life in general. . I have always considered myself a spur of the moment type of person. After the last year or so dealing with the older people in my life I have realized that I am not. When I weave and begin to weave I follow the same process. Cup of tea, butting Chene in his basket with a chew thingy, straightening threads and bobbins, check warp tensioning, laying out threads for the space I am weaving, placing tools in order, cutting ends from the day before, and a few minutes of only looking at what I did before and then I weave. If I don't do this before I weave I feel disjointed and out of step and am more prone to choosing the wrong colours or just not interpreting the cartoon correctly. Ritual behaviour is not a bad thing over times many of our rituals become by rote and give one a sense of safety and a place where things are right or feel right. In watching my Dad as ages and forgets things I have noticed that those things he does well follow a ritual. When he shops , drives, fixes a meal, or takes his medication if I interfere with the ritual he becomes confused and disjointed and forgetful and closes down. Edith and Marge were both the same way as long as I didn't interrupt the ritual of weaving they could weave

Solar Flash

Some where in one of the books I have read by Joesph Campbell he writes about our creating rituals for those things we do not understand and cannot comprehend. I have begun to notice and remember from teaching several of my older students that they could continue with certain processes because they could remember the ritual of doing and the mind had created a pattern that they could follow without thought or hesitations. In many ways it makes understanding and dealing with My Dad easier.

From A Joesph Campbell interview; "The purposes of rituals are varied; with religious obligations or ideals, satisfaction of spiritual or emotional needs of the practitioners, strengthening of social bonds, social and moral education, demonstration of respect or submission, stating one's affiliation, obtaining social acceptance or approval for some event—or, sometimes, just for the pleasure of the ritual itself."

Cheers and all,
kathe

Thoughts on James Koehler

2011-03-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

The last 6 months has really been extremely sad in some ways and extremely thought provoking in others.

People I have known some I deeply respected-James Koehler, and some I have loved deeply-Marge Cruger have died and some I had just met Sonja Wendt, but knew of.

A week ago was the 25th anniversary of the suicide of a women- Karen Zimmerman- who was my best friend and the Gramma, Aunt of my family. She never understood the hole in our life’s that she would leave when she died. She didn’t hear us when we tried to tell her how important she was to us. Marge who died in August understood what her death would mean, because we had the chance to tell her how much she meant to us and for her to tell us how much we meant to her. I wonder if and what James knew about how we all felt about him and his life's work. Sonia was at the end of her life when I met her, but I enjoyed having her in my class even as I realized it would probably be the last class and the last tapestry she would weave.

I had only a very brief passing relationship with James.

James Koehler was a man I deeply respected and often enjoyed when I would serendipitously run into at him at conferences and talked to him at conferences died. I didn't know him well-barely at all. I wish I had known him better.

He was generous in allowing us (FFP) to use his work in the book that Pat edited and I wrote. The first time I ever really spoke to him was when Pat and I were writing Lines in Tapestry in 2004-5. I had seen his work many times in various shows and exhibits I had been in, but had never met him or talked to him. The first time we talked ended up laughing so hard over a silly mix-up it has stayed with me for years, which often times is so rare. The conversation began when called James to ask if we could use a picture of one of his tapestries in the book that Pat(Spark)and I were writing and publishing. At the time I had never met him and had put the call off for what seemed forever, mostly, because I am in so shy about talking to people that I don't know. We had a really bad phone connection. He asked me what the book was about and I told him lines in tapestry. He said, “But I have never woven a lion”. I said,” but you weave Lines in your work all the time.” He asked if I was sure that I had seen his work. Perhaps, he could suggest another weaver who had woven a large cat. We eventually straightened out the confusion and published a photo of one of his pieces- Oaxaca Stone VII woven in 1999 in Line and Tapestry. But, what a treasured memory. He was still teasing me about writing a book on weaving animals last time I talked to him at CNCH where we were both teaching next door to each other. I wish I had more chances to know him better.

James was 58 years old when he died.

When we discussed the book that I want to write/finish called Colour Movement in Tapestry a year or so ago, he generously offered me the use of photos of his work. He encouraged me by saying that someone needed to write a technical book of techniques relating to colour usage in tapestry. He encouraged me by telling me it should be me and to stop worrying about whether...well, so many things and just do it. I didn't really know James, but I valued his opinion, kindness, his words, thought of him as an extremely capable teacher and his work.I never took a class from JAmes, but I have taught people who have studied with him and been amazed by the knowledge he had imparted to his students.

James was a master technician in using hachures and hatches and combing them with chene’s and mélanges to produce unique optical blends of colour. He was a great teacher because he seems to have always made his students feel they had a voice and could use it in tapestry.

I have been reading what seems like dozens of memorials and anecdote's about the life he lived. He was well loved, liked, extremely intellectual, a sharer and a giver of knowledge. He’s a great loss to the tapestry world and the world in general.

There is a certain rituals that happens when people die we all participate in these rituals. We create remembrances and memorials and try to remember all of the great things the person did for us in his life. Great and important rituals for the living left behind, But, I always wonder if we remembered to tell him/them how special he/they were to us while he was alive and if he believed it. So in honouring James go out and tell some weaver or weaving instructor how they have influenced you and perhaps helped you. Don’t wait for them to die. Celebrate life, because I am sure James did from the little bit that I knew of him!
kathe

Dogs and all

2011-02-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

As usual today started out innocently enough with a need to catch up my blog and finish an article on Optical Blending in Tapestry. Mainly editing from way too much to what always seems to be way too little. Every time I do this I know why the editing process emphasizes to me why I prefer to write monographs. I have just lost 6 weeks of my life to being ill with a cold(?)and then a cough that keeps returning and hindering my work patterns-etc, etc, etc. Well, that is defiantly and rather definitely enough of why the dog ate my homework-moving on.

cutting it out

Anyway, I have stopped and started this poor tapestry-colour study that I seem to have been working on forever and endlessly. I have had to relearn the colour combinations at least 4 times. I am surprised that there isn't a line of demarcation for each new beginning. Granted I did put it on hold while I wove and finished Too Little-Too Late. It has the maybe/possibility of being extremely interesting colour study, but the urge to call it a dog and cut it off the loom or weave it square and start another piece has been/is an intense on going discussion in my mind. Yesterday was close to being the last straw. I was soumacking lines that were suppose to be fragile-tiny life lines of a small almost hidden town in among the mountains and evening fog on Lolo Pass in Idaho. I looked and realized that what should have been small small fragile lines of light were actually big out of proportion lines floating on the surface of the tapestry-not integrating well at all. I couldn't bear the thought of finishing the piece that was obviously AWFUL and a HIDEOUS waste of time. I had thoughts of leaving out of proportion lines since the piece was obviously destined to be ostracized to a deep hidden and forgotten place somewhere in the studio where I would never have to look up on it again just to get it done. Never a good thing.

I have always maintained if you have a dog on the loom-apologies to Chene, no insult meant to the little guy, but idiomatically I haven’t been able to come up with better phrasing-sometimes it is just better to cut it off the loom and move on.

Shelf Surfing

I once attended a lecture while in grad school in the very early 80’s where the professor said and it has always stuck with me, “One of the nice things about the English language is that there has over 25,000 idiomatic phrases with more growing into and being used almost daily so live long and live to create idiomatic speech patterns to drive Grammarians crazy-if you don't who will.” Too bad his name didn’t stick with me or I could actually attributed this correctly to him. With impressive sounds like something from the old Dragnet TV program and Law and Order- glockenspiels hammers and all for emphasis.

box of colour to lighten dark days

So a dog is a dog, but when and how does it become a dog? So for the sake of procrastination and the expedition thereof(My Favourite saints-even though I have never belonged to a faith that had saints, but envied those who do. I Just think everyone should have one or several in case of need. St Expeditus of Melitene or Elpidius of Melitene; Possibly legendary. Unclear whether his name led to his association with expeditious matters, or the other way around. This association led to his becoming the patron of people who had to deliver things on time.St Jude; the patron of hopeless cases, and of things almost despaired of) This blog entry seems to be my way of burning sage-a cleansing ritual- and tying feathers to trees a releasing ritual for the last 6 weeks of what seems like a wasted lifetime

Sage for burning and clearing

Sometimes the feeling of having a dog on the loom is the design that one ends up hating for one reason or another, or perhaps the colour palette isn't right,or a new thread didn't work, or it’s just been on the loom too long, ones skills weren’t up to doing it,

et al, et al, et al, et al, et al.

Sometimes it’s just a feeling that may or may not be grounded in reality. It just sometimes happens.

So I love to procrastinate by searching out the meanings of idioms, before I start to write.

Red Primroses

When I was in Grade School and

Academy and to certain extent while attending WWC, I was not allowed to use slang or idiomatic language, because my parents felt that it was used only by uneducated persons and showed ignorance. The school system I was in felt it made one too worldly when one should be set apart from mainstream culture. One Grandmother felt it showed bad taste and poor manners.. The other never thought of such things as being or having the least importance except as an explanation of where one was from and ones place in society and if it got the point across as quickly as possible.

So the first definition wasn't to my liking and a little too gender specific.

Dog; (derogatory) A dull, unattractive girl or woman. Wow, that’s bad I refuse to even acknowledge this definition, just doesn’t work for me especially in the context of a tapestry or anything-too rude!!

So, as the Queen of Hearts would say off with their heads and the procession moves on. (Alice In Wonderland)

I still had not and haven’t found the perfect idiomatic definition to define a dog on a loom that isn’t offensive, but perhaps that is the point. Ones cultural and location often applies a different meaning or variation to a phrase. I went to an on line Thesaurus and made for me some very enlightening discoveries. Every time I think or weave on this poor piece it gives me an attitude about not having finished something that should have been quite easy-a week two weeks at the most of work.

Main Entry:

dog

Part of Speech:

verb

Definition:

chase after; bother

Synonyms:

different, but the same

bedog, haunt, hound, plague,pursue,shadow,tag,

tail, track, trail,trouble

Antonyms:

"It is ill wakyng a sleapyng dogge." [Heywood, 1562]

"Notwithstanding, as a dog hath a day, so may I perchance have time to declare it in deeds." [Queen Elizabeth, 1550]

“…Cause Every Dog Has Its Day. Like every woman, she gets her own way…”Quote from a Slogging Molly’s song

leave alone, let go

Which led me to wonder, if out of shear
frustration with what was happening in my
life that it wasn’t the piece , but the process
that I was reading into the
piece and perhaps it led me to another
Wikipedia enter(To work at the slowest rate
that goes unpunished. A surprise inspection
of the night shift found that some workers
were dogging it. (intransitive, transitive)”

So, I am putting the scissors away
I am burning sage and tying the feathers to the
trees. It’s me not the piece. I cut out the soumack
and will do needle soumack to replace the
really awful clunk soumack with something
more into proportion with the idea I was trying to
achieve. I am back to being able to finish it and
move on by the end of this week

Dogs and such a side I don’t think that I wasted the time researching and procrastinating. I have always been drawn to both the written language and symbols for words, tarots with their opposite meanings and their definitions.

According to Wikipedia-“an idiom is an expression,word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made.”

Chene's kitten Wry escaping the rain. Who weighs 5 lbs more

Chene.

Or in a slightly easier form to understand-at least for me-Maybe because I wrote it and meandered on in my thought process-I don't even know if its correct, but it is a puzzle and a conundrum for me as a Between. an idiom is an expression, word, or phrase or a symbol that stands for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise whose sense means something different from what the words literally imply. It can also be something hoped for and not seen.

The importance of all of this is that one needs to have an understanding especially if one is a between that one can speak a given language, live in the same country and still be a between, When my life became so totally different from the one that I was raised in I fully became a between on three different levels of understanding-culturally and all it implies, iconically and its identifiers and symbolically both in language, music, philosophically, sometimes idiomatically, and…just between.

When an idiom is translated into another language or cultural its meaning may be changed and not understandable or meaningless to the new cultural or language. Idioms can be literal or opaque. The meaning can be changed or it can mean nothing, or retain a transparency or meaning when literally translated to the new language or cultural.

They can also be polysemes, the common use of the same word for an activity, for those engaged in it, for the product used, for the place or time of an activity, and sometimes for a verb. We do this all the time in English by just turning a noun into a verb.

What I find really interesting is that they are culturally or sub culturally specific specific, not understood by outsiders, and are often based on conceptual metaphors and symbols that can be fluid in their understanding over time, stay locked and culturally specific or become deeply symbolic and iconic.

Chene Playing dare with fetch stick!

And with all that aside, I am still trying to catch up and do all the terribly mundane things such as choose lights for a bathroom, clean a closet the for new access for the attic and heat pump, which I ended up buying a porch light for, because I hated all of the available “vanity lights” available, keep up with Chene's training, find weaving time, write, work on studio, cook meals-it is till tax season, rebuild walls-where heaters are leaving, car repairs-some one backed into my new Prius and left while I was visiting my Dad in the hospital, ffp orders,

et al, et al, et al. ad infinitum.

But, best of all, I have a new soumack piece I have been studying. I picked this up at a flea market- Piccadilly in Eugene. They don't seem to be the least bit faded.

border is probably twined

Soumack patterning the direction it was
woven

Speaking again of dogs--
Quote from a Toby Keith song that I love to read, but hate the sound- I just can’t quite do country western, but at least he finished it. It makes me laugh, which is a pretty good thing.

....One moment in the sunshine when the ducks line up in a row

lucky dog gets a big ol' bed, stray dog gets the porch

every dog has it's day dog, but today dog just aint yours

fat dog, skinny dog, little itty bitty dog, hot dog, kurd dog, weenie dog, bird dog, hound dog, cow dog, bow wow wow dog, wonder dog, barkin' dog, chasing' parked car dog.

every dog has it's day dog, when the big dog throws him a bone

one moment in the sunshine, when your ducks line up in a row

yeah lucky dog gets gets a big ol' bed, stray dog gets the porch

every dog has it's day dog, but today dog just aint yours

every dog has it's day dog, but today dog just aint yours."

Toby Keith

Camellias that are just blooming, but will be ugly tomorrow

once rained on.

Leaves me wondering what Schubert was trying to say with his very beautiful unfinished Symphony in E major (D 729) in August 1821 1340 bar is structurally complete, but he only orchestrated the slow introduction and the first 110 bars of the first movement-wonder if he thought it was dog and cut it off to soon or maybe not soon enough for him.

MayFlower or helleborus blooms in Feb. an added respite
from drab!

O, well at least my blog is done,

Cheers,

kathe

Enuff and then some!

2011-01-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Flying time on a tether. A new concept
in getting nowhere fast. A new toy for me.
What a concept!

Enuff!!! playing around trying to figure out how to make windows live writer work. It doesn’t work for me so I am back to producing performance art on my blog! What is-is and what will be is!

Too Little-Too Late

Too little/ Too late is ready to be cut off the loom. It is finally finished in the last two days. It’s the second part of a triptych. The big piece. It should have been done two weeks ago, but life intervened with a wicked, wicked, wicked cold and completely stalled life. Parts of it are still revisiting me after 5 pm everyday-sore throat and cough, but at least I am functioning.

The first two parts of the

triptychh

Hopefully I can start working on the new piece and getting the studio re- arranged the way I want it. Some progress today I bought a handheld phone that can be by the loom yesterday-very small step, but important. Tomorrow Spencer has promised to help move some furniture and rugs.

one more basket to vege in.

Maybe it was a cold maybe not. It still involved ear aches, goopy, grainy, swollen eyes, earaches, sore throat, and coughing and lots of blowing my nose. I have basically slept for 2 weeks and vegged in bed hoping for a miracle of healing. Just to be told that time generally heals colds better than anything one can do to speed it up. No other choices. Have you ever noticed that the person saying this is not the person in bed with the symptoms, but usually someone….with ponderous pretensions of knowing all? I was going to say some snotty noised kid, but decided that might be misconstrued as a very bad pun or some such word play, brought on by the whole situation-not really funny-just stupid. Urban dictionary:" snot nosed-1) A person that lacks experience or is ignorant of any real world knowledge."

Always one more day

Anyway, this is all really just too boring that everything involving me came to a complete halt. The rest of the world and time traveled on. Etc, etc, et al.

Etymology

From Latin, abbreviation of et (“and”) + alii (“others”) and its forms and derivatives.Pronunciation IPA: /etˈɑl/ Abbreviation et al. 1. And others; to complete a list, especially of people, as authors of a published work.Usage notes-Formerly, this was preferred by some over etc. for lists of people in all contexts. At present the two abbreviations are used synonymously in many contexts for completing lists.Synonyms etc.

3 weeks of growth-not good

Okay, okay time to quit feeling sorry for myself and get on and over it. It’s catch up time again.

Somethings think it's spring
Bee on Blooming Rosemary

As I have looked at the finished piece yesterday and today, it’s been interesting experience trying to duplicate a sunset that is dirty and polluted. Usually I am going for vibrant colours like the 2 Konas that were just juried into the ATA Passages 2 exhibit. In the end I greyed the colour out and used fairly opposite chene to muddy the colour. The next question was shine or sheen vs. dull. When dealing with rayon’s and embroidery floss there is a great deal of drama or lack of drama that can be controlled by manipulating sheen, shine and lack of or dullness. In the process it seems to have greyed down the intense yellows and oranges in the sun just being near them. BUT, greys are always vampires when it comes to colour.

Rosemary messing with levels

I have been having a great time playing with my Camera. Lynn Harts article on Photography on the ATA page is one of the best articles and explanations that I have read in years. I have been having playing with my camera-lights, darks, value changes etc. Taking pictures in the almost dark for different effects of texture.

Rosemary the other end of levels

I am really nuts about the symbol of bio hazards. I like their shape. They look like a stylized flower. A thing of beauty with deadly often everlasting effects.

For some reason I had problems with the puzzle grid. I started with 5 and ended with 7 an appropriate magic number-coincidental loss of place or…(?) LOL

Night light rabbit band
by invitation only

Another thing, The black oily water and the bloody rusty red that was so important became more of a harkening back to the 7 plagues in Revelation 16:3. Not that I believe in Revelations, but there was a time when I could recite word for word the book of Revelations, Daniel, Isaiah and a few other books-it was great for getting extra credit in my religion classes and Path finder badges. I had this quotation running through my head and it took me forever to remember where it was from I was focusing on the pictures of the gulf and kept cycling words like a mantra-over and over. Talk about child hood indoctrination. I was beginning to feel like Shaw in the Manchurian Candidate.

Chene has gotten so lazy in the last two weeks he doesn’t want to get off the bed or the chair I am on. He’s decided he likes being lazy. He was really upset when he had to go down by the river in the rain for his session with the trainer. I was off the hook and taking photographs of the hand signals which I can never remember Which Mike the dog trainer pointed out I should have used my IPOD Video thingy. Hand signals are a series of movements not static-Duh on my part!!! I took 30 million pictures when a video stream would have been quicker and less work. Of course, I hadn’t worked out with Chene so neither of us did as well as we should have in all of that time. Well, Chene did great with the trainer just not with me. It won’t be long until he can function on command without a lead.

guarding the blankie

daffies at night-note moss at side on door matt

Today he keeps anticipating and trying to chase geese in the sky and waiting for the attack of the killer geese in the sky. He’s basically played dead dog, been carried out doors, and chased the cats off of the bed and the window sill for two weeks. He’s been crawling under his blankie when he sees his leash. Not one of Spencer’s favourite things to dig him out so he can go outdoors in the morning and evening.

Frog Prince still waiting!

I think I read everything in the house and some things twice. Spencer had to keep going to book stores and kept bringing me books I had already read. In desperation he purchased a kindle for me. I have maintained for years that I would never use one. One of my favourite Star Trek scenes is Captain Kirk explaining why he prefers books to computers in Star Trek 4. So, yes, I am doing a complete about face and it hurts to think what a hypocrite and pragmatist I can be. What happened to all my Luddite thought patterns. I seem to be turning into a fair weather Luddite. Well, so much for that and enough sniveling--Romance vs. availability, practicality, lack of reading material, boredom, etc vs. instant availability. I sold out to the dark side. It’s no longer all about the feel, smell and the experience of turning the pages. I have now read 5 books on kindle. Books that I have been looking for forever downloaded in less than 2 minutes. I am complete sold on my kindle. Granted several of the books I have read in the last week are too embarrassing to mention the titles, but 2 were not-again books that I had really wanted to read and had not been able to find. Google Genesis and a kindle are incredible. It’s so easy on my hands. I’ can actually use it with one hand while using my iPod/iPhone with the other hand.
I am hopelessly hooked.

ALmost 3 feet of viking knitting
one of those things when you can't thing
of something better to do!

As a good dead friend- Pat Poggi once said turn lemons into lemonade and if that doesn’t work stick them in your bra where they can do some good.

Once upon a time I did silk bowls. Unearthed
from studio detritus removal site to be moved
to a new location and there re- entombed.

And now what. No longer
needed or wanted, but to
good to throw out.
So now what?

Since I have been drug screaming into the nether world- I have spent hours thinking this might be away for a small publishing concern such as FFP to be able to produce more books with less long term waiting for the horrendous amount of books we need to buy at a time to sale in order to make a profit. Or is it like a dream and it will all turn into pet rocks and chia pets leaving one out on the proverbial limb without a paddle and up the creek with or without a saw...or a canoe. That’s not quite right, but I know what I mean. Publishing one book in a small niche market can tie up working capital for years. The surprising part is that people are willing to buy books on kindle in black and white-only and don’t feel the need for a hard copy or colour. BW and is great for the niche market FFP wants to fill for the most part. The kindle can easily be placed by a loom while one works or downloaded into another computer and printed out for hard copy. The search functions are pretty incredible and the thought process leading there far reaching.

Thyme at night!

It’s a beautiful day, but tax season. Spencer’s working and I want to get out in the sun and do something. Tomorrow is his day off. The big question- will the blue sky stay around until tomorrow or…?

Chene's Portrait that I am thinking
about weaving. Great Drama. BAck to studying
Goya's cats for creating hachures and hatches.

Mystery shot. Found it filed under Alaska, but I don't think so. I am thinking about doing this as a sky study into greys whites and blues. A couple weeks ago someone asked me if I had ever done a tapestry of a dog. Well I am thinking it's time to do one of Chene. SO I have picked out the most dramatic shot and one that fits his personality when he's not pretending to be a clown.

Guess that's all for now. I am done. even if I am a week late from the 15th which is one of my new resolutions. busted the first month out. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the year. Asi es la vida...

If the cats are turned sideways all the shading and hair are hatches, hachures and ecentric hatches.

kathe

Endings and beginnings new goals, new resolutions

2011-01-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

Too little- Too late

Back to this for a day or two

Two days of work and the 2^nd piece in my time trilogy is done-Two Little Too Late. That’s the name of the piece not my attitude. It didn't happen today too busy working on the blog and FFP books with Pat so it's another days. It's all of that end of the year stuff that always seems to be one more thing. It will be great to start the new year with a new piece.

My goal is to finish it by Tuesday-now Wednesday- and start the third part of the trilogy and have it done by the end of the month so I can enter both in a juried show.

blue sky all day a rare treat in
Oregon in the winter

The third part is smaller, but in many ways will be harder for me to design, because of the nature of the images. Designing and weaving broken things is something I have never done before. The proper perspective of the unifying broken nautilus/earthstar is going to be difficult study in perspective. An acid eaten destroyed flower is going to be hard. I have a tendency to want to flatten and stylize images because I like flat or no true backgrounds-just the images.
I think it might be a genetic memory thing-if there is such a thing. I am also trying to design a bracelet that incorporates a small tapestry with silver spiders. It’s really hard for me to balance the images of the tapestry design with the silver and not make one dominate the other. I am beginning to think I need to incorporate the top of the hand space into the bracelet and have a finger ring chain hold the whole thing in place so that I am dealing with more than a bracelet. I can see I need to do some real sketching on paper to make this happen. I need to start working on my focusing statement and 20 things I know about the piece to clarify the image in my mind.

Waiting

For the last two weeks I have been waiting, thinking, evaluating, making lists in my head and waiting for the new year. I love new years! I love list and setting goals. I have always been fascinated with new beginnings and leaving the old behind-sort of like a day of atonement for the soul and a new beginning all rolled in to one- an assessment of what has worked and what doesn’t work. I can be amazingly pragmatic when it comes to goals.

Yachat Christmas day

Resolutions and all that Stuff!

Last year was pretty much a great year even though it started out ominously with my maybe or maybe not health problems and being extremely ill-or not depending on which Doctor I listened to. It turned out for the most part to be not. On the other hand the optimist/cynic that I am, perhaps-gr, it was a good thing. It made me realize how finite things can be and how many things I still want to accomplish and my need to create and redefine my direction.

Waiting for the rain to stop!

I pretty much managed to come very close to finishing all of my last year’s resolutions. Several have had to be refined/redefined and several are ongoing, and often difficult for me to do because of the involvement of others who haven’t always understood the need or why the need.

Writing my blog- I am not sure if it is actually helping my shyness or just that I enjoy the discipline of writing the blog-either way I win. So continute the every two week writing. Schedule blog writing on the 1^st and the 15^th of every month.

Finish the Between blog for resumes, work, workshops etc. and set it up to function as my web page. Stop waiting-Because my other web page is a dead issue. I need one I can handle for myself with my limited technical expertise.

Change the name of my studio from Morningstar to Between Tapestry et al so it reflects me and my reality and not my Grandmothers.

That is all that it has grown
since before Xmas. Doesn't it know
it's suppose to be blooming for my next cartoon?

Another is/was weaving at least half day- five days a week- Don’t much care which days, just that I do 5 days a week. Learn to say this is my weaving time. I’ll call or write you back later in my FFP time=leave a message. FFP is in the morning.

Weave one hour a day that is solely devoted to samples and mock ups. I hate weaving samplers, but would find small samples an easier to travel with and pack. The biggest resolve not to give away mockup’s as gifts as I have done in the past.

Grampa reading Xmas books!

Finish moving the studio upstairs and ffp downstairs. Getting FFP out of my tapestry space and down stairs. With the computer and FFP staring me in the face it’s difficult to discipline myself to ignore the computer and the e-mail it generates each day and the tapestry questions that I get from people who read my books. I love answering the questions don’t get me wrong, but once I start one thing leads to another and my weaving time is gone. Finish designing my space and buying the furniture that I need to implement my goals. It will be easier for Pat too. I find it amazing with her knee that she even attempts the steps to the second floor.

Waiting for me and missing the rainbow

Write at least 1-2 hours a day on new projects that deal with tapestry. Learning to remember that my focus in writing is tapestry and all that it entails.

Schedule a given morning for silver and do it. Right now I am waiting on a shipment of silverwire. I started this resolution by buying 3 ounces of silver wire at the inflated price of 31.00/36.00 Dollars an ounce! I wish I had brought last summer at 21.00 an ounce! Finish the box for miracles! And move on!!! Stop waiting for new skills and changing the design every time I learn a new silver skill!! Finish it and move on! even flea market silver is becoming to expensive to buy on spec.

Terminally cute!

Being consistent with training Chene and practicing with Chene. Making sure that I stay on tract. It’s easy to forget those 12-17 minutes a day of repetitive commands until we both have it right. Sometimes that is the hardest goal. Realize that sometimes it’s teaching others that there is a correct way to give commands and over talking it doesn’t work. He’s a dog not a toy that his cuteness engenders in people-a very smart energetic dog! Both Chene and I enjoy walking lazily down by the river both doing our own thing. At other times he’d rather cuddle then work so would I.. Relying on his cute looks to get him what he wants and me wanting just a couple of more minutes of work and then the training time is gone. By summer he should be ready for agility and I can take him anywhere and he instantly obeys the proper hand signals and commands. So his and my trainer says.

Catching the curl

Still waiting

Finally caught the blow hole in the photo!!!

AND the big resolution-one which requires an attitude adjustment on my part and nt realizing I am it. Knowing that my Father needs not only help but my advocacy for him in dealing with others, doctors, caregivers and family members. My attitude has had to change from will you please to-- you have to do this now and why should we do this! Doctors seem to hate that they can’t fix everything and keep coming up with Hail Mary! plays and last resorts without considering what they may cost and cost the patient. Children always seem to think they know better than their parents even if the parent is 86 or maybe because they are 86. I am grateful that Marge taught me all of this before she died by example. Things hoped for and/ or promised may not always be worth it in the end or possible. They are what they are Hail Mary’s and away for the care giver to assuage their guilt in not being able to do anything. Dignity and respect are important commodities that we often strip away from the elderly as they age. I watch Doctors and nurses talking over my father and ignoring him as if he is nothing and can’t possibly have an opinion that is worth listening too. Determined that if his views differ from theirs that they have to be right and do it their way, therefore, I should step in and make him do it their way. (that's a terrible run on, but so appropriate) Aging is an interesting conundrum for everyone involved-especially if it involves a conflict of philosophy(s) and not inflicting one’s own philosophy and point of view onto the views of someone else. The “I know better then you” and what you have ever wanted is hard to step around and or balance sometimes when dealing with the aged. It’s a fine line between protecting and a benevolent (?) dictatorship. So, I'll try and do it better.

And, of course, I have a few very personal goals that will never be anywhere, but in my journal.

finally caught the top of the wave!

What I learned from the last years resolutions. Some times it seems like the whole world is conspiring against me from keeping my goal(s). When that happens I try and journal and figure out why and what and how important the thing keeping me from weaving and goals are. Journals are a good thing! Sometimes it’s knowing what to let go of in a finite life span. Redoing my studio which is/was one of my goals has made me realize a lot of things and helped me rid myself of a lot of stuff that I will never do and will never again be part of my life-painting, basket weaving, and floor loom weaving. So let it go. I don’t need to and I don’t have to do that stuff to be a good tapestry weaver. It’s made realize that the most important things in my studio are tapestry weaving, working with silver to incorporate it into my tapestries and boxes, teaching, writing and, punch embroidery, print making and maybe a few more perfleches of silk paper. It felt so good to give the stuff away and remove it from the studio. Getting rid of old attitudes at the same time, such as I don’t have to be the one who always shares and makes concessions to reach the end goals. I don’t need to paint my Marquette. Even after all these years I still heard the faint whisper of my art instructors from the 70’s and early 80’s. I don't have to be able to do every textile technique other then tapestry perfectly. I am learning to define what my personal goals are-again. If one lives long enough everything goes around and comes around again especially a changing life. I am no longer willing to should have, could have, would have in defining the directions I want to go.

My next step is to write the steps that it will take to accomplish these goals and schedule the steps. I do the same goal setting that I teach in my classes in real life and it still works.

The last is from Joesph Campbell "find your bliss and joy, hang on to it and just go for it". I would love to have a chance to have more time to visit with Joesph in the same setting looking over the hills in San Francisco as the sun went down in the early 80's. Several evenings we talked for hours. The geeky between and the man that understood and was fascinated by betweens. Yes, I know he's been dead for several dozen or more years!

Life is good!

cheers and all.

kathe

Of flying turtles and snails

2010-12-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

Too Little/Too late

Time seems to fly at various times and crawl at others. Perhaps my logo should be a flying turtle. I wonder how that would look. Decided to procrastinate by doing a web search. Anything to not get on or be on task. (LOL!with a sense of irony)There are even videos of flying turtles. But this site was even more wonderful l . (http://www.holisticforgeworks.com/company/ then go to flying turtle ). This flying turtle illustration is very Da Vinci journal like in itself a fascinating piece of avoidance literature in its self. I did find some images of sea turtles whose scaling on their legs/fins looked very much like feathers gone bad.

OR since I am from Oregon and really feeling the unevenness and the slowness of time I could be represented as a flying snail. I refuse to think flying Banana Slug-just to yucky.

Check out the flippers for feathers

Okay enough! I really thought I was thinking an original image that would fit my mood as of lately. Not so there are thousands of images of flying snails and turtles. Even Darwin thought about flying snails according to Nature magazine and scads of blogs. They are a little different then flying turtles as they are the ultimate hitch hiker. Well, at least one breed and most likely a thousand other snail species is the Balea perversa. They hitch rides on birds. I even like the name perversa. I seems sort of apt to what I am thinking lately. Talk about cool images and relationships. The idea was written about originally by Darwin and produced prodigious amounts of laughter to most naturalist. Turns out he-Darwin-gets the last laugh as it is true. It’s an image I can actually maybe see in a tapestry. That is if I ever get into weaving fables ala Aesop. Well perhaps I should just stay with the images of flying clocks.

I am not really this good. These
tables come in kit form.

I am really overdue on this blog by at least a week or more if I posted on the 16^th of November-yes-2010-which I seem to have done. It hasn’t been thorough lack of thinking about the writing. It isn’t that I have been lazily ignoring it. I have been really super busy. I am getting a little bit of weaving done but mostly it’s the switching of the my stuff from the first floor to the second floor and FFP to the first floor. I now have everything up on the second floor for the most part. I have built two table, a small moving drawer thingy for my silver, and hung the grids from the ceiling. Spencer has been making almost daily trips to goodwill with stuff that is still good, but not of use for the direction that I am heading. This whole digression seems to be very much like warping a loom. The longer you don’t the harder it is to get back to the doing.

I have also reached the stage-about a third done-that the new piece fills like it’s going to work. I am over the need to add one more thing. I think the water looks oily, which is one of the things the piece is about. I was fascinated with the red, black, brown of the gulf oil slick against the pristine beaches. The murky sky comes from a photo I tried to make many years ago when living in of all places Bakersfield and heading to Loma Linda over the grape vine. The slide is gone, but the memory of the smoggy sky has stayed. The Chinés and hatches are blending the water and oil quite nicely. I have woven my pristine beach with a few trees and now am working on a dirty-muddied sunset. It felt so good when I managed to get the colours the first time for the beginning or lower portion of the setting sun.

Before time could be between

This piece Too Little-Too Late is part of a series of 3 possibly 4 tapestries that has to with the past, present and future of the world.Nothing like hitting the whole dazzling spectrum of glittering generalities for subject matter. The piece-Before Time could be between with the Sego Lilies or and the fossilized earthstar are the first, Too Little Too late is the present and the future is yet to be done. The theme of the earth star carries through from the past as a fossil into the present it is a nautilus in the future a broken shell. The earth star has at various times been both a talisman and an amulet.

From Wikipedia-"An amulet (from Latin amuletum; earliest extant use in Pliny's Natural History, meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble"), a close cousin of the talisman (Arabic: طلاسم‎ / transliterated: tilasm), consists of any object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner. An amulet (from Latin amuletum; earliest extant use in Pliny's Natural History, meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble"), a close cousin of the talisman (Arabic: طلاسم‎ / transliterated: tilasm), consists of any object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner."

more fog

fog

Turquoise Fog

I have been fascinated with Talisman and amulets since reading an illicit forbidden copies of Scott’s books for this essay the Talisman that were kept in a locked cabinet in the work room of the library at the Academy that I attended when I was a sophomore. (The Talisman is a novel by Sir Walter Scott . It was published in 1825 as the second of his Tales of the Crusaders. ) The only reason I was allowed to read Scott's novels was that I worked for a young literature teacher and his wife as a grader. He wasn’t old enough or indoctrinated enough at the time to realize what he had allowed me to do-break the no novels rule. Those particular Scott books appealed to me because of his descriptive language, but also the beauty of the old books with the gold art nouveau covers and black and white lithographs illustrating the books, the descriptions of minutiae in the lives of the participants, and the smell of antiquity between the covers. I can still visualize the scenes in my head and see the textile banners floating in the wind and hear the musical instruments announcing the battle scenes and see the colours, be fascinated with the symbolic language of heraldry.

Later when I took craft history at OSAC Marlene Kerrigan had me study and write a very short paper on the differences of Talismans and Amulets.

Probably will be late too. Suppose
to bloom before Christmas.

I think they were especially fascinating to me because they were total taboos AND probably broke the 10 commandments as being related to graven images and their worship. I am still trying to figure out how to include them in my tapestries.

Just because it winter and I need a shot of colour. An AZ.
flower whose name I can't remember.

I am designing some tapestry bracelets or cuffs. On the Internet they are calling this kind of thing "karma bracelets". Doesn't make a lot of sense if karma is the law of cause and effect. So prevalent that like gravity we don’t notice it unless we fall. Somehow, I am not sure that is what I am going for. If I weave a tapestry I want it to be noticed, therefore I think I’ll stick with weaving talismans and amulets or forget the whole thing and just go with pretty and striking. I am using the cuff’s that I brought from mirrix looms. I have been trying to find a slightly wider cuff so that the design could be be a tad bigger.

total needful book!

Yesterday was interesting in a weird way- It started off rather badly. Really Really heavy rain!We drove to Eugene and discovered we were an hour late to Verdi’s Don Carlos. It’s a long opera therefore they start earlier. Would have been nice if they had put that little piece of information in the brochure. So now we are faced with going to a makeup in January. Consequently, we turned around and came home. On the way back I spent the hour playing with my very perverse i-phone which would not work. So we stopped at Borders. I purchased the book I-phones for dummies.It really should have come with the I-phone-no manual was included with the purchase. I spent the rest of the day reading and learning to use my i-phone. I am half done with the book. What I would like to know is how on earth the person who sold me the phone could have possibly believed it was so simple to operate that I would intuit the whole thing?!? Anyway I digress. I spent most of the trip trying to take pictures of layered mountains fog and rain. What I am trying to find is still totally illusive. I can almost see the image I want to weave, but it alludes me every time!

Chene with basket command-accompanied by 2 friends his kitty and a pink duster that he has loved since he was 2 months old.

Chene and I started training with an actual trainer this last week. My goal is to have him so well trained by this summer I can take him anywhere. I have one week left before the next session to teach him the proper hand signals for sit, stay, come and heel, also, extra credit for stand so he’s easier to groom and fetch, hold and drop. Some of this he already knows. He’s been heeling on a lead since he was two months old-just a bit further back then proper, but always on a lead. He will sit, but again not on hand command and only if he deems it necessary for no longer the 2 seconds. AND,knows, of course-his favourite basket and get your kitty(a stuffed toy he carries around. get in the basket) Pye and Wry would kick his butt if he treated them like he treats his kitty and duster. Then there is his personal favourite stay for 5 minutes on a pedestal-if it’s several feet off the ground. So, we have our work cut out for us.

An article in VAV magazine came across in a discussion on the tapestry list. It is called the Enigmatic Overhogdal Tapestries. It’s a countered soumack-half pass of linen between the soumack rows. They also called it a snare–weave. With a little research on the net I discovered that the term snare weave mainly is used by people that have read the article in VAV and read the book that is about that particular tapestry. Because the technique was done on a ground cloth everyone at first thought it was embroidery. Interestingly, they decide it was soumack or snare-weave because the pattern weft never pierced a warp or a weft.

Sampler that I use to Teach my
Something Old Something new class.

More fuel for my on going study of soumack and all it's variations.

front

reverse side

Two samples of soumack I have been studying. I think I am going to start a new sampler this week and do more soumack samples. I am especially interested in using soumack as the ground both with and without a counter pass. I will probably start by copying this sample of promgranate pod from one of several pictures of a Soumack rug that Pat Dunston sent to me many months ago.

I think one of my favourite uses of soumack is still the pod I made this summer. I am going to be doing more of this type of work as soon as I finish rearranging my studio. Eventually I want to make a series of large pins or fibulae to wear with the ruwannas I love to wear. I have also seen soumack used for making earrings that are in fan shapes. I enjoy it when one technique such as metal work overlaps into my tapestry work-even though soumack is only tapestry in the loosest meaning of the word.

I did do a tad bit on this one too!

The next month is going to be rather busy. I am writing a couple of articles on colour and tapestry. Still arranging my studio to the way I want it. Hopefully the computers will be moved in the near future from the 2nd floor to the first floor. Trying to finish two pieces for the next series of shows. I am involved in a show that will happen in May or June . It should be an interesting show. It's a group of Oregon weaving teachers and their students. I need to start looking for some of my students work to hang with my work in the show. Spencer and I are making plans to go to San Francisco before the 14^th of January. I want to see the impressionist show at the Legion of honor. There is a Seurat that I really want to see. It’s all about the optical blending he and his followers used. Pointillism is so related to colour blending in tapestry. is so related to chene and mélanges in tapestry. We need to do this before tax season hits.

I think I have written enough on my blog that I can stop feeling guilty. Will just need to try harder to do the next one on time.

END!!