Pending, processing, and at what point procrastination?

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