Saturday

Picture of the day. I want to make this my profile photo.

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I sent out my envelopes yesterday.  I hope my recipients like them. Turns out there were more paper than textiles, and all three are similar but not the same. They are the kind of gentle hints I love to find in my day to day life; the kind I might carry with me and doodle directly on, or on ideas based on, or do something similar to using my own starting points.

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Friendly hello on my Facebook this morning from my first-ever-serious-job boss Bruce read: "Happy something or rather ... Thinking of you and Ben and hope you are weaving an unimagined trail of absolute chaos and mayhem over there and will do even better in 2013. Love Bruce and Judy"

I worked for Bruce at IBM, in Tokyo, in China Operation, the body that became IBM China; he was the second ever Kiwi I ever met and a big part of why Ben and I are in Kiwiland, though he, Judy and half of his clan have lived in Queensland, Australia for a number of years. Bruce was a-Blokes'-Bloke/Best-Boss-Ever/Semi-Dad/Big Brother/Mentor and A Big Influence as a young adult, immediately after college. Judy was the first person to order a commission piece, back when I was still a closet weaver in the mid 90's. I haven't woven her order yet as she knows art, NZ weaving and Japanese art/culture/history all too well, and I haven't figured out a way to mesh all my knowledge and skills to demonstrate some, if not all, of the above.

I had a lovely afternoon with their Oz Branch in Brisbane and disclosed to Judy for the first time that though her order had never been far from my mind, I have only recently come to feel I can start to explore what I could weave for her. I was astounded when Judy brought up a small piece of Kawashima I gave them one Christmas to go with a pot, and told her one of my Big Weaving Goals has always been to weave something that contained something of a Kawashima feel. A theme for 2013.

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We had the last drawing lesson of the year yesterday, and I keep surprising myself by drawing faces. The wee group planning a tiny exhibition in 2014 is going to meet for a lunch soon. Yesterday I kept roaming from one bookshop to another looking for one good novel I would want to read, or one beautiful cookbook I can justify treating myself to, and I found neither. (Having enough at home I haven't explored being one big reason.) But an idea crept into mind; a book or a series of portraits.

Really?? Seriously?? Me??

We had to write very short bios as part of the application for the exhibition, and some in our wee group struggled as they had never done "artists" bios and we helped each other. Thinking back on that process, my thoughts hovered over artists' profiles and biography written by someone else, even by people who never met their subjects. Perception of/by another. Artwork vs writings by artists. My love of reading about van Gogh the Man vs stick-my-finger-in-my-throat dislike of his artwork.

I'm never happy with the faces I draw in class, (oh, alright, all but two or three drawings a year,) so I see how this is a potential Mammoth in the Room, but it's just an idea. And the format can be interesting: identical paper/size/media, different faces; a handmade book; some kind of a visual commonality; or a hidden message/symbol in all. But I want a small project; the one that is physically the smallest in the exhibition and have the appearance of the least thought and effort behind. To ponder in 2013.

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Two cooking show have been on the telly this morning. I learned what an Italian meringue is; it has water in it! My cookbook lust is lifting its big head again; a baking one with beautiful photographs.

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I hated the last cashmere scarf I was weaving so much I abandoned it; after about 80cm, I stopped that piece and started a simple scarf, nothing to write home about, but at least a "usable" scarf. Some self-flagellation with 2/26 100% cashmere and playing Mozart's Requiem really loud for a whole afternoon, I'm moving on, but to a similar idea. We'll see. It's not 2013 on the big loom yet.

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Do please share with me your emotional/conceptual reactions to such things as profiles, biographies and portraits, especially about those done of you by someone else, whether the person knows you or not. Or you working on someone else. These are going into a new notebook, I think. Thank you very much for your help in advance.