A Weaver Named Lynn

I have a very easy time signing up for courses, but a hard time finishing them. Case in point is the NZ guild's design course, which is designed to be completed in about 4 or 5 months; it took me 28 months. Lynn was the education coordinator who wouldn't let me drop out, and every since, we've kind of kept in touch.

When Bonnie Inouye was in New Zealand, I really wanted to go to an additional workshop, which Lynn was coordinating, but in the end, I couldn't afford it. Lynn was also signed up for Randy's workshop last October, but her health deteriorated and she couldn't come, so I've never met her in person.

Dianne just told me that Lynn passed a way last weekend. It's very sad to loose a friend who has continued to be such a source of encouragement and humor, but it was also inevitable, especially considering the seriously ill health she'd been combating.

This is the very first time I lost one of my weaver friends. I'm spending the afternoon dressing my 4-shaft jack with the cashmere warp I finally measured last night; I'll spend it thinking of the wonderful things she must have woven in her life, and the pleasure she her textiles must have given her and everybody who came in to contact with them. And the many times she told me I couldn't withdraw from a course I've started.

Get a Life!!

I got two things in the mail yesterday: one was a statement of how much I can expect to be paid from the Red this month; the other was the accountant's bill. Needless to say, I, and the Red , must sell many, many, many scarves and shawls just to pay my accountancy bill.

I couldn't sleep a wink last night. I've been worried about money for about five years, and I work in an office part time to supplement the income in 2004: I hated the job, I was no good at the job, and even though I only worked in the afternoons, I was far from being a productive weaver in the mornings. So once again, I've been wondering if I should chuck all this in and get a job.

It also has to do with the fact that I'm looking at my own half-century this time next year, and if we would have continued to live and work in Japan, we would have had some amount saved up for our old age, because, well, that's what you do over there.

But the long and the short of it is I cringe at the idea of going back to an office job, (unless it's very part time or very temporary with people I already know and like: any offers?) because I tend to get very absorbed in whatever job I have and when I work in an office, that becomes my life; I can't combine that with other creative activity very well. The only alternative is to weave stuff that sells. And for me, for now, it's the small cashmere scarves for the Red that's a seller.

I need to hanker down and do a bit of "grunge" work as well as enjoying the creative process and be an artist and live the life of a kept woman; I need to bake bread as well as cake. And, hey, there are much worse grunge work than weaving tiny cashmere scarves. Once the warp is on, I'm going to have a good time anyway.

So, there, yeah, the short, chubby one!! You!! Get a life!!

I wasn't Born to Weave

Immediately after the exhibit, I started questioning why artists exhibit their work, and asked anyone who would indulge me. I remember getting a simple but an immensely satisfying solution from Jay Farnsworth, but I still don't have the answer, though I don't regret exhibiting.

Two weeks ago I went to see Lloyd, because something started to bother me tremendously. We've all heard artists say they were born to paint/sculpt/write/sing/dance, haven't we? Well, I never felt like I was born to weave. I like weaving, and I think I'm doing ok for the number of years I've put in so far, but I haven't felt that this is my vocation; in fact, I never felt like I had a vocation.

I remember during my days in a convent school, even though I didn't want it, I was frustrated I didn't get the calling. I knew that until I found my vocation, life remained diluted, meaningless, and on hold. And I still believe a vocation comes wrapped in soft white lights, angelic female voices, and even therapeutic aroma. I don't mind working hard to be good at it, but at some point, I would like to know if this is it, or not.

So I went to ask, well, complain to, Lloyd that I wasn't... real. The thought came about because I knew I didn't exhibit my work as representing anything of me the person; my cloth, as nice as I think some of them are, are not me, but merely what I make, what I do, a culmination of my technical knowledge and aesthetic preferences. As intimidating as it was to exhibit, I never felt my shawls were some mini-me's, or that my person was in some ways on display for scrutiny. (Except for my audacity to have a solo exhibit at my skill/knowledge level; or more specifically, to have an exhibit of shawls woven on all on straight draw.)

And so when I hear artists console me about how hard the life of art-making is, how we are constantly putting ourselves on show, I feel like a fake, that I'm pretending to belong to a club to which I'm not invited.

Yikes.

Finding a New Norm

Between October or November when I started to prepare for the exhibit and that evening on the first day of my exhibit when I finished "Deep", I was frantic, so I had no problem setting out an intelligent work schedule; I didn't need a schedule. I got up, went to whichever room I had to for whichever task on hand, and worked. My studio is next to the laundry, so we always had clean clothes, but they came out of the dryer and got put on the couch straight away, so for at least the month of January, Ben picked one shirt every morning, and I ironed one shirt every morning. The rest of the house was ignored.

I thought I deserved a little break, so after my parents left, for a few days I took it easy. I'd go back to bed after Ben went to work, and read magazines and glanced at weaving books. I roamed around the house in PJs all morning, with my trusty mug in hand. I just roamed, a little disgusted with the mess, but did nothing. I bought a beautiful book on bookbinding, and read it cover to cover.

Then I cleaned, vacuumed, ironed and got ready to resume a normal life. Except I didn't know what a normal art-making life was; I wasn't sure what my new norm should be. Because I'm home, it is always easy to start the day with a bit of housework, especially on a Monday mornings. It's getting cooler, which means I bake bread, and sometimes start a soup or stew while I do the dishes in the morning. And then I start cleaning the cupboard, and, wow, it's 3 in the afternoon.

I tried a regimented schedule: morning, loom time 10AM-12PM; afternoon, design/study time 1-3PM; loom time 3.30-5.30PM. This was slightly more productive, but not at all pleasurable and even if I had a good idea, I had to stop working on it and move on. Perhaps if I continued this regime a little longer, so my mind/body might have adjusted to it and the routine would become natural, but I was restless and I wanted a little more play, so I gave this up.

It's been downhill from there. I'm actively avoiding weaving now. The gallery needs more cashmeres; my sample exchange was due 28 February; two clients are waiting for me to contact them about baby blanket commissions, and there's a cashmere order from Japan pending (and winter is over in Japan!!)... And there's an Area Exhibit (small scale, but at present, the most important annual event for me) for which I should be preparing, in addition to the Guild's annual theme, and the Guild's other fiberart project... And I still don't want to do anything.

I did a tiny bit of bookbinding, and painted a couple of nice pages in the visual diary, and started some friends blogging and set up a quasi web site for one, and joined the Toastmasters; all of these have been good and enjoyable, but no weaving. And I can't explain why.

I'm Still Here

Hello. It's been such a long time since I posted about weaving. Tim and Claudia got Tim's web presence up just before they left on a long holiday, and they're due back next week, so that's how long.

I haven't not been thinking about weaving; in fact I found nine post drafts this morning, some with titles only, some with the first few sentences, and I remember writing two or three more and deleting them. But I haven't been weaving much. So what have I been doing since the end of the exhibit?

Since my parents left, I finished my income tax filing (which, as usual, took 2.5 days after 2-6 weeks of thinking about doing it); cleaned the house (this took a bit longer, and so far it's been just preliminary cleaning, no blitzing) and the studio (ditto); read up on and played with designing a corkscrew twill; wove three cashmere scarves for the gallery; finished/fringed a whole lot of stuff that have been sitting around for up to a year, and washed/finished half of them. I've also had a prolonged dental crisis, for which I could not get an appointment until last Wednesday, and a plumbing/draining disaster caused by the Nelson City Council digging up the road directly above my water main; I'm hoping at least the practicalities of the water saga will be resolved today, and the swelling of the right half of my face to go down completely. But what a boring list.

Creatively, I was art-ed out. I didn't want to plan weaving; I wasn't even enthused about thinking about weaving. I also had a hard time shooting photographs for our photo blog, so I went through the motion and didn't worry about the quality. And for a while, I didn't touch my camera, nor my computer.

I tried to weave off the warp ends that accumulated on the big loom; there were between one and three meters left of each of the four exhibit warps, and thought I would have fun making pieces of fabric just for myself. Not so. At all. I forgot how to have spontaneous fun, and I couldn't pick just-for-fun wefts: I knew why weft A melted into the warp and showed off the weave pattern, and why weft B shimmered, but I no longer had gut feelings, and for the life of me, could not see what I liked, and that is so uncharacteristic. So, after two samples for a warp-end fun piece, I managed to weave a tiny piece of fabric off of the last purple variegated warp used for "Deep". That was one full day's work. Day Two went a little more smoothly, as I decided on one weave structure for all the rest, and I concentrated on the weft colors only, but still, I never anticipated anything like that. In one piece, I used a rather rough blanket-singles in my favorite mid-navy-blue; it wove up much coarser than the merino and possum/merino/silk combination I've grown accustomed to, but the colors look delicious. Sadly, I haven't been able to wash these fabrics of the plumbing problem, but I will show you some when I've finished them.

Tim Wraight Web Presence

Tim Wraight, sculptor, master boulanger, friend, has finally got around to getting a descent web presence. About time! There will be more pieces added in the near future, so watch that space.

Lloyd Harwood Again

And while we're at it, here's Lloyd Harwood at his Arts Council office again. I already posted a photo of him, but you see, Lloyd is a wonderfully smiley man, and to me, this is the face I adore; plus, that Nightingale green mug (that's what we call that color in Japan) is semi-permanently attached to his right hand while he's in the office, so a photo without it didn't do justice.

I haven't seen him since the last day of my Exhibit(ion) but I'm holding off visiting him because I am weak and I fear I might sign up for another one too soon.

Debriefing with Martin

I went to see Martin Rodgers of Arts Marketing (Nelson Bays Arts Advocacy and Marketing Trust) for a debriefing today, but I can't remember much. I just reported how things went with the Exhibit(ion), what I would do if I were to do another one, and briefly touched on the perception of handwoven textile thing, but just so briefly. And we discussed what I hope to do in 2007. The only thing I remember Martin saying was that I probably should do another Exhibit(ion), solo or group, before too long.

It felt strange talking to Martin about my Exhibit(ion), because I'm so far removed from it now, but I do appreciate any chance for a chin-wag with this busy man.

Jay's Morning Room

This is Jay Farnsworth of Red Art Gallery, my Fairy Godmother, preparing for a painting show opening night starting in 90 minutes, in the tiny kitchen of "The Morning Room" tea room, (working title), in the corner of her gallery.

There have been a fair few galleries I liked in my life, but never as much as this one, and Jay is the first gallery owner I've gotten to know. While I was a student, I loved reading biographies of artists and writers, and was fascinated by their relationship with their agents and publishers. Fascinated, but never really understood, until I got to know Jay. She seems to know what I'm trying to say before I know what I'm thinking; she's sympathetic and empathetic, and has a great sense of humor. And she's a perfectionist and self-confessed control freak. What's not to love!!

I had to go in this morning to swap a sample yarn pack on one cashmere scarf: neither of us noticed that for the last month and a half, a lime-green scarf had yarn samples of brick-red yarns stuck on it.

(JB, Jay was aiming for mid/late March, but the Council told her the lino flooring needs to be installed by someone licensed to install linos in commercial buildings, so there's a five-week wait, but she's still negotiating the timing.)

No Direction is the New Direction

As well as avoiding doing my tax return due next week, I'd been moping, stomping and pacing while pondering the question of my next direction, when, on Friday, I ran into Jay Farnsworth of the Red Art Gallery at Zest Cafe on Bridge Street. I do a lot of thinking as I try to explain things to people, (which is why counseling works for me), but Jay is one who is able to make me understand what I mean or what I'd been thinking art-wise almost instantly. So in the short time we waited for her three Caffè latte to take away, two trim, one regular (possibly the other way around), I see now that I don't want a specific aesthetic direction this year, but that I want to go all over the place learning new skills and weave structures and improving my techniques, so that when I do decide to have a direction or a theme, I will be better-equipped to express them.

It's so simple, unassuming, unpretentious and so satisfying.