2008/06/16
Golden Fleece in New Zealand
If ever I see it, I'll let you know. Here's the detail. I'm not sure how it works with metal detectors, though.
Sleying Sounds Like Slaving...
For someone with eyesight like mine, (read: BAD), sleying takes forever. It took half the afternoon to sley 120 ends at 15EPI, with all lights ablaze. (Sorry, the NZ Green Party.) Still, it's like eating veggies before dessert.The warp is 26/2 cashmere/silk mix in delicious purple, a tad darker than you see here.
Listless
I subscribe to Dictonary.com's Word of the Day mail out. May 25's word was "listless" which, before this email, I thought meant quite the opposite of "having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless." I'd imagined an anxious, agitated state, partially due to, (brace yourselves), not having a proper To Do list.
In fact, in an almost-upsetting number of cases, the true meaning of the word have turned out to be the opposite of what I had imagined, or worse, how I used them. But that's not the point of this post.
I keep lots of To Do lists, and they are categorized, color-coded, numbered and cross-referenced. And whenever I finish one task, it never ceases to amaze me how three more come to mind. And I have other means of reminding myself what else I haven't finished.
Creating draft posts has been one such mean. Whenever a thought comes to mind, I create a draft, sometimes with the crux of the matter, sometimes just the title, sometimes just a photo, fully intending to return to it shortly and write something meaningful. At least to give you something to chuckle about.
Some of my 20-odd drafts posts were a year old, some 18-months, and I accumulated even more in May. And I just deleted them. I deleted all my drafts, except the two where I want to do something with the photos.
I'm trying to be OK with not verbalizing some of my experiences; that's Julia Cameron's influence. I feel if I can't explain or recap an experience, it will have meant nothing, or I'll forget it, but she says the experience is more personal when not "cerebralized". I'm trying to feel OK not posting every little thought I have about weaving, art or my life here, but letting some float in the air; I'm trying to see if they will float in the air even if I don't put down in writing.
And remember I didn't have a Wish List? Well, I kind of do now; nothing as sophisticated or intelligent (ha!) as my To Do lists, but at least I have it. Then, last night while I was reading, a vague concept of a To Be list came to me. I'm not quite sure what I mean by it; it could be a bunch of goals, like "What Kind of a Weaver I Want to be by When" list I started around 2001. It's not a "I need to be finished with ..." list, though.
Trying out a new way of looking at things, you know...
In fact, in an almost-upsetting number of cases, the true meaning of the word have turned out to be the opposite of what I had imagined, or worse, how I used them. But that's not the point of this post.
I keep lots of To Do lists, and they are categorized, color-coded, numbered and cross-referenced. And whenever I finish one task, it never ceases to amaze me how three more come to mind. And I have other means of reminding myself what else I haven't finished.
Creating draft posts has been one such mean. Whenever a thought comes to mind, I create a draft, sometimes with the crux of the matter, sometimes just the title, sometimes just a photo, fully intending to return to it shortly and write something meaningful. At least to give you something to chuckle about.
Some of my 20-odd drafts posts were a year old, some 18-months, and I accumulated even more in May. And I just deleted them. I deleted all my drafts, except the two where I want to do something with the photos.
I'm trying to be OK with not verbalizing some of my experiences; that's Julia Cameron's influence. I feel if I can't explain or recap an experience, it will have meant nothing, or I'll forget it, but she says the experience is more personal when not "cerebralized". I'm trying to feel OK not posting every little thought I have about weaving, art or my life here, but letting some float in the air; I'm trying to see if they will float in the air even if I don't put down in writing.
And remember I didn't have a Wish List? Well, I kind of do now; nothing as sophisticated or intelligent (ha!) as my To Do lists, but at least I have it. Then, last night while I was reading, a vague concept of a To Be list came to me. I'm not quite sure what I mean by it; it could be a bunch of goals, like "What Kind of a Weaver I Want to be by When" list I started around 2001. It's not a "I need to be finished with ..." list, though.
Trying out a new way of looking at things, you know...
2008/06/14
Connecting with the World
I read this post by Connie, when I was supposed to be writing my morning pages. I read something exactly like this in JC's Walking in This World yesterday while minding Sue's gallery.
As I already admitted, I find it harder to connect with "the earth", nature, trees, birds, and easier to appreciate people and their life stories and the things they make or do. I swing between discarding everything else and concentrating on making cloths that pleases me (though I won't deny that ideas come from without), and just chatting away, catching up with friends. These two me's don't talk to each other much, and sometimes I can't read myself.
Last night, I was up until 2AM looking at the StatCounter watching the hits to my SSVE post grow. It wasn't the numbers, but that the numbers were steadily climbing as I watched that thrilled me. In fact, all week I felt giddy as if I had 12 cups of good coffee intravenously; while hanging the scarves in the gallery, my senses were overly stimulated and I had a not-so-virtual headache. My general well-being was well, so I can only deduce it's the photos and the statements that did it. And then I couldn't wait for the big "get-together" and got more and more restless.
I told Connie, as regards my "making" relating to my "connecting; "I have to kick, scream and shout to 'make' something, and then I feel like the only person in a great big church, my voices (sic) bouncing off the walls, and people standing in the shadows whispering and discussing what to do with me." This morning I feel as if you all have filled this big cathedral and all our laughter is bouncing off the walls and the big dome. I feel connected.
As to deconstruction, ummm.... I'm a newbie, I'm still trying to construct things well, so I'll give it a miss for the time being.
* * *
The second song we played at our wedding was "Maria". Thought it might be pertinent.
As I already admitted, I find it harder to connect with "the earth", nature, trees, birds, and easier to appreciate people and their life stories and the things they make or do. I swing between discarding everything else and concentrating on making cloths that pleases me (though I won't deny that ideas come from without), and just chatting away, catching up with friends. These two me's don't talk to each other much, and sometimes I can't read myself.
Last night, I was up until 2AM looking at the StatCounter watching the hits to my SSVE post grow. It wasn't the numbers, but that the numbers were steadily climbing as I watched that thrilled me. In fact, all week I felt giddy as if I had 12 cups of good coffee intravenously; while hanging the scarves in the gallery, my senses were overly stimulated and I had a not-so-virtual headache. My general well-being was well, so I can only deduce it's the photos and the statements that did it. And then I couldn't wait for the big "get-together" and got more and more restless.
I told Connie, as regards my "making" relating to my "connecting; "I have to kick, scream and shout to 'make' something, and then I feel like the only person in a great big church, my voices (sic) bouncing off the walls, and people standing in the shadows whispering and discussing what to do with me." This morning I feel as if you all have filled this big cathedral and all our laughter is bouncing off the walls and the big dome. I feel connected.
As to deconstruction, ummm.... I'm a newbie, I'm still trying to construct things well, so I'll give it a miss for the time being.
* * *
The second song we played at our wedding was "Maria". Thought it might be pertinent.
2008/06/13
Ailments
La Crumpet is right, I must stop talking about ailments. I was thinking all day that in one of your blogs a few months ago I read someone else saying if she ever read about illnesses once on a blog, she would never return to the said blog, ever again. Fair enough. Me, I don't mind much; I get to know the writer a bit better as a person, but NOT AS MUCH DETAIL AS I'VE BEEN PUTTING IN HERE, PLEASE!!But there is a strange sense of release when you spell it out; an "OK, that's done" kind of feeling. I used to keep another blog for just that kind of blathering, but I've been preoccupied with SSVE so I've been neglecting that one. Must separate the beautiful with nasty! At any rate...
SORRY, EVERYBODY!!
Not saying it won't happen again, but not for a while, ok?
Small Scarf Virtual Exhibition 2008
Please follow the links to view the scarves:
Bety Antonio, "Deep End of the Loom", Miami, FL, USA
Crystal, "Baby-Hugs", PA, USA
Terri Bibby, "Weaving a Life", Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
Bety Antonio, "Deep End of the Loom", Miami, FL, USA
Crystal, "Baby-Hugs", PA, USA
Terri Bibby, "Weaving a Life", Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
La Crumpet
Rose Pelvin
Betsy Frizzell
Judy Bool
Esmae Emerson
Taueret
Diana Klau
Lynne B
This blog is now by invitation only.
This blog is now by invitation only.
Meg Nakagawa
The Big Gallery Flickr sets for this challenge has been deleted; some of the links were modified.
The Big Gallery Flickr sets for this challenge has been deleted; some of the links were modified.
Illusions
Oh, what a difference a day makes. As soon as I learned the sound is more in my head, I've been hardly aware of it. It's there from time to time, but it's like a ghost in my closet or a monster under my bed; I can now tell which are the real noises and which are mine.
The audiologist (Gill in pink) loaned me this machine, which I understand is called a white noise machine. It has about 8 variety of water-related sounds, one of prairie evening sound with a chorus of crickets, and a train sound. Last night I thought I could have fallen asleep without it, but Beloved loves gadgets so we tried it. We didn't like the water sounds, and the crickets were too noisy so we settled on the train sound. Funny thing is, we grew up going everywhere on trains, so, A) it was unnatural to hear the train sound and not feel the motion; we even jiggled our limbs to create a bit of faux-train vibration, which made us laugh so hard we were wide awake; and B) if you're used to trains, you know that with every tiny curve or incline/decline, the sound changes, and there was none of that, which bothered me at 3AM. And, now that I'm not worried or bothered by the forklift, my regular anxieties started to come back a bit. There is just no pleasing some customers, ha ha ha!!
Still, it was a new experience, and while I don't know if I'll use it all the time, it's nice to have it as a backup when the ghost of forklift comes out from under my bed; I much prefer it to chemical inducements.
Golly, I remembered just as I was typing; when I was a baby and didn't sleep, Dad would take me on a train ride, I'm told! Talk about a full circle.
Another illusion. I long had difficulties "accepting" that diagonals and curvy twills were optical illusions. At the very beginning, I thought they were some kind of wired warp manipulation. Then when I understood the "theory", I began to see how it worked in drafts. But it took weaving over a dozen warps, and then explaining it to non-weavers, to slowly and reluctantly accept that diagonals and curves are like filling in squares on a graph paper, or pointillism.
And just when I thought the world was a safe place again, Deep End posts this!! I just had to borrow the pic, but since this is knitting, I'm going to enjoy it and not try to understand it.
Photo posted with permission.
SSVE opens at 7PM tonight NZ time. I don't know why but I always envisioned it opening in the evening, so if you came a little earlier, I apologize.
The audiologist (Gill in pink) loaned me this machine, which I understand is called a white noise machine. It has about 8 variety of water-related sounds, one of prairie evening sound with a chorus of crickets, and a train sound. Last night I thought I could have fallen asleep without it, but Beloved loves gadgets so we tried it. We didn't like the water sounds, and the crickets were too noisy so we settled on the train sound. Funny thing is, we grew up going everywhere on trains, so, A) it was unnatural to hear the train sound and not feel the motion; we even jiggled our limbs to create a bit of faux-train vibration, which made us laugh so hard we were wide awake; and B) if you're used to trains, you know that with every tiny curve or incline/decline, the sound changes, and there was none of that, which bothered me at 3AM. And, now that I'm not worried or bothered by the forklift, my regular anxieties started to come back a bit. There is just no pleasing some customers, ha ha ha!!
Still, it was a new experience, and while I don't know if I'll use it all the time, it's nice to have it as a backup when the ghost of forklift comes out from under my bed; I much prefer it to chemical inducements.
Golly, I remembered just as I was typing; when I was a baby and didn't sleep, Dad would take me on a train ride, I'm told! Talk about a full circle.
Another illusion. I long had difficulties "accepting" that diagonals and curvy twills were optical illusions. At the very beginning, I thought they were some kind of wired warp manipulation. Then when I understood the "theory", I began to see how it worked in drafts. But it took weaving over a dozen warps, and then explaining it to non-weavers, to slowly and reluctantly accept that diagonals and curves are like filling in squares on a graph paper, or pointillism.
And just when I thought the world was a safe place again, Deep End posts this!! I just had to borrow the pic, but since this is knitting, I'm going to enjoy it and not try to understand it.
Photo posted with permission. SSVE opens at 7PM tonight NZ time. I don't know why but I always envisioned it opening in the evening, so if you came a little earlier, I apologize.
2008/06/12
It's in My Head
For a nearly a decade now, I'd lose sleep some nights because I thought the port was too noisy. Port of Nelson is known to operate forklifts and cranes overnight when they load/unload large ships; it's a common complaint. Except Trish, whose parents live overlooking the port, said my house is facing the wrong way so I shouldn't be hearing the port. Then a staff at my gym told me she used to live a few houses away from our place, but her husband couldn't sleep because of the noise from a saw mill a few km away, so for the last two years I blamed the saw mill. Except when we drive by the place on weekends, they are shut closed, and I wondered if they actually worked overnight some times. Then last Christmas Day, I could not shut down the noise and figured it couldn't be the saw mill. As well, in the last few years, when we were in the country where silence should have been deafening, (and it's easy to find places like that in New Zealand), I felt as if I brought the forklift on holiday with us.
About a month ago, I was complaining about this to Nancy, and she thought I might have tinnitus. I had never heard of it until then, but once I learned of this -itus, everywhere I looked people are talking/writing about it. So I signed up for a hearing test and had it done this morning, and found out I do indeed have tinnitus, and this is something that's largely inside my head, caused by age-related hair loss.
It's like this. Inside our inner ear, which is often depicted like a swirly seashell, is a thin tube filled with fluid, and there are tiny hairs growing on the inside of this tube. These hairs vibrate and tell the brain what we are hearing. (Ummm... can't remember what the ear drum does relative to the hairs, but the drum probably causes vibration of the fluid in the tube??) We loose the tiny hairs naturally as we grow older, and when gaps appear on the inside of the tube, sometimes the brain compensates by making up noises. It's like phantom pain of a severed limb. Here's a picture, but without any hair.
This is caused by physiological change, but can to a certain extent be reduced or ignored. The audiologist (Gill in pink) recommended that I play music or have the radio on at a low volume, but what I like the best is silence, which doesn't work very well. She laughed because for the last few months, on the odd mornings when I didn't hear the forklift, I got worried and listened for it, and almost felt relieved to find the annoying thing. Tinnitus goes hand in hand with depression, insomnia, anxiety, etc., so I've had the whole package.
I borrowed this machine that's supposed to create low-volume noises, just enough to make the forklift not dominate my nights, but she told me not to wear ear plugs, because they make me concentrate more of the darned thing. And from her reading, there has been no definitive food-noise link substantiated, but individual patients have found foods which trigger the noise. Said giving up caffeine seems to help a lot of people, so I could try that for three weeks if I so wished.
The good news is, we don't have to move house. The bad news is, I'm loosing hair in places I didn't even know I owned. And there is no hair-loss treatment for the inner ear.
Oh, and as to my hearing itself, nothing wrong with it; actually very good for my age group. Which means when Ben mumbles, which he does a lot, it's his problem, not mine.
About a month ago, I was complaining about this to Nancy, and she thought I might have tinnitus. I had never heard of it until then, but once I learned of this -itus, everywhere I looked people are talking/writing about it. So I signed up for a hearing test and had it done this morning, and found out I do indeed have tinnitus, and this is something that's largely inside my head, caused by age-related hair loss.
It's like this. Inside our inner ear, which is often depicted like a swirly seashell, is a thin tube filled with fluid, and there are tiny hairs growing on the inside of this tube. These hairs vibrate and tell the brain what we are hearing. (Ummm... can't remember what the ear drum does relative to the hairs, but the drum probably causes vibration of the fluid in the tube??) We loose the tiny hairs naturally as we grow older, and when gaps appear on the inside of the tube, sometimes the brain compensates by making up noises. It's like phantom pain of a severed limb. Here's a picture, but without any hair.
This is caused by physiological change, but can to a certain extent be reduced or ignored. The audiologist (Gill in pink) recommended that I play music or have the radio on at a low volume, but what I like the best is silence, which doesn't work very well. She laughed because for the last few months, on the odd mornings when I didn't hear the forklift, I got worried and listened for it, and almost felt relieved to find the annoying thing. Tinnitus goes hand in hand with depression, insomnia, anxiety, etc., so I've had the whole package.
I borrowed this machine that's supposed to create low-volume noises, just enough to make the forklift not dominate my nights, but she told me not to wear ear plugs, because they make me concentrate more of the darned thing. And from her reading, there has been no definitive food-noise link substantiated, but individual patients have found foods which trigger the noise. Said giving up caffeine seems to help a lot of people, so I could try that for three weeks if I so wished.
The good news is, we don't have to move house. The bad news is, I'm loosing hair in places I didn't even know I owned. And there is no hair-loss treatment for the inner ear.
Oh, and as to my hearing itself, nothing wrong with it; actually very good for my age group. Which means when Ben mumbles, which he does a lot, it's his problem, not mine.
What Inspires Me
While I was away at the retreat, I also tried to get a little inspired by my surrounding. Marlborough Sounds is a beautiful place, especially the tiny inlets on crystal clear mornings or the surrounding hills overlapping and producing delicate gradation that look like your value study homework. Last weekend's weather was average, and I found the writers and their stories far more inspiring, to the point I was designing scarves that may look good on a character, or a ruana that may suit in a place in a story.I know artists the world over have been inspired by nature and their environment, and in New Zealand, this is a very important factor in art-making. And I do like the odd leaf or rock or the seascape, and I take copious amounts of sunset photos, but to be honest, I have to force myself to connect what I see there with what I make, and I feel like a fraud when friends say things like, "Oh, I see the waves."
Well, let me tell you that I get very inspired by architecture and people and voices and stories. I grew up in the city and I am still a city kid. So every once in a while I have to remind myself that it's OK if I don't hyperventilate at a bird or mountain, because I do get excited by a 2-inch human-interest story, or the voice of an former East European correspondent, for example, and start drawing on my sketchbook right away.
I'm sure I'll be reiterating this point again, as I have to keep reminding myself.
(By the way, the subject in this photo was one of the two non-writing participants at the workshop, so I think I'm supposed to declare the photo and the post are not related, or something...)
On Prices
So, at the Writers' Retreat, where I tried to convert the angry-old-lady energy into something creative, I started writing very short memoir/essay-ish bits. I thought I might as well turn the anger into therapy; Julia Cameron says I can, so it must be true. And to some extent, it worked; once I started to write, I was trying to remember specific incidents, places and people that I became absorbed in the act of writing, though the writing itself was crap because I was there were a lot of years and ages and otherwise important-only-to-me numbers. Of course better writers picked up on that during the critique; I delete cumbersome bits like in my fiction writing, and the numbers felt like stones in my shoe, too.
Another thing I discovered on the weekend had to do with Julia Cameron, too. In one of the weekly tasks, she had me write down 50 things I'm angry about. I hesitated, because I thought I'd remember a whole lot of things and get madder and madder, but anything The Artist's Way has made me do, at worst they weren't effective, but many were fun and sometimes even therapeutic, so I did. Woudlnt' you know, even the shortest-tempered-oft-hopping-mad person like I cannot easily come up with 50 things to be angry about. At around 29 I started to giggle, and about 37 onwards, it was a struggle to finish. The last two or three were very lame, or thing I've long gotten over, but I had to come up with 50, so I did.
The next morning, while I was trying to write my Morning Pages, (more on Julia Cameron/The Artist's Way vocab in another post soon-ish, I promise,) Ben turned the TV on and settled on the TV One news. We don't have a TV in our bedroom at home, and we don't watch the news in the morning, we listen to National Radio, and if that's not enough, the host of the morning news show on TV One is a most irritating man. So I waited for Ben to flip the channel, and he didn't, and it was loud, and I was getting more and more irritated, so I stop the stream-of-consciousness writing and started a list of 50 things I hate about Ben, and you know what, it worked! By Item 17 I was making excuses for him, and by Item 33, I was saying out loud, "Yeah, but it was a that one time," or "But he hasn't done this in a while," or "OK, this is the same as Item 7". I was laughing so hard and had to repeat a few things to finish all 50.
If you have a temper half as hot as mine, I do recommend this.
Oh, the prices. Well, I had four inquiries for scarves from fellow writers. They wanted a price list or a catalogue, which I don't have, so I promised everybody I'd email. To be honest, I feet embarrassed about discussing prices in person, (except my one-off big shawls; I got used to that.) And I can put in more details and possible alternatives in an email.
I've come to terms with not undercutting gallery prices, and I don't feel apologetic about the prices she put on my work. Jay Farnsworth is a gallery-owner in an old-fashioned way; she is a mentor to her artists and will give advice even with work not intended for the Red. I feel loyal to her and to our relationship. But I still have a hard time, sometimes, talking about them, face to face.
Some of what the writers wanted, however, were relatively simple and I panicked a little because ethically, as a person and as an ex-Catholic school girl, I should tell them, "That's really not my kind of weaving, and you should go to so-and-so who can probably do it for less." On the left shoulder, however, is Evil Meg giggling, "Oh, goodie, a 4-shaft twill; easy money."
I emailed each writer yesterday, describing my plans for each piece, stating two options (fiber contents) and prices, and asked to reply to me if they were happy with the prices. And so far I heard back from one, to go ahead.
It's not attractive talking about money, I know, but I don't know if this is something I'll ever come to terms with. How do you put a price on my handwoven scarf? I think I need an agent.
Another thing I discovered on the weekend had to do with Julia Cameron, too. In one of the weekly tasks, she had me write down 50 things I'm angry about. I hesitated, because I thought I'd remember a whole lot of things and get madder and madder, but anything The Artist's Way has made me do, at worst they weren't effective, but many were fun and sometimes even therapeutic, so I did. Woudlnt' you know, even the shortest-tempered-oft-hopping-mad person like I cannot easily come up with 50 things to be angry about. At around 29 I started to giggle, and about 37 onwards, it was a struggle to finish. The last two or three were very lame, or thing I've long gotten over, but I had to come up with 50, so I did.
The next morning, while I was trying to write my Morning Pages, (more on Julia Cameron/The Artist's Way vocab in another post soon-ish, I promise,) Ben turned the TV on and settled on the TV One news. We don't have a TV in our bedroom at home, and we don't watch the news in the morning, we listen to National Radio, and if that's not enough, the host of the morning news show on TV One is a most irritating man. So I waited for Ben to flip the channel, and he didn't, and it was loud, and I was getting more and more irritated, so I stop the stream-of-consciousness writing and started a list of 50 things I hate about Ben, and you know what, it worked! By Item 17 I was making excuses for him, and by Item 33, I was saying out loud, "Yeah, but it was a that one time," or "But he hasn't done this in a while," or "OK, this is the same as Item 7". I was laughing so hard and had to repeat a few things to finish all 50.
If you have a temper half as hot as mine, I do recommend this.
Oh, the prices. Well, I had four inquiries for scarves from fellow writers. They wanted a price list or a catalogue, which I don't have, so I promised everybody I'd email. To be honest, I feet embarrassed about discussing prices in person, (except my one-off big shawls; I got used to that.) And I can put in more details and possible alternatives in an email.
I've come to terms with not undercutting gallery prices, and I don't feel apologetic about the prices she put on my work. Jay Farnsworth is a gallery-owner in an old-fashioned way; she is a mentor to her artists and will give advice even with work not intended for the Red. I feel loyal to her and to our relationship. But I still have a hard time, sometimes, talking about them, face to face.
Some of what the writers wanted, however, were relatively simple and I panicked a little because ethically, as a person and as an ex-Catholic school girl, I should tell them, "That's really not my kind of weaving, and you should go to so-and-so who can probably do it for less." On the left shoulder, however, is Evil Meg giggling, "Oh, goodie, a 4-shaft twill; easy money."
I emailed each writer yesterday, describing my plans for each piece, stating two options (fiber contents) and prices, and asked to reply to me if they were happy with the prices. And so far I heard back from one, to go ahead.
It's not attractive talking about money, I know, but I don't know if this is something I'll ever come to terms with. How do you put a price on my handwoven scarf? I think I need an agent.
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