Murphy's Year

I'm sorry, the original post here on Tuesday was terribly defeatist and meaningless, I'm overwriting it, except for the part where...

"Thursday last week at the gym, I fell off of, or more like slid off, one of these stepping board things, from the great height of about 2cms!! Suffice it to say, I've been limping over Easter. It reminded me of years ago when my friend Sally found hilarious that her daughter Sarah used to trip over "a string" when Sarah was learning to walk. Sarah, cute; me at the gym, not so."

I was shocked to see yesterday in my loom notebook I hadn't sat at the loom, any of them, since around 10 Feb; that's a whopping 6 1/2 weeks, and the longest even for me for some time. I must remedy this slack weaver-ness.

Speaking of Being Poor...

The next edition of Nelson Guide Book is due this year. We got a big blurby email chock full of marketing talk yesterday, and the gist is they will print twice as many books, retail price will be half that of the last edition, the smallest placement will be 1/4 page instead of 1/6 page, and to be listed will cost twice!! as much as the last, all because they're improving the book for us art practitioners, (by increasing exposure, to be fair.)

So I don't mind if I'm being biased, but I can't help thinking the decisions were made by marketing consultants who charge my annual income just to put these few words together, and by established artists who have an annual marketing/advertising budget. To me, it's only the first step Arts Marketing is taking, concentrating on marketing and making money by selling Nelson art collectively, and not so concerned with protecting and enhancing the artists' work and environment individually. A really big shift from Martin Rodger's times; perhaps he saw this coming and left Nelson.

So, I won't be in a nice shiny book this year. Unless I win the Lotto.

I'm kind of regretting signing up for a few workshops this year, and the Symposium in Dunedin soon, but I do have so much fun, and hopefully learn a lot. Oh, yeah, the design workshop post/s; coming up shortly.

Coffee with Kath Bee

I had Coffee with Kath Bee yesterday, for the first time in quite a long time, and for the second time in over six months.

I learned about Kath during the Artists Retreat in June 2006 when she and Liz Kendrick performed. Later in the year when Kath got her first CD made and emailed everybody, I took this opportunity to buy her CD, and to ask her if she would please perform once during lunch time at my exhibit in January/February 2007 for free. I figured, a venue for her to perform in the middle of town, and a non-textile attraction to get people into my exhibit would be mutually beneficial.

We talked a few times, and she performed three times, during lunch, every Thursday, at my exhibit, for free, and I got her started on blogging and uploaded her songs on My Space before she went on to have a professionally-designed web page.

We got started in our prospective "art" about the same time, so I wrote before that I feel we were two babies born around the same time in the same maternity ward, under the watchful eyes of Doctor Martin Rodgers. Kath, as a kids' song writer, in due Zilk with Liz, and more recently, in the foursome The Nancies, have become fabulously popular around here. Kath is going on a couple of tours around New Zealand visiting schools, her second kids' songs CD out mid-year, and The Nancies are planning to get their first CD out later this year also. Kath has written a number of school songs for the schools in the region, and it appears a North Island school may get one written by her as well.

Before and after my exhibit, we met at least once a week, usually amidst all the mess in my living room. On my birthday last year, I went to one of her school gigs to take pictures. But then I got involved in a few exhibitions, and she started to get more gigs, and try as we did to attempt to get together, we often couldn't, or in fact, not much at all.

I love Kath as a singer and song-writer; her lyrics are catchy, but in many of her songs, there are words, phrases and concepts that just stick and won't let go. and she's a terrificly positive, bubbly person. But what I appreciate is the camaraderie we share in making our ways in the paths we've chosen; this is a relationship I have with nobody else I know. Yesterday, while we compared our schedules for 2008, we also B!+©^ed and moaned about being poor. And laughed a lot together.

I haven't been able to get to her gigs lately for one reason or another, and we don't read each others' blogs much any more, but I must remedy what Liz calls my "slack fan-ness".

The Nancies were among the groups that opened the recent Opera in the Park. (Kath would like to say they opened for Dame Kiri.) Kath is in red on far right, then Liz, then petite Katrina in black disappearing into the background, and Jane, who was my ukulele teacher.

*****

Kath Bee Links: Songs4Kids website, her Kids Songs blog, her blog for children, The Nancies blog and Kath's MySpace.

I'm a Victim of Art Theft ?!

I had an absolutely spectacular time at the weekend Design workshop; I'm trying to collect my thoughts and get my photos ready for you to see.

Meanwhile, I just got a call from Deb Hunter, sounding somber and serious, to tell me the scarf on the far left was stolen on Saturday! And just that piece from the entire exhibition.


Deb was flabbergasted when I chuckled and told her this would make an interesting blog post. I can't help myself; I think it's kind of funny.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES...

I got my new glasses, or old frames with new lenses, this morning and I can't believe how clearly I can see. I keep forgetting these are new. I no longer have to peer over the top of the frame, or guess. This is wonderful!! I should have done it a year ago, but I honestly didn't think my eye sight had deteriorated this much.

I used to seldom make mistakes in threading, and never in sleying, but the last six months there were a couple or more things going wrong on virtually every warps! I honestly thought it was my mind, my head, or my attention span. Maybe, just maybe, I couldn't see what I was doing and was feeling my way around my loom? I'll let you know in a little while.

I'm off to the Design Workshop early in the morning, and will return late Monday after my RD presentation. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Blur

The florescent lights have been hard to work under; after half a day, I get a big, dull headache. I'll have to investigate some more . But tomorrow I get my new glasses, (well, old frames, new lenses) and hopefully that will improve things a little.

Like taking sharper photographs.

One More from the Beach on Monday

Unlike the beach photo posted on Tuesday, this one I only autofixed color, exposure, contrast and levels in Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor, and it looks nothing like the beach I walked on, but I love the colors.

I don't know why I'm so surprised that the pattern look so similar to waves; I guess I expected the exposed area to be more wind-swept. I can't remember exactly, but I doubt it was a calm on Monday, as we've been having gusts almost all day all week.

On Labels

I started to sell my work, to send them to exhibitions, and to receive commissions in a matter of two months in 2005. I was happy, but a bit overwhelmed, and needed help.

Early in 2006, ceramicist Rose Griffin gave me sage advice, from how to approach galleries and shops, to product presentation, to the miscellany of owning and running an art/craft business. On woven labels, though, she was adamant; I must have them made to show I'm serious. I don't particularly like labels, as they create an A-side and a B-side, and I was going to make individual, hand-written tags to attach by a thread, but she recommended I look around carefully.

One scarf I liked so much I begged it off of my mother has this label, and for years I wondered what Kathy Williams' studio in Wales looks like, and what she's weaving now.

So I took Rose's advice and had one made, and I still have about 250 years' supply. Back then, I was only weaving large shawls, so my labels are big. I had a great time discussing colors, fonts, wording and placements with Glenda Philipps of Peterson Labels in Auckland, and she was unbelievably patient and as committed to making exactly what I wanted as I was. And I like my label.

The tag is usually attached with the yarn used in the warp, but I used ribbons for Twilight Market. Care instructions and yarn contents are either handwritten or printed on a computer-generated business card; a small plastic bag containing yarn sample is also attached. This is my maximum set; some don't get sample yarns, and exhibition pieces may come with none of these, depending on exhibition rules.

For about a year I've been weaving a lot of tiny 6-inch cashmere scarves, mostly for the Red Gallery, and naturally I don't attach my giant labels; Jay Farnsworth is not worried, because she, too, is not a fan of labels. But I've been thinking of a small label ever since I saw this:.

Randy's is a small label, used even on, I believe, his larger shawls, and I was stunned by the simplicity and the beauty of it, as well as where they are attached (not at the end where it might be overly visible but on the side), and how (not sewn on, but with a type of soft glue.)

I've been flirting with the idea of small label, especially since I've experimented with other narrower scarves; I'm particularly fond of my cotton ones.

In a moment of madness, I contacted Glenda again, and after weeks of discussion, she sent me two samples. The problem was, I love the subtle Sample B, but the subtlety defeats the point of having a label made; besides Sample A uses the same color scheme as my big label, so theoretically I should stick to it. Well, I did what I do when I'm unsure about colors; I put them all over the house and looked at them in different lights all hours of the day. For about a month.

In the end, I couldn't decide, so Glenda let me order half and half; I'm getting both color ways. Because my fiber is mostly cashmere, merino or the possum mix, I didn't ask for the adhesive backing, so I will still sew them on, but I can't wait to see my gems.

Oh, the business card. Martin Rodgers always insisted I get some printed professionally, but he didn't like the weaving draft logo, so we were at a stalemate, and then he left town...

How Many Ways Can You Do Me Wrong

I wrote that when I was weaving the yellow/teal cottons, things were going so badly I started to make a mental list. That afternoon, I had well over a dozen things, but I never wrote them down and now I can remember only a few.

One was "warp is threaded through the space above the eye of the texolve heddle"; another was "warp is threaded through the space below the eye of the texolve heddle."

Before I had a raddle, I sometimes sleyed them through a reed and wound the warp on the back beam, then threaded and re-sleyed. One time, I forgot about threading and tied the warp on the cloth beam and wondered why the treadles didn't work.

Earlier one, the most frustrating thing was when I'd drop the shuttle: sometimes I, and the shuttle, came back up the wrong way and I ended up weaving in parts of the loom.

The funniest thing I ever read in this department was on one of the lists in '95; it was a beautiful spring or autumn day and the studio window was wide open. The weaver threw the shuttle with joy and it flew out the window. Her studio was on the second or third floor!

Bless her. Bless us all.

Short Fat Weaver on an Artist's Date

I grew up in Yokohama, Japan, and though it has some pretty spots, I didn't live in particularly beautiful neighborhoods. So when I ventured into this art/weaving journey, I was suspicious of artists who said their work is inspired by nature. My immediate response: "What a crock!"

I heard too many stories of mainly rural children receiving personal instructions from Mother Mary, dressed suspiciously like the sisters in our school, to go somewhere or do something or win a war, so I'd come to regard "inspiration" as something one experienced after being struck by lightening.

Even whilst living in Nelson, I stupidly thought it would be easier to experience such awe-inspiring nature if I lived in places like Minneapolis, or Montana, or New England, but what was I to do here? Still, I desperately wanted to be artist-y, to "see things differently" and thus embarked on the biggest hoax of my life.

Those of you who have done Artist's Way know our creativity guru Julia Cameron makes us take ourselves on weekly Artist's Dates. In 2002, I tried that, and the entire 12-week program. In addition to going to galleries or the library, (which I always enjoyed), in addition to playing with paint or shooting a roll of B&W film, (for which I discovered renewed enthusiasm), I tried going outside to observe "nature".

For a kid who grew up in the big city and spent long hours on the train going to school and then getting back home, then growing up to swap school for work, this was a difficult talk. Looking back, even in my 10 years in Minnesota, I experienced nature through wind chill factors and not a whole heck of a lot else, (except during the third week of September, when even I strolled the streets and down Mississippi River in slack-jawed amazement.) I wasn't in the habit of looking at nature, though I've always appreciated architecture.

So in 2002, I invented a persona: a successful, taller, svelt weaver who moved quietly and observed the world. I can laugh about it now, but I really had to play-act. I walked alone, deliberately slowly, on Tahunanui Beach. During these walks I stopped and stared at one spot or one thing, then moved 10 or so meters forward and stared again, explicitly training my eyes to look and pretending to understand. I wasn't sure what exactly I was meant to see, or if I'd know when I was "inspired." But I did a lot of this. But on the rare occasions when I did find something mildly intriguing, I was disappointed because nature was never as exciting or precise as architecture.

In August 2006, Ben bought me a small digital camera which has helped me enormously, even though what I thought most interesting can out to be not at all so. These little experiences may not have the excitement of a lightening, but they are pleasant and painless, and accumulate to make me stay aware. Nature isn't so bad; it has its own rules, different from architecture; it's a little kinder, maybe gradual, and sometimes so subtle. And in Nelson, it's far more accessible than good architecture.

I've been playing with the idea of taking my sketchbook out there, because I know the drawings and paintings need not be accurate or presentable, as long as I enjoy the process. I have experienced seeing things more carefully, if not differently, when I sketch. And the slowness of handweaving has taught me to enjoy the process as well as the result.

I've come a long way in this respect, and I am pleased with myself. I have no art training, I didn't pass art in my second term of First Grade, and my extended family collectively turned its back on visual art long before I was born, because "we are people of languages and education."

I still envy people who can pick up a pencil and start drawing without care, people who were encouraged to paint or sculpt, people who inherited the ability to see things differently. I'm not a natural, so it's always going to take effort, but that persona disappeared in the last few months without my even noticing it.

I had fun at Tahuna Beach yesterday morning. No sketchbook, as I just jumped off the bus at the spur of the moment on my way home from the gym. And I love paw prints.