Sales or Jinx?

We're back from a sneak preview on Kath's party, (so many cars we had to park down the road,) and then taking down my wee exhibition and unloading the stuff downstairs, before we head back to the party, and then on to Tim Wraight's 50th birthday.

Guess what? I hung six small scarves, four medium ones and three picture frames, but there were only four small ones today. I was overjoyed I sold two, (because, honestly, I wasn't expecting to,) when the volunteer-on-duty said there was no record of any sales so they must have been pinched! Immediately I thought these cottons are really jinxed, and the only reason why I didn't get any pinched at the Suter was because we secured them so firmly. Then she spoke to someone and there's a chance the sales were recorded in their regular sales notebook, rather than on the exhibition sheet.

So, watch this space, I guess. Good thing there is a photograph taken by Fibre Spectrum staff showing six!

Leaving Home in an Hour

The day has finally arrived. It was a long time coming. I enjoyed taking part in her process. And man, if I thought being in visual arts was hard, life in performing arts seems like a punishment, because the whole point is being there and doing it. Conditioning of emotional and physical health, for one thing, is beyond me, and most importantly for me, she can't work in her PJs! And unlike hanging an exhibition and then going home for a long nap, she needs to try to secure as many gigs as she can from now.

I'm also glad this cycle is over. Kath has been sick and tired of the preparation stage for a couple of weeks, and I was not doing a good job of keeping her excited about this prep part any more. It'll be nice for her to be able to move on and, among other things, write new songs.

Towels, Towels!!

Earlier this week I realized this is the Thanksgiving week in the US. So I set the final closing date is set at December 6, just in case there's someone who's almost there, but have to abandon plans. (Or for super slowpokes like moi.) For those of you who participated so far, thank you very much!! You'll be hearing from me between now and December 7 regarding your exchange partner.

Mine are coming along quickly, at least one with a very Pacifica look which I'm very happy about. After much to-ing and fo-ing about the structure, I've downloaded a bunch of lovely drafts from Handweaving.net and have finally been able to enjoy stress-free weaving. But my towels are on the slightly huge/ginormous side - 16.5 inches wide and 75cm long before washing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mumble Mumble...

I'm finding the assignment of colors and proportions excruciatingly difficult. I want to go with red/yellow green and purple/orange-or-yellow in between black and white-and-black areas. I think. I don't know if it's the water color pencil or my living room lights or just me, but I can't come up with anything I like. The angel on my right shoulder says, "Go brilliant like Kaz", and the other angel on the left says, "Harmonize, tone down; you know how to," and I can't decide. And this is just the preliminary color-on-paper stage; I know it'll be a different story once again when it's the actual cotton and dyes.

Meanwhile, due to bad communication, I think I bought starter dyes from two places; well, they are small amounts so hopefully I'll get though them in no time. The first arrived and I took them out just to photograph and I was sneezing and itching already. This is going to be interesting.

Curious, though. Is this like indigo looking green before the yarn is exposed to air?

Things and No-things

Read it here; it feels so strange reading my thoughts in someone else's voice. But I agree wholeheartedly about utility of things I make, even though no-things can fetch higher prices. And alert me if you spot this blogger's name or nickname; I can't find anything.

Sometimes I Forget to Shut Up

Last weekend, I introduced myself to the UK on-line guild; I wrote:

Hello from Nelson, New Zealand. When Margaret's induction email included Intros, I promptly went to the File section and read some, then thought, "Oh, I can't add mine HERE," so I just plunged into Kaz's workshop. Which was ... rude...

I've followed Kaz's blog for two and a half years and always wanted to be her student. So when someone (Leigh?) blogged about this on-line workshops, I jumped in, in a characteristically slow manner.

I am from Japan, spent about 10 years in Minnesota and Arizona in my childhood, and have been living in New Zealand for 14 years. I am a weaver who is intimidated by colors, but since yarn options are limited here at the bottom of the world, I've been thinking I must learn to dye to make my weaving less boring. As well, I went to a week-long Randall Darwall workshop in NZ in 2006, and feel my experience will have been wasted if I don't at least try beyond analogous/monotone weaving. Likewise I like Kaz's brilliant, saturated colors, and I've got to at least give that a go.

My white cottons and dye sample kit should arrive towards the end of the coming week. (Things move kind of slow around here, and as regards yarns, as long as I'm ordering white, I had to, you know, add "nice to have" colors to make the package beautiful when I open it.)

Last night I started to play around with water color pencils, and I know working out the colors will be the hardest, terrible-est, trying-est part of the exercise, and I had to have lots of long breaks. Still, bring it on!

Sometimes I forget that not everything electronic is my own personal blog, so I went on a bit, which I didn't notice until I posted it and read others' intros. Mine's like four times as long as everybody else's...

I'm still to-ing and fro-ing with my cotton guy, (actually the Mrs), because I'm asking for some discontinued yarns I know they still have, but long story short, this order will be shipped at the start of next week, fingers crossed, so I can start winding my Ikat warp.

The extra colors I was looking at was meant to be a treat, because I can't remember buying any yarn this year, since the last lot of cottons, plus I've been thinking of Lloyd's awards. This week, however, I received their newsletter stating all yarn prices are going up substantially in December due to the rapid fall of the Kiwi (New Zealand $), so I've been toying with the idea of buying more of the 2/60 yarns in the next 8 days.

It goes against everything I've been working for in the last couple of years; to reduce stash so I can clean out and reorganize my stash room into a workable studio, buying yarns I need only for commissions. But my cottons are going up 20%, one type almost doubling, and I know I will use them in some of my projects next year. I'm collecting all the pennies from under the furniture and down the crevices in the car, and walking around with my sample card, half smirking and half horrified. I'll have to bite the bullet in the next 24 hours or so.

Bust Times

POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE, SO I RECOMMEND DISCRETION.

Back in 1994, I took a recreational lecture course in Tokyo on the history of Japanese floral arrangement. The lecturer was, I gathered, high up on the Ohara School, and he'd been in that circle perhaps longer than I had been on the planet, but he never mentioned his academic credentials that's supposed to impress Japanese audience; he was just the nicest, humblest, but a darned smart man; I still have all my notes but I should have had a tape recorder to capture all his insights.

Among other things, he directed our attention to the newer direction of Japanese history, knowing the Japanese imperial family has Korean descent seeing Japan as a dumping ground of the powerful and influential that fell out of favor every time China/Korea had a regime change. He referred often to historian Amino Yoshihiko who started this "movement" studying regular people's lives in Medieval Japan, so no official documents and high literature, but things we used and pictorial description of regular folks. The Amino/Folk history showed a very different picture of the Japanese poeple than what was normally accepted even by ourselves. And this, in the 80's and 90's, was still a rather bold view.

To say the Imperial family is from Korea is similar to saying Jesus was Jewish; it's factual, but some take offense. The course opened my eyes, thankfully, to how much our history was rewritten to deify the Imperial family, and that it took place not recently but most probably over the last millennium-plus. I also feel reassured to learn more links to China/Korea. (By the way, anthropologists still don't know where the "race" calling itself the Japanese came from - I think there are at least three theories; I wouldn't be surprised if all of them are correct. )

In 1994 we were well into the Big Recession that started around 1990, although the government needed a bit longer to get its giant head around it. We also had a rapid succession of major Imperial events: a funeral in '89, weddings in '90 and '93, after a 30 year absence of such pomp and silliness, (the last one was a wedding in "59), and gazillion tax yen went into these shows.

The lecturer calmly told us to look back on our history, that it was when things were dire for the masses that what see call art/culture flourish. I've been in New Zealand since the end of 1994 so I don't know about the latest recession culture in Japan. But if we're heading towards a world recession, you and I should capitalize on it.

Recession? What Recession?

Decaf Flat White made for me at Morrison Street Cafe on Hardy Street, on Wednesday. I had another go with my own decaf flat white yesterday, and I waited forever for the coffee to stop pouring, (didn't it shut off by itself last week?) and the milk was watery but not frothy. Geodyne, it IS an art, listening to the milk steamer in particular...

So, recession. My bank balance looks as "sucky" as it always has for the last decade, and as Ben works for a quasi-state-owned institution we were never part the supposed big boom of the last several years in New Zealand, so there is a good side to being a money-strapped artist: I haven't noticed the recession.

On the other hand, I can report that in these bust times, there exist folks who are really untouched by the bust, and a heck of a lot of them than I ever imagined. I see more more red dots on the larger paintings than the smaller ones, and another big art piece may go next week. And though these are hardly prices that would make even the local news, I'm happy for artists and the gallery, and it should be good news for art in general. But I am continually gob-smacked because I've never been in a position to know, for want of a better word, "rich" folks, (sorry for being so vulgar, but I this is how I see it,) and I feel like a downstairs kitchen help getting a glimpse of a upstairs evening gathering. Well, good on them for spending.

Mind you, we're told this recession hasn't hit New Zealand as early/badly as it has other places, yet, so maybe we're enjoying the last shopping spree before the Big Bust.

Anyway, here's hoping the Big Spending will come textile-way, too.

Layers

I believe in KISS. Even though I'm long-winded. You shouldn't have to read between the lines of this blog, or while I blabber on in person. Even when I speak in Japanese, even though directness especially by women is frowned-upon; I had a nickname of "Miss Straight-to-Business" in IBM Japan and I thought it was a compliment!

Being lazy and impatient, my weaving practice consists of 1) buying nice colored yarns, 2) mixing and matching them in a pleasing but straight-forward way, 3) weaving, washing and pressing, and 4) delivering it to a show or a gallery, sometimes while the scarves are still moist. In other words, if you made a flow chart of how I work, it's a straight top-to-bottom line. About the only embellishment I've done has been a bit of beads either in the fringes or in the selvedge. And still I manage to be the slowest weavers I know.

I've followed Connie Rose's blog for a while; she has a contemplation rod; see the second last pic here. Since yesterday I have some inside (?) information on the process of one of Kaz Madigan's scarves; I haven't checked if she's documented how she arrived at this scarf, and she's been blogging a while so it may take me all summer to find out. Now I'm working on this color thing, and as a result I feel positively, mind-blowingly shallow.

I feel shallow and linear, (it has to do with efficiency,) and superficial and a bit of a cheat. Granted, before Saturday, I didn't see the attraction of layers, (though I've liked the look of these weavers' work,) and I was aiming for a different look. Suffice it to say it's the first time I connected the L-word with my own work, but can you imagine how much more personal the end product is, how much deeper the satisfaction must be when a piece is finished? And how unique each piece is?

So, layers: good for more than what goes into my suitcase. But a long way to go.

Work Today

Work at Red Art today. Jay was away, so it was Rosemarie and me.

Jay left me a list of three things to do. However, I couldn't finish any of them. 1) I couldn't remedy the printer problem by cleaning the head via the application. It's possible this is a problem with heat accumulating under the counter around the printer, and the teeny bits of ink clogging the heads. I'm not a hardware girl, but about a year ago when Ben thought our printer was shot, as a last ditch effort I asked Ben to take out the head, we soaked it in warm water overnight, and voila, we're still using the printer. But the printer there is newer and more sophisticated. 2) I was to upload three more artworks in the current exhibition collection, (yes, Lloyd Harwood!!), but though there were JPGs of the correct names, the photographs were all of the entrance of the gallery, and not of the paintings. And 3) she wanted me to have a look at installing a new modem, and I didn't touch it; I'm strictly apps! But in retrospect, perhaps I should have given it a go. I know how to read instructions, and I may have been able to do something, though, you know... hardware... probalby not.

However, (drum rolls, please...), I learned to make coffee with our serious coffee machine, and I now have renewed respect for all the baristas who ever served me, except the ones that left big bubbles in my frothy milk. They are serious machines. Theoretically I can make, with the help of a cheat sheet, short black, long black, flat white, latte and cappuccino, but only the real coffee; I know where chai, decaf and hot choc are stored, but I didn't learn the portions, and I know where hot water comes from, but not sure where tea is stored. So, if you happen to be at the Red on Monday afternoons and mysteriously Jay and Rosemarie disappears, and if you have plenty of time and patience, and are hard up for a cup of coffee, you may find me behind the steaming machine. But I'd save it for dire emergencies; I'm the last resort.

I can pour a mean glass of water.