The endless storms and ice and various natural phenomena which have made our lives one long cancellation in recent weeks have had their effect on the cabin fever quotient. Pretty high in this house.
Urgent need of color other than gray scale
So I decided to make lemonade. Move all the yarn into the studio, move all the weaving and spinning gear into the studio, move all the embroidery items into the studio. Move all the little storage units on wheels containing beads and other art materials into the studio. This involved many trips up and down many flights, the studio being on the third floor. My back insists that my cheerful oh well, this is good exercise, can be overdone, but nemmind.
So after succeeding in getting all kinds of items nicely stowed up there, and getting a few great art ideas out of handling items, I was just settling the little drawers of seed beads in place, when my hand flipped out and knocked them down. This is a little neuro thing that's been with me all my life, sudden jolt of hand with no warning, awkward, but not usually cause for alarm.
This time it created a bead soup out of what had been a nicely arranged little drawer of beads and containers. The jolt whipped the drawer out, dumped it, forced the containers open, and oh dear. But once I'd swept them back into one mass in the drawer and noticed what a lovely mosaic they made, I calmed down.
Meanwhile, back down on the second floor, while I was organizing the next trip upstairs, dear Duncan the big black cat, decided to climb the plant staging to get to the window. Knocking down two large plants, completely upside down, their water reservoirs pouring everywhere mixed with potting soil and broken pots and curses, the plants gamely trying not to cry.
Much clean up ensued. And I had to remind myself 1. it's really hard to strangle a cat and 2. in all his years with me, about 12, this is the first catastrophe, pun intended and 3. such first world problems.
So the shakuhachi effect reigns. The mixed up beads have triggered art ideas. But no pictures. Not enough presence of mind also there was a certain urgency about cleanup.
For new readers unfamiliar with the term shakuhachi effect, it's an attitude relating to the shakuhachi flute, a meditative instrument, which holds that nothing is an interruption to the music of life. Everything fits in in some way, even when it's hard to see that. So better to embrace all the events rather than grimly try to live through them to the other side. It's been a very useful mantra to me over the years.
More work in the studio today. I've found that the best method is to decide before going up there what I'm going to tackle, so that I don't get into a blur in a minute.
Stretchers, printmaking and watercolor paper in rolls, and some great roofing paper which makes excellent prints, plus assorted plexi pieces for plates, mats and matboard.
Today it was about frames and stretchers, and framing material, and in the process I found a weaving I did ages ago and had left on the picture frame loom. Since I wanted to donate the frame it was on, I removed it from the frame, and found I quite liked it, so it now has a place downstairs.
Since people are often interested in dimensions, this piece is 38 inches h. by 14 inches wide. It's crocheted in double crochet, constructed like the shopping bags I made, then I stretched it on the frame then wove in raw roving -- you see that top and bottom, and yarns, the yellow geometric form on there, then finished it with brass chain draped in front. All the materials were donated by other artists!
I'm donating enough materials to set up a nice monotype making program for adult artists! inks, extender, plexi plates, brayers, plastic aprons, matting and framing materials. And a ton of really really good paper, the kind that's hard to afford.
Also rubber stamps, liquid acrylics, kids' easy printmaking scratchboard, sun printing paper, stickon dots, all sorts of fun! all ages catered to...
Anyway, this is getting to feel better now, though it's hard to close the door on my past art, even though it will open the door to the next adventures. I have to remember the nautilus, my iconic image, where the sea animal completely closes off the last compartment of
the shell while building the next, bigger compartment. This is a nautilus moment.
And I thought it would be good to reward myself, so I ordered a climbing yellow rose from White Flower Farm, unfortunately named Golden Showers, somebody should explain this to the good folks at WFF, but it's beautiful anyway.
I had one many years ago and remember what a great performance it put on for years. So now I can plant one against the highest part of the fence on the patio. Pix will happen in the spring when it arrives.
Along with more adventures in art, I expect.
The Sorting of the Studio is getting past the idle thinking stage and into the execution part. To date I have two gigantic bags of paper to recycle, and large numbers of old print photos and slides which I will never again have any interest in seeing.
I did hold onto a few pix for Handsome Son, though, didn't count on the emotional meltdown of finding pix of Handsome Partner younger, still walking, cheerful, but I struggled on and just saved a few. Also found a pic of the Great Me on the day I graduated from the uni, gosh all that hair! so young!
And sorting HP's tools and toolbox, amazing that they should have such emotional bandwidth, too. A friend is taking the box and some of the tools I won't use, this morning. This is good. They'll be in good hands. I'm amazed at the number of screwdrivers we amassed between us, and pliers and hammers. I guess when we blended households we didn't thin out the tool department.
I needed to rest after an hour, hadn't realized I'd tackled the hardest part first, but now I'm ready to resume. I have plans for quite a few items already.
Next I'm bagging and boxing items that are kid friendly and can be freecycled. A lot of my printmaking inks and materials really need to be in adult hands, partly because of the quality, partly because of the techniques they need. But I have an idea for those, too.
The bad part about reorganizing and tossing is that once you start, the place looks worse than before, until you make a bit more headway than I have to date. Next weekend HS is coming over to lend his time and strength to move big stuff out, yay.
