Milkweed Pod Project and May art plans

Now that the artist books are off and either in, or close to, their new homes, I have been invited to take part in another project. Hm. I was thinking about vegetating for a while, but it is not to be.

Largely I'm doing it because I can't resist the Milkweed Pod Project, which will be a huge installation, many parts one per many artists, all in fibers, yarns, spinning, knitting, crochet, and all in white, any white, all whites. I have already crocheted a long narrow grid in offwhite soft yarn, and I'm figuring out how to relate it to white nylon sisal type cord, which I can fray and fool about with. Great fun.

The organizing artist is a wonderful woman, Shan,in Wisconsin, and the eventual installation will travel. One location I am hoping for, have got almost all the go aheads for, is the brand new gallery in the brand new library in Plainsboro, NJ!

One of my lifelong quests is to erase the foolish distinctions made between art and craft, to blur the lines of demarcation, and this project fits right into our ambitions for the new gallery, where the fittings can accommodate crafts as well as fine art, allow for 3D objects to be seen from all sides while being safe.

So the Milkweed Pod Project is just right in that place! and it's open to anyone willing to observe the guidelines, don't have to be professional artists, or professional knitters or crocheters or spinners.

Anyone who wants to try her or his hand (you'll be one of hundreds, no need to be too intimidated!) just tell me in the comments under this post and I'll give you the deets on where to look for info and application and all that.


Then, art news part two, is that I have been offered a solo in the Library Gallery at Plainsboro in May,one of the last shows in the old modest gallery before the new snazzy one opens, and I plan it as a kind of farewell, with works that have appeared either there or in other places.

Haven't planned it yet, since it's only today I got the invitation, but often my first thoughts are okay, because they've got energy. So I'll post pix of a few ideas of what might hang there. The libe director and I founded and have run this gallery for hm, I think about 15 years, so it has a lot of nice thoughts in my head. We've encouraged a lot of new artists there, and generally done our bit to bring original art to a small town. Her energy is wonderful, too, in supporting artists of all kinds and ages, and being open to great new ideas.

It will be exciting to have a whole new gallery in the new building, actually designed for the purpose!

Happy New Year!

The Lunar New Year is here, and your books have gone in the mail, so I did manage to get them under the wire for New Year, after all!

And I celebrated the New Year in outdoor fashion: went to a place where I know witch hazel grows, and took a couple of pix, plus some tiny twigs, which were tight buds this morning, already opening this afternoon in the house into tiny beautiful flowers, one of the few January flowers we have, even before the snowdrops.

Then over to our local tiny wilderness area, for pictures of a vernal pool, ice covered, but in spring will be alive with frogs and their offspring, and of the lake, where the deepest part is open water, Canada geese having a great time with it, and through the beech wood, where the temperature is several degrees warmer in winter, cooler in summer, than any other part of the Preserve.

Cold, in the low 30s with a brisk wind, but I still saw a flock of yellow rump warblers, faithful little guys staying all winter when all the others have fled.

And a group of nursery school kids and harassed parents and an intrepid leader showing them trees and the lake and ice and all that, with parents saying, well, we'll see whatever we can see, it's okay, look at the picture we got, and it's okay about the mud, oh, look a bird....

And there were deer tracks in the snow at the side of the path leading down to the lake, so I wonder if they went down to drink at the edge. Also other prints, probably fox. A good winter afternoon expedition.

Books Away! any minute now

Okay, Houston, we have artist books.....which will be in the mail shortly. I think I'll mail them as -- books!

Anyway, if you are a recipient, please just enjoy! all of them have paper for writing and drawing, and handmade paper for just stroking and liking, and you can easily put more pages in if you want more, or copy the construction if you like it and want to replicate it. Above all, it's to use and enjoy. I already had the pleasure of making them, so now it's your turn to have a good time.

Potato Peel Pies and Vertigo!

When I'm not doing several thousand other things involving taking care of Handsome Partner, the house and three cats, and making art, and walking, and gardening and planning for gardening, and playing music, and knitting for friends and so on, I read!

Currently, I wildly recommend: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It lists itself as a novel, but is partly a documentary about the hardships of occupied Guernsey, the channel island,in WW2, together with a great cast of comic/serious characters. It's oddly ill assorted in style, with tragedy behind farce, but it still pretty much works, and is a great read. It's like Margery Sharp meets CNN in a way, but worth reading. Judging by the length of time I had to wait to get it from the libe, it's on everyone's reading list.

Next is Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years 1900-1914, a wonderful historical view of those years from various European vantage points. He has a great grasp of the interrelatedness of political actions, the arts, both fine and performing, and can see with great clarity how artists reflect, whether intentionally or not, their own society and expectations. And he suggests in his preface that we try to forget what we know of the years since then, since, he reminds us, the actors of that period did not know what was to come, so they were not conducting their lives in expectation of WW1. It's hard for us to realize that people didn't have foresight, since we are always looking back from the point of view of people who saw what came later.

This period was one of psychological awakening on a lot of fronts, with different segments of society developing greater powers while the established powers were losing their grip. The rise of technology was exciting and frightening at the same time. The World's Fair of 1900 in paris is an educatin in itself! waiters serving dinner to 20,000 people, all the mayors of France, by driving round in cars delivering food....the opposite of modern car service, where the food comes to the car...He also discusses the setup in Germany in a way I'd never seen before, explaining how the aristos and the middle class fought for power and why.

He gives a horrifying picture of the reign of Leopold of Belgium over the Congo, and how rubber, the search for it as a profitable commodity, caused great hardship and destruction for the people of the Congo. Nothing new under the sun.

And the situation in Russia, in turmoil for decades before the Revolution finally happened.

But it's very good to get this insight into the period before WW1, makes the whole world more understandable. So I think it's a valuable read, as well as an easy one in the sense that he doesn't get lost in technicalities, but remembers that his readers are intelligent but may not be policy wonks. and it clarifies amazingly a lot of what's going on right now in the world.

And there's always Anne LaMott, any of whose books of essays is wonderful reading. I'm not a practicing Christian, and she is powerfully so, but she still writes in a way that is very accessible to those of us who don't go for doctrine, but do go for what is a good way to conduct your life! her novels are rather feeble, and I don't think they're her best work. But her books of essays, Plan B, and Operating Instructions, and Grace Eventually, are wonderfully honest and clear and brave writing. I've just finished rereading Grace Eventually, and still found ideas in there I hadn't noticed before.

Caution: Artist at Work!

Caution: Artist at Work

The zero degree weather has not daunted me from entering my third floor, under the roof, studio with the heating turned off to conserve energy. The odd thing is that once the work is under way, you don't really notice the cold, until your fingers go numb and you start dropping things, and doing sort of stupid stuff, indicating that your brain has frozen over...

Despite all this, I have embarked on the artist books I promised, and am kneedeep in all kinds of materials and ideas and second thoughts and fifty-first thoughts, and it is getting there....book making is a nice balance of needing to be pretty accurate, certainly in cutting pages and making sure the book opens and shuts in a friendly way, while cutting totally loose in making the overall object, wild covers, whatever fastenings strike my fancy, drawing maybe, printing maybe, stamping maybe, painting, maybe, gluing and playing and tripping over the faithful CK Duncan who insists in being underfoot at all times to lend a paw where needed.

I have always had wonderful studio cats, willing to get involved to any extent. Little Boud, my tiny little grey girl, would trot across the inked plate before I made my monotypes, and more than one of them had her silver footprint in the design. She improved it, more often than not. And one time she jumped, put a couple of silver footprints on the wall as she left, and I never had the heart to paint over them.

Her sister Vico, twice her size, wonderful dark tabby with fur like plush, was happy to be given a little bit of whatever material I was working in, to play with. Duncan seems intent on seeing if he can make me fall down. His interest in art is strictly aerobic.

So I took a couple of pix of the studio in the throes of composition! won't be too long now.

Spilled milk, Purcell and Schubert

So this has been an exciting day up to now. It started out
innocently, then Handsome Partner took a bad fall in the bathroom, but recovered
well enough, was eating breakfast when I left to take the car in for
routine, famous last words, state inspection and oil change.

HP is fine, by the way, I was just worrying about him while I was
out, but things turned a bit pear shaped.

First, the dealership where I get the inspection done (far better to
have friendly mechanics than rotten State inspectors at their own
station) found I needed new bushings or my suspension system was on
its way out, couldn't pass inspection that way, then I needed two
new tires, too bald to pass inspection, which meant realignment plus
the inspection fee. The oil change went smoothly.....but it meant
that instead of waiting in their cosy waiting room with the plants
and the coffee and a very entertaining little boy to amuse me, it
would be several hours' of work. I will be lucky if the bill comes
to less than a thousand dollars...

So I asked if they could give me a loaner for the day, and I could
come back later for my own veehickle. Fine, they would. Then the
Avis woman showed up, gave me a ride to their agency (they used to
deliver cars, evidently it's different now) in a massive minivan,
which hurt my back climbing up into it, very very difficult for me.

So they finally after many phone calls established that this was a
loaner, not a rental, but the dealer had forgotten to do the
paperwork....and finally gave me something that looked nothing like
an ignition key.

And said since the minivan I'd been in was a bit difficult for me,
they'd give me a different --- minivan! no cars available, just
these giant ships. Gah. I had literally never even sat in one
before. The woman had to show me how and where to put the weird
plastic thing into the ignition, I felt so dumb! and how to change
gears -- that tiny knob on the dash is the gear knob, evidently.
She assured me that handling was fine, not to worry....

So I did manage to get home, in great fear and trepidation, this is
not traffic for learning in, and stopped at the store on the way
because we needed milk urgently and a couple of other things, and I
was damned if I was gong to take this bus out before I have to go
back for my car.

Luckily they put the milk into a bag, though they try not to use
bags these days, because I had trouble lifting it all high enough to
get it into the passenger seat (could not fathom how to unlock any
of the other doors, doh), and on the way home, the milk fell over,
the plastic jug split and milk started running all over the
van....except the little amount that remained in the jug and the
bag..

Much cleanup later, at home, of the van, the console, the floor, my
coat, my bag, not able to stop safely before then, no place to pull
over, and frantic searches for containers to put the rest of the
milk away in the fridge, I finally calmed down enough to make a cup
of coffee and whine at length to HP who was hugely sympathetic.

So if this was a day for it, I'd say it's actually okay to cry over
spilt milk...

We needed firewood, too, but I absolutely dared not think what would
happen if I attempted to load wood into this huge white bus with
Florida plates....We were amused by the Fla plates, since neighbors
probably think we have someone visiting who's so dumb they come
north in the winter!


Notes from later: nearly a thousand dollars poorer but with a safe and legal car, and the Moby Dick returned to the dealer, I did get firewood, which will be welcome this evening, since it's gone very very cold around this part of the world, just like most other parts of the world.

But here's where things are better: last evening was the January meeting of Princeton Recorder Society, hereinafter referred to as PRS, and the conductor was a wonderful musician, great musicologist and performer and lucky for us, local person, John Burkhalter, one of the most generous and kind of men.

Since he put together an evening to celebrate the 400th anniversaries of both Purcell and Handel, he had had some of the pieces mailed to him from friends in Germany, other pieces faxed from England, not yet in the new edition, but special permission from the editor for us to play them. We are amateurs, and this is very very flattering stuff!

As is John's approach to conducting: encouragement phrased in Noel Cowardesque phrases, things like: let us revisit the felicities in this passage! and this piece is bucolic, try to think of bucolic things. Not rowdy. Bucolic...

I was assigned to take pix for the PRS website, so I asked him ahead of time how he was with this, and promised not to be obtrusive as he conducted. To which he exclaimed, oh, but I love it! Obtrude all you like, my dear. Since he was celebrating Purcell, an English composer, he had brought a Union flag which he draped from his conducting rostrum! and when he wanted to illustrate a way to phrase a section, he would whip out pieces of recorder from various pockets, assemble them and then play like, oh, unbelievable and beautiful tone.

If you ever get the chance to hear him in concert, wait for nothing, grab it. He is a wonderful musician, now a fine recorderist, used to be a fine oboeist, was a boy soprano many decades ago. And a collector of antique instruments.

The Art Museum on the campus of Princeton University has a fantastic pre-Columbian collection of artifacts, many of which turn out to be sacred instruments, played by priest in the course of religious ceremonies. One time John was asked to play a selection of them, gads what a thrill, to see these wonderful clay and jade and stone instruments taken out of their cases with gloved hands, handed to him, and then played like an angel. the jade flute had the hugest sound you can imagine, big and round and mellow, and it's quite small in the player's hands.

So that's John B., and no wonder he has such a following!

So it's good that I was fortified by a wonderful evening of early music last night before today fell on me.

And then, just to show that the universe can be nice at times, on the way home in my own car, the local classical music station played a great arrangement of Schubert's Ave Maria, for violin and piano, and I joined in loudly, this being my party piece from years ago, and I sounded pretty good, to my audience of one!

Some people swear by Valium and TM, but music just about does it for me!

Phyllis Amaryllis and other critters

This is what happens when you're cutting fruit for dessert and are suddenly overcome by boredom. Critters happen! they have now been eaten, but they had a brief moment of glory. I think I'll declare this Play with Your Food Week! please do so and forward pix to me.....

The other critter causing excitement around here is Phyllis Amaryllis who finally opened her first blossom today, and her gradual debut will be seen around here when I find it! amaryllis are amazing, unbelievable that that unpromising looking bulb will become anything, much less a massive series of blooms that need holding up. they don't last long, but it's like fireworks: worth it for the moment! I've never succeeded in getting a second year of bloom, just a second year of showy foliage.

And then there's the other January blossom, outdoors this time,to be found in a location I will not disclose, since I don't think I'm supposed to swipe them. I speak of witch hazel, one of the few shrubs that blossom wonderfully, complete with scent, in January. I know where to get a couple of twigs of them, bring them home and they're so tiny you need a magnifier to really grasp how wonderful is their architecture. I recommend you go out in search of them.

Not long now till snowdrops, brave little guys who flower and go on with their lives even if they're buried in snow! every year I have to rip out some pachysandra to make sure the snowdrops have a fighting chance of making it.

Anyway, Phyllis, take a bow!

Books, cooks and thoughts about transience

Latest books: I hugely recommend Jane Flanders book on the Victorian home, a marvellously researched and very engagingly written social history of the Victorian era in England, really entertaining even if you are not a social history fiend as I am.

Did you know that in the early days of the postal service, the letters arrived up to 12 times a day (to houses that were affluent enough to be using mail at all, it was expensive) and that the post man had to collect the money at the door? which meant that the poor old housemaid had to keep on stopping blackleading the grate, scrubbing the floors, sweeping the kitchen, etc., take off her dirty apron, run to the door, arrange about the money, take back the mail, and resume the apron and the work. Over and over again.

Then Hill, the inventor of the whole shebang, had a rush of brains to the head and invented the Penny Post! you could send a lightweight letter anywhere in the UK for one penny, paid in advance at the post office. So the postman could just leave the letters and keep on going. Post then meant, not the letters, but the route the postie had to take.

The only bits of the book I skipped over were the medical ones, too awful to read about "treatment" for serious ailments. But I can attest to a lot of the fog and dirty air anecdotes, since the same was still true in the 50s in some English cities.

There are hilarious accounts of the early interior designers influencing the people who were now able to afford some extras, very dogmatic, very funny. why you should have major mirrors over the fireplace, extra shelves, a lot of ornaments and clocks and stuff on the mantelpiece, very very tasteful...

Then, in the world of fiction, on the detective front, two great writers, Susan Conant, a dogtrainer detective protagonist, owner of Malamutes, very knowledgeable about the world of Dog, and a good mystery writer. And then there's the other dog related attorney turned investigator, located in Paterson NJ, and very authentic stuff, and if I can remember his name, dangit, it was there a minute ago....anyway, I will supply it when I can get it back from the outer reaches of my brain. Or if anyone reading this knows who I mean, he's really good, I know this is not much help to someone looking for a nice book to read...

And, if you're up for real mental work, Karen Armstrong, on religions of the world, particularly Islam, truly wonderful writer with great understanding of the historical underpinnings of a lot of our religious assumptions, and well worth working on and with.

Did you know that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, that one, I mean, approved of Christianity since it was based on the written word, and he profoundly relied on the written word for his own thinking? and that at the founding of Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Islam were seen by most of the middle eastern population as equally valid religions, no friction on that front? most of the friction has been a politically driven afterthought, sigh.

And our local cook, i.e. me, made Tibetan pizza today, always goes over well. It's Jacques Pepin's Tibetan Flatbread from one of his fast food books, which I use as the pizza base, put mushrooms and home made pesto, tomato paste, etc., and a handful of Mozzarella cheese on, very good with a nice mixed green salad. Not hard, since I usually already have the ingredients in the house so if it's one of those oh dog, what to eat today, kind of days, it works in just fine.

Jacques Pepin's tv programs are wonderful -- he's a food artist, really, just watching his knife skills as he chats away unconcernedly, is a whole education. And he can make a wonderful black rabbit out of a giant olive! slice off the side, so it sits on its side, take the sliced off bit and make a slit behing the "head" end (the place where the stem was is the bunny's butt), halve the sliced off bit, insert in slit and voila a rabbit! very funny and cute and good to remember at Easter.

And there's always art. I'll post a few pix of my main thrust of last year's work, kind of crossover work, mixed media around the concepts of quilting, including the notion of "handwork" being forced on women at some periods, whether they were up for it or not. All the way to quilting as an art form, and via quilting as a fine craft where attention to workmanship is very important.

But I don't believe in conservation -- I think once art has served its purpose, it's okay to wave goodbye. Now admittedly, Vermeer has not yet finished serving his purpose, and The Demoiselles d'Avignon will continue to exude force for the foreseeable future, and Vlaminck will continue to be worth seeing, and Judy Chicago's passion will continue to be valuable. And so on.

But I do like to say that the opposite of conservation is not destruction, it's creation.

And tomorrow on the subject of moving on, I'm waving goodbye to my Gocco printer, a lovely little machine no longer manufactured, to another artist who's been wanting one for a while. It's a great little screen print shooter and printer all in one machine, and I had great fun with it, created everything from fine art to art opening invitations (I hate the photo type cards people use now for opening announcements, much prefer the ones that are artworks to keep!) You can find out material about the Gocco by an internet search. It was taken very seriously in Hawaii as an art tool, less so on the mainland, where size is perhaps more of the essence, and it makes small images. It's been overtaken by high tech, but there are still devotees out there.


I'm not into keeping art for its own sake, I guess. We do have a lot of it on our walls at home, mainly becaue Handsome Partner loves to have it around. If it were up to me, it would be either recycled or in boxes in the studio, waiting to be improved.

In fact now and then people have called me to try and buy a piece they saw months earlier in a show only to find that it's now ripped up and part of another piece, or pulped to make mixed paper, or just being used as a backing for a new painting....this sort of mystifies people who have a sacred feeling about art.

Well, I do too, but it's about the need to do it, the process, the developing of the vision, not really about the end product. If people like it, that's wonderful. If they need to have it in their houses, even more wonderful! but it's not the mainspring of why I do it!

Anyway, clearing up the studio a bit, hopeless task, is part of my next foray, into clearing the decks for the artist books I promised and will definitely get to as soon as I get the concept organized in my mind. I've been drawing constantly for the last year, so drawings may feature in them, not sure yet. But they will be the sort of book that is intended to be drawn and/or written in by the recipient, so I need not to overload them with my own concepts and get in the way of the writing and drawing of the person who will have custody of them.

The other thing is that I turn off the heat in the studio this time of year to conserve the horrible cost of heating, so that's a bit of an issue moving the materials downstairs to work on them. It will happen, folks who have requested a book, it really will! and if anyone else wants to get in on this, just lemme know and your new year's free gift book will eventually be in your hands. It's just a thing I like to do now and then as a friendly thing. Be sure I know your actual address though, okay.....can't email them.

Two heroes: Suzman and Pell, thank you

Today's entry is brief and heartfelt, to be a small tribute to two giant major hero figures of the last century, both of whom died in the last couple of days, old and proving that good people can also have a long life.

One, Helen Suzman, was a South African white woman, a member of the SA Parliament and the lone opponent in her day to apartheid, braving all kinds of harassment and physical danger to push for an end to what she saw as simply something wrong. She knew that her color and social position might not protect her, and still went on, meeting with the oppressors, facing down the chief of police, making sure the press was on the story, relentlessly, bravely. She loved her country and wanted it to be better.

And she lived long enough to see the end of that regime and the start of new government for South Africa, which is still in some disarray but nothing to compare with that institutionalized injustice. I knew about her many decades ago, as a student wondering what we could do to help end apartheid and not coming up with much, and was surprised that she was still living till last week, but glad she'd seen the fruits of her brave work.

The other, Claiborne Pell, a hero of a different kind, a wealthy man who nonetheless understood the trials of people who were not born to privilege and the difficulty for them of getting even an education. He represented Rhode Island in Congress, for many years and was the creator of the Pell Grants, which accounted for many many students' being able to get a college education who would never have been able to afford it otherwise. He didn't wait for the whole government to move, just pushed on behalf of his own constituents and then by extension all eligible students in the country.

When I worked in higher education in the 70s, I came across many minority students whose Pell grants were the difference between a future and no future, and was amused that so many people didn't even realize Pell was the name of the man who created the grants. A lot of people assumed it was an acronym! It was so accepted that people forgot someone had to invent the notion. I doubt if he would have cared, though.

So let us thank them both and see what their example means for us, too.

2008? a walk in the park!

Just waving the old year out with a literal walk in the park! every day I make a point of walking about two miles, often in the park in these pix. this used to be a ploughed field, the only place dogs could run loose on Sunday mornings, with bleary eyed owners clutching their early morning coffee and watching their charges.

Then the township grew and we started having parks, including this one. It's close to both my homes, a nice walk with various paths you can take for the sake of variety. And there's plenty to watch in season: cricket teams, basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball, runners, skateboarders, tiny little tricyclers, bicycles, walkers of all sizes. In summer it's a mob scene in the evening when people from all the surrounding apartments and townhouses bring the kids for a last walk before they go to bed.

The little building you see has a wonderful little playground, very imaginative stuff that kids climb and push around and generally have a great time. And there are concrete tables where men sit around playing bridge and chess and women sit around chatting.

Many languages spoken in this park: several Indian languages, a couple of Chinese ones, Russian, Hungarian, German, Haitian French, Japanese, Farsi. I always greet people as I walk, and it took quite a while for some walkers to respond to a stranger, but now they know me and the Indian ladies give me namaste, the Japanese walkers stop and bow, Middle Eastern walkers sort of wave.

I notice I often walk against the tide -- for me the perimeter path feels right if I walk clockwise, but most people go the other way. Nobody can explain this! is it about handedness? culture?

I do get suited up for this serious walking stuff -- before I leave the house, comfortable LandsEnd shoes, check, pedometer (fun to know just what I'm doing), check, warm hat, check, cellphone, check, walkman radio or CD with current mystery novel playing, check, gloves, check. Then finally, I can leave the house.

A couple of neighbors have hinted that they'd like to join me, but I haven't got enthusiastic about that, since walking is my Time Alone to Recharge. My daily life is strenuous, rarely alone, usually with a lot of responsibility, and walking is a kind of tranquillizer! You really get to know a place well if you travel it on foot, and I have a few different walks to take, some where I can watch birds, or see flowers growing, some to meet people, some to see how high the water is on the marsh -- winter is best for seeing the marsh behind the condo and the great blue herons and ibis there.

Nowadays there are far fewer dogs than there used to be. Different population, different pets. Typically I see small dogs in pairs, seems to be a current fashion in dogs! two tiny Westies, two little dachshunds, various little fluffy guys who are probably designer mixes.

So near the end of the Old Year, and I wish you all a good New Year, with health, wealth and tiny dogs abounding!

Almost New Year

Looking ahead a bit to color! it's that time of year when I think Spring ought to be almost here,now that the solstice is behind us.

And I start thinking about journals, too. Not the sort where you sit down each evening and write Dear Diary, etc. But more fun ones.

some I've done: journals with little drawings and paintings of flowers and things I've seen on my walks, or just rapid sketches of animals playing on the patio. These are not like true illustration, just nice reminders. Once you draw something you remember it better than anything. I have a series of loose small drawings I did at Cape May, down in the meadows, lovely to look at now.

And there are journals of just drawings, a series of Handsome Partner and cat, one done daily for a while, just for the fun of it.

And there was the one where I cut out my horoscope from the local paper every day, mounted it on the page then the next day wrote whether there was any correlation at all with what happened. That was great fun, and for about a month I liked it a lot.

And there are the garden journals. I keep notes and pictures and bills and plastic name things so that from year to year I can see what's happening. Now that climate change is on us, this is very useful, since I can't count on gardening the way I used to -- flowers bloom at different times, some don't bloom until I've given up on them, some go mad and take over, but differently from in the past. It's an interesting thing, particularly if I remember to date the entries so I can see what happened when.

Like the coleus I started from seed indoors, and absolutely nothing happened. I gave up on it and just shoved in a few cherry pits thinking I might get a nice little houseplant out of it. whereupon ALL the coleus seeds shot up, six weeks after they were officially dead. I guess they were offended that I hadn't waited. they ended up being great additions out of doors, and a bunch of them is now doing well in the house.

and the morning glory which didn't even start to bloom till after first frost, completely backward from expectations.

and there's the Good Things Journal, where I write down three good things from the day and Three Things I wish hadn't happened, and surprisingly often the Bad Things are only the other side of the Good Things. I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I hadn't written it down and reread it.

Most of these journals are either books I've made for myself or handmade books that were given to me or found cheap at the library booksale, more fun than the kind that's created to be a journal, with dates and little blocks for each day, dull stuff. I've made and given away a number of small artist's books that are meant to be written and drawn in, and I'm always open for requests, if anyone fancies one for the New year.

And there's a terrific idea if you want to make your own small notebook: you know those art cards, repros of famous painting that you get at art museum shops, and never ever use? you cut paper to fit, then staple it into the card and now you have a very nice cover for a small notebook which will fit in your purse, and if you can get through life without writing down the stuff you will otherwise forget, you're doing better than I! it's nice if you have a punch that rounds corners, to round the corners, also great fun to do. I've also given a number of these notebooks to friends as more than a birthday card, but not quite a gift, and people like this.

I have one of those punches, and it had my favorite instructions of all time (except for my digi camera which started: take camera out of box!) anyway the punch said: l. insert paper in punch 2. punch. My kind of people!

When I first got the corner punch I went mad rounding corners on everything that didn't move. the cats were careful to keep moving throughout this period.

Music, Dog Daze and the Santa Season

I play recorder regularly with great friends, and I present two of them to you, with great joy! we play all kinds of early music, no, not the Beatles, early meaning Renaissance and medieval and, if we feel really modern, Baroque! I took pix today, but was very sad indeed to find that the husky dog who lives in friend's house, and whom I planned on having right there in the middle where the space is, is no more.

since we were last there, three weeks ago, dear Nico, a 12 year old husky, was found to have an inoperable mass and was euthanized. Very very hard for the owner -- the lady in the green sweater -- but definitely right for Nico. We used to love his company as we played, shoving our stands around and howling along with the fire whistle! and now and then if he didn't like our choices, withdrawing to the other room, all on his dignity. He had a wonderful life with Jeanne, and it's just too bad that dogs simply don't live long enough. So we honored him with a space in the middle of the pix.

His predecessor, Felix, another husky, was the idea behind the name of our, then, quintet, the Felix Five! this is something recorder players do, give themselves fancydancy titles, since our music is strictly for our own pleasure. Somewhere I have old fashioned print pix of the Felix Five from years ago. One of these days they will show up, along with the 4,589,343 other pix somewhere waiting to be organized. Along with the Euclidean Trio, heh.

Speaking of dogs and other friends: When Andy was forced by his health to retire from his petcare biz (second retirement, first was from a prestigious research post in chemistry, this man has no false pride!) I made a nice collage of pix of many animals he'd cared for.

We both had petcare bizzes, which I created and organized then spun one off to him one to me, separate enterprises. But some things we both did, one of them being to get pix of pets to put in their files so that if, God forbid, one got lost or loose, we had a picture ready to rush about and shove at people gasping, him, have you seen him, etc. Anyway, once he retired, I took a lot of pix, made a collage and hung it in the kitchen where he could enjoy it. and with any luck, you'll see it here.

What I originally planned to say in here today, but dogs get in everywhere, was that our little town has a nice Christmas ritual, which consists a few days before Christmas of marking the season. The first time I encountered this, I was scared rigid, since it consisted of all kinds of official vehicles, sirens and lights going, swerving round into the cul de sac I used to live on, and I wondered gads what disaster can have happend to bring ALL the emergency vehicles out at once. I ran to the window to find out if I had to evacuate, scream, faint or what, and there down below on the back of the fire truck: Santa, waving happily at me and wishing me Merry Christmas. Oh. Okay. Not an emergency. Fun for little kids -- throwing of candy to them, etc.

This was before 9.11 which changed our lives totally and permanently in this part of the world -- neighbors and friends died that day, my petcare biz vanished when corporate travel vanished, much hardship all around, obituaries for months and months of young kids who had worked in the Towers, whose remains were finally found and identified, 700 people from NJ died. It permanently scarred all of us for emergency signals.

Anyway, now, when we hear the sirens and see the lights, if it's in late December, neighbors now assume it's Santa! we've learned this stuff. But one of my friends across the street commented that it's going to be really hard to get our attention if anything actually does go wrong, since we'll all say, oh, it's only Santa, not to worry!

Anyway, just to say to all of us, folks, whatever we're dealing with, and in this household with the latest medical findings for Handsome Partner, we are dealing with a great deal, I just want to say: whatever happens, it's okay, honest. It's only Santa!

Huge holiday greetings and joy and fun and playtime to all of us.

Bringing in the skeins!

Now that we're getting near the equinox, it's time for the age old bringing in of the skeins, see pictures of this year's harvest, and note the golden color of the ripe yarn hanging to dry, and the springlike green of the cotton fiber, waiting to dry and be rolled into balls, to knit into clothing for the peasant who processed the precious fibers.

No machinery involved in this process, just the old taking to the river, well, the upstairs bathtub, the soaking and pressing and squeezing and hanging, in the labor intensive ways of the elders, who remember the early stories of primitive hunters and gatherers of fibers, catching their own sheep, getting the snags of fleece off the fences, ten feet of snow, uphill both ways to the sheep fold....and now their descendants make a simple journey to the thrift store and riffle through racks of sweaters in search of the color and texture for their upcoming projects.

And like their ancestors, today's harvesters sit down for a nice glass of wine after their labors, and look out at the eighteenth fairway outside with its first snow covering, which has finally put paid to the local golfers for the season, and run upstairs for a quick pic of the patio, showing the entire extent of the flower garden for next year's planning.

And then sit gratefully down inside the house and admire the houseplants doing fine and looking out with sympathy at their fellows freezing their little roots off out there...

Cogs, dogs and blogs!

Checking in this morning as a representative cog in the universe who has just got into a decade birthday, yay me. another day, another decade! wonderful celebration for me last night catered by Handsome Son, complete with food, presents and CLEANUP afterward, what a gift....

Last time I had a decade birthday I gave myself a complete set of free weights and a book on how to! worked with them faithfully most of the time every since and I attribute my incredible beauty and litheness and ability to lie to their use....seriously, I have been more fit and better off ever since, and it's a blessing, since my current life, owing to partner's serious and increasing disability, is very strenuous, but manageable. I think it wouldn't have been if I hadn't been doing the fitness thing. And I walk a couple of miles each day, as my Indian friend next door says "in any weather, you don't CARE about that weather!" while she stays warmly indoors until spring.

so that was a good decade. This time, I opened this blog, figuring by the time the decade came around I would be totally skilled and proficient in the art of blogging, and you can see how far that came true.....well, it's a goal, folks, and I have a decade to get there...and another little pride of cogness came about this year when Oliver Sacks included some of my writing in his paperback edition of Musicophilia, very thrilling. I love his work, and was so glad he was interested in corresponding with me about synaesthesia, a fave subject of mine, too. So this was good. And he sent me a copy to save my having to buy it, nice touch!

About blogs: a lot of people either can't find the comment button to post a comment, or their systems won't let them through, or something, and I get a lot of entertaining email in response to these entries, which amuses me hugely! I even get responses on other websites where I'm active and that causes me to wonder hm, where am I now??? So different parts of internet life get interwoven, exactly as they do in so-called meatspace. It's lovely, and one of the best toys I've had in a while.

On to dogs:

Have you been reading about this experiment some scientists in, I think Vienna, have been conducting on dogs and jealousy and notions of justice? hilarious: they have been getting dogs to shake a paw in return for a treat, then finding that the dogs who shake a paw and don't get a treat refuse to do it again. Well, duh! anyone with more than about 30 seconds of experience with dogs knows that they are very smart on keeping the rules! if you set up the rule that a pawshake is paid for, they expect it to be paid for. I'm sure dog people have all had the experience of dogs checking for the presence of treats before consenting to sit, stay, lie, read the paper, etc. Nothing to do with notions of justice, just of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

My question is where these scientists have been all their lives? and why did they have to set up a special study to discover this? I noted from one picture I saw that the test subjects were border collies. Well, I ask you.

Border collies could have figured out the protocols, written the test, screened for candidates and shown the scientists how to evaluate it....I remember the Golden Fleece awards made by the senator from Wisconsin whose name evades me right now, about the use of tax dollars to study the screamingly obvious. this was Euro money, so I doubt we'll shout much about it. Feel free to post a comment reminding me of the Golden Fleece guy's name.

Speaking of Europe: have you read David Sedaris "Me Talk Pretty One Day" very very funny essays, the best of them about his attempts to master the French language while living in Paris. He's funny in small doses. Best if you hear him narrating himself, but still good in print.

And rereading Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy Sayers, many times read before, but it never palls! the picture of Bunter in the back of the car, with bottles of vintage port wrapped in eiderdowns, anxious that it not be joggled and made undrinkable for months...big big deal in his life. and people with Latin and French tags all the time, very funny stuff. And Peter's dotty mother, the best character of the lot. Anyway, Sayers is good.

And so is life around here! Cheers!

Swinging and Harvesting!

.So those of us who follow women's professional golf are seeing the last season for the amazing Anneke Sorenstam, who has won practically everything in the world. And now for several tournaments, I've noticed that the commentators say this is her last tournament. Then she shows up in Asia for her positively last tournament. Now she's in Dubai for her definitely, positively last tournament. I wonder if she's having farewell events on every continent!

We started watching women's golf on tv years ago in disgust at the lousy sportsmanship and general scruffy behavior in women's tennis, and were amazed at the sheer politeness and calm and much more subtle competitiveness of the women's tournament. and the incredible skills.

I even treated myself to a putter (at a garage sale, knowing my modest goals) and a plastic glass to putt into in the living room and had quite a good time finding that my eye-hand coordination is good, but not prepared to risk my shoulder learning how to really play golf on an actual course.

Now, you will see our appreciation when you know that we live on the edge of a golf course, a public course with happy hackers out every weekend and some weekdays. When I used to walk the dog up the boundary line, I'd hear the players talking seriously about their swing, their new club, new approach, etc. Then I'd see them swingandswingandswingandswing and finally contact the ball, which would fall off the tee and roll a few yards....Or, the other type of amateur, who contacts the ball with great force and sends it at right angles to the course. We learned to duck.

So when you see real golfers deciding exactly where the ball needs to be and putting it there, it's amazing. They make it look easy. I think our local golfers have plenty of fun, though. Or something. Most of them are men. I wonder if they're hiding from their wives...and what they do in the winter when the course is closed, which it soon will be.

Meanwhile, back in the house, yarn harvesting is going on apace. Currently in the middle of unraveling an Old Navy sweater (they are wonderful for unraveling, very well made for the purpose, chain stitched seams, not serged) in a nice sort of goldy yellowy variegated color, pure lambswool. This will make some good socks, and other stuff, too. and I made an afghan out of scraps of donated yarn, wonderful warm thing. I have a pic of the draft layout before it was crocheted together, with Marigold testing it for warmth.

I was given yarn (people are always giving me yarn, figuring that between my personal knitting and all I churn out for pet rescue, I'll use it up long before they will) recently, a lovely merino wool, which I made into a Catspaw Shetland lace scarf, not as hard as it looks, once you remember to: take notes, make little check marks, use lifelines threaded through, arrange for total silence and no telephone ringing and nobody asking questions that make you forget if you did your yarnover, etc. Once you get that down, it's a snap...

Anyway I'm also making another scarf, with Catspaw just at the end, in a double wool, and completed another in a lovely sage green good cotton yarn, and I'll show you some of these. The sage one is a present for a friend who will have received it by now, so this won't spoil the surprise if she reads along in here. I think I've done Catspaw now! and feel free to move on to another lace design.

I give up on placing the photos logically in this post! blogspot not happy today, but anyway, they're here, even if a bit premature.

Comment box woes up there

Not possible to add comments to the negative space and turkeys post, so I'm adding this in the hope that if you want to comment, you will be able to!

Farmers and whimsy and negative space

Farmers can not often be accused of whimsy, but there's a local farm family who puts out a giant turkey in time for Thanksgiving which stays put till after the holidays. The body is one of those rolls of hay or silage or whatever they are that lie around in fields like huge tootsie rolls, and the features are seasonal: pumpkins new each year, but the tail and head part I guess are stored in the barn from year to year. Always look forward to seeing it on the way home from practically anywhere around here. So I thought you'd like to see this, as one of the pix I took today on my travels

Speaking of local sights and travels, there's the question of negative space. As an artist and longtime teacher of drawing and various other arts to adults, this is one of my favorite subjects to introduce as a way of seeing much better and designing artworks that work.

It's also often completely surprising to the students to learn that the space around the objects isn't nothing! it's what holds the design up. I get people to do the classic bring in a sports photo from local paper -- they are usually brilliantly cropped with great negative space, unsung artists, those photographers-- cut around the positive shapes, keep the negative bits, the reconstruct the picture using only the negative pieces. Epiphany! it's not only fun, it's a revelation of how artists see.

This particular artist tends to overdo, however. To me the negative space is overwhelmingly obvious to the point of sometimes being unable to figure out the positive image. This is why I use a pc not a Mac -- the Mac icons might as well be written in Martian for my understanding. son, the Mac professional, tries hard to see this. But look, Mom, it's obviously a TOOLBOX! not an abstract well balanced design....

To the point also where, after many many years of traveling the Garden State Parkway, hereinafter known as the GSP, I finally only recently came to read the icon correctly that I needed to follow in order to get to the coin-only bin at each county interchange. These come up a couple of miles ahead, and since the GSP management is held captive to what each county, the custodians of the interchanges, decides, about placement of the various parts of the interchange, they have tried to make the graphics huge and obvious.

So you are supposed to know a bit ahead of time which is the coin only, which is the token, well, that's phased out now, which is the receipt offered and which, God forbid is EasyPass, which if you accidentally drive through it, unforgivingly takes your picture and sends a summons if you are not an EasyPass transponder owner. Big fine.

Anyway, most of the icons on the side of the road are pretty clear. Except that the one I usually need, the coin, exact change, one, looked to me for years like a well balanced very nicely constructed abstract graphic.

It was in the course of demo'ing negative space to a class that I suddenly realized for the first time that this graphic was in fact a hand dropping coins into the bin.....aieeee. Class fell about laughing when I explained this.

So yesterday, it struck again. I was peacefully coming home past the county park, where there was a great big sign, cutout letters in red, coming up, against a background of dark green shrubs. This point is important in my defense, since red and green are complements, and each makes the other pop. Anyway, I studied the letters and wondered if if was in maybe Hindi (we have a huge subcontinent population) or maybe Arabic, since Eid is this week, and only after I'd passed it did it flip in my mind and make sense: Happy Holidays.

All I can say is duh.

Let us now praise highway architects

So imagine the state I live in, NJ, which has the greatest concentration of cars per square mile in the entire north American continent. Now imagine the population center, which is pretty much central, given that you can get with equal stress and strain to either Philadelphia or Manhattan, where a lot of jobs are.

Then imagine the six lane Route One, and the cursed NJ Turnpike, many many commuters whizzing back and forth between them. On a small road with a tiny railroad bridge over the main eastern seaboard rail lines. At the main train station for said rail lines. Then imagine the trains from Philly and NY and people getting off them at about the same time, rushing for the cars and zooming into car traffic. All between 4 and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Gridlock, weird kinds of accidents, general chaos daily.

Now imagine that finally the two lane bridge over that main train line has been reopened after several months of being completely shut, causing many detours around mazes of developments. And realize that that two lane road was the main link between Route One in this area and the Turnpike, and you will cringe at the resulting traffic mess.

So after several decades Amtrak, which owns the bridge but was busy lobbying in Washington to keep the trains running,no time for fixing broken old bridges, finally got together with the DOT and various other entities, and the bridge was scheduled for rebuilding totally, safely, to eliminate the nerve wracking aspects of trying to cross it.

And it opened yesterday, so I thought what the heck, I'll cooperate and drive over it and see how it works. And found that, in their infinite wisdom, the NJDOT, instead of putting useful traffic lights and that kind of helpful thing to let you know who has the right of way, always a nice touch, have put a TRAFFIC CIRCLE on TOP of a BRIDGE! with no advance warning, no signs until the last possible moment a yield sign, just as you reach the top of the bridge and imagine you are about to cross it.....then if you manage to circle correctly and get off the other side, the new bridge now leads directly onto the WRONG side of the road at the bottom. Which explains the police cruiser, flashing lights, parked there yesterday to stop people hurtling headon into traffic.

Now, all this is taking place at about 35 mph, but it's surprising how much trouble you can get into at even that speed.

It would not surprise me if the architect gets an award for this. The other award that happened last week was for the transformation of a formerly two lane road outside our post office, into what the designer called a "pedestrian-friendly" SIX lane road with NO crossings. But, if you by chance reach the other side, there's a walking path....that's the friendly part.

I rest my case.

Notes from Field, Fen and Patio

The name of the blog comes from a little feature I write elsewhere on the internet, on very local nature observations, surprising to people not familiar with New Jersey and figuring it's all about oil-cracking plants and highways and so on. Not so.


It's spang in the middle of the Eastern flyway, and birding is terrific around here. Case in point: the bald eagle is being restored here, and recently as I sat in the car at a red light waiting to get on to Route One, six lane highway, by Lake Carnegie, a bald eagle flew right over the traffic and sat in a nearby tree. Unmistakable, the sheer size and the bright white head and snooty facial expression. While I was getting over this, dangit if another one didn't fly over and join it!

Later a local birder told me it was a nesting pair, causing great excitement in regional birding circles, their nest a carefully guarded secret to avoid disturbance. She was a nice shade of green, since she had not yet managed to see them.

I told Handsome Partner about this one afternoon when we were sitting on the patio, as far as he can get these days, and another eagle flew over the rooftop, very obligingly, and he enjoyed this quite a bit! we have a small wilderness preserve nearby, and my guess, since the fishing is very good there, was that the eagle was heading for his lunch.

Wilderness preserve with no birds in evidence, in picture here! and there are many other wildlife characters there, including beavers continually blocking the hiking trails with felled trees, many kinds of snakes and fish and carefully secret rare wildflowers on the other side of the lake, not easy to get to and accidentally stand on them.











Ospreys over there, too, and we get the annual migration of the snow goose, a hugely exciting thing if you can catch it. Many many of them so far up in the air that unless it's a very clear Fall day, you can miss them. White with black wingtips. They land, some years in a field at a local farm, where the entire field is covered in these wonderful animals, all facing the same way, taking a rest. They stay just a few hours before leaving for the rest of their trek. I've seen them twice.









When the weather is mild enough I drive us to a local park with a river running through it, and it's not unusual to watch great blue herons, cormorants and a kingfisher working the water busily. Right in the middle of a little town, about half a mile from the Turnpike. It continues to amaze me that wildlife simply adapts and gets on with it in the middle of one of the most densely populated states. Picture shows Handsome Partner (wearing the ski sweater I showed earlier, I now realize) by the river. Only a few steps from the car and he can manage that still.

I don't feed birds in winter any more, since the squirrels got onto it and have found out how to dig holes in people's roofs and take up residence in the bedroom ceilings. A neighbor found this out the hard way. And there is no such thing as a squirrel proof feeder! it's a cruel hoax.

We still see a lot of small birds over the winter, though: goldfinches, cardinals, tufted titmice, chickadees, Carolina wrens yelling endlessly away -- they used my outdoor knitted hanging you saw earlier in this blog as a playgym in the summer! not unusual for cardinals to fledge twice, so you see babies learning to fly as late as October.

And a little cat shall lead them....

Fluffy Sheba, the household resident Rescued Persian, has registered a complaint that Marigold, the Rescued Burmese was pictured here, see a few days back, in a primo position, too, followed swiftly by CK Duncan, at leisure with Handsome Son. CK is a rescued longhaired cat who claims to be black but is in fact chocolate colored in the sunlight, hence Chocolate Kitty Duncan, aka CK Duncan, aka Duncan Donuts, a mean reference to his girth.

Anyway, both of them pushed in and got their pictures up so Fluffy Sheba inserted several teeth into my ankle in a gentle request that she, too, get her fifteen minutes of fame. So here she is, looking exactly as cheerful as she usually does. She gives the impression of a queen who somehow got placed in a plebeian household.

While we're at it, a little paean of praise to the best guard dog I ever had, Buff, the 30 lb mixed terrier known to local kids at that time as Liz's orange Scottie. Nobody got near me unless I said it was okay, a big plus to a woman living alone and walking her dog in the local park at night after work.

He came to me the day a previous dearly loved dog had to be euthanized, and I just agreed to meet him, not to take him home, no, never, there would never be another dog like my collie/terrier mix Kerry. when I used to brag about her at work one of my colleagues says, ah, she combines the best of both breeds: she herds rats!

Anyway, I went to meet Buff who then had another wimpy name, not right for a self respecting big dog like him, and when I opened the friend's apartment door, Buff ran and put a toy right on my foot. So in less than ten minutes he was in the car on the way home with me. And the lousy little politician never ever again agreed to play at all, in the next 15 years I had him. I'd throw a ball, and he'd look at me like, get yer own ball, I'm not your servant!

And there have been many other pets, none of them invited in, but they moved in anyway and some of them -- the parakeets -- had families in my apartment. Harriet and Opal, the parakeets who I swore I'd been keeping apart, had three families on the top of the refrigerator, beautiful multicolored babies all of whom found nice homes. One of their kids still survives. Beeper lives happily on the top of the current refrigerator in the current home, and feuds with Marigold.

Lunch today with a dear friend who works to rescue animals in her limited spare time and sadly noted that the current housing crisis has caused many pets to be abandoned. Which leads me to my next thought: if there's room at your house for just one of these animals, any shelter or rescue group would love to direct you!

And if food is the music of the kitchen!

Yesterday was the first of the month, so I wish you all White Rabbits. No idea why people say this, they just do.

And on the subject of food: Adventures with Wonton Wrappers.....which I finally discovered after everyone else on the planet knew all about their various uses.

We have a terrific local Asian foodmarket, with helpful workers none of whom have much English, but a lot of willing. And it took four of them to translate my need for wonton wrappers into Chinese and then to the one person who knew where they were but had a hard time explaining it to me. I must say I could not have directed her in Mandarin, so I'm not arguing with her! suffice it to say that after a while I did find them.

And learned to make my own potstickers. I made quite a lot the first time, because it was fun to do and I'd made too much filling (stirfried fresh ginger, garlic, onions, various small veggies) and had to use it up. But there were NO leftovers, which encouraged me to continue....which I did.

Next came Tiny Little Pies. Two wrappers, filled with Granny Smith apple, cooked down with cinnamon, lemon, brown sugar, baked in a hot oven for a few minutes. Wrappers are sealed together with an eggwash, that way they don't open in midbake. Little slits in the top just like grownup pies. Very good hot with a scoop of icecream, or cold with anything you like.

And finally, the Ravioli! ta-dahhhhhhh. Nice cheese mixture (actually like kreplach, but I know the kreplach joke, so don't!) with various cheeses and turmeric and pepper, wonton wrappers folded into halfmoons, sealed with the old eggwash and dropped into big pot of boiling water. They float quickly, but you cook them a couple of minutes more anyway. Then serve with a lovely homemade sauce of chunked tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, onion, big chunk of homemade basil/parsley pesto.

very good stuff, and you make enough for two meals, because the nuked leftovers are at least as good as the first time around. So yay!

Here endeth the current Adventures with Wonton Wrappers. I have now finished the first package so we will have a few days off from WWs...