Monday, August 2, 2010

monday fibers

washing horsehair... i'm cleaning out the paper mill and found my stash of horsehair from my mare mist. so i washed it.
it smelled only a little of horse, but it was so her. silver gray hair from her mane. i will use it in a textile soon, i think. i saved it for the right time. which might be now.
luscious slippery elm bark i harvested for frank, a north country gift. a nice bunch, i found it isn't peeling as well as it did in spring. the summer is so advanced this year that peeling isn't easy and pleasurable like it is in may. but i think he'll have enough to make some paper and see what he thinks. i still haven't tried basswood inner bark. must do! also must harvest milkweed and dogbane. i'm a little weirded out by the ticks and really don't want to come home covered in them so i find myself avoiding tall meadows. silly of me, but there is lyme disease up here now. i'm feeling creepy crawly from harvesting that slippery elm. 
good news: i've had two books accepted in the sequenced fibers show in omaha this october. i am tickled; karen kunc is the juror, an artist i respect deeply. i also talked loooong with aimee who will be teaching in the brand new hanji studio (that she oversaw and helped build) at the morgan conservatory this weekend. and again later with my dear friend kathy. a day of friends, easy paced work, and not too warm summertime freshness. my kind of day!

8 comments:

  1. Velma - I'm taking Aimee's workshop this weekend! Can't wait!

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  2. lucky you judy! you *will* love her, and *will* learn lots and lots.wish i was going--

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  3. oh hey, congrats...
    you have lyme disease up there, we have west nile down here, it is that time of year.

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  4. i am not in an accepting frame of mind over lyme disease--need to work on it.

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  5. ok here's the seasonal list: black flies come first, then deer flies, followed by horse flies. then there are no-see-ums or all-jaws. there are ticks, both little ones and big ones. (the little ones are the lyme disease ones, i think) ticks can come home with you even after a frost--yuck. of them all, besides the tick problem, i hate deer flies, they look like delta kites and dive bomb your head. all in all, it's not too bad a list!

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  6. I only think of slippery elm as a medicine! How wonderful if it were to make a nice paper. I envy your industriousness to collect and transform so many plant materials. I am printing today and procrastinating.

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  7. remind me to send you a sample of slippery elm paper! it's lovely stuff. i've been procrastinating way to long until today.

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