simple

simple gifts,

simple things:

a honey

house warming.

clair van vleit

who runs janus press taught this

simple structure tome in a class 

she taught at the paper trail in ottawa. 

a LONG time ago.

 using it with amazing paper deepens the experience of simple

this paper is rhubarb with abaca

a paper i have only once been able to duplicate.

simple old rhubarb

 hides its fiber

 and then the season for papermaking is past.

 like these little squares, 

also simple

 truly good work 

can be woven on the simplest of looms.

 i had thought to make a simple booklet

to explain a bit about shifu

and contact printing on papers,

 i wrote about it,

 and so a dummy appeared in my mail,

my designer, printer, and dear friend carol

and i have been cooking up a project

for me to share

with students and friends.

i'm heading to australia in a month.

teaching and traveling and being in

that

wonderful

place

for a short while.

 ~~~

i've been swamped and forgetting things

simple things that made me happy:

a new year greeting

from the cave

 and another

from jennifer

 with

a message i am loving, 

good madness.

 and i will continue

to make little things

 and bigger things.

simply.

preparations

not sure if its a lawn ornament

a give away

an artistic statement

or just a place for the weary

but it decorates a front yard down the road from my place.

 being prepared has different manifestations.

because the recent big snow 

didn't swing north.

instead

blanketed the mid-atlantic states with lovely fresh stuff,

we've had little snow

and little ice

but we are prepared.

 it was cold this weekend

 with one sunshiny day

 and the tree with the lights in it.

 old pasture fence

propped up to keep young steers in.

 disappearing silo,

 braided ice along the cliff

 with a dusting of new snow.

 i didn't sample this ice

though i licked one icicle from that woodshed.

days are lengthening some

at home, 

 and there were two rainbow feet

 around behind my old farm,

 the big arc between filled with sunset.

wintertime.

it's hard not to look to the sky.

 but i look down,

 too.

ian's shop

i have a son who is trying to make a business of

house portrait drawing. 
ian moved to portland, oregon
a long time ago...
in the, is it eight? years he's been away
i've seen him twice.
only.
he does keep in touch, and lately decided to try
making a living from his 
amazing "hoosies".

                                       here are some of his most recent drawings:

in process:

 a note-tag for a bigger drawing

funky house of worship

 a place to play

www.etsy.com/shop/HousePortraitsbyIan

if you like this work, ask him to show you his heart.

it's amazing!

his portraits have such soul and humor,

and sometimes 

a great, lovely sadness, 

like life.

accumulating

as i prepare myself

for the wonderful inevitability of teaching

in

australia

this march,

i'm spinning and weaving and dyeing and

writing

and getting this brain

(so often addled by teenaged emotional turmoil

 and the fallout

present in public school)

i return to my heart work

and of course, keep reading.

 how in photographs these things look like the skin

that paper makes

flax and milkweed, for example,

to work on,

to wear for protection.

 and walking slows this mind down

to consider these things

 to see

 up close how beautiful these skins are

here, the blue skin of atmosphere

the red skin of berry

the hidden sinews

of milkweed

twined into threads to weave 

weave a skin to keep warm and safe.

winter sky

the wonderful winter sky

is companion to this walker.

some little snow

 came on.

only a little and very icy

for me that means i won't ski.

 barnhenge is leaning

without a skin to hold it taut

it is leaving, leaning, leaning. 

 and still the clouds

 this old yard table sinks deeper 

 into the snow

 small doings

stitch footprints through the few inches.

 i peep through the one mulberry that lived

from a planting of eight.

 there was a small deer visiting the black eyed susan

seed heads

 not much was eaten

probably not tasty 

(though that one was bold to come close to the house)

 leaving plenty of seed

for dyework and

for the new garden at the place

called home.

going home.