digging deeper

who can say why certain things...

shapes, colors, textures, 

animals, even,

who can say why they speak to you, 

to one, in a certain specific, peculiar way.

perhaps they appear in dreams or day dreams, 

maybe hormone driven, 

maybe longing

maybe something altogether 

unknown or unknowable

but for whatever reason this shield i found on facebook

a first nations thing

pleases me.

 i was looking for tiny beads to use with the loom books

(i accumulated an embarrassment of old beads)

i was looking for the greasy yellow ones.

 some live in type trays

which is ridiculous in too many ways.

 2

these two strand sets are small and beautiful

and i see now 

that they are colors i used a long time ago in a tapestry.

 i lifted them out of the little wooden rectangle

that had become a cache.

field mice leave little stashes in my world,

and often i don't know the seeds. 

but here is, 

amongst others, 

milkweed.

 cottontail is large now

and doesn't show itself often.

 elsewhere in my back yard

november arrives

indoors 

there is a wonderful type event happening when the morning sun 

bathes the studio table in light.

two loom books completed, one with drawing,

and soon a larger one.

today i'm pulping 3 linen shirts.

an edition is planned!

pulp clouds at longridge

 a wonderful and quite manageable trip

from the north country

to long ridge farm

(new hampshire)

 i saw these

 amish made field monsters

 but really sorghum (i think)

 and this morning i saw this

 and this

 and on the HUGE porch 

a nice, round japanese paper shade

processing daylilies

both dry and green

and hosta

 into pulp

 three blenders at once

 pulping abaca as well

 the winter sheep barn becomes 

a wonderful workshop space

and the exceptional hand skills 

of this wonderful group

proves to me that these five are ready to try

more pulps

more book structures

and tomorrow and sunday

look out!

we were 

overseen by three dogs

luna, kaylie, and finn

whose game leg is feeling better

thanks to the ministrations of nancy

who never forgets to take 

good care of everyone.

day one: 

one structure

four pulps

five papermakers!

scent

vat of abaca and dogbane, reflection includes little sheets drying, a mould and deckle, and a maple.

the house smells of soda ash cook. yesterday i cooked up a huge stock pot of hosta leaves. today i'm using a bit of that liquid as dye liquor for some ecoprints, i bound up cotton and silk with leaves from maple, lilac, wogelia (sp?), i think that's what it's called, a shrub that this year bloomed beautifully. i have made five of the big rock book's pages, and have to cut a new deckle because the other one failed after five (good) sheets.

foam deckle on borrowed european mould from mark mcmurray on my ancient paintsmeared rolly table.

you can probably see where the deckle failed, on the top and right side. the new one (i'm too tired to cut it tonight) has a bit more heft and i will reinforce it. re cutting: do NOT use an exacto knife, new blade, if you are tired. you will make an error. you also will if you're too cocky. you must be very "present" to not get hurt. i know this. so i will wash my hair and retire (early) with a wonderful book, the inner studio by andrew levitt, that i am savoring, section by section. i can only imagine what art school might have been like with such an inspiring and thinking teacher. (andrew is wendy's husband.)

thinking about the rockness of these books in contrast with the seemingly delicateness of ecoprints and shifu and miniature books. doesn't it seem strange that i'm making miniature woven books of poems covered in delicate sheep vellum and then big books with rough paper and split rock covers?