glorious northwest

 i am entirely and absolutely in the pacific north west, and it is amazing. 
this is catherine and bill's garden, a place of wonder, comfort, and healing.

i have been fed food fit for a queen

 this amazing salad tasted even better than it looks, 

served along with one of the two very different carrot soups catherine is trying just now, 

a result of an anticipated large carrot harvest.

looking up here is so different than home!

these are trillium, of course

~~~~~

last night i gave my talk for the book arts guild in seattle, with a wonderful, very educated group who asked amazing questions. i met too many people to mention here, except for my supper mates, kate and sandra. this was my first attempt to work with a computer and give a talk. all the technology (thank you aimee, kate, and tech guy) worked beautifully.

i spoke without too much tension, and this group asked dozens of good questions. i felt so welcomed, and wished i could have brought more paper to pass around to touch and smell, and listen to.

 catherine took me to eat delicious fish tacos in olympia, 

before going to the amazing and HUGE seattle.

 i spent some time (an hour limit!) and money in a wonderful place. 

weaving works. 

where the women there know their fiber.

 catherine fell in love with this tea cozy and i volunteered hannah (!!!!!) to knit it.

it was cute, and catherine has pattern, yarn, and wool. get ready, sweetie!

it was tough to limit purchases.

because

it was

beautifully stocked.
more to come!

black raspberries and goodbyes

this morning's harvest of black raspberries

i harvest for my lunch

each one i pick

may extract a blood price

but i remember

 those berries picked here

twenty four years of them

now i like them more

maybe as much as the coyotes and bear.

i know somebody big ate some, because i saw the scat, like a big dog's.

sometimes the children insist on raspberry pie

me, i like them with yogurt and maybe nuts or grains

but i like also that they move around every year, 

they make you work for them

a little indigo harvest

by accident

from yesterday's weeding

see the blue?

i fly away today, leaving wendy and raspberries.

i'll be back.

hand eye

this is a quick post to recommend to you

 the latest issue of hand eye. 

there are good articles, and as always luscious photographs. 

 the magazine keeps changing sizes, 

something to challenge archivists of the future, 

but really looks good.

 i have read the pieces by wendy golden-levitt, india flint, and rowland ricketts. 

of course all three are amazing people doing amazing work.

and these three set me to thinking

and that's what i want in reading about art and life, 

to be challenged to think,

 and work it out in my own work. 

kudos to keith recker and staff, for a great issue.

textile love

while textiles carry enormous meaning for me

*fiber*

i assume only a few others have this sort of passion,

and they number among my friends and colleagues,

both at home,

and interwebbishly.

here's some work that is very tailored,

very storied,

very layered.

dare i say, very feminine.

visit julie: http://julievondervellen.com/
~~~~~~
friday was farmer's market day in canton.
this is what i scored:

sari silk strips

marilla o'brien and andrea castle were womaning their booths, 

happily spinning
and i am madly prepping for washington

that...

...which i don't know: iPhoto tricks and usages. really.

and then this appears in the inbox:

"each woman has potential access to rio abajo rio, this river

beneath the river. she arrives there through deep meditation, dance,

writing, painting, prayer making, singing, drumming, active

imagination, or any activity which requires an intense altered

consciousness.  a woman arrives in this world-between worlds

through yearning and by seeking something she can see just out of the 

corner of her eye. she arrives there by deeply creative acts, through

intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts. and even with

these well-crafted practices, much of what occurs in this ineffable

world remains forever mysterious to us, for it breaks physical laws

and rational laws as we know them."

clarissa pinkola estes

is this not what it's all about?????

drat iPhoto, anyway.

story

the white table with shifu knitty noddy "snake", ancient beads

old bone hooks, a blizzard binding sample, linen samples

 sometimes i think this messing around with fiber is 

particularly 

a woman's way of telling a story. 

a story that traces time, emotion, grace.

adding paper makes it a book.

shifu book, blue cotton paper, lily of the valley and abaca paper

and i reflect on my recent travels.

at the morgan i was given a gift after the last student left,

and the tables were cleared, 

and my stuff all packed up and ready to load. 

 tom invited me to use a big mould and work at a

wonderful big vat

making pale blue paper

while susan made lily of the valley paper.

oh my.

i could feel the strain of the big dip

between my shoulders.

it felt good.

after a while it was enough, i was tired.

a shifu square dyed with slippery elm 

today, the amazing susan sent me

my papers, in a big tube,

and a sampling of her papers she is naming after me.

serious prep

taking pictures in the dark is a funny thing, this little mama is working on family number two

i love living here. 

i got an email from a neighbor regan, who has some cedar bark i can have. 

i stop in, there is a new lovely post of paper she made for a wedding album

...and several huge bags full of cedar bark peeled off her garden fence posts. 

one comes home with me, for here and for teaching in washington.

on facebook another neighbor valerie tells me that anne labastille died friday. 

i bought woodswoman in around 1980, long before i had any idea i would live in the adirondacks or, as now, north of them.

aimee's stack before she packed it up.

i look though and see signs of our working alongside one another.

i have been packing boxes to ship west today, and find to my chagrin that i am missing two teaching moulds! not deckles, i have two extras!

a little bereft

aimee and her scarf

aimee left today, and wendy is feeling bereft. 

me, too. 

we were ok with each other in my space.

 we made slippery elm paper last night. actually only a little, because we were both tired. 

both of us are getting over big stuff, travel, teaching, applications...

slippery elm inner bark cooked with soda ash 

and added bundled cloth and paper samples. 

thursday & friday

 aimee and i harvested one of the slippery elms in my perennial border

bark, we scraped the outer bark after dark, until i went to bed!

 i finally have a shifu sample book

 and it's now labeled, too

a tiny book present, with slipcase.

 a visitor (aimee)

 and i cleaned off the white table. 

the story is that everyone said, "the white table?" yes, "the white table!"

 delicious space

 no dust (now)

and i found a tumbler that ian made in high school. 

i love this.