finishing Vigil

"Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in."  Michael Corleone

the next step

Me? Coming out of hibernation like most of the country. My UFO's are different these days – books that I'm reading rather than unfinished stitching projects. At the moment I'm going through a list that ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, but if the author doesn't have me after a full chapter, maybe two, it goes into the “sell it back” pile.

I've been thinking about putting the cloth and thread behind me and clearing out the studio. Boxing up all the raw materials and tools. Out of sight, out of mind. Not to mention all the finished pieces. 

But then what? My studio was my favorite place in the house where everything in it was set up for my comfort and purpose by my husband. I don't need a spare bedroom anymore. Soon, I won't need the day job office. 

It was shitty out yesterday and I forced myself to follow through with what's become a ritual – meeting one of my friends at IKEA in the city. I can take or leave the food, but they don't throw you out after taking up a table for nearly three hours. We hash over family, life and current events and then we tour the store with our wishlists. As much as I like good design, a lot of IKEA's offerings leaves me cold. 

My friend makes jewelry. Beautiful, fashionable stuff, not junky trendy crap. She reminded me that she stopped doing it completely for about two years. She was just out of gas, experiencing a loss of passion for the craft due in part to a frustration with marketing – every artists waterloo. Just recently, she got her stuff out of storage and picked it up again and she is back to enjoying the pure pleasure of just making with fresh eyes and attitude. Pondering the lesson.

nailing it

If you are any kind of creative every now and again you'll step back from what you are up to and go “Yes!” or “Good!” or, in my case “Fuckin' Aaa!” and you'll throw down the tools and get that little chill and be thirsty for a celebration because you nailed it. You won't even feel the need to drag anyone into the moment for their agreement. This moment is for you alone.

Last night I was pondering the demise of the writers group that I've been going to for a little more than a year now. The two founders have drifted away. Life, of course, must take precedence over follies like gathering over bad food with snotty waiters and embarrass ourselves and each other with our attempts at writing and so the group has floundered. It's been a learning experience and my only semi-social connection to the world since my husband died. I will be looking for another bunch of similarly plagued individuals and if I can't find what I'm looking for, I'll found my own.

So I made the mistake of looking over a bit of the book I've been working on for almost a year. I worked on it constantly while I was at the FOF retreat last year in FL. 

The writing was puffy, awkward and self-indulgent. I was bummed thinking how I thought I was closing in on a rough draft when all I really had behind me was clouds crap. I sulked and went to bed. The last thing I remember was that there were a couple of lines out of some twelve pages that were really good. Keepers.

In the dark hour before waking, on a day when I didn't have to get up, I turned that chapter inside out in my head. I had a sit down with each of the characters. Assessed their needs and their wants. Established who knew what, when and why it mattered. Addressed the problems and found answers, all before ever putting my toes on the rug.

I've got this and knowing it feels great.

spring behind my back

Spring is here for real. I want to get my mailbox garden up and running as soon as I can. It's a scraggly mess this time of year. No pictures please.

The year is a almost a quarter passed. Although I've been feeling the urge to do some stitching, there has been no time for quiet, meditative activity. If I sit still and quiet for five minutes, I'm likely to be asleep. Lately some days are eighteen hours long, but I get to spend most of those hours in good company..

 As you can see Charlie is open to any style sensibility. A baby's boundless sense of discovery and fun is infectious. Yesterday he was oblivious to Elfie on his head while I laughed until I cried.


 On the "House to Home" front, I was able to get a large reduction in the mortgage. For those of you have a VA mortgage, look into an IRRRL rate adjustment. Soon this is going to translate into more free time for me and then who knows what I'll be up for.

ps- these days of adorableness on the quilt are over. He's doing the Worm at 5 mph and gets up on all fours, rocking back and forth, looking for first gear. Any minute now.

That added hour

Spring swings wildly these past few days between 20s and 60s, snow flurries, freezing rain and this morning, bright sunshine. I couldn't focus on what I wanted to do first beyond just looking. seeing. looking some more. The sun was blazing through the studio windows this morning. I pulled art out of storage and cheered up the Fierce wall.

        untitled works  by Jude Hill, Grace  Forrest and me.

You're gonna need a bigger box!

I'm packing up a box of stuff to represent me at the next Focus on Fiber event coming up at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL. All this stuff will be for the attendees to pick through and use in their projects during the retreat and classes.

If anyone from the ATL is driving there this year  and would consider delivering it for me...I can pack it even heavier! Get in touch!  You'll get first picks after Mary!

I had a terrific time last year. It was a seminal week for me. Although my fiber project "Fierce" didn't pan out, the outline of my novel  in progress did, and I'm forever grateful to everyone who made that week possible.

(Fierce is not a total loss. It hangs in hope on the studio wall. A reminder that you can't always get what you want  ) This was our cabin banner...

house vs. home

Can you see the house? Barely. That's how I've been thinking about it lately - as little as possible. Instead of seeing it as a home, I've been seeing it as a liability, a money pit.

Since we moved here in '98 it's been a classic case of the shoemaker's children going barefooted. In this case, the carpenter's house getting raggedy. It was always a matter of having either no time to do the work (no chance another contractor be paid to rip us off!) or unpaid time off from work meaning no money to invest in the projects.

My dad was plumber and we had to flush toilet in the spare bath with a bucket of water for years so I understand this mindset completely and it never bothered me especially because Jim really like doing creative, hands on things,  like the pool deck, beautiful built in bookcases and putting a window in my studio so I could  have north light..wonderful things. Not practical things.

Now the list of practical needs has piled up to the point where I look at those "I BUY  UGLY HOUSES" signs and think "I got a peach for ya, buddy".

I've decide that it's my mindset that's ugly and I'm going to have to get real and get creative about putting my house in order.

 Last night, a dear friend almost lost her home to a fire. The building itself was saved, but her beloved pets were not. Why does it take a kick in the gut to wake us up?

There are forms to be filled out, research to do and  lists to be made.

Putting the cloth to work redux

detail courtesy Arlee Barr

My sister in fyberspace, Arlee Barr, posted an eye popping array of photos of her most recently completed "the Ubiquitous Poppy Project"  although I have to say you don't see poppies like this just anywhere.

A long time ago I sent her a bundle of dyed cloth and she's made the magic happen.


I be working up a full range of colors, wishful through intense, pure and speckled like puppies as soon as the sun comes back on a regular basis. It may be a while...I drove through a snowstorm to get to Charlie today. Very rare here.

the body dump

I took the Greenway Spur on a coin toss and glad of it. The other trail would have been a mess of mud. I got bored and did a little off roading up the same desolation trail I followed last year.  Even though a rough road has been logged over what had been a footpath, it's even creepier than it was the last time.

Just over this ridge is an acre of broken concrete, heaps of debris, loops of rusted cable, and big wet clumps of what looked like fur, hair and shreds of cloth everywhere. Like somebody had run a heard of large fur bearing animals through the washer and cleaned out the lint traps on the ground.

 It looked like a body dump at first. I really didn't want to get close enough to any of these to take pictures, but curiosity drove me on.

I wandered around, careful of my footing. There's broken glass and twisted metal bits everywhere. None of the fur/hair piles had any bones and there was no smell of decay. No vultures around either and in Georgia, they do NOT miss lunch.

No conclusions as to what all this mess is up there, but there has been demolition, bulldozing and burning since my visit last year. Good signs or evidence eradication??

summer dreams sustain for now

Won't complain about the cold. It would be an insult to anyone north of here.

 I did  have great fun driving through a snow squall in the friday night rush traffic on the secondary roads here in burbs of Atlanta.  The wind driven snow was rushing at me calling for some hard driving metal music turned up loud!  Keep in mind we have NO accumulation but there are patches of black ice here and there.

july 2012

The locals put on their flashers, straddled the double yellow line and generally behaving like asshats at their first demolition derby.

I gave them space, enjoyed the ride and got home safe.

A big box of dyes from Pro|Chem was waiting for me and a note from a friend letting me know that more cloth was on it's way south!

        2008      I named this piece "Fireplace"....  Jude snapped it up.

Under the weather

Not me, thank goodness. I meant the Weather, which has been  relatively kind to us here in Georgia as compared just about everywhere north and east of us. When I talk to my sisters were don't even mention it anymore. More snow and ice is a given. This is from my visit to NY the end of last February.  For the first time in many years, I am not going home for "a little winter". Winter by proxy from everyone who lives with it has been plenty for me.

I'm saving up my vacation days for a summer visit including some time up in Newport. Sand, sun and ocean. I can hold my breath that long!

So, like everyone else,  I've been hibernating - sleeping, eating, cooking, reading and writing. There's been no stitching of any consequence, but I did just get off the phone with ProChem. I spent the entire gift certificate from dearest St. Anna on a mad kaleidoscope of color. Even the nice young lady who took my order was dazzled!

Does anyone have a favorite supplier for flip top 32oz. plastic bottles to hold  dyestock and a source for soy wax flakes?  I feel like a newbie.