old skills

i was trained 

in the long ago and far away 1970's

as a fiberartist.

i could design a cloth wall piece and dress a loom,

weave and finish it.

i could dye with chemistries called procion and acid.

i could read and think about ART and art and CRAFT and craft.

i learned to make paper, too, 

and to work with clay and metal a little bit.

draw and paint some.

i left academia and

i learned next 

to spin and then to raise sheep and goats and rabbits and plants

for fiber which i then spun

sometimes dyed

or made paper with.

it is truly all connected by a thread.

stitching me to my mom

who taught me to sew with re-purposed cotton hem threads on kleenex.

i was weaving away on this recent folio, 

made of lokta shifu, a lovely 3 x 6, 4-selvedge cloth

using another stump loom, 

remembering my past, when therese sent me lovely bits of color.

around the folio fold mark another thing began to happen.

the cloth wanted a few stripes

(remember this cloth will be 3h x 6w equalling 3 x 3 inch folio size).

in today's mail came FIBER ART now

a visual scream (please please get another layout person)

inside was a pantheon of rich fiber art.

including my buffalo state college teacher, nancy belfer.

a good many months ago i warped up my smallest floor loom

with delicious cotton intended for shifu.

maybe it's time to weave a long cloth.

i can imagine

mrs. belfer looking

over my warp 

and making some little criticism, or,

if i'm lucky,

a word of praise.

in any case,

this journey with paper and books 

is exactly what i should be doing.

and this funny folio seems to be sprouting

some slits and wraps

reminiscent of my first experimental learning tapestries

from the 70's.

(i know someone will notice the needle: i did carve the bone one

from a found whitetail deer leg bone)

photos of home, scattered

i stayed up way too late last night and barely got a walk in this afternoon before i collapsed. fortunately the hooligans were in good shape today, the ones that made it in. (we have pretty high absenteeism.) 

this is a david wolfe print, one he completed at pbi. i loved it when he explained the intricacies of printing this (using copper) to me. it lives right above a spirit cloth from jude hill.

this one of jude's has some weaving in the border. there are three of her cloths on the walls in this room, where also lives a favorite adirondack mountain painting by bill evans.

this revealed itself to me after our walk. shelf fungi. on maple. 

i did a huge amount of dyeing with fungi when ian was a baby.

high bush cranberries.

more birthday goodies...and a questionable card. i laughed hard. that's blueberry preserves, made by my sister.

collage by anastasia osolin. she was my third yoga teacher. 

these are some of the images that i look at, that mean something to me. i have lots of art in this house, lots to keep my mind engaged in the process of discovery. and lots to inspire when the days draw in and the nights lengthen and become ponderous. 

i don't get bored or depressed. i read and make things and do some thinking.

i also sometimes get some more paper made. two vats, maybe three, have got to be completed. time to work. 

and go over to aimee's site and see the photographs of her newest work. it looks really really good!