all the things.

the first time i heard this phrase

was in michelle moode's beautiful letterpress book

PARTICULAR.

it was index item #1.

the first thing was all the things.

i handle this book,

handle, the touch or the feel of something held in the hands

this book

haptic knowledge

anyway, it has delights and puzzles quietly presented.

The whole world is a series of miracles,
but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.
Hans Christian Anderson

I've been thinking about the intelligence of
our hands, how they become smarter with practice, like our brains do.

unmoored, by shanna leino
i've read over and over.
it's a small poem, not many words,
but about big things.
the care she took as she stitched this exquisite spine

the monoprints on silk...
see her tiny stitches?

an exit in SLU's print studio

with my favorite cheesecloth drying after being washed out.

i'm not quite sure why it is

but for me the things that have meaning

are the things made by hands that have knowledge,

and also are my favorites

for (whatever/all the) reasons.

in last summer's seattle workshop

my students' hands all together could indeed have ruled the world,

with exquisite intelligence, grace, and love.

hazel and gabby

an envelope came recently that held this rich

surprise:

Banks of the Dogbane by sarah swett

a hand sized tapestry (3 x 3") rich in simple detail

and texture

woven on handspun linen

i love this thing.

over on the next farm this structure

was never honored by finishing

or by use

now it's failing

i believe it was intended for hay storage

for these bovines.

why leave it undone,

a public testament to failure of some kind?

i watched them build it, but then it was ignored.

these cows don't seem to care.

the lovely little brown calf stands out in this black and white crowd.

a lilac burl

from my garden.

enhanced by me cleaning and oiling it,

rolling it around in my hands with pleasure and love

handling it into another use

(maybe an awl?)

a beautiful handwoven hemp textile

hand spun hemp on a cotton warp

found by my dear friend who allowed me to buy it

at mjolk in toronto.

tiny waxed linen crocheted basket by Nina Payne

a gift from a gifted friend.

shanna's lake michigan rocks

beautiful and useful.

a little natural history book nest i made

two feathers on a shifu page and a seaweed float/bladder

milkweed bast becoming thread

ginkgo message

from therese

and words from the wise.

i'm reading a new book:

Craeft by alexander langlands

which may help me understand (or perhaps just frame)

my thoughts on hand work.

all the handwork.

i once kept a flock of sheep.

raisin was my first ewe, named for her thompson seedless raisin brown.

then i found a few more including truffle and lily who came from trudy van stralen

rambam(!) no comment on his name;

then a goat called trouble,

who birthed adonis

the most beautiful mohair kid in the world.

at that time

i was making paper from local fibers.

dyeing with fungi and lichens,

weaving tapestries,

and raising a few angora bunnies.

my spinning included silk,

wild silk (spider and moth)

and crept over into the realm of cellulose.

i couldn't imagine why spin cellulose?

and now i say look at this, natural pale green cotton sliver

from kristin

which deepens with a cook to the color

in the little skein.

a lovely cotton.

(very hard to capture the color in the photo, even with adjustment)

and here is hemp,

all the way from japan,

and the clever fingers of chica notch.

she included a lovely wrapping cord of two ply hemp,

i suppose.

more rustic and quite lovely, too.

my 2-ply twined dogbane or indian hemp

is from the bast of the dried, field retted stems.

the coil grows slowly.

i have made paper from this fiber,

wonderful paper, actually,

that included the wild and slender seed pods,

packed with seeds on fibers smaller than milkweed

and ready to airlift the seeds to eager soil.

i am here,

at the new year,

looking both ways,

forward and back and

considering.

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