Technical Revelation

Earlier this evening, I wandered over to peer idly at the boxes stacked in the living room, wondering what to do next. Last weekend, I switched the boxes and the loom, moving nothing more than three times to accomplish this feat. A large part of the reason for that exertion was an effort to fool myself into getting interested in sorting papers again: make it look radically different, because different is interesting to artist brain.

Idle contemplation zeroed in on the loom. I don't remember quite how I folded it up to move, but it involved a wrench. I drifted over to the loom and contemplated further.

I found myself contemplating the little brackets that hold the treadles. They can be pretty irritating, because one or the other will swing out to the side, thus dropping the treadle contraption loosely to the floor. Aggravating.

But lo, then I revelated.

The original owner put it together wrong.

The bracket that's on the right should be on the left, and vice versa. So obvious in hindsight, and what a simple fix to avoid future annoyance!

EDIT: I was wrong. The brackets are too far apart if they are switched. I was able to tighten them more than I expected, and will just have to pay closer attention in the future.

Project Table

Thanks to Sarah for posting the link to Terri Windling's series of pictures of people's desks--I love seeing how other people set things up. A touch of voyeurism, I suppose, coupled with dosages of "oh, I'd like that" and "oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one that ends up like that." My personal best example: realizing I was just about to set a dish of inky water on top of a piece of velvet. It would be nice to have two work surfaces...and a large enough space that I could not reach both from the same seat. I have more space in my new apartment, but two work surfaces...not feasible at the moment.

Here is my project table--which looked radically different about an hour later, as I removed the embroidery stratum to provide access to the painting stratum.



A bit closer, with the embroidery on top of the weaving notes on top of the sketchbook (and a glimpse of my new little haworthia in the background):



There was a spot of sun today. I took a few photos of the charming feline; this is the only one where she was looking out intently. In the other photos she was obviously sitting there with her eyes closed!

Musical Boxes

This is another "post move" update.

Last night's idea was "move boxes." (Oil painting from Sunday was not dry enough to finish.) So I moved boxes. Things have been stagnant for a while, and it's been getting to me. All the easier/more obvious things have been dealt with, and the last bit is taking forever because I'm trying to not just put stuff away to get it out of sight, since out of sight = out of mind, and I really, truly wish to sort things out and have them accessible in order to (gasp) USE them.

I poked through several small cardboard boxes, dislodged a hammer and several nails, and hung two more things on the wall (for a total of three). The box containing my camera software is now more accessible, so when I feel up to it I will be able to mess around with trying to get it to work again on my computer.

I moved boxes, shifting a bin of camping things into the coat closet, which entailed first emptying the floor of said closet, which was not as bad as it sounds since said closet is not very big.

I need to find a place for the vacuum cleaner. In my last apartment, the camping stuff lived in the bedroom closet and the vacuum cleaner lived in the coat closet. My current bedroom closet doesn't seem to have room for it. (Much smaller closet.) The closet in the studio also does not have room for the camping stuff. Since I'm naturally using the somewhat larger master bedroom for the studio, that bedroom closet is somewhat larger than the other one, but it's full of Cool Stuff and, behind that, flattened boxes for the next time I move. And the water heater is in there, too. So the coat closet had to be the place for the camping stuff, and there is no room in the coat closet for the vacuum cleaner.

I should be able to put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet. The shelves are only half the depth of the closet, so there is a lot of vertical air. In that case, I have to find somewhere else to put my clothes drying racks, which I currently keep in the linen closet, because there wouldn't be enough room for them if the vacuum cleaner was in there. They might fit in the bedroom closet if I didn't have the suitcases there. But that's kind of the only place for the suitcases.

Due to the layout of my apartment, the main bathroom has a lot of wasted space, mainly in the corner behind the door. I'll probably end up putting the boxes from the outdoor/balcony closet there. (The outdoor closet is smaller, too, and this balcony is not shaped like an outdoor room, so once again I have to come up with a new system.) Once I get the boxes out of the outdoor closet, I can install a hook to hang up my bicycle, which otherwise won't fit. But in the meantime, before I move the boxes, perhaps I can put the clothes drying racks behind the door in the bathroom, so I can put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet instead of leaving it in the living room where it has been since late August.

Then, once I rearrange the boxes in the living room, I can move the fabric storage dresser out of the studio, where it is completely blocking the other fabric storage dresser, to the living room, where it will stay until I decide what to do with it.

Soothing picture of trees. It's impossible--for an amateur like me, at least--to take a really satisfactory photo of giant redwoods:

Success at the Front

Sunday I finally worked out on the balcony--I wanted to get it tidied up before it gets cold (cold for Oregon, that is). I venture to declare some actual success and definite signs of improvement--true reduction of entropy, and not mere reconfiguring of existing chaos. It is quite encouraging. Princess found the whole thing quite strenuous--she had to go out each time I did, then HEY! It's all different out here!! and she'd have to get back inside IMMEDIATELY. Eventually she overloaded and had to take herself off for a recuperative nap.

I shopped at Art Media over a week ago, and still haven't used the new paintbrush I got. :(

Picture of some sort soon, I promise. For now, a link to several more pictures from the Sculptural Vessel Class. I'm the one with my elbow in front of my face.

Happy Anniversary

--to Princess & me. March 30 is two years since she came to live with me. :) She spent the first day and a half hiding under the futon. She has relaxed a lot, though she still can be hyper-alert kitty when the need arises. We are very cozy together even though I haven't conformed to her desire for a predictable schedule, and I keep her busy (she has an extra amount of work every time I reconfigure the chaos, because she has to check everything). I always make sure to leave cat routes between & behind boxes, and to make a lap nest with her favorite blanket so she'll sit with me. Sometimes her naps are contagious. Other times she runs around like crazy for as much as a minute, careful not to "hide" where I can't reach her. All in all, life is good.

Random Progress

The chaos reigning in my apartment has been reconfigured once again, with moderate improvements. I'm still waiting for the bookcase I ordered at the end of January.

Progress on the white embroidery sampler--it is getting very crazy; what works and what doesn't are very apparent. Aside from issues resulting from not using an embroidery frame (which would be a good thing when using such a variety of stitches/stitch tensions), having the central pod "shaded" and the rest monochromatic isn't working; too much business.

Over the weekend I finished this little embroidery sample I charted from a reliquary purse: The purse itself is in the fantastic database of the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage--note that although the search form is in English, you have to search in Dutch or French. "Beurs" is pouch.

Sarah, what technique do you think was used to make this delightful item?

Tiamat Grows Restive; Marduk Focuses Mainly on Other Things

Life Stuff.

Over the weekend I spread out some of the boxes from the Awful Pile. I'm afraid of it becoming something that has been there so long I don't see it. Now it's distributed over most of the floor of the living room half of the living room (as opposed to the half of the room full of boxes and a floor loom), ready for Initial Sorting & Redistribution. My cat approves of the alteration of the pile--it's now about level with the back of the futon--I found her reclining on it last night.

I made this sketch of Princess last fall. She is sitting in the Bed Time Now pose, which follows a bout of serious careening into my lower legs interspersed with Forceful Head Butts. If I don't go to bed soon enough, she collapses into a nap or just goes to bed without me.

Art-ish Stuff.

Monday I started the padding stitches for the seed pod on the white embroidery, after completing one more circuit of the background. Before I do more background, I realized, it would be a good idea to add the other Elements to my composition. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow morning while I wait for my car to be repaired. It's has gotten to the point that there is not enough progress if I just work during my lunch break--ready to be DONE!

While I was doing it, one of the two people who has asked me about it (it's sort of a sociological experiment to see if anyone will notice; embroidery in the lunchroom of a high-tech company does not seem to attract notice like, say, naalbinding on the train)--anyway, she asked me what it was for. I had to tell her several times, with verbal capitalization, that it is a Sample!

Speaking of lunch, I believe I ought to go embroider now. I mean eat.

P.S for the last post: Armenian Embroidery (in Armenian with English summary)--it's in two parts; get both here
Armenian Lace (one page article by Nouvart Tashjian--citation information is on this page; you'll have to do a "find")

Entropy Reconfigured

Yesterday I made a couple stops on the way home from work--one of them to buy a toaster oven & some small shelving units. (Shelves, huzzah...) I assembled them & shifted all the boxes--well, not ALL the boxes, but a lot of them--and put some boxes on them. I reclaimed a significant amount of floorspace, which makes my heart rest easier. The living room half of the living room is now clear, except for a tall stack of books, and I can tolerate that a while longer. Also a basket full of stuff (baskets are tolerable, too) and my small, long-neglected tapestry loom. In fact, I could almost pretend that Order had been imposed, if it weren't for the stack of boxes visible behind the futon. At least I did make that pile relatively even, so I could put big pieces of paper on it. I wish I had a good way to store large pieces of paper...

A little while ago I phoned and ordered a small bookcase for one of the spaces Ikea didn't help me with. But I have to wait! :( Not a surprise, but hopefully it will be on the shorter end of the time they prognosticated. 24" wide, 48" high, 10" deep, with adjustable shelves. I have a steadily-increasing number of homeless books, and I've been "losing" things due to repeated shifting: I had to give in a while back and shelve by size instead of topic. And I have a tendency to retain books near my work area once I pull them--so there is usually a flock of books on the floor by my chair (books are best when within reach)--and these books tend to stay there long enough to lose their shelf spaces.

Anyway, I ended up messing around so long that I got to bed extremely late. Again. It was so late that the cat gave up on me, and went to bed by herself.

Marduk vs. Tiamat

I do hope the allegorical title will please the Title Quality Editor. (See, they're better when I have time to ponder them.) ;)

The week off was not restful, as I ended up schlepping stuff all over my apartment and repiling it in different configurations. I no longer have a living room; the battle for chaos control has just begun. But my work area is significantly improved. (Is there a law of conservation for entropy? All the entropy reduced in one area reappears somewhere else, and entropy can be condensed into a smaller area if the degree of entropy increases geometrically as area decreases?)

Here are several entries written over the course of the week, including several illustrations of things more or less flat enough to scan with some degree of recognizability (so, no pictures of the cat).

Vacation Process Report.

21. January, 2008 (Monday)

Here is the doubleweave sample I wove a couple of years ago. (I happened to mention it while visiting with Sarah on the phone, and realized I could show it to her!)

22. January, 2008

Organizing is very very tiring.

The idea for today was to clean out some of the extra stuff in the “studio” and to reclaim the “living room.” With the departure of one of the utility shelves (yay) I have been left with Stuff that has no place. Drat. (But not a surprise.) I didn't end up buying the drawer units I thought I would, so there is now, after much carrying, EMPTY SPACE in my work area!!! For now I am relieved by emptiness but I hope that tomorrow's pilgrimage to Ikea will help relieve the living room of its chaotic congestion. At least I moved the stuff that was precluding door access to any but perhaps a weasel. Amidst the lifting I eventually found myself muttering ow ow ow almost enough to take some Advil. I still might, the final straw being inadvisably but stubbornly heaving my unemptied, solid oak spice cabinet up onto the file cabinet.

Must now eat—I am way behind on nourishment. Then a lamentably short shower (until I moved here, I never dreamed that hot water heaters came in such a small size—plus it is now really cold, for Portland at least, so the hot water gets “diluted” by the cold water being excessively cold). Then I will SIT DOWN and have tea while it's hot. And if I've regained some energy I will draw or something.

At some point during the week...

I finished the little one of these embroideries, inspired by reading a couple of really interesting books by Mary B. Kelly (Making & Using Ritual Cloths, and Goddess Embroideries from (of?) Eastern Europe). I made the first one over Christmas:

It's odd that they don't show at all to scale--the second one is a leftover from the first!

23. January, 2008 (Wednesday)

The trip to Ikea didn't happen, but I did do other things: took the car for a check up (verdict: it needs to have something done) and did a quick run to two fairly close-by potential furniture sources. (After the failure-to-purchase of the drawer units on Monday I had checked three other places.) Help me oh Ikea, you're my only hope.

I have forcibly reclaimed most of the living room, at least of the half of the living room that performs the living room function. (The loom, spinning wheel, reel, and boxes of fabric constitute the normal occupants of the other half of the room, with the futon acting as a room divider.) Yesterday's moving included moving the loom so that I could “conceal” the boxes I was displacing from elsewhere.

Hah.

There are probably 16 cubic feet of boxes, and the heap is, er, noticeable. :( I have so far restrained myself from evacuating the bedroom closet, which is poorly configured storage-wise. If I emptied it & reconfigured it I would have leftover boxes, and I can't bear to make the pile behind the loom any higher.

I didn't particularly want to spend my whole week off heaving boxes all over, but I shudder to think of how long this would have taken during an ordinary work schedule. Organizing is important. Once I get through this part of it (hopefully it's the worst) I have to remember that even tiny, incremental steps are progress. There is no use having Hoards of Cool or Interesting Stuff if I can't browse easily or if I can't lay my hands on a particular thing without a lot of rummaging. Using up the finite amounts of after-work Creative Power to deduce where something is—instead of using it to MAKE STUFF—got old a long time ago. Maybe 2008 will be the year I get my act mostly assembled.

Organizing is also very tiring for cats. Activity by the human is tiring under any circumstances, so a nap is necessary to recuperate, and then everything is different when you get up, and you have to explore it and see if you still recognize it. Then there is the socializing with the human (if the human is relatively sedentary) and then it's time for another nap. The nap starts sooner if the human is still active, because that is too tiring to keep up with. It is hard work being a cat.

Speaking of which, the cat is now telling me it is time for Balcony Patrol. Arctic Kitty prefers Balcony Patrol in the dark, especially if the wind is blowing interesting scents around. Balcony Patrol in daylight has been out of favor for several months. Nocturnal Balcony Patrol is most excellent, and Arctic Kitty checks everything out very thoroughly, returning inside when her human telepathically knows that she wants to (she keeps working on developing her human's powers of telepathy). She comes in all super fluffy and fresh smelling, and shortly has to have a nap to recover. After a bit of a snack.

(I do spend rather a lot of time with kitty, yes.)

25. January 2008, Friday, early afternoon.

Yesterday I went to Ikea. After the initial excitement wore off & I got down to the serious business of looking for specifically-dimensioned furniture units, it actually got kind of depressing, because my spots are so small nothing was fitting. For example, I need a narrow bookcase—but it has to be short enough to fit under the thermostat. I found one that was the correct width & height, but way too deep (it would stick out 5 or 6 inches too far) and one that was the correct width and depth, but way too tall. And then there was one that was just ridiculously small.

At least I have ended up with a work desk that I think will be very satisfactory. I bought two little file cabinet-like things with 6 drawers each and found one tabletop that was the right dimensions. The little cabinets are nearly assembled. They are marvels of engineering, really, and extremely admirably packed—plus the assembly instructions are commendable: no text, just pictures, with plenty of “magnifying bubbles” so you could tell what to pay attention to.

I am, however, about DONE with assembly. It is extra hard, I suspect, because I am increasingly sore as a result of an intense workout yesterday, in the form of quarterstaff drills. So far it is neck/upper back and forearms, but I expect it will be spreading across my back like it did last time, except probably worse, because we did more. One of the reasons I've tried to keep moving all day...but now I really must be still for a while. I think I will sit in my bedroom (free of chaos, sun now shining in) and watch an episode of Torchwood. Maybe Princess will come out from under the bed and join me.

27. January 2008, Sunday.

Today spiraled rather out of control, between sleeping through the alarm and Mom calling when I'd barely been up 20 minutes, and then we talked for ages (it might be for the first time since Christmas) which was good except it was way too long & the timing was not good. I eventually got a few of the main things done, except for the sitting around sewing/doing fun stuff part which I have pretty much not done all week. I managed to sit down a little bit early this evening, and read part of my book on Moroccan textiles & carpets (a recent acquisition) with Princess curled up against my leg.

Yesterday I finally mounted an embroidery I had 97% finished by late February. It didn't scan particularly well because of its puffiness (as Muriel Baker pointed out in Stumpwork, it is impossible to block it to remove wrinkles; I resorted to tautly stretching it and padding it with quilt batting). I do believe the recipient was entertained. He nearly didn't get it, as I developed quite a fondness for the monkey and was really close to keeping it. The picture is based on an image in a book of emblems I bought earlier this year (currently missing in action, or I'd include the title; I just checked a bunch of places—I remember where it used to be, but I've shifted everything several times since then).

Yesterday I also took an encaustic painting class with Amy Stoner. Something else to buy art supplies for! You can do collage with wax, too. In the Sept./Oct. 2007 issue of Fiberarts there was a neat article (pg. 20-21) by Daniella Woolf (she also has a blog about her work). She incorporates paper, silk, etc. into her layered encaustic works.

My initial experiments (once I get set up, I'll mess around with them some more) (usual web-picture caveat--in real life they don't quite look like this): Time to make the final preparations for tomorrow. After today, I think I really really need to get a shiny sticker.

Today, Monday January 28:

Snow everywhere this morning! :) Very pretty. I suffer from snow deprivation, but I'm just as glad to not have to drive in snow with inexperienced people.

Inaugural Post

January 1, 2008

I wanted to come up with a splendid name for my first blog, but settled for functional.

This year I hope to focus on creating work; the first step will be creating a plan. Over the year and a half or so since I graduated I haven't made Art, but I have at least been working on Projects. Some of these are of course related to potential Art, and some of them are just for fun, and that really is okay. Fun is one of the things I have to work on.

I've had a bit more practice calling myself an artist, though it still feels peculiar, because for most of my life I thought of my stuff as Projects. One of my imminent Projects is organizing my work space; another is decorating. (I think of my apartment as a studio apartment; more about that at a later date.) I'm basically a mixed media artist, which I define as doing what I feel like doing—in art jargon: the concept determines the technique.

There will be a bit of a lag with posts for some time, as I only last year stumbled into the 20th century when a friend gave me a refurbished computer he'd fixed up for me; soon I hope to get my computer set up in a spot more conducive to extended use. At that point I will sign up for internet service. It will be very exciting to have internet access at home! (Says she who doesn't have a television.) Part of “conducive to extended use” means “no more kneeling at the keyboard.”

I will close with a picture of a sample I made a while back (I didn't label it, drat!). It's for a Project, though I suppose that in a few generations that Project could eventually evolve into a piece of Art. It's watercolor paper with watercolor and some water soluble crayon, shiny gel pen (which doesn't show), needle lace & embroidery, and a bead.

Hmm. Or maybe I won't. I transported my little entry on my flash drive, and in the conversion from the file type my home computer uses to the one my work computer uses, the picture turned into a little tiny orange square.