When there's no place else to go, there's Mexico . . .

My two week vacation to Mexico ended with a bang, or rather, a CRACK!  A few hours after arriving home from a wonderful trip to Patzcuaro, Mexico, I fell off the end of my bed and broke my collarbone.  Over tired after traveling all day, I miscalculated the distance to the end of the bed and landed with all my weight on my shoulder onto hard wood floors.  OK, I also had a glass of wine, but surely one glass of wine couldn't have done all that!

It's been five days since the accident -- I'm still in quite a bit of pain and somewhat fuzzy from the pain medication, but I think I can manage a blog posting for my four or five loyal followers.  I bought an inexpensive camera for the trip -- a Kodak point and shoot with zoom.  Although it seems to take pretty good pictures, for some reason, a few of my photos have disappeared.  I thought I had quite a collection of "Banos" pictures (public bathrooms), but only a few appear in my "Pictures" folder.

Why take pictures of public bathrooms?  Because for someone who has to pee as often as I do, the banos were very important -- and quite primitive!  The picture below is of one of my favorite wash up facilities outside of the bathrooms.  Most of the banos were three pesos and included toilet paper dispenced by the bathroom attendant.  The bathrooms were neat and clean and located out in the open in courtyards with a minimum of shelter from the elements.

Brilliant sunshine is provided for drying your hands!

The Women's Bath Room

And here's a surprise photo of my traveling companion coming out of the banos in the tiny village of Charo, outside of Morelia.

"Mujeres" (women), three pesos.

And, finally, two cats having a siesta at the banos.

Now that I've got all the bathroom stuff out of the way, perhaps tomorrow I can get on with posting more culturally edifying photos.

An Excercise in Futility . . .



Flower Heads Collected for Papermaking

 Queen Anne's Lace has always been a favorite flower of mine, although it is essentially a weed, and grows in abundance here in Tennessee in meadows and along roadsides.  I have romanticised it since childhood, because it does look so much like lace, and because the name, "Queen Anne's Lace" is such an elegant name for a weed.  And it makes a beautiful bouquet when arranged with other summer flowers.

So with the fantasy image firmly planted in my mind, I decided I would make paper out of just the flower heads for the 2011 Paper Swatch Swap for my Yahoo papermakers' group.  I've made enough paper from plant fibers to know what the resulting paper usually looks like, but I ignored that bit of reality and set about to make my paper.

After gathering a couple of buckets full of the flower heads, I cooked them in a large crockpot for the better part of a day, with water and caustic soda.  Then I beat the green goo-like fibrous mass to break down the fibers.

Beating the Fibers

By the time I had the fibers in the vat and pulled my first sheet, I knew things were not going to work out very well.  The water drained very slowly from the mold and the formed sheet of paper would not let go of the screen.  I made three test papers with a four by six inch mold and decided to stop there.  The resultant papers were quite typical of a fresh green weed used to make paper -- very predictable and quite frankly boring.  Sometimes things just don't work out how you want them to!

Finished Papers

I could add recycled handmade paper to the plant fibers and make it work, but I think I'll just let it go and think of something else for the paper swap!   



                                        

A New Journal . . .



Two Needle Coptic Bound Journal



I have been keeping a journal for at least forty years.  They have been everything from cheap lined spiral notebooks (which I still use for "rough" writing), to blank page. hardbound artists' notebooks, and for the past few years, my own handbound journals.  My favorite book structure for a journal is coptic bound because the stitched binding allows the book to lie flat for easy writing.

For awhile I was having fun creating my "junk" journals -- using found covers, kraft packing papers and anything scrap that I could put together into book form.  These are some of my favorites.



Top to bottom, the covers for these coptic bound books are a Stash tea box, an art exhibit postcard, and a Sam's Cola carton.


Altho my junk journals are still my favorites, I decided that this time I was ready for a more "grown up" journal.  My new journal measures 6" x 9'', which is larger than I usually make.  The hard covers are Davey board covered with my own book cloth, made from some of my dye experiments on fabric and adhered to a strong Japanese paper with wheat paste.  The book cloth has a feel to it that is different from either the fabric or the paper, and covers the Davey board very smoothly.  The papers I used to wrap the signatures are my own papers made from a mix of abaca and plant fibers, with inclusions of gold leaf paper and dress pattern tissue.  I use a 4ply waxed linen thread for the binding.

Now I need a title page for my journal -- one that will express my intent for the part of my journey that this particular journal will encompass.  I love this quote by Henry David Thoreau:   "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."  I will think about this today and see if something bubbles up for my journal title.

Blue Heron . . . .

Capturing an image like this is what makes me feel so priviledged to be living on this property.  A couple of times from the house, I have seen the large shadows of the herons in flight moving across the ground in front of the house.  There are not very many around, but with the ponds on the property, there are supposed to be at least two.

While I was walking in the woods the other day, I saw one take off from the direction of one of the ponds.  I got my camera ready and crept up to the pond.  He was all the way on the other side, and even with an image stabilization zoom lens, the picture I got is a bit blurry.  But isn't he beautiful?!  He almost immediately took off in rapturous flight, but I was too suprised and not quick enough to capture that image.  Next time I will be more prepared for getting a sequence of shots, but I doubt if I'd be able to set up a tripod before I was detected.

My house in town is being shown this weekend so I will take advantage of the slightly cooler weather we are having and clean up the gardens today.  I would love to get the house sold and off my mind.  With the housing market the way it is, it could sell in a week or sit there for a year.  I am quite ready to be free of it and wondering why the Universe is not moving along with me.  Perhaps a lesson for me in learning to wait patiently for events to happen in their own time. 

Today I will look for the abundance hidden in the small moments of my life and practice being grateful for all the wonderful things I do have.

Settled Into My New Home . . .

We're still working out some of the kinks in the house -- like some plumbing in the upstairs bathroom which will require tearing into  the newly painted drywall.  Curently my husband cannot quite bring himself to ruin his perfect drywall and paint job, but in time . . .

From the image of the mailboxes along the roadway, we look very rural Tennessee, but in fact we are only a few minutes from town.  It doesn't seem like that, by the time we drive through the creek bed and to the back part of the thirty acres.  It feels like we are living miles from everything.  So I guess you could say we have the best of both worlds.

In order to get that shot of the mailboxes, I had to lie down along the side of the road with cars and trucks whizzing by.  I don't think I'd do it again, but I love the image!

So now it's time to hunker down and get back to work.  The first thing that comes to mind is what work?  But I do have an article on journal making coming out in the Sept/Oct issue of "Cloth Paper Scissors" so I thought I might put together a small class and teach coptic binding.  I think it is my favorite book structure.  You can use a soft or a hard cover. And I love the stitching that binds the signatures together that allows the book to open flat, so it is a good structure for a journal or photo journal album.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the journal I just made for myself.  I use only my own journals now and I just came to the end of the last one I made. 

Signing off for now, but I have made my decision to committ to regular blog posting.  I'm looking forward to it, if for nothing else than to convince myself that I am working and I do indeed have a life!  Hope to hear from others along the way.

"See You Soon . . .

God willing and the creek don't rise."  One of my favorite southern sayings.  And now that I will be living where I have to cross a creek to get to my new home, I completely understand where that saying comes from. 

During the summer months, the creek bed will be fairly dried up, but during the winter and spring, there will be times when I won't be able to cross the creek when the waters are exceptionally high.  But for me, a self proclaimed recluse, it will be a bit like Brer Rabbit saying, "Oh, please, don't throw me in that briar patch!"  I will be happily holed up in my studio, knowing that no one will show up to bother me.  I can hardly wait!

Creek crossing.

House of Belonging

A lot has happened since my last post.  I had recorded in my journal for November 4, 2010 that I was done with struggling with my art and my living situation and I made a decision to "Let go and let God".  Not only did that work for me, but it may even have worked too well!  Within a month, I had received a new House of Belonging.  The House of Belonging is an ancient Celtic metaphor for the human body as the earthly home for the soul.  Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of  "Simple Abundance", says that "the blueprints of your House of Belonging exist as spiritual energy and hover over your head, ready when you are, to be pulled down from Heaven to shelter your soul on Earth."



Painting by my husband's Uncle Leslie VanHook.



I believe I have been ready for quite some time for my new home and was pleasantly surprised when the perfect  home appeared for me.  Of course, as with everything that seems to simply appear, there are certain unforeseen problems that must be dealt with.  In this instance, my husband and I have received a wonderful new home that was never really finished and, having sat for a long time unattended, was in bad need of repair.  But we are getting closer to the finish date and will hopefully move in soon.   The image shown above is a picture of a painting of the house as it would be upon completion.   You will see in subsequent pictures that  not everything was finished.



Split cedar log house built partially by my husband almost twenty years ago.

The greatest surprise for me, however, is that I will finally have a good sized "wet" studio that can also easily be vented if I choose to continue exploring mediums that need a good ventilation system for safety.  I have wanted to try working with encaustic medium but have hesitated since I did not have a good way to ventilate the wax fumes.  So, I may just jump in sooner than later.


The living room/den in need of some repairs and finishing touches.

We are just in awe of this room.  I haven't decided if this room will be the "man cave" or something more matriarchal where I can dance by the light of the moon coming in through the large plate glass window opposite the stone fireplace.  The walls are split cedar logs, sanded smooth and varnished, the ceiling is sassafras, and the floors are handpegged, white ash -- stunning!

Now on to the next order of business.  I have to find a realtor to sell my house.  I will be meeting with someone this weekend who seems to have great potential.  And more great news, I have had an article accepted for publication by "Cloth Paper Scissors" for their Sept/Oct 2011 issue.  I have to dig through my packing and find the materials I need to get started on it.  Not sure when I will be posting again.  I am just going to have to wing it until I get settled in my new home.