Little books from a very big year.

World-y interior.

 

Covers.

  

More covers.

Custom-made rubber stamp. Delightful.

Scrap-y little books started happening.

Some of the blank books I made this year.

Little things from a very big year.

 A lot happened this past year, most of it resulting from my choices.

And that's nice.

I'm looking forward to 2012. I have plans, and things to look forward to...and nothing so dramatic as a cross-country move. 

I made a conscious choice in the spring to step away from blogging and internet business, because I was occupied with packing/moving concerns, making books for two big handmade events, and the stress/anxiety/teeth grinding of that time.

But until my little camera quit on me, I was taking pictures. Here is a sampling of some little things I have seen this year, and evidence of some little adventures...

Crane on Los Feliz Blvd.

Some good looking chairs in Downey, California.

Santa Anita, Arcadia, California.

Pickwick Bowling Alley, Burbank, California.

Crab Cooker, Balboa, California.

Hollywoodland, California.

The road to Visalia, chaperoning some teenagers.

California Grand Bethel, JDI, Visalia, California.

Sequoia on a whim with my girls.

Beautiful breakfast with Yvonne, at the Village Bakery.

Colorful carrots at the Hollywood farmers market.

And a fancy cake I made.

I said goodbye to my goofy students at CSUN.
(and we all wore ties.)

I said goodbye to a wonderful ol' couch, now re-covered at
my grandma and aunt's house. Glad we didn't have to move it. 

I said goodbye to a beautiful apartment in Los Feliz.
This was the little brass peephole in the front door.  

 Next....books of 2011.

Stash.

A long time ago I bought this lovely little ipod case on Etsy from mariforssell. It is very well made and adorable, and I have spent a while this evening browsing around her Etsy store. (Ordering a camera led to thinking about camera bags, although I think her small DSLR bag would be rather roomy for my forthcoming Sony NEX-C3...)

Ooh, little camera bag....

And, oh... this print....

Plaid, houndstooth, herringbone, vintage wool, snaps, and nice craftsmanship. You should absolutely check her work out.

THIS is temporary seasonal unemployment.

The Penland Gallery closes for the winter months, and it felt like as soon as I really settled into my new job, this winter hiatus began. It is not a bad thing: I am visiting friends and family and getting away from the wintery mountains for a while...(although I do look forward to some snow when I get home...the novelty of real winter has not worn off for this California girl)(It probably will soon enough.)

(On a side note: yes, I will be returning to the gallery in the spring, and yes, I still like my job.)

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I visited Kentucky, and Susie and I partied like a couple of sick little girls.

Books and Fevers.

Shortly thereafter, I packed up my cold-medicine and flew to Texas. It hurt my ears a lot. Don't fly when you're sick, if you can avoid it.

I'll be here a while longer, and then head further west with my big brother and my NEW CAMERA.

New CAMERA!? So why isn't this blog post full of pictures? Because I don't have it yet....I just submitted my order online, after talking and thinking about it for months and months.

I have been unhappy without a camera. And I haven't been blogging, or documenting anything, or posting work on Etsy, and I mostly blame this on the lack of a camera.

Some recent things:

• Replaced a watch battery that has been dead for a couple of years.
• Ordered film for my Polaroid land-camera. Three cheers for tangible photographs!
• Covered my parents' kitchen table with scraps of paper, spools of thread, and tiny books. I call this area of the house the "exploritorium," and they are supportive.
• Seasoned a cast iron dutch oven for my parents.
• Reconstituted some of my sourdough-starter for my parents.
• Shared the secrets of making sourdough bread with my parents. Their minds have been blown.
• Bought an $8 olive-green smith-corona typewriter on the first full day I was here, and carried it home on foot. In the rain.
• Participated in late-night Christmas eve "reindeer games" with my big brother. Much stifled hysterical laughter.
• Made "black sticky gingerbread" from a very pretty site my boss told me about.
• Won at Scrabble...a few times.
• Watched an embarrassing number of episodes of Law and Order...

Somewhere far away, he is watching water drip from the
faucet and wondering if he's able to jump on the ceiling fan... 

And since my blog is presently this boring, I'll go ahead and add that I miss this guy. Thank you (a million times) to my roomie for keeping him out of trouble while I'm away.....

Alfred. The Kitten.

The negotiations.

The ongoing debate.

The resolution.

The duck flannel sheets.

The science experiments.

The haircut.

The dinosaur!

Adjusting.

I've been here about two and a half months. It feels like much longer. But no, I'm still not "settled" or organized. Besides adjusting to the "cross-country-move/new job/roommate/roommate's cat" situation, I am also working on adjusting to glasses:


Henry is not impressed.

I've never worn glasses, besides a weak pair of reading glasses when working on metalsmithing or bookbinding. My left eye is weak, and has been for a while...astigmatism, which I can barely explain. It has been bugging me for a couple of years, (eye-strain, headaches, frowning.) I believe the right lens of my new glasses is crystal clear, and it's not a super strong prescription.

Boring, Michelle.

So anyway....glasses. Weird.

It was quite chilly today, and it is most definately fall here in the mountains of North Carolina. Sweater weather. Socks and hat around the house.

I had a piece at Asheville Bookworks' "Bookopolis" last weekend, and my piece was also juried into the "Capital Works" show by Eileen Wallace. There is an online catalog of the work juried into the Capital Works exhibition here. My photos are pretty weak. As a partial excuse, it was before I got my glasses...





I really don't know how to take photos of books or objects. One night I experimented with a borrowed camera, borrowed tripod, in a pretty decent photo-taking room. Again, before I got the glasses. I don't love the dark background, but it is probably the best backdrop I have ever used...





Anyway. I have been drawing a lot. Simplifying. Trying to think. Or maybe not think; just work. I don't quite know what I want to do right now, art-wise.

And that's okay. 'Cause I'm working on it.

The best reasons to go shoe shopping.

This is where I work now: the Gallery at the Penland School of Crafts. (fyi, this photo was taken from a helicopter. The mountains here aren't that steep!)

I just started last week, and I like my job so far: I'm in a beautiful historic building full of handmade objects all day, I like the people I work with, and it is just a little isolated from the main campus of the school. I'm learning new things and using some of my non-teaching skills, which is great.

Three days a week, which still allows plenty of time for studio-set-up-ing, which is still barely happening.

Try harder, Michelle.

I bought boots in Asheville the other day...as a pre-birthday present to myself. They were not the comfy/stylish gallery-working shoes that I set out to buy, but several people in the store told me they were cute......I just didn't want to disappoint them....

But look!
See? It is almost sort of starting to think about being fall.

Same as it ever was.

During Penland's 26th Annual Benefit Auction, I had this quote from Ecclesiastes written out on taped-together manila envelopes and posted on the wall of the Pines Dining Hall:

"All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

This was my tenth auction, and the ninth time I volunteered to manage the dining hall during this elaborate event.

"Manage the dining hall" can be translated into "Try to keep things running as smoothly and Penlandy as possible as auction preparations throw everything into chaos."

&

"through enthusiasm, silliness, sarcasm, and music, somehow persuade 10+ people to join me (in enthusiasm, silliness, sarcasm, and music) in volunteering to wash dishes 'TIL IT HURTS."

And this was a good year. and man, did it hurt.

Washing "dishes" may be translated into "classy-looking-but-annoyingly-large-and-heavy square dinner plates, dessert plates, also dessert bowls (because the auction is all about excessive desserts), wine glasses, water glasses, highball glasses, silverware, coffee cups, saucers, creamers, laughter-inducing plates full of butter, kitchen-prep stuff (for both auction-events and volunteer meals), trays, carafes, serving pieces, catering pieces, and, and, and......."

We finished Friday night around 11:30, a lot later than previous years, (because of more patrons, bigger dishes, and an under-the-tent dessert) but it ended well that night because of the splendidly-timed surprise appearance of veterans Kathy Steinsberger and Wes Stitt.

Then Saturday we washed it all again, and it was glorious.

Please follow the link at top and read about what a record-breaking event this was. More funds funded, more attendees...yeah! I can also report that this bigger-than-ever event was put on with fewer volunteers than previous years. And here most of them are...



I had a great team this year, almost half of whom were stout-hearted veterans of "Team Awesome," "the Dream Team" and the "All-star Dishwashers of 2006". I also had three hard-core 5th session students who volunteered not only to work at the auction, but to keep doing close to what they had been doing for the 2 1/2 weeks prior to the event. Of course, on several occasions I had to clarify that "this isn't quite work study"....meaning we work a hell of a lot harder than a typical work-study shift, but I also say things like, "you guys take a break when you need to...."

It is confusing. I'm confusing.



One of my favorite times during auction weekend is when my crew is done washing all the rental stuff on Saturday. Other crews are counting and sorting things and packing art, but the Pines crew is almost done, and there is this golden time before the volunteers eat dinner, (because yes, we clean up after that too!) My camera having failed me, here are a couple of Heather Miller's pictures from this in-between time....out on the grass in front of the auction tent, which is one of my favorite places on campus...




...And a final picture borrowed from Devin McKim...This was thursday night volunteer-down-time under the tent. The tent is weird and wonderful. We love it and hate it. That's how I feel about the auction too.



"Next Year" are bad words during and immediately after the Auction.

Lastly, please check out the lovely little slide show by Robin Dreyer!

Learning.

I've been in Spruce Pine, North Carolina just over a month, and everything is going well.

I am suspicious of how well things are going. But that's just my distrustful nature.

I haven't been blogging because I have no idea where to begin. There are things I want to share from the month before I left Los Angeles. Heck, I never really reported on Unique LA or Austin Renegade, huh?

Or my super-cool former students and the conclusion to my time at CSUN.

Or my spontaneous adventure to Visalia and Sequoia with a van full of teenagers.

Right now I am at the sweet little Spruce Pine Library. the calico library-cat, Valentine, is curled up on my red backpack, purring quite loudly. Yeah, yeah: cute. But my heart belongs to my roommate, (the one who is not human) Henry, who doesn't pay rent, sleeps all day, stays up late, and doesn't clean up his messes.


Actually, Henry is one of the most mellow, easy-going cats I have ever known.

I have spent the past month unpacking, organizing, arranging, rearranging, cleaning, moving, and looking. I'm bored with it and wish it could be an automatic adjustment into feeling "at home."




I have also been digging in the yard which has been wonderful, satisfying work. I arrived a bit late in summer to get a garden going, but about a week ago I did start some pumpkins. They were growing quite happily until yesterday I discovered that some spiteful cutworms had put an end to them. Boo. So that's enough about gardening for the moment...

My "studio" is still the area of the house where I haven't unpacked everything, and I don't know where things belong....so I haven't been working. But soon. Oh, and I have a little table-top etching press staying with me now, as the fourth roommate. She's still settling in too. I'd post a picture, but my camera seems to be broken.

This past weekend was Penland's Annual Benefit Auction, the tenth that I have been involved in. And that deserves its own post.