I'm in the World!

One weekend in New York, in a few pictures:

I saw the Galaxy at this scale.

Everyone learned about Everything.

We learned about Dinosaurs, maybe...?

I saw the world at this scale.

And also at this scale.

And I saw ALL of New York....at THIS scale.

Here is a tiny Natural History Museum in tiny Central Park.
Tiny Michelle is inside, and her tiny heart is beating fast
looking at the tiny Wooly Mammoth skeletons.

Last weekend, (Friday PM through Monday PM) was my first real trip to New York. I had an outstanding guide, and did all the things one does in New York: I walked and walked and walked, I ate good food,  I rejoiced in the great quantity and variety of people (and how they're all going places and doing things and learning about Natural History too), and I rode on trains and busses, sat in perfectly placed parks and looked at much appreciated trees. Reunited with old friends and made friends with a little boy I have been excited to meet. I picked things up off the ground, like washers and paperclips. I saw bees in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Bees.

It has me thinking with even greater enthusiasm about two things that have been on my mind recently:

One is that I miss living in a place where there is such a variety of things to see and do, and options of what to eat, and sidewalks upon which to walk and walk and walk. I'm not moving to New York, but there is a world of places on the spectrum between Spruce Pine, NC and New York, NY.

Two is just something about the love of learning, and this great big, complicated, beautiful, ridiculous world I live in, and all the things I want to know more about, and learn how to do.

Life-long learning, y'all.

Thanks for reading! 'Til next time.

The "I" in PBI.

Bits, and my Ox-Bow Anchovy Tin.

When I turned on my car earlier today, the Simon and Garfunkel song 'America' was on, and the exact lyric that found me was "Michigan seems like a dream to me now...."

Yeah, so, it has been a minute or two since I last posted anything on my blog. My Kickstarter project was successfully funded (thank you all again!) and I brought my honeybees home at the end of April, and they are happy and busy in my garden.

And then I went to Michigan.

It was two weeks that held a year's worth of learning, bonding, and adventures. Words and pictures are inadequate (or at least really, really difficult!) to capture the experience. So I have to limit this to a few highlights of the very, very full experience.

The Paper and Book Intensive (held at Ox-Bow, on the edge of water in Michigan) is a great event: in scale, in organization, and in the generosity of the participants. There were about 70 of us there, and all manner of bookish people...book artists like me, conservationists, historians, librarians..... It was a workshop experience, but also felt like a conference, because of the specificity and some common interests among the participants. And it was international, with participants from Brazil, Japan, Holland, Germany, and Canada. (I think I got 'em all!)

102+ sheets of handmade paper.

My dad tells me I have paper-maker ancesters on the Moode side of my family. Go fig.

I made paper for the first time ever, and was in the papermaking studio both sessions with Ann Marie Kennedy and Kerri Cushman, two women who I am delighted to know. We worked with many fibers and techniques; honestly, my brain still feels like it might explode when I think of all the things I could (can? will?) do with papermaking. In the extremely full last day in Kerri Cushman's second session class, we did make books out of the paper we had made. Yes, it is thrilling.

Books happened very fast, and I let content crawl into them very quickly and without over-thinking it. I actually have yet to revisit my books since I've been home. I will also be going through my paper more thoroughly soon, and taking photos of individual sheets.

Speaking of content and thinking-on-paper, the first session I was also in Ken Leslie's class exploring toroidal (donut-shaped) book structures. I can't promise I'm going to use this structure in the future, but it was an excellent class for me to think about how format relates to content, and you know....I thought about circles and loops and cycles a lot, which is what I'm usually thinking about anyway. We also had the challenge of drawing on a page of a toroidal book each day we were there, and loving daily projects, I made a delightful record of bits of my experience there.

there. then.

Also, the cupola.

 Cupola of the old inn, where I could have easily spent more time sitting alone and making up stories. If I go back to PBI next year, I wonder if they'd just let me stay up there.

One sunset at the dock, the evening at the end of the first session.

 There was canoeing, hiking, star-gazing, camp-fires, poker games, whisky-drinking, late-night toast, and more laughter than I am used to. I found one deer tick on me. I saw the swans fly, which proved they were real. I walked into a glass door on one of the last days, because I was that tired. I fell in love with everybody, and cried at them all when I said goodbye.

Emma, Marianne, Woody, Michelle, Mary, Austin, Pablo, & Kevin.

 Being a scholarship student was fantastic, and I feel honored to have been included in the group pictured above. The eight of us lived in this little 1890's house, with no indoor plumbing, no insulation, and a charming smoke alarm that went off at 3:40 AM one morning. The coldest night was in the mid-30s. Honestly, it was great.

Happy Michelle on the shore of Lake Michigan.

On my journey home I went antiquing, ate pho, and stayed a night with Bonnie Stahlecker, which was a perfect transition back to real life. I am blessed to have come home to a place as beautiful, but differently so. The feeling of being gone longer than two weeks is amplified by the fact that I came home to a whole different season...it is SUMMER in the mountains of North Carolina, lush, green, the best smell ever, and even fireflies. AND students at Penland! I am in a good mindset coming home from PBI, and am excited for all the mobs of Penland Students who will come through here this summer. 

I pickled radishes yesterday, have a bunch of things I need to get in the ground (it started raining on me today) and am generally in a really, really good frame of mind. 

Thanks for reading about my adventure at introverted-book-nerd-summer-camp.

Paper Trail!

California Poppies, etchings printed on kitakata paper.

I'm so excited to be heading to the Paper & Book Intensive in May, at Ox-Bow in Michigan. I received a scholarship, but to help me pay my remaining tuition and to help me get there, I have put together a little Kickstarter campaign which you can find here. Please take a look, and tell your friends!

At PBI I will finally (FINALLY!) learn about papermaking! I love paper, and have been a fan (and hoarder) of handmade paper for a long time. I am interested to see how this will work into my work, and you know....if I will even like making paper. But it doesn't matter; I'm going to be learning new things and meeting lots of people in the book-arts world, and making things in a whole new environment. Yeah!

...Bees?

My pretend boyfriend, the garden docent at historical Williamsburg.
My parents and I went there a year ago.

Today I planted snow-pea seeds, carrot seeds around the snow-peas, and more radish seeds around the carrots. I never tire of radishes, and hope to have enough at one time to pickle some this year.

I also started seeds for six kinds of tomatoes in a make-shift greenhouse situation (a clear rubbermaid tub, upside-down) and zinnias, and marigolds.

In Murray, Kentucky last weekend I divided and dug up some lemon-balm that I planted there a decade ago. I had forgotten how very heavy clay the soil is there.

Anyway, even though it may very well snow again this coming Tuesday, I am gardening, damnit. My garlic and onions look good, and I have lots of radish, kale, and lettuces on their way.

Not much to look at yet...

I'm living on a dreamy piece of property, where my landlord has a great deal of garden space, apple trees, and four rowdy hens running around. I can't even get into all the sunflowers I'm planning on planting.

A long-time daydream, (like the huge garden, and chickens in my future) is happening this spring. I think I really got decisive about it when I was in Bakersfield in January. Honeybees. Where I'm living would be such a great place for a hive of bees, and I knew my landlord would be excited about it, and she totally is.

And so am I. Like anything I get excited about, in January I began ferociously, obsessively learning all I could about bees. This includes reading four books (so far), taking a continuing ed. class at Mayland Community College, and joining the Toe Cane Beekeepers Association.

And I feel prepared. I am starting with a 'nuc' (nucleus hive...) of bees sometime around the end of April or beginning of May, and I have most of my equipment at the ready, including the hive body, which (I know the bees won't care) is painted a lovely shade of robins egg blue.

I am also planning some of my planting for the bees...lemon balm, bergamot, pollen & nectar-plenty flowers, herbs, and clover seeds wherever I can toss them in blank patches in the garden.

I look forward to sharing how this adventure progresses!

As Few Question Marks as Possible.

I went to an ostrich farm recently.

My last post was on Christmas Eve! And here it is the first day of spring!

I was on the road all of January. At my parents, out to California to stay with my aunt and grandma, up to Bakersfield to see about miniature trains and ostriches, back to my parents, delayed by weather, delayed by car repairs, delayed by quilt-finishing, but I finally packed up my cat and headed home to the mountains.

I got back to North Carolina, ready to make stuff and get back into internet business. The making stuff happened, but the internet happenings didn't happen because I finally spilled a cup of tea all over my laptop.

oops.

It could have been a lot worse. However, I am left without a functioning question-mark key, or an enter key.

Which is problematic in formatting blog posts or asking questions in emails.

So how am I managing this???

I finally got my hands on another keyboard, plugged it into my laptop, and I am using it ONLY for the question-marks and to "enter."

True story.

February I was mostly in the printmaking studio, getting my life in order the way you can when you're temporarily seasonally unemployed, and learning everything I could about honeybees, as fast as I could. (much more about that later.)

THEN we reopened the gallery, and I turned off my creative brain and put on my bookkeeping pants, and have been tense in my shoulders, jaw, and eyes ever since. But it's okay; I am working hard to find the balance again, of 'working' and working. What? Oh, you know.

Oh, I also went to Kentucky last weekend to see some people I like.

Enough words; more pictures!

Apple Pie, circa January 1, 2014

I went out to California. Again.

In California I took myself to the Huntington Library and felt woozy all day.

But there were camellias blooming, so that was nice!  

Amongst numerous adventures, Yvonne, Liz and I found ourselves at a model train club in Bakersfield.

Like ya do...

We also found ourselves in Tehatchapi.

 Very much more soon.

Christmas Greetings: Hello!

I'm visiting my parents for Christmas, and have been avoiding my computer and social media for the past week. Lovely! But I thought I'd post something on my blog today to say Merry Christmas and Merry Everything all-over-the-place.

I've been working on a quilt since I've been down here. Like, marathon sewing all day with Law and Order on in the background. My fabulous Mum is helping, by ironing and advising.

I think I have 1/3 of the quilt pieced. Back to work.

This quilt started long ago, when I happened upon a ziplock bag of cut squares in an antique store in Murray, Kentucky. The material spans decades, and there are many many individual patterned pieces. I have since accumulated material from numerous sources...some I've been hanging onto for a long time, and some has recently been acquired to finish this project. I'm having a blast, and am determined to finish it while I'm here!

That yellow piece is one of my favorites.

It is all (seemingly) random squares, approximately 2 1/2", and I'm planning on tying it rather than quilting it. My mom and I made a little quilt when I was in 4th grade as a school project; that is the extent of my quilting experience prior to this monster.

Speaking of monsters, my big grey cat came along for Christmas! We had a not-exactly-fun drive down to Texas, via Jackson, Tennessee. Like 14 hours. Alfred was in rough shape.

Alfred and I have our morning coffee on the road in Tennessee.

Poor creature. But I never anticipated how happy he'd be at my parents, and what a good house-guest he'd be. He even likes my big brother! And everyone likes Alfred! And my Dad had a good time rigging up a way for my cat to access the best perch in the house: 

Spoiled rotten by my parents. I'm not sure he'll want to leave.

 I'm having a lovely time, and plan on continuing to keep my computer off in the coming days. After New Years I'll be going to California to visit more family and friends...Alfred will be staying here.

 Hope you all are well-rested and happy, and enjoying time, and people, and snow if ya got it. Love!

O The Sun Shines Bright.

I just got back from Kentucky, where I was a visiting artist for a few days at my alma mater, Murray State University.

And it was so good.

I love these women.

Bonnie showing.

Look! TACKETS!!

My mentor Bonnie Stahlecker, who I meet up with as often as possible, (Maine, Milwaukee, Wherever.) was doing a two-day workshop with my former professor's bookarts class. I was there as her "assistant," but mostly Nicole and I were chatting and being troublemakers and unfocused bookbinders at the back of the room.

I need a haircut.

I did thread a needle for Bonnie. That's assisting!

I had individual critiques with the advanced drawing students, did some figure-drawing with the intro to drawing students, caught up with my former professor Dale Leys, whom I have known since 1996......and took photos in the ol' drawing room on the 7th floor of the fine arts building...

These couches are gone, but the cushions remain.

I am comforted by how long this has been where it is.

I also manically talked about my work with two groups of unresponsive high school art students, awesome introductory printmakers, quietly intense bookarts students, and intelligent, engaged advanced printmakers. I had brought sort of an odd mix of work, and probably said some odd things about it...

There were also lunches with Bonnie, a swell dinner party at Nicole and Jim's, where I manically waved my hands around...

Do I talk with my hands a lot?

I lived in Murray for about eleven years; my family relocated there from California just before I started eighth grade (the day before, in fact!) and I stayed there through college. I have been back to Murray many times since, but this was the first time that I was visiting the art department knowing none of the current students.

I'd describe it as comforting. All different characters, but some things have not changed a bit. And I was haunted by many ghosts and memories of my college days, and the misfit trouble-makers I ran around with. We owned that place and took good care of each other.

I also spent much quality time with my best friend Jenni, her husband Matt, a poodle named Lola, and my almost-three year old god-daughter Susie....

Reading, negotiating, tickling, princess-ing, all good.

Lola is like a muppet-pony, and we are very fond of each other.

I was there three full days, and it is an eight hour drive between Spruce Pine and Murray. And I was delayed in both directions, by rain, and detours, and sun in my eyes. But no regrets, and I find myself actually wondering if I could pack up some etching plates and sneak back for a few days in December after the gallery closes. We'll see.

Thank you for reading!

On Holiday

a new era.

Honest to gosh, I'm on vacation this week. I'm actually taking a class here at the Penland School of Crafts: Jana Pullman's week-long box-making class. It's just our second full day, and I am so damn happy. If Penland is Disneyland, (which it is) this is like getting to ride the Matterhorn after selling mouse-ears on Main Street for two years.

I have plenty of bookbinding knowledge and experience, and have made different sorts of boxes over the years, but never this kind. My notes are cryptic drawings of boxes, and increasingly complex box-making equations.

I am properly on vacation:

I went swimming on Sunday in the river, diving all the way in under the very cold water.

I did a cartwheel yesterday evening.

My ol' friend Amanda Outcalt is also here taking a class this week, and we have been catching up and enjoying a bit of red wine in the evenings.

I heard an owl in a tree by the painting studio last night.

I am observing the first few early autumn leaves on the ground, red and yellow and spotty.

And I have new penny-loafers. I have been wearing  the same pair of Eastland penny-loafers since high school, and they had become almost embarrassingly worn and beautifully molded to the shape of my foot. As my pal Mark Boyd said, they have seen a few things.

So I finally found and purchased a new pair, stuck a couple of wheat-pennies in the slots, and they have set off on their adventure, which hopefully will last as long and be as interesting as my first pair...which I will totally keep for sentimental reasons.

old friends.

It was big.

Big piles of huge tiny thoughts..

I've been home from my month-long residency at Jentel for just over a week, and in that time I've just let it sink in. It has simmered. But now that I've started back to work at Penland, I feel the need to start concluding my experience.....at least on my blog. I have Kickstarter rewards to finish and ship (books, y'all!) and of course I will be thinking about my month in Wyoming for a long, long time.

Friends and acquaintances have all asked me, "how was your residency?" and it is impossible to sum-up. I've listened to what I say in reply, all the while still processing, still really putting names to things.

It was big, you know?

My responses always sound diluted in my own ears: "It was amazing...we all got along so well...I worked a lot....it was cold, but not too cold...There were a couple of perfect snow-storms, I love Wyoming....." et cetera.

But the 'thicker' story of my time in Wyoming is very personal: "I feel like a different person now, I thought very clearly in Wyoming, the experience was good for my self-esteem, I need to get better at self-promotion, I need to set more tangible goals, I want to change so many things when I go home, I need to work toward having a studio separate from my home," and so forth.

There's no way to quickly relate how or why I listened to a handful of albums (and even specific songs) a million times in my studio. (I guess I'm still working out the 'why' on that one!)

I wish I could share the way my elbow hurt from working so much...just to prove this was not a vacation.

Whyoming.

I hope I always talk with my hands like this.

So yes, lots of big, personal soul-searching stuff. That's mine. But the richest part of the experience, and the most difficult to tie words to, is the shared part: that five other beautiful people were concurrently having their own experiences...epiphanies, break-throughs, meltdowns, rough-days, great-days, deja-vus, weird dreams, pheasant-encounters, naps, walks, cups of tea, cups of coffee, glasses of wine, apples, clementines, cookies, and and and.)

Tacos. 

Paparazzi!

Resident tracks. We left our mark.

None of us had a car, and most of the time we were the only six people in the universe. (there were many cows and birds and an invisible porcupine in our universe, however...) Sometimes the six of us were in a snowglobe. This was not my first experience where I felt quickly and strongly bonded with others. (Gosh...adventures range from a 12-year old Michelle having a transformative weekend at CA Job's Daughters Leadership Camp, to countless adventures as a workshop participant at Penland, Haystack, and Frogmans.) But what was different about this residency experience is that the six of us spent most of our time (I think? maybe?) alone in our studios. But there was something significant in knowing that we were all in it together, even doing very different things.

 I can't express how strange and troubling it was when suddenly I was boarding a plane in Denver, and none of my fellow residents were there.

...it still feels weird.

Concluding where I left off in my last post: My suitcase containing my sewing machine did indeed arrive the next morning, and AAA cheerfully restarted my battery, (fortunately it didn't need to be replaced...) and I made it home to this guy, who was very glad to see me. 

oh, stop.

The night I returned to little ol' Spruce Pine was trivia night at the Pizza Shop, so I got to see some friends and eat a good amount of pizza. After a couple of days with no appetite, the pizza was very satisfying. (Sidenote: We came in second at trivia that night, but we are currently in first place in a four-week tournament. This winter our team name is "Nancy Drew in the Tomb of the Cybermen.")

Since returning home, I've had a few very down days, and have fallen into an unfortunate sleeping pattern. (Although never the earliest, I did get up early-ish almost every morning at Jentel. And I only took ONE nap while I was there, and it was the best nap ever...even in a papasan chair!) And I'm ready for spring. Winter is less charming now that I'm home in my generally chilly house, with no Blaze King wood stove.

I have added "wood stove" to my completely reasonable
list of things I want in Michelle's House of Dreams.

 There are all these things I need to do, and want to change. But I have kept up my good habit of writing everyday, and I appreciate that I can't change everything all at once. Right?

Big rearrangement of my little dining-room studio. Ongoing "getting rid of stuff." I only moved into this house in October, so I'm barely unpacked. Future-adventure/opportunity hunting. Looking ahead to planting my garden. Maybe re-opening my long silent Etsy store. Hopefully putting together a post-Jentel Show-and-Tell.

I guess that's all for tonight...thanks for reading! I have a few more things to say about Wyoming, but I'll save it for another post. 

I'd love to have a show further exploring this sort of scale. But where?