Don't Make the Bees Angry.

Drawing from my Bee class notes. Don't hit the hive with a hammer.

My Beekeeping class has ended, and today I went out to my teacher's farm for a second time to have some more interaction with real, live bees. It was nice, and a BEAUTIFUL day to be a bee. I dug around in my garden a bit too....I'm mostly waiting on seedlings to get bigger, and for it to be done snowing. It's supposed to be warm this week, but I'm not sure I can trust the weather.

Some great drawings have happened in my beekeeping notebook, as well as some classically absurd conversations with my brother, my best friend Jenni, and 'best fwend' Susie, who is three years old. I'm pretty sure a children's book, or picture book of sorts is taking shape in my mind.

My Kickstarter project is creeping along...I added little journals into the mix as a reward. Take a look and tell your friends!

As always, thank you for reading!

Overthinking Every Thing

Note to Self.

In January I got an iphone. I feel like I was one of the last people on earth with a flip-phone, (a little red one that was literally falling apart) and although I made the switch with some reservations, I've mostly been happy with my new gadget. Particularly for the camera feature, which is the whole reason I am rambling on about my cell phone in this blog post. These pictures were all taken in February up at Penland, when I was working in the Printmaking studio. And there were wonderful walks on cold days that looked like this....

Craft Tracks

Rectangles are so over.

 I've been doing tons of printing of old and new etching plates, several layers in translucent colors, almost all on kitakata paper. Then I've been cutting them into shapes.

My relationship with printmaking has matured and changed so much since I was a student (a full-time student, I mean) and I feel good about what I'm doing. I'm printing material, "stuff," that will become something else...components of installations, elements of a book....I'm excited by the potential of layering the fragments, and making work that is "bookish" and feels more like an object than a picture. I'm exploring ways of making wall-based work that does not feel like it needs to be in a frame.

A bunch.

That was a bit of a ramble. Anyway, that's what I've been working on and thinking about in brief. I'll take some better, non-iphone pictures soon.

My Kickstarter project, Paper Trail, is almost 50% funded, and I want to say THANK YOU again to my supporters! Funding is creeping along, though, and it has occurred to me that this may be a challenging time of year to do a project like this. I'd appreciate your help in spreading the word about it; every little bit counts!

Thank you for reading!

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.

More Books!

Match-y grey and yellow pocket-size books, a commission for a friend to give as gifts to her wedding party. Nice, huh?

Let's Look at Books.

Here are a couple of piles of books that are out there in the world right now... Some are in Greensboro, some are in Charlotte, some are en route to Florida.

Now I'm heading home to work on more books, to bake bread, and plant garlic and bulbs....BECAUSE THE SUN IS SHINING! 

See?

My Installation 'Forgetful Psychic' sneak peek. If you are around these mountains, please come see it in person on Friday from 7-9. Or 6-10. Or I can show you some other time.

You. Or me. I lost track.

This is my favorite part.

My installation has a suggestion box. 

You know. 'Cause why not?

Thanks for giving a damn!

Flying Time.

One Night at Penland.

Months ago I made boxes for a week. The best week ever.

Meanwhile there was a National Geographic worthy battle between an orb-weaver spider and a wasp. ..

Seriously, it went on for hours. The wasp finally did break free.

Alfred Artemis Moode at home.

Then Alfred and I moved to a little house I have wanted to live in for some time. He was scary sick for a while...but I think he is almost back to 100%. He is actually at the vet again as I write this. :(

fig & port.

 Amanda Lee came to town for like ten minutes, (as is her wont) and we went to Asheville for chocolate and bookstores. Perfect.

It started like this.

I have an installation up at Green Plum Collaboratory right now, and I'll be having a closing reception on Friday October 25 from 7-9. Do come. I'm very pleased with what I have put together, and it has been a good dose of obsessive craziness and therapy. So good. I'm heading over there to photograph it today....(and to keep adding to it, shuffling bits around.)

I'm making books and things for a number of forthcoming opportunities, and working on some applications and proposals. I wish I had an existence that allowed for more time for these pursuits. No, I don't wish; I want. Shall work toward.

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?

More piles of words.

A journal won't always do.

spiders & math.

I've been taking notes and circling words since grad-school. Or earlier. It happens all over my journals and sketchbooks, and has appeared in various forms in drawings and prints....but the whole cutting words out and piling them up in boxes and jars is fairly new. And exciting.

better?

Ugh, exciting for Michelle, anyway! Saturday night in the summer! Head cold! Maybe a bit feverish! Cutting out words! Woo!

So, then...

I moved out of the printmaking studio yesterday. Bummer. It was really good for me to be working in there these past few weeks. It felt healthy to get out of the house every day, and regular interaction with people is also good for me.

Really.

The gallery opens again soon, so that's good too.

Now I am determined to get my home-studio organized and comfortable to work in. I've lived here in Spruce Pine about seven months, and although I have been working on drawing and books in that time, it has felt hesitant and awkward. My original plan had been to use our sun porch as a studio....(because it has a door and I could keep the cats out) but as it cooled off, ladybugs started moving into that space to die, (or sleep?) and then it became apparent that that space was altogether too cold for year-round use.

So my roommate has been understanding and supportive of my working in the living room...where we have a huge table, and also a separate table where we eat. (we use our dining room as a living room/library. complicated.)

So I think with a few decisive organizational strategies, and some cleverness to keep the cats away from my waxed linen thread....I think it will all work out....

sigh.

So I didn't expect to go all impossible/impractical while working in the printshop, but I had so much fun cutting up prints and arranging them on this big 'ol wall. If only we lived in a world where every wall was easy to pin into.

late-night whim.

expansion.

rearrangement.

potential pink/red bits, over there...

...or not. (and better light.)

final expansion (for kicks) 

and contraction.

the end.

I have a list of things I'm going to try to get done today, so I better get out of my pajamas and get started. Thank you for checking in, and let me know what you think!