Bummer! But a feature, too

Only half the show is hung, so tomorrow morning I hope to hit the gallery early and get most of the hard stuff done before Laura, the gallery director, and her intern arrive to help out. In my nervousness on one-lane county routes and not being used to the rental car, I ended up getting pulled over and ticketed. I've lost my speeding violation virginity! And it felt dreadful. The cop was perfectly neutral and not rude (this is always my fear) and a woman wearing silver wedding bands. It happened only about an hour into a 4-hour ride w/o no phone reception, so I had to drive the rest of the way feeling upset and then was punished by being trapped smack in the middle of a military convoy on a mountain route for an hour, going 30-40 mph. AGH!!

But at least the cars in Lake George actually stop for pedestrians at crosswalks with no lights! I was SO SHOCKED that I started to wave the car that stopped for me by, but then all the other ones stopped, too. It was like life on another planet.

The good news: the feature article on me came out in the local paper and it looks faboo in print. Plus, the editor was so kind as to leave out most of my TMI. I'm staying at a super wonderful board member's home for the evening and hope to just sleep off the difficult day in hopes that tomorrow will be 100% positive: a well-hung show done on time, a safe drive back, and more time to snap pics - the gallery is right on the water.

Nowhere is safe

I want to post the video I made of the joomchi (paper felting) process but it's apparently not suitable for the public b/c I wasn't wearing a bra. So either I will make a new video later or just post it once no one is looking. Today was my final prep day before I hit the road: tomorrow I rent a car, drive to Lake George, install a show, stay at a very generous board member's home, finish the install, drive back, return the rental, and get a ride from Ben back to base. Saturday, we'll drive together on his birthday for the opening and have a Lake George weekend.

Today's base story: I took an early walk to stave off the inevitable nap and take in this amazing, sunny, mild weather. I was walking happily in my Miami birthday t-shirt from my sister and her husband, when I hear a greeting in Korean. I turn around and see two older Korean women in a sedan, and assume they need help, so I go into the middle of the street (they've just stopped right in the middle of the street, no pulling over or anything). They kept asking where I lived and then said, "you should come to church with us." AGH!!!

I don't know why I thought I'd be safe from this kind of solicitation, considering how common it is for U.S. military men to be stationed in Korea and marry Korean women and bring them back. Or just how common it is for Koreans to be everywhere in the world. I said that I traveled on weekends for work (true!) and couldn't make church, but they said, "you don't have to come to church; just hang out and make friends - there are lots of women closer to your age!" My sister made fun of me later, saying, "well, you did want to make friends up there..."

I took their flyer, gave out a phone number, and was terrified for the rest of my walk (until I hit the train tracks where few cars travel), scared that they'd come back and yell at me for giving them a bogus number. Now I can't take main roads anymore around here. First, the hunting and creepy jack-o'-lanterns. Now the church!! I will be happy to re-enter the wide world tomorrow.

Weekend itches + it takes a village

I haven't been able to work on any of my stuff since Friday during the daytime, but at least the apt is clean. Yesterday, Ben took me to the arts and craft center so that we could both get trained and cleared to use the wood shop and ceramics studio. The latter was not as exciting, since none of what I would find interesting (glazes, firing, throwing, and hand building) are part of it, but the wood shop was an interesting social experience. Five men, one male teacher (all military), and me. Luckily the teacher only made a couple references to me being weaker than everyone else. He could tell I was terrified at times - either from my hanging back or likely the look on my face - and set the pushing guide next to the table saw even though I was the only one who used it. Or he'd say, "don't be afraid of the machines; just respect them." I enjoyed the DANGER signs with bloody hands with severed fingers. He also liked to say often, "don't but the Bluebeard lock on it!" I only understood this reference since reading the wolves book a few months back.

It made me appreciate the time and place I grew up, b/c I was in a public school system that still saw fit and had the budget to have mandatory wood and metal shop starting in 7th grade. That was the most shop experience I've ever had. Everywhere since, in schools and residencies, I mostly steered clear of the equipment. But yesterday felt like middle school again. Except that the boys were a lot better behaved and polite!

Also, an interview I did with Wura Ogunji is up on the Diaspora Vibe blog. After having read Outliers recently, I wanted to add shout-outs, in the order that they are mentioned:

Thanks to Helena Meyer-Knapp, who has been a great supporter of my work and working life from the first time we met in Seoul over a big group Fulbright dinner.

Thanks to Younghui Kim in Andong, who was a grounding inspiration and guide to me on two visits there, where she made exquisite tea in her hanji-covered home, and told me the story about her mother using a woven hanji chamber pot on her journey to her husband's home for marriage.

Thanks to Rosie Gordon-Wallace, for having the faith in me and my vision to invite me to show in Miami, with work sight unseen.

Thanks to the artist residency program run by the Weir Farm Arts Center at the Weir Farm National Historic Site, for the perfect place and time to be alone, and work.

Thanks to Mi-Kyoung Lee, an artist and fiber arts professor at UArts in Philly, for being such a pivotal teacher for me at Haystack for two weeks right before I left for Korea. And thanks to Haystack for the scholarship making it possible to be there!

Thanks to all the women in my life. And all the men in my life.

Thanks to my family. All of it.

Thanks to Oberlin College's Allen Art Museum for having such a great collection, open to its students, and Robert Harrist for bringing our class to the museum to see Chinese paintings on hanji.

Thanks to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for hiring me to run its education programs, where I met a headhunter who was the best friend of the woman who founded and chaired the department (thanks, Suzanne!) where I eventually went to grad school.

Thanks to Nanette Yannuzzi-Macias for introducing me to book arts in the most expansive way possible.

Thanks for all of my teachers and mentors in Chicago, especially Melissa Jay Craig, my graduate advisor and the one who could tell from my app that I wanted to do this and later was the one who kept me from dropping out of school.

Thanks to Andrea Peterson for nurturing my initial venture into papermaking.

Thanks to Jami Attenberg, who wrote Instant Love.

Big up to my hometown public library!!!

Thanks to Joan Dickinson, a performance teacher who helped me get a much clearer framework for thinking about and performance art.

Thanks to Daniel Gardner for teaching me about service learning, and the study abroad program that made it possible for me to do it overseas.

The obvious one but maybe not directly mentioned: thanks to the U.S. Fulbright program for making it possible for me to spend that year in Korea!

Freaky Friday

I took my first walk today since Monday (yes, I know this contributes to my insanity, not getting out), and hit this trail where I was duly spooked by this jack-o'-lantern while talking to Velma on the phone. She gave me good warnings about hunting season, which is no joke around here. At the entry points on the trail, they all warn of archery hunting.

We got our first snow today! Just a little flurry in the morning that didn't stick and more flurries later, nothing drastic, but winter is making its way! I got work done in fits and spurts after Ben dragged me out of bed at 6am, unwillingly, but it made for good headway on various projects. I started to read Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write, which got me through the post-nap "I never want to get out of bed" slump, and even got to talk to Katherine for the first time since July! It's so good to have her back in the country.

Discoveries

I'm sure I'm not the first person to realize this, but I was struggling w/the usual drawing on the window to get backlighting, but then realized how to make my own portable lightbox with no electricity: plastic storage bins! I can get right on top of the piece while hugging the bin and since it's empty, it's light enough to move around to get whatever lighting I need. This is why it's good to live w/someone obsessed with "storage solutions" yet too busy to actually use them.

I got a few more pieces done today but am not thrilled about how they turned out. Then I got sidelined and haven't recovered and have been doing things like watching videos on how to cook cornish hens. And eating too many shrimp flavored chips.

I did a phone interview w/the features editor from the Post-Star this afternoon to talk about my show, and I'm terrified that I pulled another TMI session where I said all sorts of things that will make me sound like an oaf. I wish there was a physical filter, like a mouth guard, that I could put on my mouth in these situations.

Showing up

I was frustrated and angry and possibly resentful last night about being a woman at home so I wisely stayed up late weaving lopsided and useless objects that gave me great ticklish joy. This cup is way more lopsided that the picture reveals, and I made really hilarious things to put in it.

Today, I was determined to go in a direction since I have been stalling. I figured that nothing needs to be fabulous, or even good. Things just need to be, which means I need to make them.

I cleared off my whole work table once it became very clear that trying to work on the floor w/all this thick pile carpeting won't work, and that was probably the best thing I did for myself today. These are pieces cut off from weaving last night and in the days prior.

And here they are, unraveled. I ended up making 10 pieces today, even though the last one doesn't count b/c it's the junk pile and I was at the end of my productive rally. I think three are decent. I think I need to change up my diet b/c I don't get enough protein and by the end of the afternoon (like now) I'm like a pile of mashed potatoes. In a bad way. But I did get a fabulous hand-dyed silk scarf from Velma in the mail yesterday and have been wearing it all day and all last night. It's my new inspiration charm.

Melissa blogged today about a bunch of things and I wanted to highlight the article on Julie Laffin, a friend and mentor. I met Julie through Melissa a year before the disastrous poisoning that has disabled her. I haven't seen her in years and miss her physical presence but am heartened by how she keeps working and figuring out how to be in the world even when she can't BE in the world.

And a shirt

Apparently, I also inked the shirt I was wearing yesterday. More studio clothes! But I did start inventory for next week's install, so things are moving along, albeit slowly. The weaving is what kills me. Since I am not convinced it is what is necessary for this show, but to find that out takes HOURS, and then I have a sore back, wake up feeling like I have whiplash, and nothing to write into the inventory.

I started reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook and loved this:

The part of the psyche that works in concert with consciousness and supplies a necessary part of the poem--the heat of a star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say--exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone: not unconscious, not subconscious, but cautious. It learns quickly what sort of courtship it is going to be. Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself--soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly, or it will not appear at all.

Why should it? It can wait. It can stay silent a lifetime. Who knows anyway what it is, that wild, silky part of ourselves without which no poem can live? But we do know this: if it is going to enter into a passionate relationship and speak what is in its own portion of your mind, the other responsible and purposeful part of you had better be a Romeo. It doesn't matter if risk is somewhere close by--risk is always hovering somewhere. But it won't involve itself with anything less than a perfect seriousness.