Day off is a day on

As much as I'd like to learn to take weekends, I also want to make the best use of quiet studio time when I can because I still don't have my own. So I rushed out this Sunday morning, surprised by all the cars parking for church, and grateful for the otherwise still streets. Here are Mason, Tom, and Jared on top of the new beater room structure after having hauled up the ceiling bits and skylights.

Inside. Yesterday was lots of commotion with moving things out to the new warehouse further south to make space here, which will be nice.

I had lots of tangles, but LOVE Asao's paper for spinning. I had written an edited quote from my friend Elizabeth over and over again before slicing: "You have to find the centre to balance your life OR accept your life is that impredectible and mysterious and crazy and hectic! But however it is, you have to rest enough"

Because I was concerned that the large piece I've been working is too big for the Open House (I feel like people prefer buying smaller things because their houses are already full of art, walls full), I took a piece of 2-hour cotton/abaca snail mail, got it damp, and used slices rolled on my thigh to prep for this lidded basket. I had Liora sit with me while working and at the end, she put all of my tiny baskets inside! Brilliant, though only the larger basket will go up for auction.

Now I have to decide if and when to add rice paste. This is one sheet of paper, but I forget the size. Probably somewhere around 12 x 18 inches.

This morning, I also finished a piece for Asao's exhibit on shifu this fall. The shifu is made from hanji and pasted to pina paper with kon'nyaku paste that he shipped from the Philippines. The sewing is using thread from his paper as well. My parents are still in the air on a long flight to Korea as my maternal grandmother goes through her steps of dying. My first niece is due in a few weeks. I think I'll go sew some more circles recognizing those cycles.