May Atrium event: bark lace

Two weeks ago, I performed a four-hour public event that was a demo at the museum that repeated whenever someone showed up and asked, what is this?? It involved so many meetings where little was actually accomplished (this is the contrast between people who get paid regardless of what they do, and me, who had to log into meetings that could have been handled in a few emails).

The other major time suck was prep. Making bark lace seems easy but usually someone has cooked the fiber for you already, which is most of the work. I also spent hours rinsing and sorting into at least eight different grades (too soft, too hard, very long, very short, no good for lace, etc.). I also panicked and cooked a second batch that was overkill. But I thought, what if hundreds of people come? They did, but they didn't all use the bark.

Betsy came with a gift that was PERFECT for my outfit: a hand-woven scarf! She was over the moon that she psychically brought the exact right color. My friends are so good at making sure that I am presentable. I was so touched that almost ten people that I invited came all the way from Oberlin.

Besides bringing lots of art to hang on screens behind me, I also set out tons of resources: art, books, samples, and new written material I spent so long on even though nobody reads anymore. I'm such an old lady, why do I waste my time like this?

Part of these events always include objects from the museum education collection. They pulled wonderful samples of material that people used before paper, like palm leaves,

pith "paper"

bodhi leaves

and kapa.

I didn't have time to for a bark lace panel at my station, which was is why I did NOT need to cook, rinse, and sort four dry pounds of paper mulberry bark (though I was also doing it so that I would have bark left over for the following weekend's event).

I gave up on doing a big panel and instead made smaller samples, including bark grids to explain what was going on downstairs in the show with my bark dress jacket.

This was another "Thank goodness for Michelle!!" day. She did all the heavy lifting at the demo table where people worked on one big panel of bark lace. After picking up Haoyuan, another star Oberlin student, and setting up well before the event, I asked for and got a tiny lunch break, but she worked the entire public event without pause (I also forget she is half my age, which helps!).

She did such a good job helping passersby fill up the panel! Many meetings were about, "Can I get two pieces of plexi or wood to cover each table?" and then waiting weeks and weeks to get an answer. Much of my prep was anticipating all of the things that a location could provide for me, but not trusting that they would. Down to old rags, I brought everything I might even imagine I would need. Also, when you bring art and books in and out of a museum, everything has to be checked in and out, so everything needs to be packed in a way that makes it easy to pull out and confirm against a checklist.

Lisa took this picture (low res b/c it went from iPhone to Android). We had 420 visitors over 4 hours. I felt my throat go halfway through, maybe even sooner. I often think I need voice training to survive the sore throats I always get when I start teaching, since I live alone and while I do talk a lot on the phone, this incessant repetition of information is a whole other game. After going out for pho with Michelle, I headed home and collapsed but couldn't sleep, and eventually later in the night started to make more bark lace. Every day after that until I took the bark to Oberlin, I made more lace and thread. This is the consequence of prepping too much fiber!