From serious snow to spring

Before I left town, I was excited to experience ZeroLandfill and went on both harvest days with a friend who wholly appreciates going to the solid waste department to get free stuff to divert from the trash. It was really cold and snowy the last day but still worth the visit. I got tile as book weights, carpet pieces for fatigue mats, wallpaper books for book classes, vinyl surfaces to dry paper, fabric samples because how could I resist? and other things I can't remember now because it feels a million years ago.

Instead of packing and working on my newest book, I spent most of my final full day home sewing pillow covers and a bag, which wore me out as if I had been working out all day. But it was a delightful diversion.

This is an old book that I bound years ago in grad school but never used. It will be my newest sketchbook, which I was so attached to that I didn't touch it for almost 15 years!

Here are two early drafts of my new book, which I somehow managed to finish in New York. It's a how-to intro to jiseung, which people have requested for the past 10 years.

I'm terrible at drawing hands so I had to take a lot of pictures of my hands posing. This was a big reason I put off making this book for so many years. The first batch almost sold out in class and I'll put it up for sale once I make some more.

Aside from major family time (a new niece arrived in late Feb!) and helping both my parents and my sister with small and large projects, I managed to have one day for my stuff. That meant a photo shoot (here are some new ducks and a few new hanji bits), friend lunch, seeing the retrospective show of my former boss/mentor at Pratt, and visiting the opening night of a big paper art fair to see some friends. Above, one of many cases in Robbin's show.

Robbin did a great installation on the stairs of Pratt's beautiful library in Brooklyn. As she says, it's her biggest book yet.

She also installed five cases in the gorgeous stacks that you discover as you search/browse. Loved this treasure hunt.

This was a book I helped her edition; it was so weird to see my own handwriting from 12 years ago. She taught me SO MUCH and the wisdom expands and grows over time.

This was part of an installation she did at my grad school when I was a student and it was my first introduction to turning paper into thread. During my internship with her in my last year of my MFA, she showed me shifu samples by Asao Shimura and opened an enormous new world to me that I'm still mucking about in. I was so happy that I was able to see her at the exhibit to catch up and savor the entire show.

Then I rushed off to see the Art on Paper fair, where some of the usual Korean suspects were (these are by Kwang Young Chun, his signature look of paper wrapped blocks). It was great to see friends, meet a few new folks, and bump into happy colleagues. But it was also great to get home after a long day.

Class this weekend was so busy that I took almost no pictures. I had a fabulous group of very hardworking students. For the first time ever, I made them make cords ALL DAY on Saturday and instead of the usual one sheet, I gave them three sheets (instead of 16 cords, 48—or more, depending on how thin their strips were). They were super engaged and kind to each other, and I had two repeat students from last year's class, so it felt like a cozy hive of weavers. I'm bewildered by the warm weather and time change but managed to pack and now must get off this computer!

Tomorrow: flying home, getting a ride from a friend to the mechanic, where I will hand over every penny I earned this weekend to get my car back.