Haystack Part One

I'm still not completely re-adjusted and would love more sleep, but here we go, back into the life of a human plugged into devices, online. Somehow, Lisa (my hardy TA) and I survived two car accidents in two days on the way to Haystack. I know, crazy, let's not talk about it anymore. This is the tiny bridge that means we're almost there.

My view from my room, the ocean lapping every day, lobster boats going out after dawn. I wish I could have slept more but I was overstimulated.

A neighbor on the deck on Faculty Row.

We stripped old dogbane that I had harvested last fall for bast fiber on the first morning. No papermaking until Day 2.

Some of us separated seeds and fluff from pods (and the central piece in each pod was also removed). The 'waste' from our class went to the non-traditional basketry class, which was happy to receive scraps and such throughout the session.

This was sea algae mailed from coastal Virginia to test. Mostly we used it for inclusions and at the end I did a quick chop in the beater but there's no way it could have held up as a sheet without stronger fibers.

The full moon and adjacent moon nights were spectacular. SO BRIGHT at night.

We began with two days of socialist papermaking (no name tags, the brilliant idea of Frank Brannon). It sets the tone in the best way possible. Mostly we only worked in the morning because the sun and heat got unbearable afterwards. Part Two after some sleep!

All of a sudden

This book has been sitting around for probably over a year, waiting to be finished. Under massive pressure, I managed to complete packing for many different travel segments, do a bunch of admin, meet Judy for lunch, load my car, AND finish this book! Tomorrow will demand more stamina than I may possess: an 8-hour drive, unloading the entire contents into a different vehicle, riding with 23 dresses, 3 books, 4 ducks, and 2 teapot on the train and subway, walking to my photographer, and then riding out to see my niece.

My biggest wish is for a great night's sleep. See you on the other side.

West Coast for a fleeting week

I flew home two nights ago after a brief visit to California. After a July 4th parade in Ohio, I flew with my sweetie for a mini-vacation in San Francisco for two nights. Tam was able to meet us, which helped SO much because she is much more qualified to be a tour guide than me. Then I rode to Oakland to teach a hanji craft class on the Mills College campus.

The course was actually for Middlebury's School of Korean, which operates at Mills during the summer because the Vermont campus is maxed out with eight other language schools. Mills is home to the Arabic, Italian, and Korean schools.

The second group of students was quiet but intent on making very involved creations. Did I mention that this is an immersion program? This meant that my lectures, instruction, and handouts were all in Korean. I've taught Koreans in Korean, but this was a whole new challenge, teaching without the luxury of lapsing into English, to a mixed group of levels—a few were complete beginners and I'm not sure how well I did at reading eyes, signing, or drawing pictures, but I think everyone got something out of it.

Campus is beautiful and very peaceful, especially when school is out! After teaching, Helena visited for dinner and an evening cup of tap water (I had nothing else to offer in the apartment since I was only staying for a night myself). Richard picked me up in the morning for tea and a drive back to San Francisco for a luncheon of textile artists and appreciators at Barbara's beautiful home.

After packing everything up again, with the addition of Richard's homemade raspberry jam and some leftover homemade biscotti from lunch, I rode to Davis. The train was stuck at Berkeley for half an hour due to police activity on the tracks ahead, which gave me time to catch up on what was happening in the world, which was a thousand percent heartbreaking and horrifying. But I finally was able to relax for two nights in sunny Sacramento, visiting with two friends who now live minutes away from each other. I always feel like no time at all has passed when I see Katherine, and especially appreciate her counsel, which is even more valuable during transition points like this one. Steph just returned from her Fulbright year in Korea and we talked for hours about her experience and her plans to open a hanji store in the US.

I'm pausing briefly now to pack the BIG load for Maine. I have just one more day before the drive to NY, and then journey to Haystack at the end of the week. I can't wait for the cooler temperatures, ocean, and magic of that place.

Procrastination is the best motivator

I could have done this for months, but I guess I needed the pressure of leaving town to finally do it! This is my teapot getting ready for some persimmon juice.

It was old kakishibu from powder that had coagulated and was in my fridge since last year, which I put into the blender with boiled water and alcohol.

Before smoothing the chunkiness

After, and in the drying process. So glad to be able to check something off of my list!

Going fast

Less than a week until departure, which provides the push to get things done that have been malingering for over a year. Yesterday was entirely too hot, but today cooled down enough to test a mini foil stamping machine I bought last year accidentally (oh, auctions).

I think I did this last night but it was so hot I can't remember. It's weird but I'm glad it's done. All that's keeping me from urgent admin is one more book. Hoping that comes to me quickly.

Going slow

I managed this one after all of the website nonsense, and it was funny to be shaking my hand afterwards, wondering why it was sore. From sewing! My eyes aren't completely recovered from all the computer staring but I'm hoping to lay low for the next week in preparation for traveling coast to coast (California, NYC, Maine).

The leaf has finally turned

Gigi from my last hanji class was so taken with spinning paper thread on my bobbin winder that she went home and repurposed a hand drill she had at home to continue making thread over the summer. This is one of the best possible outcomes of teaching.

Meanwhile, after a very challenging month and a half of calling tech support almost daily for calls that lasted over an hour each, I have finally erased my old site and replaced it with something slightly less outdated. See? Since I was hacked, I was an easy sucker and paid for the extra bells and whistles to protect the site from future hacks. Fingers crossed that everything will be fine for a while, and that I can get back to making dresses and being a more sane human.

Roadblocks

Turns out my website has been hacked, and in the process of trying to upgrade my server, Google has de-indexed it, so that it will never show up in a search if people search for me. AGH. Now I'm trying to hand build a new site, even though I am not a web developer.

So, I only got this funny looking one done this week. My friend said it looks like a bag. Like, it was a paper bag. That's not true, but it did come from an old piece I took apart, and I did try to see if I could do it without cutting the sheet, just sewing it together. That doesn't really work but it was an excellent experiment.

Done!

I was so busy on day 1 of the hanji workshop that I didn't even take pictures of everyone working at the three vats (one big, two small) that we had up. I've been doing this for years, and even though this was only the second time I had more than one vat going, things went remarkably smoothly. This is the process of parting and drying smaller hanji. The weather was perfect enough that everything dried before the end of day 2! It helped to put the heat dryer close to the non-heated surface behind it to speed that drying.

Betsy and Cris bailed out Julie's vat before we dismantled it, and I enjoyed watching them work. I had to reassure them that it was okay if we didn't get every last bit out before wiping down the pond liner. The group was one of my best yet and it led to a peaceful class. Now, a couple weeks before I start packing for the next few workshops.

Unexpected grief

A local acquaintance who was an amazing artist, businessperson, and community builder passed away almost a week ago and I've been blindsided by sadness. I wasn't very productive in visible ways, but made this wee one.

I also got to meet Adam Field in person after being email friends for years! He was a guest artist at Kent's Blossom Art program, and I was happy to visit campus when it was incredibly quiet. He's a wonderful potter and person who also spent intense time in Korea in apprenticeship. I'm glad we were finally able to connect.

Happily dismantling old art and sorting out papers for more and more and more dresses. I think I have about 25 now. Though 100 would be a great goal, I will only work until it's no longer fun. I wish I could hole away and make more this weekend, but it's my final workshop at the Morgan, so I'll be teaching hanji making instead. Let's see if I can hold it together.

Back to joy

 Old art = new dress

[bananas for scale!]

Old art + new dyed hanji = new dress

 

Finally feeling like I'm getting back on track in terms of work, both the fun and not fun. These are products of the fun work.

Monster post

Re-entry has been very, very slow. I didn't go near the water often, but Kerri took Frank and me into a canoe on the last evening of the last class and though I was unprepared for hiking over a sand dune to see the sunset on Lake Michigan, I was really grateful that she got me out on the water!

I only managed to make a few miniature books in the first session before I realized that I had to prep for my own class, so I missed the other bindings.

In the mornings of the first session, I inhaled lots of sawdust while making awls and other wood tools (a piercing cradle and travel lying press). Bob Walp was a wonderful and generous teacher.

I liked working with the sticks on the ground because they were so much easier to carve than the hard woods.

Other students got way more carried away, in the best ways.

I think I only sat out at the fire twice but this first time Sarah Rose roasted me a marshmallow.

I gave my students a big lecture about taking care of their bodies while working.

The weather was PERFECT for class. Otherwise, we never would have been able to do the volume of work we did.

I sometimes wonder if I should just leave the entire first day to beating fiber and lacing bark.

Ariel was one of many working outside on a board to lace. And we had a surprise visitor, who has a book coming out next month all about lace bark in the Caribbean! I was excited to hear about these trees and traditions (nearly lost, of course) that he has been researching.

MAKING HISTORY. When have 3 hanji vats ever been set up in this country? It was never until two weeks ago. They all worked great, in styles reminiscent of their makers (Julie, Tom, and me).

Frank taught the first session class and I was SO happy to get to spend so much time with him at PBI. He taught me about socialist papermaking, where no one labels their paper and everyone gets the same number of sheets in the end. It helps remove the element of failure and encourages students to make better paper since it will be shared. Genius! I used a modified version of this system for the hanji.

For the first time, I had a press with a gauge for hanji, so we determined that somewhere between 400 and 500 psi is ideal (though I bet we could have gotten away with 500, we didn't get much beyond 400).

I set up the dye station late in the 4-day class so it was just a mad rush at the start and then no one seemed interested because they were so consumed with doing other things.

The sun dried so many of our sheets so quickly! Thank goodness for Andrea's amazing paper studio at Ox-Bow, equipped with a zillion boards. Thank goodness for Andrea, period. I can't have done it without her. The last time I was at Ox-Bow was as her TA, 10 years ago.

We had a visitor in the studio later at night, hopping around the hanji vats.

We also had a robin trapped in the studio for days. I was so scared that it would poop on my things, and then it did, and again, and again (Velma's book, post-treatment).

Fortunately, Giselle was in this class, and she took out her conservator chops to help rescue what could be rescued. I lost a portion of a hanji rope (which was halved when I had to cut out the fecal matter), but she got one book to the point where you couldn't tell. Velma's book is permanently stained but disinfected.

Grace got really into thread making.

They ended up making almost 400 sheets of hanji! If not for parting errors and desperation where sheets were dried as 4-ply instead of 2-ply, this means that they made 800 sheets. That doesn't even include the smaller ssangbal-style sheets (probably about 200 of those). A few troopers were there late into the night and pulled and pulled. I was really amazed that they were able to produce so much.

I wanted these bananas so badly that Sarah Rose made and put into the auction, and I got them! I was going to add them to my teaching collection but they might just stay home. I wish I could stay home for a good long time, but there's a lot on the books for the summer. Here are the rest of the photos; I'm back to work.