To the top of the mountain

This was the view from our condos in Vail over the weekend. It was hailing when Alta and I drove in from Denver, and then it rained, and up top it snowed a bit.

The gondola ride to the mountaintop was warm and the views gorgeous, of course. I know the yellow of the aspens turning was brilliant, but it made me miss oranges and reds of eastern autumns.

Our board retreat for Hand Papermaking was very intense but also wonderful. It's always a treat to have dedicated time with other papermakers and people who really care about the field. There is so much work to do going forward, but this was a good way to get motivated as we face lots of transition.

Last night, I was still exhausted from the travel and being behind on sleep/work, so I got my floating selvedges on and only wove about 3 inches before I called it a night. I'll be back today for fresher eyes!

Complements

The nice thing about a class paced over a month is that there's time to get everything done without panic. Somewhere, I dropped a yarn because I ended up with an odd number. Oh! Now that I look at it I see where (at the end). A shame, because it would have been very easy to add last night. But these mistakes are good for the learning bank.

This new one got ahead of me and turned up a little too quickly, so it will be a bit of a short body. But that's okay. Hoping I can still shape it to not look too stumpy. I fly in less than two days for a working board weekend and spent all day doing homework—I left the house to do it, otherwise, I would have kept weaving!

Priorities reshuffled

I just couldn't pry myself away from this one, even with so many deadlines looming.

Though I did make time yesterday to wind the white part of the warp and sley my reed.

I wrote in the morning but really had to stop because this one was calling, loudly!

These days

I hate the feeling of so many half-or-less-than-half-finished projects going at once, but that's just what's happening right now. Sewing came to a screeching halt but I still intend to get it done within a month (I don't have a choice, since that's when I leave for Chile and need to have everything ready by then).

I tried to keep myself sane by starting a new fat duck. Instead of balancing admin with making, I tried to go 100% admin in the face of deadlines, and it made me very unhappy. So I went full force into this one.

Of course, now it's also on the back (or middle) burner as I get back to more admin, but I tried to be much more patient than I usually am.

Which means that it has nice curves and doesn't suddenly get smaller when I get impatient and want to cut away spokes. Imagine that! I also did a bunch of admin and was approved for fiscal sponsorship, so people can donate to me and write it off on their taxes.

Can you believe what I'm doing now to distract myself even further? Tonight was my first of a four-week weaving intro class. I wanted another chance because my first class years ago was so awful. This time, I'm going to have a proper cotton warp. Plus, we are learning completely different methods from the first time, so I get to try new methods in a beautiful space with great energy.

Also, the yucca is resting after the hot cook. Master juggling!

Labor Day

I've wanted to test yucca for papermaking for years. I got scolded for trimming the outer leaves the way that I did, but I don't think they look THAT bad, and will eventually get back to looking the way they did once the new outer leaves fall down.

Velma warned me about the suds that will appear when I cook, which reminded me about yucca being used to make soap. I'm glad that I'm doing a cold cook for a week, soaking everything in soda ash and water while I decide whether I want to use induction or electric heat.

The labor hurt a lot but it was only about an hour and a half of work, so I can't complain. I need a better decorticating tool but it's all reasonable if I space the work out rather than trying to do all the steps in a hurry hurry hurry. I'm trying to not be in such a rush, imagine that!

Last week's labor included updating my bibliography and publication list. I would happily scrape yucca to avoid doing that kind of work again!

Paper & Glass Exhibit

I'm happy to be in a show of paper and glass artists that opens today in Oberlin at FAVA Gallery. The opening is Sunday afternoon and I'll be there.

Other than that, hunkering down on writing deadlines and trying not to melt in the heat!

Another brief heat wave

 The kozo at Oberlin is doing so well! Even during this dry season.

The cast duck that Cassandra made for her Haystack glass casting class (and that I took home after the silent auction) had a bit of blue in the tip. The duck next to it is related.

Believe it or not, it has taken me at least three entire days to piece only a small portion of this coat together. There are still sleeves, flaps, epaulettes, and other pieces I've never had to deal with before to piece, but I will have to do some more persimmon fun to make sure I have enough paper to finish. In the meantime, I'm laying on the floor and wishing the cool weather would return.

The final plug for the week

Catching up on admin makes things move fast! Here is an interview I did for Finnish art historian Inka Juslin.

Happy weekend!

Housekeeping

After impressive logistical engineering, I finally got my paper dresses photographed and online!

Today I went Oberlin to drop off artwork for an upcoming group show of paper and glass artists, and for pleasant meetings. If I make a big push, I'll get caught up on enough admin tomorrow to start making art again very soon.

Vacation is over!

I ran into one of my Oberlin students in New York recently, and she told me about the video they had been working on in January about my course. I had forgotten to check in and see the final product, but she reminded me and found it online for me.

I'm done with my long distance driving for a bit, and almost done unpacking. WORK begins with a vengeance!

After Maine

New York was on the schedule after Haystack, and it has been very full as well. I have been able to see more friends than usual because I extended my trip, but was sure to make a visit to Pace Paper in Gowanus.

The interns were pulling sheets and by the time Akemi had shown me a bunch of artwork, they were ready to load their ginormous Lee McDonald press. This thing is insanely powerful. Afterwards, we had dinner with Amy and Tatiana after they finished up their work day at Dieu Donné. It's so rare to be able to get so many paper ladies together, so it was a great treat.

I was able to meet with people who hadn't yet gone on their summer vacations at museums and parks, and saw out of towners whose visits coincided with mine. Of course I visited NY Central for the last time before it disappears, and saw my old boss and mentor for an extended afternoon after scoping out a new classroom space in Brooklyn where I may site a pop-up workshop.

A big highlight was seeing my dear friend Elizabeth who was here from Mexico, and she introduced me to Laura, whose work I have always admired (and we share a photographer!). These are older pieces she made out of handmade paper. She was an old friend of Dieu Donné from the very early days and it turned out that she had seen a bunch of my work at our photographer's studio just that week.

I won't even bother trying to show you the magnificent work in her studio because someone has already done a gorgeous photo shoot. But this is tapa cloth from Papua New Guinea, and underneath is lace bark from Chiapas.

Elizabeth is working and Laura is documenting. This has been a strange work/family/catch up trip with very little down time, and I'm finally ready to do the drive all over again next week and be in one place for a month before the next trip.

In the meantime, Velma has an excellent request for help, on shifu and healing, that I want people to participate in if possible!

Haystack Part Everything Else

This is Pi Benio's work, using the stripped dogbane stalks that we donated to the untraditional basketry class after we removed the bast fiber for papermaking.

She made all the cuts to the stalk pieces and wired them all. She also has a background in papermaking, and teaches at Adrian College in Michigan.

I don't remember which student in that class did this piece, but I included it because you can see we also donated the dogbane seed pods (after emptying them of papermaking fiber)! They're the ones sticking up.

This was coiled by Kindle Loomis, a young work-study student from Maine who has had a wonderful history of being nurtured by Haystack. She was doing studies off of a single form, but I don't have images of that to share.

This one was by Ashley Chen, who was one of only two people I saw one night in the basket class, working. It looks particularly stunning against the light when the sun is coming in full force.

These are also by Ashley, who became obviously a coiling fanatic.

She worked across from Anne-Claude Cotty, who makes absolutely gorgeous work. She was the first ever TA in papermaking at Haystack back in the 80s and told me about how they got by with a blender and single pigment color.

This is the work of Bai Ming, the ceramics studio teacher. He came all the way from Tsinghua University in Beijing with his wife and daughter (the latter translated for him the entire time; what an incredibly poised young woman! She herself is studying lacquer arts).

Again, I'm sad to say that I don't know which student made these but I found the work to be incredible. The traditional work is wholly inspired by Ming, but the figures really captured me.

Becca in the metals studio had a lovely setup about her reasons for coming to Haystack, what she learned, samples of her own work, etc. We had joked at lunch one day about why her studio required closed-toe shoes when it was just as easy to burn your arm or some other body part that was not protected. That very afternoon, she burned her fingers! I was mortified. Thankfully, my TA had some amazing Chinese medicine balm that took care of the healing really quickly.

Here is the TA, Noga Harel, at the tail end of 30 hours of work on a gorgeous piece that she donated to the auction. She didn't sleep. I don't know how people work without sleeping.

These gut pieces were by Wong Yuk Ling, who was so busy at the sewing machine (she does a lot of silk sculpture) and wore wonderful garments and jewelry during the session.

Here is Margarét from the Fab Lab (who came to help us all the way from Iceland!) looking at the work in the fibers studio during the final walk through. The paper studio is just beyond, and I put all of those pictures here.

Haystack Part Glass

Cassandra was the glass teacher, leading only the second ever glass casting workshop at Haystack. She has SO much energy and took her students on trips to other studios to do guerilla alginate castings for quick studies. On this trip, she came alone with a bucket of alginate powder (the same kind of stuff dentists use to make molds of teeth) and wanted to take a few more casts.

She's casting a hanji hat here, and the duck is next (more on that later).

This pops right out of the bowl and then she cut out the bottom to remove the hat from the mold.

Like this. The alginate caused the dye in the brim to change colors, and was hard to get off.

Not quite enough fill in the brim but this is the final glass version (blue) next to the mold of the original. I can't explain the whole thing to you but it may involve plaster, investment molds, wax, or all of the above.

This is the sample of glass cast off of bark lace that they got a mold of during their class trip to our papermaking deck.

Now, the story of the duck...this is actually the second version. The one I originally made had a longer beak and didn't have the stripe (from drying wet on a surface where the brazilwood dye migrated). It was similar, though, and the alginate never properly released from it, leaving a lot of blue in the crevices. After a bunch of scrubbing with a toothbrush both wet and dry, I gave up and did this:

Sumi ink to the rescue! That covered most of the imperfections on both.

Then I ran over to the metals studio and had Damon Thompson, the jewelry teacher, help me put it on a brass stand for the auction.

Here's Cassandra! She showed me where her glass class jumped off of a big rock into the ocean. This was the session to do that, given how hot the days got. I had one student who swam every day. I wish I could have done that but it wasn't in the cards for me this time.

On our walk back to see slide presentations, Cassandra saw a tiny frog. Very jumpy, so I didn't manage a clear image.

This is the view walking out of my cabin every day. I hope to be back soon!