spiders and curtains

I wish I had my camera at home this morning. There are six narrow lacy panels hanging on the clothesline, in alternating arrangement, blowing gently in the morning breeze and catching the dappled sunlight under the maple tree. My son is weaving in and out of them at a run, shuttling back and forth -- "It's like a maze!" he says.

I washed the basement curtains. Funny curtains they are, came with the house -- thin, gauzy white, completely inappropriate for an unfinished basement. I think she sewed them up right before she put the place on the market, back when the basement was completely devoid of dirt and bugs. And there have they hung, four years now I should think, attracting house spiders who are in turn attracted to the crawlers and things that creep in around the basement window sills. Dirty, dusty used web threads and insect carcasses everywhere. First I taped a paper towel to the basement broom, tied on a head scarf and gritted my teeth. I swept up as much as I could from the window wells, and then removed the curtains and threw them in the wash machine. By themselves. With lots of water and soap. I only had to transplant one fat house spider. She won't like the corner I left her in. Too damp. I watched her climb up another spider's web, belonging to a much smaller one, which scurried quickly away at the site of her. I'll call her Aunt Fanny.

But if I had a camera, I'd post a picture of those curtains, on the line.

world without end

I think that everything real, everything worth having in the sense that an object might be worth clinging to, is old. Worn, carried and possibly discarded, sometimes unwanted.

I look at people, all the time, every day, young and old and in-between. I look at their creases, at the marks they wear and their imperfections. I look at my own body -- still a good shape, but criss-crossed by scars and veins that have aged, threaded with grey hairs, unexpected in places and overgrown, overlooked maybe...but mine. Some people call me pretty, and so it might be hard to believe I could see myself as "overlooked"... but I know who I am naked, and I mostly look my age. It's important to me to be strong and flexible, too. And to last.

I pick up what I find on the street. What is old and forgotten. There is STILL beauty to be found there -- it never dies, not as long as there is light and vision.

still in progress...but coming along...

As usual, I have no idea where these photos will wind up in the post....
these are details from the current project. Right now it may be called "I smell lilacs," or "Birds at night," or both... layering.

I get caught up sometimes in worrying about what I can't see yet. How will the bottom of this composition resolve itself? How will I finish the back and borders? Will I add trees? Where will it end? This one has been in the pipeline A WHILE... I have given myself the deadline of July 27th, the SAQA meeting, to have it completed. Because I like to spin these projects out past their useful span... I love them, then leave them, then renew my obsession months later. When I finally allowed myself a break from worrying about missing pieces, and started layering in some of the objects I've hoarded away (like a bower bird, but not as monochrome in my tastes)... well then. Things begin to bloom.

I have a friend who walks each night before bedtime. Sometimes he emails me his thoughts while walking, BlackBerry-style; and one night, while lamenting the increasingly-likely demise of a suffering acquaintance, he paused to type "I smell lilacs." It was early spring. And I thought, of night, and death, and flowers blooming in the dark; this is layered across the earlier mental image of birds on their branches at night, birds quiet, sleeping birds, silhouetted in their secret nests. The colors visible in bright moonlight, and the things you can sense, but not see...

time flies away too quickly, and my head is so full

Starting my first online workshop with the wonderful Jude Hill on July 15! I can't wait. Another set of deadlines to motivate me, along with the SAQA meeting later in July.

I'm at home this morning, having a little "just BE" time - probably won't produce anything artistic, because it takes the whole morning just to find my way back to a comfortable headspace right now... There's much too much on my mind, too much happening at work. But later, maybe tonight, I'll be able to create.

I thought I'd post a detail of the current piece so you can see what I did with the cemetery flowers, but I think my camera is at the office. Later then.

a moment's pause, a gift

It seems sometimes there is nothing more beautiful than rain coming down in the spring, and wind in the thick leaves of trees. The leaves which only recently budded, not yet gnawed by insects or curled by cocoon-spinning worms; not yet browned by drought or darkened by summer's heat. Today is such a day, and this morning is a gift, time off of work after weeks it seems of pressure and tension; only a morning off, really, but a gift just the same. I'm listening to the wind and rain; to the whistle of a train as it approaches a grade crossing nearby to the north. Long stretches of cloud and rain become stressful, but a regular reprieve from the full gaze of the sun is a good thing. More smells and gentler sounds.

I'm in the sewing room this morning, moving a bookshelf and taking out a layer of clutter. This summer I'm hoping to switch rooms with my son; maybe I should wait until fall, since this room is warmer in winter by far but may not ventilate as well in the heat. We'll pull the last remaining carpet out of his room, exposing the wood floors beneath; and I'll have more space for all my supplies and equipment. He will still have room for most of his toys and books, but at his age he doesn't spend tons of time in his room, preferring still to be where we are. When he's older, we'll give him the option of a remodeled basement, to make into his boy-cave. All boys (and men) seem to need a cave of their own somewhere. Fine with me.

I may or may not sew this morning. It's bubbling away in the back of my mind, the current piece, but it feels good just to putz around in here. Attention to self in this way. The sewing room isn't really a cave -- more of a nest, to be sure. My nest. I feel guilty for comandeering a space in our small home in this way, but I can't help it. It's what I need, and has been since I can remember. I've never compromised on this. Though I sometimes feel too accommodating, in truth I am quite rigid about certain things. I must always have a studio space of some kind. I must never curate for free. I may never sell my work, since that makes me uncomfortable, but I'm happy to give it away from time to time. Much of my world, my feelings and opinions, seem swirling and variable. This artist space, the physical studio and the corresponding room in my psychic interior, the principles that apply, that dramas played out therein -- these are a constant. This is the core. I throw a fair amount of energy into most of what I do, and so I get pulled away from this space -- g-forces. Sooner or later I'm desperate for this balance.

Rain is thumping into the downspouts and pattering on the maple leaves. Birds chirrup pleasantly from their perches, since the weather isn't all that heavy. The train echoes on in the distance. The mail carrier clatters past the front step, swaddled in plastic. In between, lots of quiet.

Vintage aprons!!

at the cemetery

Yesterday we went up to the cemetery: an hour drive there, an hour or so in town, an hour back. I picked up stones from nearby sand-hills and the roadside, to place them with my son's help on the markers for my father's parents. We paced the miniature lawn of the tiny small-town graveyard, and my son explained to me the meaning of the American flags ranked before the white cross, twined with roses; carefully reiterating a new wisdom imparted by his father.

On the way to the car, I noticed a few brightly-colored patches among the wheel ruts in the grass. Weathered petals torn from silk flowers, and bits of tattered ribbon. The detritus, wind-blown, of scattered offerings. I picked up a few ribbons and a handful of beautifully faded blossoms where they were pressed into the earth, and brought them home, and added some to the piece I'm currently working on (deadline July 14). Pictures soon.