All in a couple days' work

 

I used to keep my sketches and inspirations in a drawer.  That will no longer do.  A trip to IKEA, a power drill and some anchors (and some culling of scraps that I no longer remember why I kept), and now I have an idea board on the wall my work table faces.

Plastic floor covering from Lowe's and some indoor/outdoor duct tape and the carpeting is now protected from water. Finally, I set out some materials and start back to work.

The skinny forest is not an original idea.  Sometimes, to move into a new skill (felt painting here), I take someone else's design and see if I can make it in wool.  This was from a photo of a mass-produced painting for sale in a catalog.  Don't worry.  I won't sell it.

Drip dry after felting.  It is a good thing I know by now not to judge them when still wet.  They are never as nice when you first hang them up to dry.

A crinkle scarf trying to push its way toward a muted Spring.

Yarn and wool become a scarf, a necklace, a belt.  Your call.

A Skinny Forest felt painting for my studio.

It feels really good to be back at something like normal.

Social Being

I am waiting for inertia, like Elvis, to leave the building.   Previous moves always included a failsafe way to find a daily community.  College, work, mothering-related groups, children's schools.  This one is harder.  I don't know my children's schoolmates parents since we are no longer at a small private school.  I am having a slow time finding work teaching yoga.  I don't have any work other than the self-directed kind: unpack, rearrange, help children settle in, locate the necessities of living in a new place (schools, library, grocery stores, medical providers, etc.).  Oh, and felting, which is also solitary and self-directed.  It isn't as though I didn't know this was coming, but living in reality is a bit more challenging than preparing for that reality.  


In the meantime, I found the Textile Center in St. Paul, getting lost more than once on the way. (Not knowing how to get places is my least favorite part of moving.)  A beautiful space housing many classrooms for weaving, dyeing, sewing; a small studio currently housing an exhibit of art dolls (that were extraordinary); a library that was closed; offices; and a small shop.  I browsed, picked up brochures for summer camps for my girl, and purchased something to dispel the inertia: a book called 1000 Artisan Textiles (Quarry Press).  From clothing to accessories to household goods to wall hangings to 3-dimensional art, it is a feast for the weary textile artist.  Something to inspire and challenge.  It has me ready to pull out the sewing machine and learn more about garment construction rather than continue plunging into seamless felted clothing without a basis for my attempts. It has me ready to try a felt painting.  It has me ready to make another hat, another purse, a pillow, a bowl.  In short, it is getting me interested in the days ahead.


Is it enough?  Of course not.  It isn't as though I am all alone.   A friend of a friend took me out for a wonderful evening at the theatre.  A couple of old friends (one from MI and one from high school) are also here, though I have yet to see them in person.  And we have family here, too.  But it is the daily community that I am wanting.  I'm someone who knows her bank tellers by name, who chats with the other parents at a small school, who commiserates with the grocery cashier.  I am a very social being.   But it seems wool and silk are about to become my new best friends.  


I am more excited at the prospect than I would have expected.  


Hello, fiber.

Getting it together

Here it is in all its not very classy glory.  (Mind you, I am posting these having just read a blog by Team EcoEtsy on Keeping It All Organized.  I am nowhere near that. Yet.)  My new Woolynns Studio has all the essentials so far.  Big table, solar wrap, boot tray, buckets, wool, silk, yarn, a variety of heads, and a fresh paint job.  All that is still missing is plastic under the table so I don't ruin the carpet.  Notice the big window.  I get to see outside while I work!

Heads on a ledge

Fiber, fiber, everywhere

The goddess of creativity and a laughing head to oversee my work

The heads are out.

Four mannequin heads and one neck and shoulders are unpacked.  Boxes surround me, but far fewer today than last week when we unloaded the moving truck.  After several years of creating in a cold basement with a halogen lamp brightening the concrete floor and walls and allowing me to see the actual colors of wool and silk, I now have a studio of my own.  During the moving truck delay, we managed to paint both upstairs and down. There are windows lighting up my felting space.  I have overhead lighting and I have heat.  I also have carpeting, so I am playing with ways to protect the floor as I do my felting thing.  If we weren't renting, I'd rip it out and put in cork flooring.  But no. Must not destroy carpet with soapy water.

We are still without internet. I sit at Starbucks, taking a break from unpacking, and use the connection here and sip a latte courtesy of one of several Starbucks gift cards we were given before we left Michigan.  I want to post photos of my felting studio in its stages of readiness; poop brown paint and wood paneling becomes sunny yellow walls; boxes to the ceiling turn into shelves of bins containing wool and yarn and silk; heads appear on a built-in ledge archly overlooking the chaos as it settles into stability.  Sadly my photos are on my desktop and I am blogging from a laptop.

I have missed the deadlines for summer art fairs.  Given the stress of this move, I'll have to accept that this is for the best.  I already have a commission once I get my life in some sort of order.  And I have so many sketches I want to bring to life.  I can see the possibility of creating.

Soon.

Art Night

Let's ignore the fact that I am not comfortable teaching large groups of children.  Let's pretend I didn't volunteer at a school to which my children do not and never did attend.  And let's skip past the fact that I will be moving in less than two weeks and could have backed out of this gracefully.  Last night I found myself at a local elementary school for their second annual Art Night.  Lots of local artists and musicians of all kinds performing and creating ways for children to explore art and music.  I was the felter.

Simple, no?

Simple project:
Take two pieces of yarn, one of each color.
Make a twisty-twirly.
Roll it into a ball and tuck in the ends.
Put into a nylon stocking and dip in warm soapy water, squeezing and rolling and pressing until it starts to make a ball.
Remove from stocking and continue rolling.
Rinse.
String on a piece of yarn.
Voila: Felted earth necklace.

Seemed easy enough.  Then I realized I was going to be doing this by myself? And keep all these children moving?  And keep the dry table dry?  And keep the needles out of little hands?  At my daughter's Waldorf school, you can tell a child to make a twisty-twirly and they all know what that means.  Many of them have felted.  They all are comfortable with a needle if you thread it for them.  This was a public school event where felting is probably still pretty foreign.  Every step would need hands-on instruction.


And yet this blog is not about the challenge of the evening or even ultimately about felting.  It is about my youngest, my Sophie girl.  Both my children are artistic but it is Sophie who is passionate about it.  She keeps journals of drawings.  We have two boxes of her carefully wrapped sculptures ready for the move.  And she loves felting.  For the past few years, she has begged to help at art fairs with me.  She loves to set up the displays.  But the artist within her shares residency with the anxiety-ridden.  At almost 10, Sophie is extremely uncomfortable in large groups, even if those groups are of people she knows.  She has a terrible time speaking to grown ups.  She can't leave my side to explore at a big event, not even to find the bathroom. Lest you think she is being manipulative, after these sorts of events she will often go home and throw up. 


So when Sophie begged to be my helper last night, I was nervous, but she persisted.  Figuring she could at least help children with the twisty-twirlys, I consented with great misgivings.  Sophie and I unloaded my car of its bags of yarn, soap, pots, buckets and set up for the activity.  She moved desks with me, laid out a large plastic tablecloth, and couldn't wait to take over the task of mixing slurry (a soap mixture) with warm water in containers.  She separated all the yarn for stringing so they were easy to get.  She suffered through a reception for the presenters (where she snarfed a brownie and an M&M cookie). And then she helped me teach our two high school student volunteers how to felt an earth ball.  (The two unexpected helpers became essential to the evening and I was grateful to have them.)


And They're Off!  Sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes alone, sometimes in large groups, children arrived.  Sophie and I and Kelly and Julie twisted yarn, rolled up balls, demonstrated the wet process, threaded needles, salvaged earth "pacmen," tied necklaces.  We worked non-stop for two hours.  At one point nearly twenty children were working.  No break for a drink or bathroom visit possible.  I realized Sophie was wearing the nylons on her arms at all times so as to grab a ball of yarn, peel the nylon off her arm and hand the thing back to its owner to take to the wet table.  She emptied containers of cool water and remixed the slurry.  She twisted and twirled.  She checked children's progress.  All without saying much of anything.  Several more talkative children tried to ask her questions, but she would quietly smile and continue to help them with seldom a word.  I am sure she was a real puzzle to many, but she was efficient and pleasant and had a great time.  


When it was all over, Sophie helped clean up and carry everything back out to the car.  I was exhausted, somewhat stressed, and yet again realized I should not work with large groups of children.  But Sophie was joyous and telling me stories of this child or that.  So I asked her if she thought the children had a good time.  She said, "Yeah. Why?"  I realized that if my terribly anxious child could find a way to have fun in what was not her element (crowds of strangers) by focusing on what was her element (felting and teaching other children), then maybe I could let go of my stress about the evening and find enjoyment in being the mother of this surprisingly determined girl.

We were both starving when we got home. It was late and she needed to get to bed, but all her excitement had to come out finally and she talked non-stop as she got ready for bed.  I was proud of her for finding a way to be there and be true to herself, and I could tell she was proud as well.  After a quick sandwich and drink, it was bedtime.  At 11:30, the inevitable "I don't feel good," followed by vomiting in bed, with all extra sheets packed for the move, of course.  Instead of telling her no more helping, it's too hard on her, we talked about making sure any food after a big potentially stressful event is food that is easy on the stomach.  And she once again wished she didn't experience stress this way.  But she also was still happy to have gone. And I was happy she could be with me in a new way.  I love my girl, but that doesn't mean my extroverted self always meshes easily with my introverted daughter.  Last night, we both found out we could work together as partners.  And it was beautiful, throw-up and all.  Peace on earth.

Two weeks and counting

I took that marvelous thing called The First Sweater I Ever Knitted over to my friend Mary at Skeins on Main.  Mary is a knitter beyond compare and she showed me how to steam and block TFSIEK into shape.  Now I have a wonderful sweater to wear in my new abode in Minnesota.  I think it will be my new version of a house coat, given how cold this winter has been.

Moving proceeds.  M found a house for us to rent in MN.  Our current house has a buyer and is in the poorly named process of a short sale.  We know what schools the children will attend.  Two weeks and we go.  How is it I've packed 97 boxes and there is still so much all around me in our house?  Who put all this here?

Phone calls with friends near and far, getting me ready, encouraging me.  My dear friend KK is a few months ahead on this path of reinventing in a new locale.  Her words of wisdom and sense of humor and empathy are a necessity.  Thank god, she is a regular writer of email, and of her own blog Unterwegs.  My teacher/mentor/guide/heart KT told me she thinks my job in this lifetime is to reach as many people in as many ways possible as I can.  She called me exceptional, and then we brainstormed ways to spread the kind of yoga we practice and teach, as well as figuring out what to do about all those other pursuits of mine.

Feels like an all new adventure, but it is really a continuation of what I've always done.  Introduce myself, my work.  Find outlets for it.  Meet people who enjoy it.  Do more.  Woolynns, yoga, music, theatre, parenting.  The only new part will be the location and the people I encounter.  And then that will make everything both new and the same.

Exceptional.  I am moved by the thought that KT thinks I am, but  really, who I am just seems normal to me.  I hope Minnesota thinks so too.  Then we'll all be fine.  And a new group of people will have healthier bodies and nice scarves.

Minnesota ... Brrrrrrr

As I write this, it is 0 degrees in the Twin Cities.  I am not there. Yet.  It is a balmy 18 degrees in Michigan where I still live.  Wind chill brings it closer to zero.  I am prepping for our move, helped along by a cold snap here.  I have found Handmade MN, a great blog by Minnesota etsy-ers.  I am almost finished with my first ever sweater, which will get worn daily I'm thinking once we move.  (It is creamy white wool, now knit into a short version of the Einstein coat for all you knitters.  Photo coming upon completion.)  The knitting is how I pass my time during those showings when I have to vamoose, or before my classes while I wait for students to show up so I can sign them in.  It also helped pass the time on our 14 hour drive to MN over the holidays ... and then back again.  All my wool roving and Woolynns paraphernalia has been boxed up, though the rest of the house awaits packing.  I have so many ideas, I am bursting to felt something.  That creativity will help on those first isolated days after we move.  At least I hope it will.  It has been a long time since I moved somewhere new and started over.  But why do we have to start over in February?