A year in the life ...

This time last year, I was gearing up for our move to Minnesota after 12 plus years in Michigan.  Mark would be househunting and starting his new MN job in January, and the kids and I would be packing up our house for a late February move.  Since then I have:

• said good-bye to very dear friends and to an idea of myself based on external factors
• repainted our new place's interior when our belongings were delayed
• assisted my oldest during a very rough transition to his new school (never before has summer break come with such relief for him)
• watched as my youngest settled in more easily than expected, and been in awe as she denied living here ("I like gray" in response to the blue skies of a Minnesota winter)
• experienced travel baseball (never again)
• seen a chance to perform with high schoolers ease my middle schooler's pain
• found one studio willing to give me a shot teaching
• created a studio space and made lots of beautiful scarves
• camped in the Black Hills of South Dakota
• attended four art shows, at which my sales were dismal
• figured out what a gift it is to live near extended family
• watched Mark return to a happier frame of mind
• learned how to pull shots and pour latte art
• hosted Michigan friends on assorted trips through the Twin Cities
• adopted a dog (a beautiful Italian Greagle)
• seen my daughter branch out in ways we had only hoped might happen with a move
• cheered on my son as he discovered a new passion for swimming
• realized how deep friendships can run and how tentative it is starting new ones

One of my scattered-throughout-the-globe friends wrote a piece that is so very beautiful about resolutions and taking leaps and falling and starting over.  This is what it has felt like.  Grand and abysmal; barely functioning and laying so much groundwork; knowing I am in the right place but not quite feeling at home.  Staying in touch with old friends helps and hinders.  I need to move forward; I get stuck looking back.  Love from my old friends inspires and sustains and saddens.  Finding new friends is harder each time I move.  But here I am, looking at 2012, ready to start tackling that list of Ways To Feel Like I Live Here.  One item at a time.

• Follow up on people's offers: coffee, introductions, job ideas
• Set aside a few days to finally nail down all our health care providers
• Keep walking the dog in the big park, looking for the elusive albino squirrel
• Practice yoga
• Try felting a tallit
• Create a more structured approach to Woolynns
• Research local art fairs based upon recommendations received this fall
• Explore our new home state in new ways each month (arboretum, Fringe festival, etc)
• Be willing to drop a few balls

Here's to a new year filled with taking leaps, falling, and starting over.
Happy 2012!

Four-Shot Rob

Moving took a toll on my income.   It was clear that our family finances required me getting a part-time job of other sorts with actual money coming in.  I am very capable and intelligent, but my actual work experience is not going to get me serious money in the job market.  Having been an established yoga teacher for over a decade in MI, I am now unheard of with too few students and too few classes.  And who wants a 45-yr-old chorus gypsy if she can't really dance anymore?

Through my son's baseball team, I met Deb, the owner of a brand new local coffee shop.  As of two weeks ago, I became a barista at West Side Perk.  Back in June, when the shop was about to open, Deb informed me that the shop would be featuring local artists' work and if I had anything to display, I should let her know.  Which got me started working on small felt paintings this summer.

With my thoughts full of coffee, I made a brief sketch and then fleshed it out in detail in wool.

Then came the usual felting.  Wet, soap, roll, rub.  You know.  But what I ended up with was far from pleasing.  The wool wasn't evenly distributed so areas shrunk at different rates, the entire piece pulled awkwardly in different directions.  I had a completely different being on my hands.  Still vibrant and interesting, but not working as a single painting.  I cut apart the pieces.  I was thinking they could be a set of coasters, but the time and materials make them way too expensive even at wholesale pricing.  Now I'm working on figuring out how to mount them individually.  I'll keep them a set, but a set of four that can be rearranged however the lucky owner chooses.  I'm calling it Four-Shot Rob, in honor of one of the regulars at the coffee shop.  Guess why we call him that?

The Shawl That Had Its Own Ideas

School has resumed for the year and I can devote more time to felting and less time to schlepping.  This is not to say I've done nothing all summer, wool-wise.  I just haven't blogged about any of it.  So let this first post-summer blog be about an experiment, one of many I undertook this summer.

Before I left MI last winter, I saw a woman in a gorgeous fisherman's knit shawl.  At least I thought it was a shawl.  I admired it and she let me really look at its construction. Not that I wanted to knit one like it;  I wondered if it could be a template for a nuno-felted shawl.  It was created like a fat T.  One long piece that draped around the shoulders and hung down in front on either side, with a square attached that covered the back.  I sketched it; I estimated the measurements.  And then we moved and it had to wait.  In July, I finally pulled out the initial sketch.  I cut two finished scarves and some patterned silk material I had.  I chose wool and yarns I thought might work with the colors.  And I started.

The colors felt like autumn and fire and molten lava and turning leaves.  I layed strips of chestnut wool to create seams and to add design elements on top of the silk.  I thought I would use red and burgundy yarns in the process, but as I continued, the work changed.  A variegated brown yarn with specks of green and gold and orange got added.  Wisps of merino wool in colors of fire joined the design.

I let the piece sit for several days before felting.  I usually do this to give myself time to feel done with the design.  When I was finally ready, it took several hours of wetting and rolling and rubbing and throwing.  And when I was done, it did not hang at all like the shawl upon which I had modeled it.  In fact, it became clear that it required a bit of hand sewing to become what it really was: a vest with a ruffled collar.

If I ever catch myself saying I'll just "crank out a couple scarves" again, I should just throw a bunch of silk and wool and yarn right into the garbage.

Amazing, but true, I forget this is a real process with failure always a possibility.  Just because I have made so many scarves, cockiness can derail me at any time.  The first time I try a new design or style is usally the best effort.  I take a lot of time laying everything out.  I test for readiness frequently as I felt and full it.  I don't try and cut corners on the time it takes.  Now, I know that the current results of my recent lack of intention (other than to build inventory) still look fine.  They are salvageable.  But they also had large sections of wool that came off the silk.  The designs weren't fulfilled. They are not what they should have been, could have been had I really set my heart and mind and hands on the act of creation, not cranking out goods.

Lessons learned here?
Set an intention.
Be a beginner with each new piece.
Be present.
Do the work.

Sounds like what I teach in yoga class.

It's more fun to be the child

Summer break.
No school.
Baseball games 5 - 10 times a week, plus practices.
Morning rehearsals for musical.
Two one-week volleyball camps.
One one-week sewing camp.

Somewhere in between schlepping, cooking meals at odd times, laundry, grocery shopping, and my summer teaching schedule, I am supposed to be making art?

Right.

Beneficial

In order to get the entirety of this post, you'll need to know a couple things.

One, I used to be a performer, as in I made a living onstage in the theatre.  I worked a lot and therefore met lots of other actors, many of whom went on to much bigger careers than mine.  When you rehearse for weeks on end and then sit backcstage with folks night after night, you develop deep, short-lived friendships.  It is very different from side-by-side office space.

B, I have a family history of all sorts of reproductive cancers, including immediate relatives who had or have breast cancer.

Third, personal finances preclude me from helping others out financially at this time.

How is any of this relevant to Woolynns, you ask.  It seems fate or god or timing has brought them all together recently.  At my last two shows in Michigan, I had women tell me that my square scarves would make nice chemo scarves.  I had a woman ask if I could teach a workshop on wet-felting to a group of cancer patients.  (I was unable to do that due to time constraints.)  A friend from high school started purchasing my scarves as gifts for his friends with breast cancer, including a commission this Spring.  (He also chastised me for not having enough pink scarves in stock.  I've been working on that.)  And then there is Suzanne Whang.

Suzanne and I acted together sometime last century.  We reconnected last year on Facebook.  I had seen her periodically on TV over the years as her star rose.  (Go read her bio and you'll see what I mean.)   This Winter she came out of the closet with her cancer diagnosis.  She'd been keeping it hidden for nearly five years.  Even with insurance and a good income, five years of health issues of this magnitude have wiped her out financially.  Many friends in Los Angeles began having benefits in her honor to raise money for medical expenses.  I wanted to help, but didn't have a penny to spare. That was when it hit me.  I can hold my own benefit.  Woolynns' Whang Fundraiser started on my etsy shop on June 1st.  15% of any online sales will go directly to defray medical expenses for Suzanne.  It runs for two weeks, after which I will decide whether to continue it for the month or find my next benefit recipient.

I know there are countless stories like Suzanne's.  She is fortunate enough to have numerous friends who are coming to her aid.  I consider myself lucky to be one of them, and I intend to create that sort of financial support for others who don't enjoy her large following as the years go by.

Adding to my pink inventory as directed.

amateurs.

Novice photographer meets never-modeled-but-sure-I'll-try former dancer.    Some of the better results: