50 Collages in one week, Yikes!

My new Fiber Arts instructor gave us our first assignment: make 50 collages on a single theme in one week. This will be an interesting learning experience, for sure. Class is next Tuesday evening, and I have 3 done so far. I spent one day brainstorming, so I have a huge list of ideas to explore, and assembling materials from various nooks and shelves around the house. The first 2 took over 3 hours to make; the third took one hour. I set a timer on myself on the third one so I could keep it to an hour. Today, I aim for 10 collages, and less than 45 minutes each. We'll see how we do. I need to let go of doing a finished piece, and do a compositional sketch or I'll never make it to the total number. And as he explained, the idea is to experiment and see our own conceptual connections so it is important to do the whole 50 (plus or minus a couple...). Somehow, I still feel like I've been pushed off a cliff and am trying to learn to fly as I go down.

My theme is Spiritual Journey and here's the first 3 collages. I particularly like #2. These are all a combination of fabric and paper glued or fused to watercolor paper. I'm thinking of using peltex as it's a bit stiffer for the ones with mostly fabric. The watercolor paper is curling on the boat one.


The first one is from an idea that's been simmering for a while, based on a song, Sailing a Blue Boat.


Second one is Spiral Dance, probably #1. I expect more along this path in the next few days.


And this one is based on the Solstice Stocking I did for a friend a couple of years ago. It worked better as the stocking, I think, altho I like the idea and think it would work better with more detail.

Monthly Games playing day, or doing more but buying less

I spent a chunk of time on New Year's Day playing Mah Jong with my daughter and a couple of friends. It's been a year since we played together, and we all remarked on how nice it was. I had talked with another group of friends the night before about doing regular board game playing get togethers and we picked a day, and set a time. So I suggested the same thing to my Mah Jong buddies and we did the same. I now have a monthly day playing games of some sort and I expect it to grow as interested friends get added to the notification list. So I noted with interest an article from the NY Times about people buying less, and doing more interactive things with friends. Yup, me too. The article can be found here. I must admit I've always had a tendency to prefer simpler pleasures and have never spent $1000/month on designer clothes. (Okay, $100/month on books maybe...)

Fiber Arts Certificate Program, First quarter wrapup

Now that I've had a little time over the holidays to digest how the first quarter of the Fiber Arts Certificate Program went, and I've uploaded the photos of our last assignment, I'm ready to share.

It's been a challenging quarter. Our instructor's intent was to shake things up for us and she certainly succeeded for me. We only had 2 major assignments so the work we did wasn't primarily creating things but was instead questioning our assumptions, and giving us a broader perspective.

Our final assignment was to do a bigger than life size self-portrait of one persona or aspect of ourselves. I got tangled in the "bigger than lfe size" part of it, and feel my own piece was a major belly flop. A fabulous learning experience however. I was attempting to portray the emotional impact of having a hummingbird land on my hand - an experience that delighted, and astonished me. I also got caught up in the mechanics of doing the shadows and shading, not to mention some serious trouble getting the photo to start from. (That was also part of the assignment.) So, my piece was incomplete when it was time to present. It wasn't until after the class discussion that I realized I didn't need the bottom 2/3rds of the piece. I'm now working on tightening the focus, and doing this again because I do want to do a piece about this experience.




Several of the other members of the class did wonderful interpretations. Here's one of the ones I particularly liked. Roberta captured her love of swimming and water so well visually, at least in my opinion.


I think we've all learned a lot. I know I have. Most of my lessons have to do with my own process, and how I need to tighten my focus, do a bit more planning of the intent of a piece before leaping in and working. I have to balance that with the fact that once I'm in the flow of working on it, I work intuitively and need to not push myself into a box to meet some requirements. The other big thing I'm taking away is to use what I have to make it work while staying focused on the intent and the goal.

Now to see how we all do on applying these lessons to creating work this next quarter. We were warned that the next instructor pushes us to do lots of work; to the point of requiring 50 collages in one week at one point. Yikes! This will be another, and different challenge.

Resolved: Give just a little and help a lot

Today's email brought a story from dailygood.org about a website that helps people with small needs. Modest Needs Foundation, at modestneeds.org, gives small grants (usually a few hundred dollars) to the working poor with the intent of helping the recipient make it through an unexpected emergency. Donors can give as little as $5, and the donors pick which applicant to help. What I found encouraging is that 68% of the recipients end up donating back later on. Paying it forward, indeed...

See the full story here.

Backup battery for your house or how to go off-grid for up to a week

Panasonic announces a battery for your home, able to store enough energy for a week. I think this is exciting news since having an easy energy storage system will make intermittent energy production more useful. If I have a battery that stores enough power to run my house for a week, then wind or solar is much more useful. Panasonic has announced delivery is planned for 2011. Read the full article here.

Electric Bike news

My son is in love with his electric bikes. And now that we've added the bike rack to the back of the Prius, I'm ready to order the conversion kit for my bike and give it a try myself. So I was encouraged by this article from EV World, about the surge in electric bikes worldwide. We're lagging way behind China and the EU in this area but that's not surprising, I guess. If you've ever loved riding a bike, but didn't like hills, or getting too sweaty, check out an electric bike.

December baking and (gluten-free) buckwheat

Between Thanksgiving travel, and my fiber arts program, I have had little time to blog lately. As I gear up to do my seasonal baking, now that my class has finished, I thought I'd share a link to a grist article about buckwheat, an old grain being rediscovered as lots of people go gluten free.

Here's the buckwheat article.

I have hopes of posting photos from the fiber arts program this weekend. Picture me crossing my fingers....

Giving green - alternative gift registry

Today's grist.org featured an article about having a green baby, or actually, how to shop for a new baby using the reuse, recycle, reduce approach. (Read the full article here.) In the article, mention is made of an alternative gift registry from The New American Dream. As my daughter reaches the age where marriages & babies are becoming common among her age group, this seems more relevant than ever. So I share. Gift registry here, New American Dream here. I'll note New American Dream has an article about gift giving in general and simplifying the holidays. I hope your holidays are full of joy!

lacy maple leaves

Inspired by fall, I decided to try some things out with the burgundy lacy maple leaves in my yard. I planted the tree about 3 years ago, when the winter storms took out 2 apple trees and left a big hole in the sunny back part. This year, the tree is big enough, and has enough branches and leaves, that I didn't feel guilty cutting some off before they fell.

I clipped a small branch so that I got several leaves because I wanted to try and get some depth and layering of the leaves. Some went into glycerin, and in a few days, I'll see how well that works for saving them for me to play with throughout the winter. Here's a black&white scan done on my epson cx3810. I liked the shading I got. I had to play with the settings to get it to show at all. This was annoying since the b&w copy came out great. Not sure why the difference. I suspect I have a lot to learn about how my scanner works and how to manipulate it.



Here's the same layout on the scanner in color. It looked much better on the screen when I was scanning it because the horizontal lines didn't show there.

And here's a photo I took, using macro lens, sidelit by the table light I use while sewing. I taped the leaves to the top of the lid on the printer because of the white background in the lid. I'll be manipulating this in photoshop, and seeing how many different things I can do with it. I particularly like the shadow behind the leaves from the side lighting.



I love these leaves, and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to capture the contrast between them and the gray rainy fall days when the burgundy pops out at us even with the other fall colors. There's been a piece, or more than one actually, brewing for years. I think this might be the year they happen. More pictures later, as things mature.

350.org performance art

I'm on the mailing list for 350.org, and in fact, James was planning for us to do something, but the flu intervened. However, I urge anyone who likes pictures of everyday people acting from their heart to check it out. Whether you view it as necessary political activism or performance art, it's an amazing collection of pictures. Go to 350.org and be amazed! (Note for those who've missed a story about it - 350.org organized a day of doing things, art, actions that could be photographed to get the number 350 into public awareness, as it's the number climate scientists say we need to cap carbon at. )

I particularly like the one about the kayakers in the Williamette River, but then that's local as far as I'm concerned, and I canoe so I know how hard it is to hold them in place on a river. To see this photo, and the story about it, go here.

Fiber Arts Certificate Program, Exercise #1

I've started in the Fiber Arts Certificate Program at the University of WashingtonExtension, and we've had a couple of interesting exercises assigned. My daughter wants to see what I'm doing, and posting here to the blog is an easy way to share.

The first quarter focuses on examining materials to develop a visual vocabulary, and establishing a studio practice. She's having us work with materials other than fiber, so that's an interesting departure that's causing me to examine why I prefer fiber. And the connotations of the materials themselves. All food for thought.

The first exercise was based on small group discussions about fiber and our goals, and what stereotypes we have run into. We were supposed to pick a material from around the house that would refute a particular stereotype and do a material study with it. I picked steel wool as not being warm & cuddly, and also not something you would wear on your head. I went past a study with it, because the idea of Barbie in her outfit just tickled me, and I wanted to work small as the steel wool (0000, Super Fine) is not fun to handle. I think she turned out pretty cute.


This one above is the closer in shot, with her posed on the fabric I used for lining & stabilizing the stole and hat. The next one shows the hat from above, so the roll of steel wool is obvious.


It was an interesting exercise, and a lot of fun to see what the other 20some people in the class did.

Buying solar for your house, CA plan goes national

While I struggle my way back to posting pretty pictures of what art I'm doing, I post this for your edification and amusement. I think I posted last year while on vacation about the California plan to allow people to buy solar panels by borrowing from the government and pay it back as part of the property taxes. Looks like there's a good chance that will be happening at a national level, presumably via encouraging states to do the same programs as California. Since we can sell excess power back to the power company, this seems like a fabulous idea to me. Read about it here.

Interesting economic thoughts, resiliency & tough times

Here's a link to an article about being resilient in hard economic times where there are big changes happening. The author writes articles & a book on global terrorism, and his views tend toward the dark, but this is a list of what to do to protect yourself and your community via entrepreneurship. I think it crosses lots of political boundaries and might appeal to many. Read the whole thing here.

Surprise! Big Oil has pro-CO2 website

I'm sure we're all surprised as all get out at this news. A "citizen" informational website about the benefits of CO2 is actually owned by an oil & gas exploration services company. Astroturf, can you say that?

Details here at grist.org.

Nintendo gets a green roof

I'm still dealing with medical issues this summer and while I'm trying to get back to blogging regularly, I'll be filling in with interesting links when I don't have an art related post. In that spirit, here's a story about green roofs (and a company called Xero Flor) and the many benefits. I really wish I'd read it before we got our new roof last year. Full story here.

Nissan & Tesla, electric cars real soon now...

Today's Grist.org email has 2 stories about electric cars. One is the announcement of the Nissan Leaf, a purely electric car that will go up to 100 miles on a charge, and use the swap batteries/recharger strategy outlined by Shai Agassi. Read the full article here.

The second was an announcement of the retail stores opening for the Tesla company. Appointment only, la-di-dah, so big bucks for this car (about $100K). But the article has lots of pretty pictures which can be seen here.

Bixi program, or pedal your own bike taxi...

Wow, where did July go? I was lost in emotional limbo waiting for some liver testing for my husband and I didn't do much more than the minimum required for daily life. Well, okay, I read a lot of books. Anita Blake, Meredith Gentry and other summer fun reading. But, he doesn't have liver cancer, and we're still doing the tests and I just can't hide anymore.

So, here's a link to an interesting story about bike rentals in Montreal. The comment from lowerh8r gives some first hand info about using them. It's too sad that the process of doing this in San Francisco is being held hostage by bogus claims about bicycles hurting the environment. Check out the story here.

Oil & food, or where does your fresh fruit come from?

I haven't been posting much as we're in the middle of a series of medical tests. That limbo state where nothing definite is known yet but there's lots of bad possibilities is unsettling. However, as I start shopping for summer produce at the farmer's market, this came through my email today, and I thought I'd share.

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to save Civilization is by Lester R Brown, and has lots of good thoughts about sustainability. Today's excerpt, read the full thing here, is about oil use in food production, from tractors & fertilizer to processing such as canning, freezing or dehydrating. I'll just add there's a link at the end to the next chapter about urban farming, a subject I'm very interested in. Shortcut to it here.

Here's a teaser quote that I hope will encourage others to buy things with less packaging:

The 14 percent of energy used in the food system to move goods from farmer to consumer is equal to two thirds of the energy used to produce the food. And an estimated 16 percent of food system energy use is devoted to canning, freezing, and drying food—everything from frozen orange juice concentrate to canned peas.

Food staples such as wheat have traditionally moved over long distances by ship, traveling from the United States to Europe, for example. What is new is the shipment of fresh fruits and vegetables over vast distances by air. Few economic activities are more energy-intensive.

Food miles—the distance that food travels from producer to consumer—have risen with cheap oil. At my local supermarket in downtown Washington, D.C., the fresh grapes in winter typically come by plane from Chile, traveling almost 5,000 miles. One of the most routine long-distance movements of fresh produce is from California to the heavily populated U.S. East Coast. Most of this produce moves by refrigerated trucks. In assessing the future of long-distance produce transport, one writer observed that the days of the 3,000-mile Caesar salad may be numbered.

Packaging is also surprisingly energy-intensive, accounting for 7 percent of food system energy use. It is not uncommon for the energy invested in packaging to exceed that in the food it contains. Packaging and marketing also can account for much of the cost of processed foods. The U.S. farmer gets about 20 percent of the consumer food dollar, and for some products, the figure is much lower. As one analyst has observed, “An empty cereal box delivered to the grocery store would cost about the same as a full one.”

Village Building & bike/sail food transport

Today's email brought a report (see full text here) about the Village Building Convergence in Portland, and how their food was transported mostly by sail and/or bicycle. I love hearing how people are making these changes now, before it's all $8/gallon gas, and fights in lines at the gas stations. (Anybody else old enough to remember the embargo in the 70's?) Some great pictures of bikes hauling cargo and some good pointers to others doing good work. An interesting tie in with Langley in that Robert Gilman was a featured speaker. He's now a councilman in Langley where I spent a great time last weekend.


Teaser quote from the article:

The essence of the Village Building Convergence (VBC) can be glimpsed in the project-sharing. After our bike-cart/sailboat delivery of produce on Friday, when everyone had sat down to a splendid vegan dinner (on real plates and steel utensils), three urban ecovillage/co-housing projects in Portland shared their progress. The amount of energy saving, depaving, recycling, composting, gardening, natural building, tool-sharing, car-sharing, consensus decision-making, renewable energy, common meals, etc., were impressive and thus cheered.

Net-zero (almost) energy house being built now!

I spent last weekend on Whidbey Island again, this time for a birthday weekend getaway with the hubster, Jeff. There will be fabulous pictures of the garden and the rufous hummingbirds soon. But today's email brought news I just had to share - there's a green house being built here in Bellevue that will have almost net-zero energy costs. They're combining new insulation materials with a vegetated roof and solar water heating to reduce the energy costs below $500 a year. I'm excited to see this happening so I'm sharing their webpage here. I think people need an example of what can be done now and this is a good first step.