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.

Nature makes you healthier, who knew? (hint: ecopsychologists)

Today's email brought a link to an interesting article about studies done showing that patients in a hospital with a view of trees got out a day faster, used less pain medication, and complained less than patients recovering from the same surgery who had a view of a brick wall. My initial reaction is, well, duh! but a lot of psychology consists of these types of studies verifying scientifically what seems obvious about people. Even better, it's now a branch of psychology with its own journal.

Teaser quote: But if exposure to nature is beneficial, what happens when we withdraw from it? That's one of the defining questions for ecopsychology -- an emerging branch of psychology rooted in the idea that mental health requires, in addition to strong bonds with fellow humans, a connection with nature and an understanding of our place in the ecosystem we are a part of.

Read the whole article here.

Wine, women and quilting; Part II

Here are the promised pictures of some of the work I did while at the quilting retreat in Langley. I missed getting them up yesterday due to spending the day taking the cat to the vet. (Small digression: Cat seems better even though the vet can't figure out which mild stomach problem is causing his vomiting without several hundred dollars more in tests. I figure since he stops vomiting when we give him soft food, that's what we'll do. ) Mostly I got part way on several pieces. The only finished thing I did was a copy of my favorite shirt, and sorry, no photo of it for now.

The first piece (about 18 x 24") started as a class exercise in a class taught by Esterita Austin. I learned a lot about highlights and shadows, and using paint to make the appliqued pieces look more 3D. That would be the rocks and the tree. On retreat, I added the heron, and did some texturing using rubbing plates & stamps with the fabric dye crayons I like. I wanted to get more a visual difference between the water and sky parts of the piece. I'm going to add some more emphasis on the heron (not to mention legs), so the level of detail on the rocks isn't so different, and some further elements in the sky. Then, I'll decide on the quilting. I like how it's shaping up.




Next, I decided that I liked Gaia's Dancer so much that I wanted to work further with that fabric and theme. This piece is the result - I have more to do in adding foreground creatures. In one of my online groups, we're going to be doing an exhibit with a theme of The Spirit of Nature and I'm going to try out some ideas I have for that on this piece. This is also about 16 x 24 in size. For an idea of relative sizes, the earth globe is about 3.5 inches in diameter.



Then I did some smaller pieces - these are 6 x 9, or about that.

A couple of darker background Tiny Dancers, where I experimented with using stencils as rubbing plates. I think the dragon in the one pn the left worked well.


And 2 with a lighter background. I like the way the dancers are almost transparent, letting the pattern of the background fabric show through somewhat. I like the composition on the right more.




And then last, a piece using some leftover fused fabric from a purse that I made. I grew to love armadillos when I was living in Austin, so I had to buy the armadillo fabric when I saw it. I didn't want to let any of them languish in the dark, so here a few are in a small piece.



I'm heading off for a reunion weekend and the Indy 500 race, leaving tomorrow. I'll be working further with all of these after I get back. I hope you also have a good holiday weekend!

Wine, women, and quilting; Part I

I went on a quilt retreat with 7 women from the Northlake Unitarian Church Seamsters Union (and yes, we have a shop steward...) at the Quilting by the Sea shop/retreat the first weekend in May. I got a lot done, had a great time talking, and sipping some delicious wine with our potluck dinner on Saturday with lots of laughter. I also got in some fabulous walks along the beach before everyone else got up. Yes, I'm the one who wakes at 5:30 no matter what. Since I really like having the time for a bird walk while on Whidbey Island, it all works out fine. (Except for the latte places not opening until 7:30 so not even Langley is perfect.) Here's some pictures I took Sunday morning.

The morning started overcast, but it was obvious the sun was trying to break through the clouds. The first shot is this wonderful heron on the beach, backlit by the clouded sun.



I kept walking toward him, snapping as I went, trying to get the right composition and distance. When I got too close, he took off, flew over the water to a spot behind me on the beach. I am completely satisfied with the picture I got of him in flight - it is uncropped, just the way I shot it. Since my camera has a noticeably lag time between my pushing the button and the picture being taken, this was a big accomplishment for me in using my camera well.




And lastly, I got more pictures of him on an area of the beach where other birds were getting their breakfast.



Lots of inspiration in these shots, and the rest I took. I look forward to using the flying one in particular.

Tomorrow, or Tuesday, I'll have shots of the things I worked on at the retreat.

Infrastructure for relocalizing food supply

I went out of town the first weekend of the month for a quilt retreat in Langley on Whidbey island, then had to catch up on everything that piled up around the house during the 3 days I was gone, then I spent a few days catching up on a book series I love (Okay, I'll admit it; I adore the Troubleshooters series by Suzanne Brockmann) and then I got the flu. I promise pictures from the quilt retreat Real Soon Now.

However, today's email from Sightline brought this newstory about Montana food production, and how localization supporters and the state are working together to make locally grown food available year round. Before the advent of agribiz, this was the norm. I'm glad to see it's returning, but geez, Montana being the leader? Who woulda thought...

Read the full story here.

Ferns: weekly photo at cougar mtn, 4/21

Those of you with calendars will probably note that I'm late posting these photos too. My last couple of walks at Cougar mtn got me lots of pictures of the ferns growing out of the moss that grows on the trees. I have a couple of pieces percolating right now, and I'm printing photos on fabric today so that I can work on them this weekend while I'm on Whidbey Island with the Seamsters Union. I don't think I'll be using the first photo because there's too much going on in it. But the second one, the closer one with the little fern, it will definitely be used in some way.

This one is here so people can possibly understand why I'm so obsessed with these ferns. I think it's just amazing, the layering of green that happens in the woods here.



And this one was the first of the close ups of a very small fern growing next to a tiny streamlet. I can't help but wonder if it will survive the summer when the stream will dry up.

microcredit comes to NYC

In my email this morning was this news from dailygood.org. I pass it along because I think going small (and relocalizing) is the best way out of the current economic problems for most of us.

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see. /--Muhammad Yunus/

*Good News of the Day:*
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, known as the "banker to the poor" for making small loans in impoverished countries, is now doing business in the center of capitalism -- New York City. In the past year the first U.S. branch of his Grameen Bank has lent $1.5 million, ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, to nearly 600 women with small business plans in the city's borough of Queens. People around the country are struggling to repay mortgages and credit card debts, but Grameen America says its loan repayment rate is more than 99 percent. [ full story here ]

Backyard Bushtits series finished! Finally!

So here are the completed 4 pieces that were all done starting with the backyard bushtit photo I blogged about earlier, when I finished the first piece. It's taken me over a week to get the photos taken so I could blog about them, and I'm not completely happy with the first photo, but it's "Ship It!" time so here they are.

The first 2 pieces are both about 8 x 8 finished size. And all four are put on stretcher bars so they are ready to hang. I haven't done any pieces this way before and that was a learning experience. (This shot came out a bit darker than I'd like so I'll probably redo it, but not today. I'm itching to go work on my new pieces.)


Backyard Bushtits #3 is approximately 10" x 20" and was my first attempt to explore the theme of birds living in the nooks and crannies that we leave them.


This turned out to be the one I liked the best after it was finished. I didn't completely like the batik fabric that I intercut through the picture as I thought it made it too jangly and disrupted. So I added the silkscreening after I'd already pieced it. (And after #4 was halfway done...) And that didn't quite do it, so I added some more stenciling and watercolor highlights on top of it all.
I think this is the one that gets across my idea, and has the most coherent design.

After being unhappy with #3, I thought about just doing intercut fabric in one direction. Thus, I came up with #4. It's okay, but not as appealing to me as #3. It's also not as big as #3 being only
9" x 17". I did like the effect of silkscreening on the fabric I used to slice up the bird photo and I'll probably be doing this some more in future work.



Frankly, this was an exercise in doing a series, to stretch my own process, and experiment with working multiple interpretations of an idea at a time. I learned a lot about how I work, and got some ideas tried out that had been bubbling in my head for a while. It was worth the effort and I hope, in addition, some of you like some of the pieces that resulted.