Re-piping and Earth Day

Wednesday

Today is one of those days when the title of this blog is a misnomer. I’m not weaving daily, or at all for the past few days. We are having the house re-piped with copper. We had the sewer line replaced earlier this year. The house is 50 years old, these things must be done.

And its also Earth Day, so as an ecoartist, I’m supposed to be celebrating the life giving diversity in all nature. But there has been entirely too much natural diversity in our house recently. By my way of thinking, there are only three species allowed to live here: human, fish, and canine (and the canine we have is going to be the last of his kind in my house).

First there are the ants. They are repeat visitors, they come in a couple times a year and I have to try to make them go away. This week it got hot, and that’s one of the times they like to come inside looking for water. Yesterday I was wrangling ants. This means moving everything on the counter behind the sink, cleaning the tile, and spraying raid as sparingly as I can get away with. We have a wide swath of counter under the window behind the kitchen sink, and we have an elephant cookie jar, a ceramic dog water pitcher, a beaded giraffe, various dishes and bowls, and a jade plant. The ants like to come in through cracks in the grout at the corner of the counter and the back splash. I also have some little pellets I sprinkle outside along their trails that are supposed to be carried back and destroy the nest. I don’t really like all this poisoning, but I don’t know any effective, eco-friendly ways to get rid of them.

Second, we’ve been having little visitors in the night. And they’re invisible, you can not see them. Only their droppings are visible. One night I heard an awful ruckus in the kitchen. I got up and tip-toed out to the kitchen. Tip-toeing did not render my movements silent. The floor creaks, even under the carpet. I didn’t find the intruders, only a box of cookies with a hole chewed in the side. A friend lent us some traps, and we caught four of the little devils. Last week I went looking for how they’re getting in. I found some holes above the suspended light panels and covered them up with hardware cloth. I looked behind the couch in the family room, and I can’t even describe the horror I found there among a very thick carpet of dust.

Now the plumbers are under the house, and they’re going to make sure all the foundation vents are covered with hardware cloth by the time they’re done. Then if the furry mammalian squatters aren’t gone, I’m calling an exterminator.

The third species I had to evict are little moths. They’ve been flying around for a couple months, and I didn’t know where they were coming from. That’s actually why I moved the couch in the first place. I thought the moths were laying their eggs behind the couch. But after I had vacuumed under all the furniture in the family room, moths were still flying about. At this point I should explain that the family room is next to the kitchen, and the couch is within a few feet of the stove and some cupboards.

Last Sunday evening, I went to make rice and discovered we didn’t have enough of the white left. I dug to the bottom of the cabinet and got out the brown. It had been in there for a long time, and I found little moth cocoons in the creases on the outside of the plastic bag. So the next day I went back to look deep into the cabinet, and what I found is even more indescribable than what was behind the couch.

But I’ll try. It was explained to me many years ago that sometimes these little moths get into flour and other dry food products and lay eggs. After the eggs hatch, the larvae have a food source. My friend and neighbor who told me this then went on to say that’s why sometimes you open the flour and a moth flies out. That had never happened to me, but after this I always kept my flour in an airtight container. Supposedly, if you keep your flour and grain products in an airtight container, the eggs can’t hatch, they’re so tiny you’ll never know they were in there – lovely.

I had this conversation over 25 years ago, and it all came back to me on Monday as I began pulling out the boxes of nuts, rice and pasta I keep in that cabinet. I found a few bug parts in some old risotto and threw it away. There wasn’t any evidence of them in the open box of matzoh ball mix, or the matzoh meal. These are apparently goyish moths. I found a few more cocoons on some more plastic bags, and threw them away. Then I found the thing you should never have to find in your cabinet. It was a plastic container of pepitas, apparently not so air tight. I opened it and a moth flew out. I didn’t take a long look at what was in there and I closed it right away. I threw the whole container away – it was Tupperware, and I threw it away. I don’t throw plastic in the trash, and I threw it away.

Then I finished cleaning out the cabinet. I discovered something interesting about little grain-eating moths: they don’t poop where they eat. How very civilized, they choose a corner and all use it. It’s totally gross, I’m sorry.

On Tuesday I started to move things so the plumbers can work (read: put holes in the walls). What I discovered shocked me once again. Really, our clothes hamper could be moved to vacuum under once every two weeks. The dressers that stand on 6″ high legs could be vacuumed under, really.

Ok, so there’s a pattern here. I have clearly not been vigilant about the cleaning. Changes will have to be made.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update! It’s Monday, the day after Color Connects, the Association of Southern California Handweavers (ASCH) conference in Riverside, CA. It’s the first day in a very long time that I haven’t had a major deadline, or two or three, hanging over me.

 

 

And so I can blog.

 

Since my last post, I had a solo exhibition in Florida in November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the auditorium & exibition space at Brooker Creek Preserve Environmental Education Center, with some of the new work I did in 2008 for this show.

 

 

 

After coming back from Florida and a bout of kidney stones, we were into the holidays. Sammy came home for her semester break and we had our usual two holiday parties.

I turned 50 in January. But I had projects I needed to get done early in the new year.

One of them was my submission for the Surface Design Association Members show for the upcoming conference in Kansas City at the end of May.

Another was my annual project for Designing Weavers, a headpiece I was making to go with a chief’s mantle blanket that my friend, Regina Vorgang was making. By the end of January, Regina had already finished. 

In the meantime, I was still the chair of an EcoArt group, there was an RFQ for artwork for a library project I wanted to submit for, I was leading a workshop on February 14 & 15, and Regina, Trish Lange, and I were the organizing committee for Celebrate Color, the fashion show at Color Connects.

 

So I was working on the headpiece, but I put it aside to prepare for my workshop. I worked on it some more, then I put it aside to get the library art submission done; then I needed to get the SDA piece in the mail by March 1st. By last Monday, I was almost done. I was going to Riverside on Thursday.

 

On Tuesday I finished the construction of the headpiece, and began adding beads and crystals. I continued beading on Wednesday, and I lost my thimble.

 

Thursday I packed my car and left home at 3:15, I had wanted to leave at 2:00. I pulled into the driveway of the Riverside Marriott at 6:00 pm to find the Designing Weavers heading out for the Dream Weavers exhibition at Riverside Communittee College. After I checked in and changed, I found Brecia Kralovic-Logan walking up the driveway. We headed down to the college, and it is a great show. We were glad we made the trip. Then we came back to downtown Riverside, parked at the convention center, and walked over to the Riverside Art Museum to see the Designing Weavers exhibition. We began running into people we know, and people started congratulating me.

 

Brecia and I walked back to the convention center to see the Spectrum exhibition, and more people made comments about how happy I must be. And as it turns out, I was. I won first place in the basketry, non-traditional material category for my Footed Cottonelle Jar. I won first place and the Juror’s Award for my Desigining Weavers annual project from last year, Behind the Cotton Candy.

 

This is very thrilling. For a long time I thought of myself as the person who never won the awards. Now I guess I have to think something new. I feel very honored to be recognized this way, especially when you realize how excellent all the work in these shows is.

 

Brecia and I had caught up with the rest of the Designing Weavers at the convention center, and we all vacated to the bar at the Marriott. Friday was set up day for the Fashion Show. We unpacked our cars and hauled garment racks, dress forms, and mirrors into the meeting room that was to be our back stage dressing area.

 

I got set up for garment check-in, and everybody who said they were going to help began showing up. I parked myself at a table and took up the beading of the headpiece again, without a thimble. Trish had made fabulous corsages for all the Fashion Show entrants, and they each picked one after checking in their garments. I kept working on the headpiece until it was time to go change for the evening and the keynote speech. After the speech, they gave out doorprizes, and I recieved a $25 gift certificate from one of the vendors. Several people said I should buy a lottery ticket.

 

On Saturday I attended Daryl Lancaster’s workshop on photographing your own work, or as I called it, the finishing the headpiece workshop. I finally finished adding the last bead sometime after 3:00, and started sewing the crown to the hat frame. At 4:00 everyone assembled in the Raincross Ballroom for Fashion Show rehersal. It was exciting, everyone was really into their jobs, and was having fun. I took my place in the dressing room and continued sewing. I finally finished the headpiece, with some very sore fingers, sometime after 5:00. Trish let everyone go to dinner at 5:45, and we reassembled at 7:30 for makeup.

 

And the show was great. Two years of planning, meetings, lots and lots of work all paid off. Everyone loved it. Trish and Regina, as the co-chairs did the lion’s share of the work. I did the smaller share of the job.

 

I had Jackie Abrams’s basket making workshop on Sunday, leaving early for garment check-out. We broke down, repacked the cars, and got out by 5:00. It was a great conference. I look forward to 2011 when we aren’t doing the planning.

 

This was a great weekend. I so love hanging out with this group of people. Being part of Designing Weavers, Southern California Handweavers Guild, and this whole network of fiber artists is one of the greatest joys of my life.

 

Plastic in the Oceans

Since my last post, I went to Convergence in Tampa, Florida. I had two pieces in the juried basketry exhibit. And I won 3rd place for Our Layer!
I found out last week that the two pieces I submitted to the National Fiber Arts Exhibition at Escondido Municipal Art Gallery were both accepted, and Forever Yours won 2nd place.

What’s new on the loom. . .
I call this Plastic in the Oceans. It’s an adaptation of Flourishing Wave Border, a draft from the Davison Book (A Handweaver’s Pattern Book by Marguerite Porter Davison).

When I did Plastic in the Trees, I put out a call for colored plastic bags, and lots of white ones came along with what I collected.
This is a blue, green, and Violet warp with white grocery store bags in the pattern weft. The tabby weft is the same yarns as the warp.

It’s companion piece is still on the loom; I’ll probably finish it and cut it off the loom today.

I still have lots of white plastic bags, and a small number of colored ones. I’m still getting them from people, though I’m not actively seeking them.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not happy when someone hands me a bag of bags; because it means they are still taking them from stores. I’ll actually be very glad when I can’t get any more plastic shopping bags to weave with. I hope someday we will be able to look at these pieces and think they belonged to a specific time. I hope someday these bags won’t be so ubiquitous, everywhere in our landscapes.

I also have a coiled piece in progress. This will be a wall piece. I started it as my demonstration piece for the Designing Weavers sale on May 17 & 18. Here it is on June 24, right before Convergence:

July 7th:

and today:

Unprofessional Photos

Plastic in the Trees 1

I finished the two Plastic in the Trees pieces and cut them off the loom yesterday. I wanted to take some pictures with me to the Designing Weavers meeting last night. So these were taken with the uncut, unfinished piece laying on my family room floor, and me standing on the coffee table to shoot them.

Plastic in the Trees 2

One or both of these pieces will be in the Designing Weavers show at ArtCenter Manatee in Bradenton, FL. June 12 – July 5, 2008.

This blogging thing takes way too much time, I don’t know how people do this every day. . .

New Piece

Last week I made great progress on the second version of Plastic in the Trees.

This is looking down on the loom; with me standing on my loom bench to take the picture. And a closeup:

Cut plastic bags, ready to weave:

I haven’t woven since last Tuesday. I’ve been on the computer a whole lot these past few days, and I don’t feel very chatty right now.

more later. . .

Work in Progress

This is my new blog, where I plan to post work in progress and newly finished work.

Here is what’s on the loom now:

It will be called “Plastic in the Trees I,” and it is inspired by, what else, all the plastic in the trees all over the place.

This is the Los Angeles River, just before it passes under Burbank Boulevard, upstream of the Sepulveda Dam.

I’m about ready to begin “Plastic in the Trees II.” Weaving on the loom, by its nature, lends itself to working in series. So there might also be a “PitT III.” I’ll have to see how much warp I have left on the loom after I finish #II.

 
More later. . .