Archive for the ‘ecoart’ Tag
Last Post of 2012
Wrapping up 2012. It was a good year. I had my work in some wonderful exhibitions; I was invited to apply to California Fibers, and joined that group; I curated an exhibition at Los Angeles International Airport; and I was selected to produce a coiled piece for the Wells Fargo Green Team Trophy.
Since my last blog post, I finished the second token for the Green Team Trophy. It will be going to the Los Angeles Virtual Team.
I have woven some samples for the window shade fabric. I will soon be meeting with C & A to look at them.
Just yesterday I shared a triangle loom weaving adventure with some friends from my local guild, the Southern California Handweavers Guild. A little group of weavers came together at Michelle Gannes’ house to learn how to weave on triangle looms. I had been curious about triangle weaving, so I borrowed a loom and joined in. I came home with my triangle about half woven and finished it in the evening. And the result was, well . . .
. . . slightly appalling.
I figure I’ll probably add some embellishment to cover that mess in the center, then crochet an edge which will help compensate for the failure at the bottom point. As I’m thinking about it, If I use a nice bright complimentary color for the edging, it will pull attention away from the technical difficulties. Then I’ll wear it in my studio when I need a little something to keep my shoulders warm, and never take it out of the house. It will be fine.
Looking forward to 2013: along with the window shade fabric, and never weaving on a triangle loom ever again, I’ll be doing at least two more tokens for the Green Team Trophy. I’m going to attend Stitches West in February in Santa Clara, CA. I’ll need to step up work on my Designing Weavers annual project in order to get it done by March, April, or May. I also have workshops and classes scheduled on my teaching roster thru May. Then there is the SDA conference in San Antonio in June.
What else? I’m sure I’ll find some other things to get into – I’ll let you know.
Art and Fashion
This past week I attended two fun, but very different, arts events . Wednesday was Drink & Draw, a networking social gathering organized by 11:11 A Creative Collective, the same group who has brought us the Canoga Park Artwalk the last two summers.
The Maui Sugar Mill Saloon is an old-time, low-key, neighborhood watering hole with Fat Tire on tap, a decent juke box, and a low enough noise level that a group of artists can sit in a corner with a drink and talk while drawing (or whatever). I met some Valley artists I’ve never met before, and caught up with others I haven’t seen in a while.
All artists in the San Fernando Valley should drop by so we can all meet each other and build our community connections. Follow the 11:11 ACC links to sign up for their email announcements.
I took my DW “opposites” piece to work on. Here is another peek at it. I’m not ready to reveal it by a long way. I was thinking of calling it Attraction. But then Jan Lamb, a Valley Artist I was talking to, said something that made me think of Fire and Water as a title.
I caught up with Preston Craig, who I met about seven years ago on the Valley Artist Studio Tour. Preston told me about a crowd funding project he started through Go Fund Me to raise money for some new computer equipment. I got his email about it the next day and I made a donation. And that’s what networking is all about.
Thursday night was the fashion show at Studio Channel Islands Art Center. I entered my plastic bag dress that I made for the Mannequin Collective in Santa Monica two years ago. The funny thing about this dress is: although I have shown it several times in exhibitions, no one had ever worn it as a dress until last Thursday night.
I’m happy to say the dress was a hit. The audience, many of whom are friends of mine, let out a collective whoop when the model came out. I have to say it was a happy moment.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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:
Unprofessional Photos
This blogging thing takes way too much time, I don’t know how people do this every day. . .
New Piece
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
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. . .