Series, Coursework, Press, Mateo (Warming Hut)

2025/02/031 Comment

**Working in Series**, small format collage studies, each 4.5 x 4 inches

I’ve been enjoying a really good, fun class from Fibre Arts Take Two featuring multi media artist Eva Kalien. Her approach to art making is thoughtful, eccentric, and encouraging — and the concept of working on several pieces simultaneously, to iterate quickly and freely, is a game changer!

**I’d Rather Learn From One Bird,** study, 4.5 x 4 inches

Here’s a closeup of one of a series studies. Eva likes to use printed text in her process (for many reasons) and I chose to follow… with my high school copy of ee cummings’ poetry. (Yes, I tore up a beloved book I’ve been carrying around for many years.) Although the text may not be legible, I know it’s there, a foundational layer of meaning and message, and it’s strangely powerful. She also suggests to “stop before you’re done”, another concept of surprising benefit.

In other news, I’ve ordered an early birthday present — a special thing I’ve been considering for some time: a build it yourself printing press from Provisional Press. Check it out! So very exciting, and I’ll keep you apprised. (It also means I’m going to have to clean off (and defend!) a work bench in the garage for it to live on… no small task.)

***Mateo Napping on the Warming Hut Porch***

He also likes to rearrange the furniture, and crop the “living” roof :/

Fish, Scarlett, Ruby

2017/06/242017/06/2517 Comments

1_fish_sketchbook

I have made a new variation of the sketchbook.

3covers_enpaper

Three different covers. Endpapers are cut from one of Recollections “Black Jack” papers. Book pages cut from a nice substantial Southworth paper I’ve had for maybe… *thinks back to the last time we may have actually printed out a résumé* … a really long time. I drew the fish a few years ago when I was dabbling in surface pattern design. So we meet again, eh, fish?

ephemera_pocket

Of course an ephemera pocket.

living_roof_062417

I have been gone a lot lately from my home, and Scarlett especially was not stoked. There was some regressive behavior and acting out.

living_roof2

I was reminded, though, of how much I liked the Sea House Warming Hut living roof, and how much I miss having a current build. But then I remembered the fate of the Argo Wool Works…

sigh_062417

… and sighed. Thus far, the room box that houses the set for Modern Miniature Succulents + Sundries is unravaged, cunningly set atop a bookcase, so that will have to continue to suffice for my construction longings. Scarlett is a year old now — a small cat in stature forever! — and although her depredations have diminished considerably, I am reluctant to reengage with my nemesis.

Maddie_Ruby_062417

The reason for my absence is shown above, in this picture taken by my daughter, of her daughters. Here is four-year-old Maddie reacting to the sounds of her 10-day-old sister, Ruby. We are all so in love.

Chop wood

2015/12/122015/12/124 Comments

www.nancyland.com

What is the sound of a digital clock ticking away the minutes to a deadline? Like the buzz of tinnitus? Or water drops in a still, clear pool? Here’s what it looks like: total bedhead me chopping tiny firewood and kindling and stacking it in place. I’m not freaking out. Well maybe just a little, for how weird the back of my hair looks. Onward!

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof Planted

2015/09/262015/09/2612 Comments

The base plantings for the living roof are complete. Yay me!

I finished it up today, after marching with Pacifica Beach Coalition in the annual Fog Festival, dressed as a bee and playing a kazoo. (Our original plan was to kazoo Flight of the Valkyries, but that proved a bit too ambitious.) For those of you that know me less well, marching in a half-mile parade before hundreds, if not thousands of spectators, in a bee costume, could not be further from what I might typically choose to do. All that brave eye contact and self-in-presence! I celebrate with you, and you with me: we pick up trash on the beach, and our individual and collective efforts matter. Thank you.

Who knows what’s next?

Never say never. Say yes, instead?

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof Growth

2015/09/216 Comments

To get more use from the many bags of preserved moss, I decided to shred the lower stemmy parts into a coarse scatter, and use that to plant around the taller rounded mounds. I practically got carpal tunnel from snip, snip, snip snipping.

The scatter also adds more texture and another level of growth.

This morning I realized I didn’t like the straw-colored moss clumps, and got out watercolors to green them up, like a photosynthesis devi. That was so satisfying I added some darker tones into the other plantings as well.

I let two of the red poppies sprout, but have determined they wouldn’t survive on the windswept roof. I still like them as flowers, though, so into a bucket for the flower stand (or as starts for planting) they will go.

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof

2015/09/142015/09/1410 Comments

Wanting to ensure even plant color distribution with a random appearance, I changed up how I’ve been “planting” the living roof. I’m going through vast quantities of moss because I prefer the fine rounded tops more than the stemmy lower growth, and colors are not consistent bag to bag. This way is more fun, too.

Poppy propagation continues, with a new flavor. This punch is about 1/4-inch (6mm) — compare it to the 3/16-inch (5mm) round — and reminiscent of a pompom variation red field poppy.