and on the second day

Errands. If the roads to lower Westchester County are passable.

Where I am in the northeast Bronx, you would never know there had a been such a fierce storm only two days ago. Or any storm, really.

I didn't lose electricity, water, the boiler, or the roof.
The trees are upright. There was a bit of leaf litter on the streets, but so little it's hardly worth mentioning.
All the regulars to my stray cat breakfast buffet are accounted for.

From the news last night I learned that the rain total (so far) for this August was a little over 19 inches. An astronomical high tide indeed.

I feel very lucky.

notes from the mainland*

So far, so good.

10:30 a.m. on primary hurricane, now tropical storm, hit day and I have not lost water or power.

The trees in the park across the street are still upright. The dogwood that I kept when I took out all the other trees in the yard is still standing. And it still has the few red leaves that are the first, deeply welcome, signs the the summer is ending.

I need to get the pump going in the boiler room, before the water level reaches as high as the boiler. 

And I need to get in touch with my family in Delaware. Last night there were reports of tornadoes near Dover and they are near Dover.

But -- so far, so good.

*The Bronx is the only borough of NYC that is not an island, or part of an island.

scared by newscasts

"Better get under cover, Sylvester. There's a storm blowin' up - a whopper, to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry." (Name the film. Anyone?)

All along the East Coast, newscasters, seemingly innocent of irony, are firmly planted on windswept -- and I do mean wind swept -- beaches earnestly urging everyone to follow the goodsense advice of government and leave. Governor Christie (of NJ) actually said "Get the hell off the beaches." It must be true. It was on all the newscasts. "Hell." On television. The president has cut short his vacation by a whole day. Things must be serious.

Bridges will be closed so idio motorists aren't blown into churning, cresting rivers. Mass transit will be shut down tomorrow at noon so the tunnels can flood without impedance. Poor rats, no one rushing about offering shelter for genus Rattus.

Shelters have been established for people and their pets, however. Hospitals and nursing homes have been evacuated. Under it all is the unvoiced roaring of "I'll be d****d if this will be another Katrina." One hopes that that hard lesson was learned.

I have food and cat food, bottled water and duct tape. Batteries, flashlights, and a radio. Candles. Kitchen matches. A pump and a sufficient length of hose. Gas in the car and some cash. Two thick, unread novels. Something new on the design wall, if the studio doesn't flood. I charged the cell phone battery and I still maintain a land line, because usually when the power goes out, the land lines are only things still functioning. (Feel free to call, I'm pretty sure I'll be home.) I am making block ice for the refrigerator and will fill the bathtubs with water. As of July, and for the first time in the entire history of the house, there is insurance. I am grateful I took down all those trees last year.

I have a couple of yard things to do tomorrow and then I'll be as ready as I can be, but I don't trust the integrity of the house to withstand the "unusual weather we're having." (Same film as above. Anyone?)

And, yes, I am a little scared about it all.
More than I want to admit.
Batten the hatches, full steam ahead.

scared myself

Back in May, in an exercise in Dorothy Caldwell's class, we each made a b-i-g painting. I liked mine so much that I had it framed. (There's a bit of glare on the glass.) I have, in general, fallen hard for ink painting.

approximately 48 x 48 inches (122cm) with frame

The framer's assistant liked it so much, he told me that he "didn't want to let it go." The framer liked it so much that on the strength of this one thing he offered to arrange a show for me at a local club.

Yikes.

So I was paralyzed for about a month. Could I really do this 'art thing'? Could I do something like this again? Could I do anything at all? I had the worst cold of my life when I made that painting, should I spend the rest of my life contracting viruses? Or, since I enjoy ink so much, should I just pull up my socks, gather supplies, and do some work?

Now there's an idea. Baby steps.

So today I made a painting. It's not an especially good painting, but it's one more than I had yesterday -- which brings my oeuvre to deux. I think I like it better horizontal (last shown, below). 

as painted (22 x 30 inches high / 56 x 76cm)

 

up side down



horizontal



upside down and horizontal

make it new

Stella explores Formalism.

S: Minimalism. It's too hot to be formal.
M: Sorry. I always confuse them.
S: Go back to chapter four. And while you're up, could you make some more ice . . .? I feel like I'm on fire here.

You say you had a resolution?

Well, you know . . . resolution, shmesolution. 

As a New Year’s resolution this year I decided that I would call a moratorium on class-taking. That lasted all the way to May 1st. My latest exercise in being irresolute took me to Quilting by the Lake and into Terry Jarrard-Dimond’s class “Ask: What If?” My friends who have formal training in art often say that “you start something and then you ask ‘What if?’” then, they say, “you take it further.” I had no idea what this meant. So a week-long immersion in a class called Ask: What If? seemed like a wonderful thing.

In response to prompts, we did a series of exercises. In five days we went from randomness – literally a connect-the-dots exercise – to considering the quite profound idea of using a map as a metaphor. And, to Terry’s great credit as a teacher, everyone in the “all levels are welcome" (and came) class kept pace with the exercises through the week. Highlights from the collection (we made at least six things, I lost count and I haven't fully unpacked):

^approximately 45 inches square
This was the "connect the dots" exercise.
It seems I've found a horse and a bird.

^Doing something with it.

^Doing more. Not quite done, but I can see it going
somewhere with more sections of the parallel lines

New prompt, different idea. This became an experiment in literal depth as well as the illusion of depth. I layered six fabrics, light to dark, and then cut through successive layers inside the pyramid bars.

approximately 22 inches high x 33 inches wide

This was a viewfinder exercise. It's kind of monolithic and I'd like to do more of these. In a more monolithic scale.

approximately 24 inches high x 42 inches wide


An uncharacteristic burst of color. I can do color. I just think that color is so dynamic, it distracts from other design elements. And it's overstimulating. I don't like being overstimulated (and it's a very short trip for me).

approximately 36 inches square

So it turns out that asking what if? is a little like doing the Hokey Pokey: you put things in and you take things out and you shake it all about until you have something that resembles a dance. It helps also to have empathetic and informed input from your dance instructor (see: link to Terry Jarrard-Dimond, above) and some familiarity with fundamental things (like how to use a color wheel).

Being irresolute is turning out to be fruitful. I think I'll do more of it.

lessons learned

Rather than give away Dorothy’s entire syllabus, I think will conclude this class notes series with her blind stitching exercise. This is not sewing nearly, or wholly, invisible stitches but rather sewing while blindfolded.

The supply list asked for a piece of fabric 4 inches by about 36 inches, “any color.” We were all very thoughtful about the colors we chose. We needn’t have been, this fabric was the blindfold.
Tee-hee-hee.
Before beginning, we layered two pieces of fabric together and threaded five needles. Then we gathered at the main table, put on the blindfolds, and had at it. During the exercise, one woman pulled the thread from her needle and called out to Dorothy for help rethreading it.

If any exercise were constructed to promote randomness, surely this is it. But no. In discussion afterward, several people talked about their impulse toward order despite sightlessness and said they used the edge of the fabric as a guide or that they felt for spaces without stitching to fill with stitching. I was disappointed in my result. I’ve been embroidering for so long that the stitching came out fairly straight, flat (no puckering), and even, just from habit:

white kantha stitching, red-orange basting

I’m having better success at home, sewing sighted but not looking at the fabric, and checking from time to time to ensure something like randomness:

blind-stitched scroll (in progress),
prompted by a collaboration between
Terry Jarrard-Dimond and Kathy Loomis


 In class, after the exercise, Dorothy showed us a sample from another class for which the students had added deliberate red kantha stitching to their blind white kantha stitching and assembled the pieces into a large sampler:

 
And it seemed to me that this exercise has at least as much to say about living as it does about sewing. Gather your supplies. Prepare your materials. Keep it somewhat simple. Meet with your tribe. Do the work. When you lose your thread, ask for help. Accept help. Begin again. Review what you’ve done. Learn from one another. Celebrate each person’s effort, contribution, and accomplishment. Carry the learning into the larger world. It’s not too bad a philosophy to spring from a random four inches of cloth, and one very remarkable, not at all random, teacher.

Dorothy creating a freize of our fingerpainted panels.