Post craft sale note

So, it was not a stellar money maker. The day was breezy and beautiful, but most of the attendees were not looking for what I, or what anyone around me was selling. These are hard times for little church craft sales.

I talked to a several people who were interested in what I was making, two or three who purchased and others who only looked and longed. I got a couple suggestions and three people showed interest in learning how to make a book or scarf for themselves and left their names and e-mails, picked up a brochure of classes.

Quite often I found myself talking to the vendor opposite of me, wondering about how to promote what we made, discussing other venues, what worked and the long list of things that had not worked. Complaining, yes, but also looking toward the future, sharing information, not defeated by this long day with few sales.

Now, after a night of sleep, a cup of coffee, and sitting with my morning pages I think this is what I have learned...where I need to go in the next week or two ahead.This week I have to get EVERYTHING on etsy. I have been terrible about that. It has seemed so time-consuming to post pictures, go through the steps, etc., etc. But I need to just sit at this computer and do it.

I need to find at least five places where I can leave my class brochures/ business cards where people who are interested in personal growth and creativity wander.

I need to complete the applications for teaching community college classes and the application for the summer at Holden Village.

I need to find a couple places... church youth groups? teen centers? shelters, maybe... where people might be interested in making their own journal... I had a charcoal eyed, fishnet wearing teen who so wanted one of my books. She didn't draw but she wrote poetry. I stood and showed her how she could incorporate both. But in the end, the folks who controlled her money said no. The book was not important to them.

I feel so strongly that the process of making art - paint, fiber, words, pencil, pen - is so much more important than the final piece of art we make. That allowing ourselves to enter the flow, the click of needles, the scratch of a pen, the movement of our arms as we firmly rub fiber into fiber, the tension in our fingers as we hold and sew signature to signature in the construction of a book, is the creative meditation our souls need to rest and renew.

And while I love the process of making art so much for myself, I am at heart a teacher, and as such compelled to share this love of process where I can.

Red Chicken

I have been wanting to do an art journal like the ones Judy Wise does. I have been pouring over her website for years, looking wondering how she does all those things. I've taken a couple classes from her here in Phoenix, at Art Unraveled. I've been inspired by her photography, her love of good food, her willingness to try new things, her choice to live a joy filled and fearless life.

I so wanted to do a mermaid or a waifish girl who looked like she was a little bit good and a little bit bad (ala JW)... but when I tried I felt all stiff and so I thought about the thing that I can't seem to get out of my head lately...chickens.

I am in the process of making a red chicken journal. I doesn't feel soulful or insightful... but it is fun, and I have loved, loved, loved working on it.

The chicken took form easily. Sturdy legged and proud.

The back cover a nest with an egg... guess here the chicken comes first... but the egg is a promise too, of new life. And I keep thinking that is the reason we've been put on this planet, to create new life every day.

She (he?) took on more texture, more details.

And the back cover was finished up... I've torn and folded my signatures and spent some part of the early morning hours trying to think about how I'd put it all together. I've painted too close to the edges to put a spine on... I've flipped through a number of alternatives in my head... and I think I've come up with a solution. A combination Coptic stitch and a couple caterpillar stitches. It will be beautiful. It will be sturdy. And for me, it will be perfect.

I think the interior will be a series of paintings of still more chickens... I've got to work this out of my system.

moving actively into acceptance

I sat in a gathering of spiritual directors on Friday. One of them said... we need to move actively into acceptance rather than just allow ourselves to accept. I wrote it down. I revisited it time and again during the session and as you can see it is still moving around inside of me. What does it mean for me? How can I live it?

I brought this beauty home yesterday. It has been a few years since I had African Violets. The ones before must of contracted a fungus or something, because they all seemed to die in a season. It was quite sad.

I think growing African Violets says something about a person... or maybe it just says something about me. A friend of mine told me that African Violets flourish in gentle neglect. But I don't think it says I am a gentle neglector... though I might be... I think it says something about stillness and patience.

But can you be actively accepting and be still and patient? I'm looking for some connection here. Maybe there is none. But the violet is a sign of some movement in me.

I was talking yesterday with a woman about a dying dog. The dog is old and loved and he is dying and the choice has been made to not intercede, but just journey with him to the end. And I told her about the loss of my dog, years ago, and how I did not know if I could make that commitment again, knowing the probable outcome - that I would outlive another. And then I laughed, maybe that was the problem with my whole life. Maybe I just live around the edges of life's river and seldom wade into the deep water. Maybe standing in the deep water is moving actively into acceptance.

Maybe moving actively into acceptance is about taking some risks, shaking some bushes, being fearless at least once a day.

stashes

I have a stash... in fact I have several kinds of stashes... I have the yarn and felt stash, the art supply stash, the mixed media stash...even the rock stash.

My sister helps me with my stash and I help her with hers... today I mailed her a bag of rocks gathered this summer, some lichen or parasitic thing that grows on pine trees... the green is amazing, and a mixed bag of seeds and pods. She is sending me some birch bark in return.

I am really working at bringing down my felting stash... I want to make books, but need to do some housecleaning first. This is really a housecleaning task. So I've been felting nearly every day, making some really gorgeous scarves and here is how I do it...


I lay the roving first in one direction then another and add bits of yarn and fuzz (did I tell you I had a fuzz stash???) that I rescued from the washing machine when I felt knitted items... once I'm happy - or afraid I've gone overboard - I cover it with netting and wet it, squirt it with watered down shampoo - they tell you to use olive oil soap, but the shampoo makes the scarves smell so nice - and then placing a sandwich bag over my had I rub the dickens out of it, flip and rub again.

then I put another sheet of bubble wrap on the top (one on top, one under) and roll it around a noodle, stick a dowel through the noodle and roll it... 100x one way, 100x another - and 100 x for good measure (I'm getting these little muscles on my upper arm) once that part is done you fold and drop it 25 times, refold and drop 25 more. Rinse rinse rinse, roll in a towel to get most of the wet out and lay flat (I hang it over a door) to dry.

and you get a scarf... made from soft soft wool... so delicate thin it is weightless

full of textures and colors

silk threads and yarn scraps (another stash)

or this one, a teeny bit more substantial

with woolen leaves (cut from my wool fabric stash) felted in.

or this one where I laid some flowers cut from a sheer fabric and felted them in

see it drapes well

and it is long enough to tie about your neck... if only the temps would drop below 90!

oh, and yes, I do have a scarf stash.