Apophenia

Apophenia /æpɵˈfiːniə/ is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.Wikipedia
‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday–but never jam to-day.’
‘It MUST come sometimes to “jam to-day,”‘ Alice objected.
‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’
‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first–‘
‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’
‘–but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’
‘I’m sure MINE only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I can’t remember things before they happen.’It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.Lewis Carol  illustration Jessica Wilcox 1923
The Small format tapestry I finished yesterday is  called “There has got to be a morning after?”, size- 4 inches by 6 inches. I have one more left in this series of 2. I assume a series can be only two much like one can’t become a serial killer until they have killed 3 times.I suppose there does need to be rules about such things.   I began working on it today for a few hours. It is a sunrise of a mountain, clouds and the end of a burn. Also, 4 by 6 inches. These 2 pieces are all about something that happened when I was in high school camping with my family and a wildfire that crowned close by. We were trapped for a while and later evacuated. The second is of  the breaking daylight over a mountain and it’s uncanny stillness the morning after.
I am staring at the keys of my computer keyboard trying to figure out where the start of this blog should be. Not exactly overwhelmed but not underwhelmed either with the time between this and my last blog. I have been rather ill for the last month. One random event lead to another to create a series of events. To quote one source “Concurrent events that first appear to be coincidental but later turn out to be causally related are termed in coincident.” But according to Jung life is not a series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order, which he  referred to as Unus mundus. On the other hand there is a psychiatric condition called Apophenia which probably really applies to this last 6 months.
 One of the things that happens when I am spending to much time being sick is I have a tendency to read things that may or may not be nonsensical or very random.
still not finished, but further along then last time
Reading always makes me feel better.
So I have had an orgy of reading for the last month. So some of the books I found to read  in the last month are: 4-5 cheap-in the Victorian sense- novels that I refuse/embarrassed to name,  Jungs: Man and His Symbols, and Memories,  Dreams and Reflections(couldn’t find a copy of The Red book) I am never quite sure if I really understand Jung or if I just enjoy feeling confused like  some do feeling scared. Interesting thought comparing Jung to Stephen King.   The Black Count(the real count of Monte Cristo) by-Reiss,(I think I have read every book by his Grandson-Alexander) The Burges Tapestry by Staies, Annotated Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Persian Carpets by Volmar Gantzhorn(which turned out to be the most interesting of everything I read. It is a comprehensive history of rugs and how the designs influenced other crafts from a slightly Armenian bent.
I received a gift of a beautiful book A Passion for roses; The note books of Henri Delbard with Watercolours by Fabrice Moireau(It’s so beautiful
I can’t stop looking at it. Thanks Diane K.) AND a copy from Don Norris of his new book on beginning Silversmithing. (Great job!!!! Don. I am fascinated by it. Don is my favourite silversmithing teacher)
Tuesday I find out if I am well enough/healed enough to go back to exercising and other things that have been held on hold for a month. One of the biggest is finishing up the house re-do and my spring gardening/clean-up.

So Why have I had so much time to read?
It all started with my getting my teeth cleaned. Something I do 3 times a year and ends I hope with my being able to get rid of an infection left over from the oral surgery to repair a rather large hole that was punched into my sinus by something that was supposed to be “no big deal”. All because my original Dentist failed to see a rather large cavity on a back molar that she should have been able to see for about 4 years in the 12 times that she supposedly cleaned my teeth at a cost of 268.00 each time. This year has been on surprise after another beginning with my Dad’s death In December. Actually it may have started earlier then that like in September-a long dry hot spell the necessitated a new roof in the middle of terrible down pours-finally settled on just doing the half that was leaking torrents of water into a newly remodeled laundry room from there it’s been one in coincident .
Found another soumack and tapestry rug. Some of it’s in rough shape, but for the most part good enuff to study. Perhaps, I’ll make it into a smaller rug, but for now I sit on the floor and study it. 
There is one part that is totally shredded, but the shredding allows me to see how the technique may have been done. The actual colour of the weft was most likely the colour of the reverse side below, Beautiful colours.What it shows me when I look at the shredding is that these particular squares were actually a form of double weave-two warps used as one warp-in a 1-2-3-2-1 diamond shape. The vertical  and diagonal lines lines are soumack.  The red sample is done in the same way with the exception of the two red and white borders being soumack.

Teaching in California at Inland Empire Hand Weavers guild was so much fun.
It was so odd to see spring in the flats or almost spring and then look up and  see snow on the hills behind us . It was interesting. Meant some very interesting people that I would love to run into again. It was a large group 13-14 participants.  The highlight of the trip-one of them-was the partial destruction of my computer by the airlines.  Good news is I am replacing it. The dent knocked something loose and it was like it  had developed dementia or Alzheimer’s. It would loose itself in time and totally mess up whatever program it was working in, I ended up retrieving portions 3 PowerPoint presentations to combine into two lectures. So,   much for the airlines being gentle with the carry on they confiscated. Janet Castro had made sure that all of the looms were warped in advance so we were able to cover a lot of ground in the class. It was a mixed level class. The colour blending’s were incredibly beautiful that the participants wove especially the mélange and and chene’ samples.
Finally, last put not least-Two of my students work I have pictures of some of !First–Cathie Beckman’s work that she did while in the studio(Jacob’s Rose-one of the most difficult coloured roses to weave) and two of her calendar flowers. The Jacob’s rose was taken while still on the loom and the other are finished work.



The second student is one of my blog students Patti Kirsch. These are samples that she did illustrating one of the exercises we are doing in on colour theory. I am doing the exercises with her that will be included in the new Colour Theory book that Pat Spark and I are working on.
Time to end! Before I am really late and Chene” becomes to bored


Cheers and all,
kathe