Between and Betwixt

Between, in the middle of, at intervals, in the midst of, among, betwixt, interjascence, etc, etc, etc. Things barely started and nothing near finishing or even begun enough to have a definitive personality. ..which always seems to morph into waiting, biding time, attend,anticipating, mark time, delay, tarry, lurking, hovering, dangling, wait in suspense,be left hanging…boredom and depression. Well, guess that pretty much covers my feelings for the last week or so. Think I better leave the thesaurus alone for a while. Just another way of killing time is to play the curious game with a book, but so much fun.

Now that I have written the words it feels almost humorous or possibly ironic. They sounds so static and lacking in energy-lackadaisical-almost. I still put in 8 hour + days. I have just added things like holidays, company, shipping times, cooking, Doctor appointments, research and writing.

I decided to start over on one of the Kona Balcony sunsets. I love the photos and the colours I took while setting on the veranda/balcony. Last Friday the electricity went out for about 5 hours. Fortunately, i had finished cooking our Friday Thanksgiving dinner eating in the dark was interesting. I was able to get out my collection of kerosene lamps to helpwith the darkness. My Father-Grampa- couldn’t come on Thanksgiving because of a very long standing commitment to deliver Thanksgiving diners to the Elderly and infirm. He’s 84. I am not quite sure when he things elderly starts. So, we changed diner to Friday. So when it got to cold we went to see the movie 2012. I kept laughing about valcanos and sky. They really needed a better colourist.
I had been away so long finishing so many chances I had lost the colours in my head. So I am resetting up the warp to start over. I’ll need to finish it in the next week or two, because we will be photographing warping the Shannock loom for the So warped book Pat and I are writing.
Part of my research for this week has been the warp weighted loom. When i was requesting photo’s of various tapestry looms Fireside Looms offered me a photo of the Sami warp weighted loom. The photo on the left is actually from wikipedia and is a Icelandic loom. I have had a sort of background low key fascination with warp weighted looms since I was at OKAC formerly known as OSAC doing undergraduate work. Marlene Kerrigan who taught Craft history showed slides of Greek pottery with warp weighted looms incised and or painted on the vases. Of course their is also the story of Penelope and Ulysses and of archaeological finds of viking loom weights and weaving. Pat who has a a really good background in Scandinavian weaving informed me that the warping begins with a rep weave that stabilizes and creates the top selvedge. The wefts of the rep become the warps for the tapestry or other weaving that can then be rolled around the top beam with the weighted warps hanging down the front of the loom. I am going to set up a small warp weighted loom. The process is totally fascinating to me. Beating is done with a two handed batten, so, any tapestry would need to be woven straight across the fell line and not up or down in this case.
Adventures of a Beginning Silversmith

Well this is as far as I have gotten. It’s starting to come together. The top is laid out. One side is finished and the two sides are ready to sew together. My way of getting around pieces that are two large for me to handle. The pieces will be stitched together with gold thread/wire.

You can sort of make out the letters of the word miracles on the right side of the black paper. The green looking stones are Peruvian Opal and the other stones are died agate. These are the two tapestries that will be inside the box when I finish. Today almost became a little two exciting. I learned several valuable lessons. One, always work with shoes on. Two, always check the torch fittings and make sure they are tight. Three, Remember where the shut off valve is and reach for it first. Four, move fast, panic later. Five, Remembering, it’s a good thing to keep Chene’ in the house and not the studio when working with silver. No matter how much he wants to be in the studio.

Other then a melted floor, a few flames and scaring myself half to death nothing bad happened. A fitting on my torch head came loose and exploded/popped off the supply line in my hands and I dropped the flaming torch and pieces of the torch on the floor. Andy is going to check my torch for me to make sure I didn’t damage anything and I am good to go. Probably not necessary for any reason other then my sanity. Valuable lessons learned without a lot of damage. Andy checked it a few minutes ago and taught me a little more. Helped me mark directions on the tank for turning off the valves. Gave everything a clean bill of and health and I am good to go again.

I am making great strides on a new monograph on Soumack and tapestry. I decided that my handouts for my class at ASCH 2010 were getting to be so many that perhaps they would make a good monogragh. I think I may also be teaching a variation of the class at the Eugene Textile Center. I have had several students come to the studio wanting to learn how I do my lines which are soumack and lacing. This week I also finished writing the chapter on the Old Believer tapestry loom. We just need to photograph the process for So Warped. Pat completed several major sections and layout on warping.

I had two small mentions in national Magazines- Fiberarts for an ATA award and An article about Small Expressions. There is a photo of one of the 3 pieces I had in Small Expressions.
Guess that’s all for now.

Bye for now!