a little red hen

Grandparenting: Indoors & Out

It was a fast week in Portland, Oregon, with our grandkids.  We did make that train cake.  The 9-piece mold worked!  More low-key decoration than pictured on the recipe--just a little white icing, "Grandma, can I have a piece now?"  The Gingerbread Spice  quick bread sold by Williams-Sonoma, conveniently placed near the cake pan, was delicious. 

My daughter had a good idea: laminate the cardboard picture that came with the pan.   Now it's a placemat, shows the cake fully decorated, and has the "official," from-scratch, recipe on the reverse side.  He likes having his own placemat. We added to his map collection (another fascination) with this one of Oregon sold at the Fat City Cafe, a very-Portland place in Multnomah Village, described here in Wikipedia, site of one of our outings.

Then there was the teddy bear switch.  Arrived with an almost-complete knit bear for my youngest grandchild, this adorable 15-month old.   Her brother saw it, hoped it was for him, and now it is.  I added a sweater knit from the same Peace Fleece worsted in her new sweater--which could have been a smaller at the neck.  I did a bit better on the bear's.  Teddy and sweater are both from Sandra Polley's The Knitted Teddy Bear book.  My first success with completing a knit bear! 

With yarn I'd brought along for a smaller bear, I made another for little sister.   Called "Bubby," online HERE from the Knitty.com site, quick to complete. The yarn used is Plymouth Encore and #4 needles.

It's late now.  Time to wish us all a good new year, with the possibility of troops home from Iraq...peace for my family and yours.

Solstice on the Upper West Side

The famous Zabar's at Broadway and 80th Street where we stopped briefly tonight.  An over-the-top gourmet market, it evokes adult and childhood memories such as those here --though the pictures do not do justice to its densely crowded interior.  We found a container of lentil salad to go with leftover chicken.  And chocolate-covered macaroons.

Earlier we'd stopped by the Solstice celebration at Knitty City, my local yarn shop.  Lisa Daehlin's singing  was a novel feature in the an event that included homemade goodies, wine, and a children's story reading. And many customers totally focused on buying for the next knit projects.

My own project, a teddy bear for Zoe, needs one more ear before we leave tomorrow for Portland--with the train cake pan and the sweater.  Have a good week, join me in hoping something quite unusual happens, for the good, in our seat of power.  So many of us voted to bring the troops home NOW!

North Carolina Outside the Studio...

                                                                                                     The hills of western North Carolina, a watercolor by Muriel Kolb, sent me on a notecard by my Book Arts classmate, captures the hill and vales around the folk school perfectly.  Pictured on the cover of the school's latest catalog is the winding path we'd take to Morning Song and breakfast.  Muriel said it best, "Such pleasure--no TV, no news," just this beautiful place--and our work.

And some frivolity.  Every day, at the end of the dining hall, there he was.  Awaiting your dirty dishes and wearing another hat.   Like all the staff, he was a good-natured and helpful--from my first phone call query to the office to register. 

Almost missed a visit to the History Center but got there my last afternoon.  The old banjos competed for my attention with the chance to view vintage photographs by Doris Ulmann during the early days of the folk school in the 1920s and 30s.  The Center is a window into the school's early days of working with local craftspeople to preserve their work as well as finding markets for the sale of their baskets, wood carving, and rugs.    

In a photo from the late 1920s, Sarah Sanoma Hatchett, known as "Granny Hatchett," is carding wool in preparation for spinning.  On the left, a 1933 image, often used as an example of Ulmann's pictorialist orientation, taken in Brasstown, probably at the Folk School.

The school's idealistic founders were influenced by the Danish folkehojskole concept, an ungraded school for adults.* Their goal was "...vitalizing and dignifying the whole content of our rural civilization."  Olive Dame Campbell, her husband, John C., and Marguerite Butler are remembered as significant innovators in the early 20th century craft revival.

* Of interest to us (Ron was very impressed by the folkehojskol  he visited in the 1960s) is a recent book, Land of the Living.  Steven M. Borish is an American anthropologist who has written the first in-depth study by a non-Dane.

DETOUR: Distance Grandparenting

Who could resist?  Not this grandma walking by the Williams-Sonoma window on East 59th Street.  For me it's totally unrelated to the holiday.  Hope to bake this adorable train cake with our rail-crazed, 4-plus grandson in Portland later this month.   I often have plans like this about what it would be great to do when we visit.  Sometimes it works.

For his sister, a finally-finished wool pullover, outdoor sweater. Peace Fleece, two hand-dyed yarns used alternately (their suggestion)-- Lupine and a darker coordinate.  Check their site for cardigan pattern using the technique.  Hope it's big enough to last two winters.

It has taken me far too long to  finish; have decorative petals to add at neck--to help with the front/back issue.  One bootie to finish for another set made for son's first child...right here in NYC.  By this time next month we'll be grandparents in the same city!

Speaking of needlework, "THE LAST KNIT" is a delightful animation from Jerusalem...not political.  Thanks to Claudia Krisniski at Countrywool for the link.

Community, Music, Making Stuff

The intensity of our days at John C. Campbell Folk School was energizing.  In our prior lives, the work could be heavy--its creative aspects shadowed by the pressure of earning a salary, irrational systems.  A week of being in a positive environment absent competitiveness was exhilarating.

Much was offered in addition to our classes.    We never made it to the 7:15 a.m. nature walk,  but  did get to pre-breakfast musical presentations.  The first was led by  Jan Davidson, Director of the School, who played his beautifully-made banjo, similar to the one here,  and interwove his own life's history  in  Brasstown with the longer, inspirational one of  the Folk School.

For some reason, I'd  imagined  playing the banjo in the month before we decided to come to Appalachia.    Source of  that urge is mysterious.   Not going to happen other than in my dreams.   The picture  of myself playing the banjo,  singing political tunes makes we smile...dressed in gauzy blouses and long skirts--dark reds and blues, heavy woven cotton, my shoes are  Italian leather boots--  once had a beautiful pair saved years beyond the time they would be comfortable on aging feet. 

Connie Carringer, on the right, is truly a banjo player.  She is one of two "student hosts" at the Folk School.  I have a mellow CD she made but it does not include the rousing feminist declaration she'd  sung just before I snapped.

Something surprising and satisfying was the range of ages and styles  in participants. The other banjo player with Connie was in the Blacksmithing Workshop.  With him doing this heavy lifting craft was a woman, retired guidance counselor, who volunteers with the Red Cross, spent time in the Gulf Coast after Katrina.   Students in the Tin Can Art group included a young man, left in photo, from Japan. Connie, just graduated from college with a degree in Music and Political Science, plans to join her boyfriend in Brazil and teach ESL when she finishes her six-months at the Folk School.                                                                                              
The weather was warmer than we'd expected, made for a sweet walk from the dining hall   to  the house  we shared with other crafters.  One was a couple, older than us, who'd gone on 71 Elderhostel trips!  The other was Lilian, a mother, retired,  living in Taos, New Mexico,  and Anne, her doctor daughter practicing in Montana.  Both were in Ron's rag rug weaving class.  Midweek   at lunch Anne turned to me, "I have your pants in my rug!"   I had to explain to startled munchers that Ron was  cutting up two pairs of tie-dyed pants  from my remnants--and having a good time  trading fabric. 
Muriel, my Book Arts classmate, came with  an extraordinary collection of recyclables--particularly vintage buttons--and was generous with her equipment.  For some reason, I fell into a habit of calling her by other names beginning with "M."  As she reminded me,   "Remember, just like the cigars."  A retired librarian, accomplished in many tasks unknown to me, she was unable to advice me  during an evening  wreath-making.   Even so, she did  not achieve the distinctive  squareness of my wreath. Marla, the third member of our Book class, took the photo;  does not do justice to my odd style.   She too brought material to share--especially someone's discarded old photo album.

True to its original 1925 commitment to goal of community involvement, the Folk School opened the wreath event  to the surrounding community.  Many joined in that night and we joined them at their regular clogging practice.  If you're like me and want to know about idealistic ideas that have survived, read something about the history here .  There's also a book I've just started, "My Journey to Appalachia" by Eleanor Lambert Wilson who went there in 1941 just after graduating from Vassar College.  In some ways  I'm reminded of my own entry into New York City at a settlement house on the lower east side.

Book Arts...what we were doing days and nights...

In our spacious studio, our tireless  instructor,  Sandy Webster ,  set a high standardl for use of time--and the found object.   In moments  we did not need her input,  she made two books.  In the picture on the left,  she saws a bunch of chopsticks for the spine of a recipe book.  Her inspiration:  a brochure on Japanese prints at the New York Public Library that Nick, our  son had dropped off a few weeks  before we left.  It was in my bag to remind me to see it.  [On our  return, Nick met me  in a Starbucks at Columbus Circle where I showed photos from the trip.  An artist himself, he  was impressed  Sandy's  transformation of paper throwaway into substantial book.]

Book Making, the Legal Way

Definitions of "art book making" abound. Mine are only one notion  of handmade book.   Yard goods, remnants from $1.00 bin or my own clothes, usually are central to books I make.    Red fabric one on far left was attached to a body- shaped healing quilt, "Courage, My Love,"  I made  in 1995.  Next is one is wirecloth,  window screening that's  visible when you click on the the image;  made in connection with my work on kitchen composting with red wiggler worms.  This material was   used for drainage at the bottom of  both my full-sized indoor composter and the world's smallest kitchen composter I used for travel.  The image on the front was cut from the iconic photo of a red wiggler on my watch- first used to illustrate "To sleep with red worms," my 1998 environmental manifesto.

Mine are only one notion  of handmade book.  The more traditional,  elegantly crafted ones can be seen at The Center for Book Arts .  In  a class there with Miriam Schaer  I produced  a gorgeous book with just one problem:  its blank pages of white, high quality paper stopped me from finishing it at home.  Mimi,as she is known,  understood my wish to move in a quirkier direction.  She was,  at that time,  best know for her girdle books.  [News flash from Mimi:  she just sold out an edition of her doll dress books!]
 

"Is it a book?" gets discussed extensively  at  Philobiblon website.  Move around theere for a view of   book arts  developmentally--from the novel  you hold in your hands at bedtime to comics to the web.  Only missing is the Performance Book but that's the way out on the edge.  I did one in for a performance in a zocalo in Mexico; Mimi Schaer had an entire audience make a small book at a dance performance in New York .

Our friend Google offered up a link to  therapeutic aspects  of book making.  Reminds me of my own workshops in  "Women's Studies as Therapy," (have I written here about this?).

Which brings me to one of the three books I worked on during  my exceptional week  at The Folk School in North Carolina.  For a number of years  I have  not thrown away the paper hospital gowns my body has been enclosed in for doctor visits.  One of them went was in the recycling materials I took  to my Book Arts class.  Somehow I neglected to take digital photos of  the finished work, "My Body in Various States,"  on my digital camera, so that image will have to wait till 35 mm photos are in hand. 

When I returned to the City, I took a canvas bag mistakenly purchased (too heavy with just two small volumes) at Strands, "16 Miles of Books,"  for a  slipcase.  My old white gloves (remember?) will be replaced by used  red rubber ones around here somewhere.  Also, the small card instructing viewers how to handle, with gloves, the book inside will be another small book.

As much as possible, all that I use comes from what I already have in my studio.  Recycle, reduce, and re-use has become more of a mantra as the culture tries to lure me toward recreational shopping and buying.

SAVING REMNANTS

        EXPLORING  PLAN  B          Used to be that  I'd leave town for workshops,  fiber art, bookmaking at Peters Valley Craft Center  for a week in a camplike setting.   Ron, still consulting here and there, periodically took in-town classes--photography, spinning. 

Now, eleven years into retirement, we seem to be onto what I've begun to describe as  PLAN B.  Always "making stuff," what I do now is an extension, more intense than what I did while working.  It's different for Ron.  He has now given himself permission to let go, to read for hours at a time, and to explore his primal (?) urge, to be a producer of handmade things.   
Pictured here is a piece of  the placemat he wove in his first experience with a four-harness loom.   He's been moving toward weaving for several months, thought about using his spun wool, made a small 9 x 12-inch frame loom. 

We were together, yet apart, different from the  knit retreat at Camp Medomak  in  Maine  last summer.  At  dinner on Monday night, he was sure warping the loom would defeat him.  It did not.  He bonded with   another Manhattanite at the School who entered the wood shop with no background, made a hole in the bottom of his first try.  "It could be a picture frame," Ron offered.  Andy went on to make  a beautiful turned bowl.  Ron, by Day Three, was weaving night and day, proudly exhibited  a  rug + 2 placemats on our final evening.  He even carried a mat to his NYU class this morning to convince classmates  that he had indeed learned to weave.  (The purple fabric he's using is from discarded tie-dyed African pants of mine.)

"Recycle It" was the week's theme  at the John C. Campbell Folk School.  Just as Ron had packed up many of my remnants from earlier projects, I took some of those too along with paper collected in travels, duplicate photos, miscellaneous stuff for a class in  Book Arts .  A Book of Condom Amulets emerged; needs some tweaking before its debut.  Both of us were fortunate in our instructors.  For the most part, each of us had been fortunate in choosing teachers unknown to us beforehand.    It happened again with Sandy Webster, multi-talented, many media artist.  When those skills combine with a talent for teaching, you're in creative heaven as I was.

PLAN B?  You've just read about it.  The first years of retirement are about shifting from the dailyness of work to not-work. We went to China, several times to Mexico,   explored New York City. I volunteered at the Tenement Museum, did my environmental installation   which marked  me among knitters with a permanent identity,  "the worm lady."   Domestic  travel was dictated by our children's lives.   Our son taught at Tulane in New Orleans for three years.  Our daughter and husband moved to Portland, Oregon, produced our first two grandchildren.

When Ron had a quadruple by-pass in 2004, that caused a shift in my thinking.    Not him.  He  returned to playing racquetball twice a week, but did reduce his consultation days.  I wanted a back-up plan, so now we have a reservation at Kendal on Hudson, a retirement community in Sleepy Hollow, New York.  Other elders--and our children-- think this is out of character.   They may be right; ten years from today I may be blogging about Plan C, something entirely different.

While I Was Gone...

Dez Crawford lives in Baton Rouge, and  blogs at Mambo Cat Knitting Asylum.  We "met" through the KnitU listserv and Katrina.  How's that?  Before I'd embarked on my own blog, my attention was often called to Dez's useful knit advice.  Also knew that she worked with domestic animals.

Fast forward to the Gulf Coast disaster.  Many knitters learned about what was happening on the ground there through her periodic posts:   

It is taking forever to repair the roof on the warehouse for our temporary animal shelter in New Orleans...all we can do to keep the animals dry.  Staff working in raincoats and boots.

This led to instructions for how to knit fingerless mitts that workers could use under their rubber gloves.  I'll ask Dez herself to report here on knitters' response.

Meanwhile, against awesome odds, she held onto her sense of humor--alternating with frustration about the slow pace of repair, etcetera.  When she posted about an over-the-top outfit she had designed, I suggested the addition of a Condom Amulet.  To suit her style, I made this flashy one, similar to another presented to Dr. Ruth at a book-signing.  It is all recycled--sequins from New York's Materials for the Arts , a warehouse filled with endless goodies--fabric to furniture--donated by businesses.  If you're a school teacher or an artisit working for a non-profit, you can visit and shop with abandon. 

A visit to Dez will reward you with a moving tribute to two friends she lost to AIDS--and a better view of the Amulet--which  drifted away from her as she was about to post for December 1.

My erstwhile computer tech, Robert, let me know that Salon.com  actually addressed HIV in people over 50 on December One.  Well written, it was followd by several stupid comments from  Salon subscribers who do not get it and/or have ageist attitudes.  More attention on  a  site directed toward my demographic,  O'Folks .   The day was marked by a headline, "Condom Amulets," capital C and capital A, just the way I do it!  Writing about them,  crafty suggestions added techniques besides knitting:

The condom amulets are a useful idea. I’m sure folks out here could add their designs based on traditional basketweaving and the crocheted recycled shopping bags techniques.

Meanwhile in Brasstown, North Carolina, Ron and I were deep into  Recycled Week at the  John C. Campbell Folk School.  More on that coming up.