Month: February 2007

woven keys

February 4, 2007


Feb 4
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I had two same sized images of the same set of keys portrayed quite differently, and I was trying to think of a way to combine them. So I cut them into strips and wove them together. I love the way the watercolor texture plays back and forth with the regular metal-and-fabric texture, and how you can’t quite forcus on any one piece at a time without sort of seeing both.

January_journal_quilt
I also managed to finish my January Journal Quilt page, with mixed results. I like the general thing, but it is kind of crammed with incident. There is all kinds of stuff just glued on. I tried hard not to over-think it, and I may have erred on the side of failing to plan at all. I was so wowed by the amount of space I had (after 4×6 it felt huge!) that I had to work hard to keep things off it.

But, but, but… I needed to include the river, and the house, and the husband (and how rooted he is in this Valley) and the kids, and the desperate wish for a horse, and the things I’d managed to finish in January (all those postcards with keys and circles) and I wanted to keep the background I’d made, and I put a boat on it already so I had to cover it up, and — you can start to see some of my problems. The closeups are over on Flickr here, here and here.

I’m thinking about maybe making Feb a little cleaner. Or maybe planning it out a little more. But if I think too hard, I get pinned, and then paralyzed, and really these are not tests, just practice for the next piece. You make more good stuff, we all make more good stuff, if we just make more stuff, and practice our making chops, so to speak. Good stuff comes. With practice, it comes more often. With volume, more stuff comes, and even if the same percent is good, you get more. Plus you get the joy of doing, which is substantial.

So?

Go make stuff.

glowing grid

February 3, 2007


Feb 3
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A photo of the keys as I was using them for sunpainting, aggressively manipulated in Photoshop and printed out, then cut into neat little squares and placed in a grid. I like the look, but next time I might use a ruler to get the pieces lined up better. And the time after that I will go really cuckoo with the placement. You are warned.

We are thinking of what 8 of us can do for an act for the Circus School recital in the spring. Probably a strength and balance kind of thing, where we loft small children and balance large ones, and the other grownups. It is fun to think about. Our teacher is gaining confidence and skill teaching, and it is nice to be able to tell her that.

St. Brigid’s day (yesterday)

February 3, 2007

To my sorrow, I missed this: Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Silent Poetry Reading. If Brigid will accept latecomers, I humbly submit the following:

THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY

is not silent, it is a speaking –
out-loud voice in your head: it is spoken
a voice is saying it
as you read. It’s the writer’s words,
or course, in the literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of your voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer srote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally– some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and in a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled chirrr of oats from a split sack,
the bony filthy haunches of cows. . .
And "barn" is only a noun– no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.

                                        — Thomas Lux

It was in a New Yorker years ago, and has been on my fridge since then.

I’ll be back with a postcard after Family Circus.

bar key bar

February 2, 2007


Feb 2
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The house is so quiet when I half the number of girls in it!

I managed to accomplish this for my postcard requirement, plus an illustration for Illustration Friday, plus almost finishing my journal page.

If I stop writing, I can go trim it and back it and bind it and post it.

sepia keys

February 1, 2007


Feb 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Happy Hardware month. Have some keys…

I have two spare girls spending the night, so life is temporarily chaotic. Good, but chaotic. We made pizza for supper. I made brownies for dessert. My friend Red Kate came for a visit with things to make and a spinning wheel, although she spent more time sorting the keys than anything else. We found many, many lovely things, and a pile of old Ford keys and a several luggage keys, and one set labelled Well Key. These are some of the oldest, photographed and manipulated.

More tomorrow.