"Stand in the place where you live
now look north
think about directions
wonder why
you haven't before."

An REM song called Stand, one of my favorites. So I stood today and looked west, and north, and up at willows and over at a wonderfully gnarled copper beech tree on Hadley Common.

These will be some of the next works. I heard from the gallery that the big Mt Toby piece sold, which is great news!

Even if I'm not making much, or talking about it, I can still show you what I've seen lately.

still busy!

ANNIE is over and done, and the current show is ALICE IN WONDERLAND, directed by a student. I've been making rosebushes, cardboard pots and pans (so they can be flung at Alice's head in the show [not my Alice – the show's Alice]), cardboard keys, and dozens of other amusing things.

*passing the local tv station truck with its extendable dish raised
high, and a wire wrapping around it, making it look… sproingy*

Lee: put a hamster up there and pull back, you could launch it into low earth orbit
Alice: but, you like hamsters. You want to get rid of raccoons
L: true. But raccoons are larger and heavier – they wouldn't get into orbit, they'd be sub-orbital
A: and land, lightly scorched, in…?
L: Russia, depending on where we aim
A: so Russia is over-run with smoking raccoons? cool
L:
Maybe, if we dipped them in barbeque sauce, the sauce would caramelize
as they sizzled through the atmosphere, making a crunchy protective
shell?
A: it would crack on impact though
L: releasing the overheated but now protected raccoons into Russia

*a moment of reverent silence*
*Lee, unable to keep from voicing her grudge*

L:
with the credit cards they stole from my wallet, they could continue to
order solid but cheap tools that are made in Korea but sold through
Home Depot, and create a new kind of DIY havoc on the Russian populace.
Think of the garbage bin openers, the barbecue grill food extractors,
the other random things they could make!
A: *reminiscing snerk* sub-orbital raccoons!

I'm still neck deep in the high school musical, but today I do not have to be at school until noon, so I marched into my studio and started something. Before I could start anything I had to sweep a good deal of dust and crud off various surfaces – I hadn't realized it had been so long since I sewed something that wasn't a dinosaur. 

The weather is definitely transitioning to spring. Days are warm if they are sunny, but kind of grim if the sun isn't out. the snow is melting and grubby, the ground underneath the snow is also melting and muddy, and the horses are shedding in giant handfuls of loose hair. I am alternately coated with white hairs from Nuada and red and orange ones from Kaboose. It is a different kind of look, especially when combined with the layers of paint from the set; white primer, and gray, pink and brown.

via www.flickr.com

The ground is frozen so hard there is no riding at the moment, not unless I shoe the red mare. Instead we've been playing games with following, circling, and changing directions with me on the ground. She thinks this odd, but it wins her treats which makes her interested.

On the way home I stopped to admire the bison at the bison farm. There are youngish ones, that stagger and bounce, and very large ones.

via www.flickr.com

The first finished piece of the year. I was driving around when the weather was soooo cold, because i could turn up the heat in the car and I'd been riding, and I wanted to take pictures of tobacco barns. Sadly, on review, all those barns i thought were so distinctive, aren't. One looks much like another. So my grand plans for barn portraits may have to be modified.

I think part of what pleases me about these barns is the rhythm of the hinged boards on the sides. I'd like to take some pictures from the inside too, looking out through the slats at the changing seasons.

Goodness! Generally I have reviewed last years work and made plans for the coming year by this time in January. I can only offer in my defense that I was busy coughing. Since I can now type without stopping to cope with excess phlegm, I can write again.

In retrospect 2012 had some major high points.A year of circles, a new relationship with a gallery, summer camp (or art boot camp, depending on how I think of it), and a series of craft fairs meant I learned some new and crucial skills.

You've seen the daily circles here, and on flickr. I am proud of working steadily, and keeping myself entertained. I did complete 340 circles, I think, with random days missing due to illness or back issues, or vacations or traveling. One of the best things I did was give them away – it became a challenge on several fronts, to be able to walk around with a box of mysterious, small stitched artworks and ask complete strangers if they would like one. I got better at talking to people about my work. I have more faith in the quality of my work. I practiced every day, so I know I improved a handful of skills that are important to my process. And I made friends. It was all good.

I connected with a gallery in Shelburne Falls, Grow Gallery, and the cheerful and talented owner and chief Lesley Grow. I couldn't ask for a more enthusiastic person representing me! Several small works have sold, and four larger pieces showing four seasons on the pond I love. Some newer pieces are hanging now, and I am working steadily on a series of tobacco barns that will be going there soon.

I spent two weeks on the coast of Maine at Haystack Mountain Craft School. I loved the place and the people, and the food, and the views. I loved my teacher, Marian Bijlenga. I feel like I am still processing things I saw and did there. Apparently I am very slow at processing things!

At the end of the year I had participated in several different craft fairs. I am not sure yet how I feel about the craft fair part of selling my work. It is a very different set of skills than making the work, and requires that I be gregarious, relentlessly cheerful, have legs of steel and feet with no nerve endings what-so-ever, and develop social skills in reading people that I have not much needed before. All of these are useful and necessary skills, mind, and I admire people that have them. Developing them in me is hard.

Lastly, the blog turned 6 years old on January 2. I have written 1220 posts, and you have written back over a thousand comments, questions and compliments. Thank you for participating!

So, over all – a fine year, thank you. I hope yours were all as fine in retrospect, and here's looking forward to 2013.

via www.flickr.com

It felt kind of odd not to have to take a photo and post it here – but it comes as a relief too, to be off the hook for producing something daily.

My first major undertaking for 2013 is to clean, sift, organize and put away the piles and layers of stuff in my studio. I feel bad that it is such an unvisitable space; small, massively disorganized, layered with thoughts and visual reminders, and carpeted with things that don't-quite-fit and I should do something (quite different) with.

Once the decks are cleared and aired out a little, I am looking forward to thinking about a series of larger projects that will take more time to finish.

I think I am making no particular promises, reaching for no particular goals this year. If something occurs to me later, I'll be sure to let you know!

In the meantime, have a lovely, peaceful and useful beginning to your new year.

via www.flickr.com

The end of the 2012 Circle project. I'm off to a party, where, with luck, I will give away the rest of them, plus a couple in the mail.

A very happy new year to every one –

Lee