Marking time

There's more than one way to keep a diary

and it seems I've inadvertently been keeping one

through bundle photographs.

Call me crazy

but I love the look of them.

Obviously I must, because I can't seem to stop.

Beyond the anticipation of scrumptious prints [hopefully] waiting be revealed, 

there's a metaphor about this process I strongly relate to --

the metaphor of time ...

mainly, the importance of  giving  time.

Now I can say

I've learned great patience when it comes to unwrapping my bundles.

Oh, it was   SO HARD  in the beginning, I'll grant you that,

but it didn't take long to discover the wait was worth it.

Such marks from dry-down !

So, I'm not troubled by that discipline any longer.

And it seems when I have gotten antsy

I've helped to pass the time by taking a lot of "portraits."

Otherwise my files would not be so close to bursting with the sheer quantity.

oh dear.

Collating parts of my picture library this week was a long overdue task.  Since I've

gone off the deep end you might say, with effects editing, the multiplicity factor

was slightly out of hand [putting it mildly] and if there was going to be

any hope of finding particulars, some organization was in order

or I was doomed.

When the  Ecoprints  album was finally assembled, I reviewed the group

with a scrutinizing eye

noticing immediately the inordinate quantity of bundle shots.

Ever do a thing repeatedly - unconsciously - only to become aware of your

*inclination*

at a much later date?

Good then.  I'm not alone.

Laid out in chronological order I saw the entire past year [almost]

illustrated by the progression of foraging, wrapping and dyeing ... 

with special emphasis on

the bundles themselves.

It was grand to have them all in one place !

There was a "walking down memory lane" aspect to this endeavor

and I kept getting sidetracked by delightful memories of dye days past ... like the

great can experiment with my Lopez group - how we juggled for space in the cauldrons

but folks using blackberries bled all over their neighbors anyway.

Still, with such pretty results nary a complaint was heard.

And then there was the afternoon I became my grandmother in the kitchen

[preserving cloth, not green beans] and learned to  stuff, steep + store

for India's pantry shelf out in the interpixies ....

Mainly, I've dyed alone [cue Country Western music ?]

conducting all manner of experiments.  Different themes on different days,

playing around, plodding through,

definitely having a grand ole time.

I've put a few leaves through their paces

but then later, trying to ecoprint on paper put me through mine.

*NOTE*

 do not wrap your paper bundle with rubber bands

unless

you've put something sturdy inside to hold the bands in place.

Imagine unfolding mush [see collapsed bundle above]

... yessiree, not pretty.

When I couldn't make bundles, I sometimes dreamt them up instead ...

messing about with the entirely wonderful DianaPhoto app

one can conjure up all manner of imaginary landscapes

and so I did.

Halfway through the year a very particular dream did come true

and I wandered off to one of the more gentler landscapes I've ever encountered

where I bundled my heart out next to a great wide river

and drank   far too much   far too little fine, single malt Scotch Whisky.

This one was especially yummy.

but I'm digressing from the true direction of this story ...

which is to share my year of time-marking

through some portraiture of

the humble bundle

[no, I have not been drinking whisky this evening].

All those glorious bundles !

They've been rough and ragged ...

they've been tidy, clean & slick

but they've been mostly everything in between.

A motley crew of unrelated objects served as bases:

found

repurposed

gifted

scavenged

hauled from the shore

mailed from the desert

borrowed

and yes, even stolen ...

[innocent indiscretion at the shipyard, really]

but in all cases,

the tighter the wrap, the surer the outcome.

Here's a couple of favorites.

On the left, silk wrapped around three copper pipes; on the right, silk filled with seaweed.

Their diary entry might have read something like this:

Dear diary, had the most marvelous morning beach combing at the cove. What a 

stash of interesting seaweed! (time of year?)  Must try some in bundles - 

wonder if they'll give prints?  So nice of P to give me the copper.  Perfect temperature this aft, 

no wind - I'll wrap on the porch.  Still good color in the madrone bath, I think.

Dog's curious bout the unusual smells - funny to watch her nose twitch 

while she investigates. HA! a sneeze.

Can't wait to try my new string.

But instead ... 

C L I C K

and there was my story.

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Take me to the river ::: Being (t)here, with India Flint

"Have you ever had that feeling ~ that you'd like to go to a whole different place
and become a whole different self?"
~ Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

While I stood on the edge of that beautiful tidal river for the first time

 - the expansive and ever-changing River Tay in Newburgh, Fife -

I had many thoughts about being more than 4,500 miles from home;

how far away that was, continents separated by great bodies of water.

Still, THIS place, somehow, felt so familiar ...

This was Scotland.

And after a long wait filled with the ups and downs that life dishes,

I had finally made it to

this river.

Two things ahead were certain, I mused: the first,

I intended to have a grand adventure ... no suitcase was big enough

to contain that excitement !  And second, 

India Flint was teaching a textile master class called

'Being (t)here' 

which I knew would alter my perception of 'place' forever.

Although I wasn't exactly sure  how  she would do this

there was no doubt in my mind that she most definitely would.

Why was I so certain?

'Twas an enchanting video [view here] that I watched last year,
a culmination of India's three week residency at Big Cat Textiles

describing her impressions of the river ... showing how her work was
influenced, guided by landscape ...

as she described, "...infused with the indefinable, individual essence of place."

So we began ...

our next few days were a gentle process of mirroring all the attributes of this river

using the materials at hand;

watching and listening, sensing, observing, smelling,

but mainly  paying attention ...

slowing down enough, taking time for that to happen.

Thirteen of us from different parts of the 'whirled' were about to interpret

just what being t(here) meant.

I thought a lot about how in my own work I use photography as a way to illustrate

how a subject  feels ...  not necessarily rendering true to appearances, but

making my world look the way it looks to me.

Perhaps I could express something similar with cloth, paper, stitch, local plant dyes

and a collection of written words ?

Each day included much walking ... mainly alone,

although I was very happy to make the acquaintance of an adorable

dog friend who also happened to need time walking.

I was lucky - she knew quite a few back roads

and was ever eager for one more jaunt to the river ....
so I spent a good deal of time down there.

"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for

the inability to notice."

- Elliott Erwitt, photographer

While the River Tay daily ebbed & flowed

we made a few ripples of our own in the local alleyway

[much to the amusement of local residents]

with the beginnings of our stitched concertina books ...

the first of several environmental displays we would assemble in the village

and as it turned out, a potent way to stay melded as a group.

As anyone who knows India a bit may have already surmised,
well, things don't stay white around her for very long ...

~ our paper books wrapped in hand stitched silk bags ~ 

Ecoprinting on paper was new for me and I had purposely avoided doing any of it on my own
beforehand, wanting instead to attend this workshop as a "clean slate" in that regard.
But it wasn't long before I fell under the spell of those paper marks, just like with cloth ...
swooning & exclaiming along with my class-mates over the gifts from Newburgh plants,
both subtle and bold.

~ folded paper fresh from the dyepot, still wet ~

The studio atmosphere was sublime for concentrated work ... the old stone walls of

the [former] church leant an air of solidity with the added advantage of providing

fine acoustics for the eclectic range of music India brought along.

I don't believe I have ever worked within

a more friendly, generous & supportive group of gals.

Many of us spoke of this phenomenon afterwards ... what a truly special group this was ...

somehow - given our diverse backgrounds & locations - a perfect mix of temperaments,

creativity, good humor, and all out camaraderie was shared & appreciated by each of us.

I miss you all !

[and I do hope we carry on with our "pinkie" agreement ... winkwink]

: : :

"Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you,

spend a lot of time with them and it will change your life.

No one is here today because they did it on their own.  You're all here

because someone gave you strength.  Helped you.  Held you in the palm of their hand."

- Amy Poehler, Harvard University commencement address

: : :

Part of our daily process was listening to verse & selections from great writers.

India provided a rich & varied mix,

reading softly to us for a few minutes each day.

Later, after writing our own impressions gleaned from the common experience of walking,

we read our chosen words aloud to the circle, each person's words

adding a unique cadence to the shared story.

Words from "accidental" poems written on my walks became new poems, reassembled.

This writing practice stayed with me throughout my journey through Scotland 

and has now come home with me ...

a powerful tool that I didn't even know I was in need of ...

~ torn scraps from one of my poems ~

Occasionally when something entertaining was happening with us below

we'd catch a little giggling from above.  These two sweeties, who run Big Cat Textiles

and Hat in the Cat [in Perth], took amazingly wonderful care of us during our stay ...

Alison [on right] fed us the most deliciously yummy healthful food - catering to 

all food restrictions, I might add - and Netti provided for any needs tossed in her path,

including places to lay our heads and doggy therapy.  Both went 

above and beyond the call of normal hosting duty

in every way.

Rockin' wonderful, the both of you !

~ Molly's flowers, morning inspiration, surrounded by class books ~

Book work progressed through many stages ... 

experimentation with useful mordants & clever solutions for resists,

unusual mark-making with found objects,

stitching with a wide range of thread sizes & types [Big Cat Textiles had lovely offers on hand],

and the addition of textile scraps ... silks, wool, lace & crochet.

The table displays at the end of each day were steadily growing more beautiful

and our bundle 'displays' in the village were sights to behold.

~ double exposure, India laying out bundles ~

~ below the Newburgh railway arch ~

As we neared completion of our river books

India presented us with one more surprise [our workshop was full of them, bless her] ...

an unexpected technique for felting a small blue "river,"

a long piece of textile goodness to tie around our finished books.

Having just attended Michel Garcia's indigo dye workshop the previous week,

India recycled the spent dye liquid [that which usually goes down the drain]

thinking perhaps it might still be useful ... and this was to be our color source.

We were thrilled to give it a try.

positive results and a very pleased dye master ...

Finished books in hand, we walked down together as a group

and joined our self-made rivers

with the great River Tay.

Seemed a supremely fitting way to draw our time together to a close,

by making this symbolic gesture.  I know I'm not alone when I confess

these were some very emotional moments.

I won't be forgetting this experience any time soon for not only

have I come home with new & important tools, I've brought home

a deeper understanding of how to *be* ...

Thank you, India.

xo

~ my river book ~

: : : 

The second day into our class, Maya Stein's weekly '10-Line Tuesday' poem arrived

via email.  I've included Maya's poems several times on this blog & made mention

of how often her words are completely perfect in their timing, apropos to life in that moment.

So it was with this one.

I'd like to make special note of it

for posterity ...

orientation

Just east of certainty.  A little south of courage.  A hair's

width from ease.  Clicks away from ready.  A turn

or two from acceptance.  A shuffle from faith.  A set of stairs

from achievement.  A riverbed from happiness.  A handspan from

peace.  A wink away from freedom.  A few lines until the poem's

done.  A highway, a night's sleep, a phone call, a touch, a rotation

of gears away from that certain yes that tells you where you are is

exactly where you need to be.  I know, the signs can look as if they're missing,

and the map so distant and unclear.

But I'm telling you, you aren't lost.  You're never lost.  You're always here.

: : :

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From the sea

It's been a fine, fine week

filled with many things

that just

make my heart sing

Pebbles were aligned,

tides were watched,

while in between

there was quite a bit of dunking.

I'd dyed a thrift shirt

in honor of my friend's visit

and much like in days of old

watching a photograph come to life

in the darkroom tray,

so too, my shirt's colors

after a dip in the salty brink.

Magic

pure and simple.

Kelp jewelry

and an abundant assortment of seaweed gifts

piled along the shore

inspired an experiment ...

what if they might give color?

Although I live by the sea, I have never tried.

So I waited, mustering patience

while my seaweed bundle

rested for five long days.

This morning, I unwrapped her

and I do believe a treasure trove of possibilities

await.

: : :

My  Friday Find ... joining in with the gang over at Kim's place

to celebrate life's simple pleasures.

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Seeing double

When I think back on the countless hours spent in darkrooms

attempting to create [at the least] something a little bit  interesting

by combining two disparate negatives into one print,

well, I sit here shaking my head.  Not a time waste exactly, no I wouldn't want to say that,

but I never was very good at it and I never did come up with

a single picture worth hanging onto.

What did happen, I guess, is that I never lost my love for composites

and recently when my faraway friend happened to post a super cool photo she

created with a phone app 

- an app I'd never heard of, one that superimposes two images, adds filters & effects 

all in about three seconds - 

let's just say

I couldn't download that puppy fast enough.

This app, named Diana Photo,

 has what I might venture to call an uncanny ability to "choose" which images

to stack together to bring out the best of both worlds

and in my case, it keeps choosing pairs that feel entirely significant and appropriate

to what I'm doing with life, my work, and how I feel about where I live at this moment.

Silly, really.

Of course an app can't  KNOW  but when Diana began to combine my dye bundles

with sand & sea 

and dyed cloths were superimposed with tree leaves & blossoms ...

you can see my point perhaps?

She even went so far as to match up one of the [rare] front-on portraits of dear dawg

with the driftwood piles on her favorite off-leash beach;

the very same driftwood she played on, photographed on her 4th birthday ...

two photos taken five years apart

from an album numbering in the thousands !

HOW does Diana know???

Tis not all serious stuff, not by a long shot.

Endless supplies of whimsy occur from the combos ...

dawg as evidence,

bedecked here with her own tail ...

all part of the rolling-the-dice fun & darn good for some fine belly chuckles

[although I think dawg would be mortified].

What I'm really after, what appeals most, is the symbolic double vision.

Hard to put into words ...

simplified, it's about taking a subject I've shot in one context,

"randomly" layering it with a subject from another, 

creating a final image that has - somehow - through overlapping effects,

intensified in meaning.

Double exposure.

So far I've had my beaded world appear

and seen my work under water here in this isolated island place I call home.

These have me looking at kinship to tides of all kinds

real and imagined ...

symbolically speaking, that is.

Here I am.

Self portrait within my watery world,

wondering how in the heck a little 99 cent app could have

brought up so much introspection.

:::

Diana Photo app for iPhone is HERE

for Android HERE

:::

Linking up with the gang over at Kim's place for Friday Finds

as this was truly my biggest "find" of the week ...

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