Seasonal Conditions...tinsel ahead

I am one of those people who have avoided the holidays for awhile.
It's too much consumerism, stress, sugar, brouhaha over nothing and blatant commercialism has driven me beyond the pale. Yeah? You too? No big news, huh?

Ok, so I did a lot of things to avoid the Thanks/Christmas/New Year's grip-mostly go away. Or go far far away, where they don't celebrate such things. But this year, I have stopped trying to 'beat the holidays' (holidaze), but still, I'm not much of a joiner. I define myself as a 'non-conformist', you could also say, 'non-joiner'. I have my groups and tendencies: yoga, knitting, clay, art/design, craft, small sub-sections of callings. That is how I will work through the holidays.....kinesthetically. If I put the winter darkness, tinsel, roving mobs addicted to shopping, over and over and overplayed seasonal music, in terms of sensory overload, enhancement  and deprivation, I think I can make it. I can take a breath and make a choice to stay centered, in the 'zone' or find a way to get back to some sense of middle ground when on the precipice.

So, there is not much daylight, consider candles, bright (colored) lights, or a sense of mystery. It's colder, knit/wear more wool, entertain at home (and maybe imbibe more alcohol). I can't begin to take on the whole Martha Stewart idea of decorating, but a tree, a small tree is a possibility. Don't want to do the 'Christmas Party' (note capital letters), it's too competitive and I'm not really Christian (or Jewish either, it's a grey area that has been a source of dismay for others and annoyance for me). But I do believe we are all God's children and to celebrate a sense of light or a birth of a child in the middle of the darkest days of the year, let's go for it! (that would be considered holiday cheer)

Keep your spirits up! God knows (as do some of us humans) the world is going to hell in a hand basket (cute phrase for cataclysmic disaster on all fronts) we all only have ourselves and each other, be nice. At least for a little while, use the excuse of the holidays to be pleasant. Do that, 'do unto others' thing. We all know we use the excuse of the holidays to get stressed. Now turn that around and go be a mensch.
Peace-out.

Spem in Alium: 40 part Motet Installation @ Rose Theatre

Spem In Alium is a choral piece by Thomas Tallis, who wrote for the Tudor monarchs posing as a Protestant, but actually a Catholic, albeit closeted. Seems the closet figures in a lot of forms in the church historically.
Anyway, he was an amazing composer and this piece is one of his best. It is a 40 part (how these singers keep it straight is amazing in itself), of a Latin phrase that in part translates, I am no good, worse than dirt under your finger nails of a grubby sloth and god I am not worthy, etc. Since it's in latin this rather depressing lyric is not oppressive.

Meanwhile the installation at the Rose Theatre, in the Time Warner building at Columbus Circle on the 5th floor, make a left after exiting the elevator is on for ONLY TODAY! (through Saturday Nov 13th 12-8)
This video I tried to upload,barely does the piece justice,and is too large to load so just trust me on this.

There are 40 speakers on individual stands placed around the edge of the room, each speaker is at adult head height and is a 'voice'. As you walk around you can hear them together or stand next to a speaker and hear the separate 'voice'.
The simplicity of this installation allows the piece to shine in an incredibly profound way.
The content defining the design or the adage of 'form follows function' gives room to have a deep musical (spiritual) experience. GO!!!!

Here is a link to a NYT article about why/how the White Light Festival was conceived, which this installation is a part.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/arts/music/24light.html

Morning Bounty

Today I cracked open my saggar box and looked inside. Was it like Christmas? Sort of....
I got lots of presents, but not exactly what I imagined....some better and a lot of broken fingers. That part, the broken fingers happened going into the box. What can I say? I'm a bit rough with my own stuff.

But I will say, it was fascinating to see what happened. The color, scaring and oxidation was far out! I will do this again, and I will work with something other than hands with delicate fingers....(oh the fun I will have in gluing them back on *sigh*)
I do love the SURPRISE element to this.
Talk to the hand, indeed.

Saggar who? what?

These pictures are of objects I made from porcelain, white stoneware and terra cotta or earthenware dabbed with different chemical mixes, root kill, sulfates, iron oxides, etc., and put in a clay box called a saggar. The whole point of this is the opposite of what it was devised for. Originally it was to protect the fine white of the chinese porcelain from the flames and not mar the finish. In this case you are putting it in a box in order to change the surface. Along with the ceramic things that I made I wrapped wire, masking tape, added sawdust, seaweed and shells with the great hope that these things will cause a reaction to the clay surface. All done in the hopes of a 'happy accident'. Hopefully more happy than accidental. We'll see....

I am working on a Buddha figure, Avalokiteśvara – the Buddha of infinite compassion, or Boddhisatva, literally, the lord who looks down, who is often depicted with '1000 arms and hands, and eyes to show his compassion of always watching and  reaching out to everyone and everything. He gets this reputation because he refused to go on to Nirvana until everyone was able to and he stayed incarnated so he could help everyone. What a guy, huh? Anyway, I saw a couple of statues at the Guimet museum in Paris awhile back and there was a Korean one that really moved me deeply. So I thought I'd make like 50 hands (it's not number, but effect, right?) out of different clay bodies done in this saggar firing method to represent all the different 'hands' Avalokiteśvara 'gives'. Again, we'll see...

Also, I have this idea about ladders and hands holding them....not like Jacob's ladder, different, but not sure what it is, except reaching or climbing. Enuf said...

Eggs of another color

 

I wanted to show something beautiful that was inspiring, nature made and tasty. My friends who live in Lambertville, NJ have access to a farm stand that has these wonderful local, 'cage free' domestic chickens that are different sizes, different color yokes and are miles away from the white rounded packages we see in our normal urban or suburban supermarket. (though Lambertville is not far from Flemington or even Trenton).

It is a sad testament that I write in wonder of these beautiful eggs. We understand things from their boxes, not their shells. A product or a brand, not a food coming from something that grows or breathes or is made by hands not gloved in plastic or put on a conveyor belt.

It is so easy for me to yell about this from in my Manhattan bubble, wishing for more connection to nature, wanting to participate in the locavore movement. Is this just a matter of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? We are sinking, and drifting further away from a world that use to work with seasons and without chemicals, without being propped up by government props that make farmers grow all the same corn and soybeans. Which in turn feeds cattle in feedlots that live lives not worth living cheek to jowl to their neighbor and then are brutally treated in their death, by workers who are also brutally treated in their morbid work to feed the people who are eating fast food, ruining their health in the process. This is because why? There is profit to be made in killing the land with chemicals, the cows by rote and us bipeds by disease, a bit more slowly than the cows....and at greater expense. 

I am ranting, I am angry and I don't let myself think about this too much, it's too upsetting. My original intent for this blog was to write about my observations when I travel. Much more benign stuff; armchair voyages for my friends and friend of friends (not a huge group). But, I took this picture a couple of months ago and had planned to write a post talking about color and design, etc., and it ended up here. Sometimes you just gotta say what's on your mind, even if it ends up being a rant. The blog takes a different turn this time. More stuff to come with art, design, color, photos and travel, but also with some indignation on the world here in my corner, in my country.

Sew what...

Craft has wrapped me around it's finger....again.....sigh
Ever since I first saw the style of Alabama Chanin incorporated in the T shirt 'uniform' of Bar Pitti (a lovely, though wildly over popular (read-hard to get in) Italian café here in Greenwich Village) I had been fascinated. How do you do that? I thought to myself. My sewing chops had been dormant for so long, I couldn't even begin to figure it out. I think that was 5+ years ago. I had acquired a T-shirt with 'Alabama' appliqued (actually reverse applique, but I just learned that a week ago), from 'Architecture for Humanity' as a donation (great org, check 'em out), because I really wanted to feel good about wanting a T shirt. (I am embarrassed to say), and see if I could understand the technique.

Well. Last week, my favorite knitting, now craft store, Purl (actually just my favorite store period) held a workshop with Natalie Chanin, the source of my fascination.
I am learning how to do it. Reverse applique, and there are other things to learn as well.
I can hardly wait. I am obsessed, I pour over the Alabama Chanin books (and website) wondering how I can take this stuff and make it mine! So far, I've embroidered 2 Purl totes and started to learn how to do this reverse applique on a tote bag kit (see photo).

All the sewing I use to do comes welling up inside me. My Mom taught me how to sew at a young age. 6 or 7, maybe sooner? I had a girl's Singer sewing machine in a bright shiny patent blue with tulips in pink and orange box. I made actual clothes on it. Really, jumpers, wrap around skirts, smocks. I still have the Singer (that weighs minimum 50 lbs) from 1977, when my Mom bought a 'real' one on a monthly payment plan. I used it for years and I haven't used in probably as many since. My Mom did my hand sewing (hems, zippers sometimes, snaps) for me back then. I had no patience. "Not yet," she would say, "later you'll enjoy it, it will be relaxing." Mom's do know.

Well, the feed and tension on the old Singer is a bit wonky, and to lug it to mid-town to get it fixed? Well, not yet. I do like the sewing by hand. All that knitting has prepared me. The sewing by hand does bring me back to a happier warm golden aspect of my childhood where my Mom and I related. I can clearly say that my Mom taught me how to sew. We didn't have Home Economics by the time I got to school age (I was robbed!), but my craftiness definitely comes from my mother's side as well as the southern part. My grandmother was amazing, whipping up evening gowns for my Mom for all the social butterfly things she attended, so my Mom told me. It was a long time ago, and the south; middle class people had events that required evening gowns.  Mother Cain taught me how to crochet, by my time she had stopped sewing. She made beautiful afghans. I have a couple and treasure them. Alabama Canin taps into that part of my life. Perhaps superficially (I am a 212 person born and raised), but this is the part of the south that is really wonderful, magical, human. It's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' not Faulkner.

So, sew, I am inspired, excited. All this possibility! 
I don't want to sound dire or be made to eat my words, but I think this is my oil spill, but in a good way. It just makes me gush with no end in sight
(not to be tasteless)

(no worries Ganesh making is going at a nice clip too)

Think Pink!

What is it about pink? A sigh of relief, a dash of hope,  a gush of emotion? Is it that it reminds us of a young thing, whether it be piglet or person? The hope of a new start? A pink that will deepen into a red, as the weather warms? I speak of the pink one sees in nature, not the pink that does not exist in nature, such as Barbie pink or Pepto Bismal pink. There is the unnatural pink that could be a bridge between the two....bubble gum pink.

Is it just a 'girl thing'. Perhaps not, in Italy, definitely in Rome, men wear pink shirts in the warm weather. It is also somewhat common in bicycle jerseys. Diana Vreeland said 'pink is the navy blue of India'. There is a lot of color there, pink can come off being neutral in comparision to all the masala colors.

What is it about pink? It's a color that is easy to love, is it as easy to dismiss? It is an emotional color, it is after all the beginning of red.