Summer in the Studio and Stalking Chipmunks

I wandered around the garden with my camera a bit today, realizing that I 

was speaking to you. So it seemed that I might need to write a post, as 

the many stories of my days are piling up and some are too old to want to tell here. 

Its been a very full month. I can say with confidence that I was more social these 

few weeks than during the years I spent dreaming and manifesting the new 

studio. Gatherings, my dear friend Katja's wedding, the Daughters of the Earth Gathering, and genrally making a point to see friends filled me up while 

the heat, humidity and mold spores flattened me. I even found time to 

work in the studio where I explored the continuing theme of light and branching 

in the forest. I worked with a bit more layering of branching over the atmospheric 

washes and bleeding this time which I especially like in the top drawing. 

Full days in the studio began with writing in my journal, sinking into the space 

and listening to the sounds of the forest. Often I shift into drawing spirals. I 

now have a sketchbook dedicated to them, and recently words have been 

spilling out onto the bottom of the page. 

The words above are:

Listening to the wind today....

So many stories float by in the infinite. 

I am called to presence

watching the dance of tall grasses.  

Here the words are: 

It can't be long, can it be? 

Until hearts are shattered into a million pieces 

and the shining 

can begin. 

( I wonder about the punctuation here, but left it as that is how I wrote it)

I framed two of the drawings and hung them. They are some of the

first things I have committed to hanging on the pristine walls. 

Pasha has figured out how to come in through the bug screens,

and must check in throughout the day on breaks from stalking chipmunks

nearby.  Stalking is an exhausting pursuit, he tells me, and short naps on the 

studio chair are needed to keep going. 

A dear student, Sarah Pollock, sent me a sample of some of the 

ecodyeing she has been continuing with after I introduced her 

to all of you amazing fiber folks out there. She learned so 

much from all of you and especially India Flint, of course, 

who inspired her to no end! Below is her cloth which is 

now hanging in the studio... I know only that that one 

wonderful stripe is a rusty pipe. I think it relates quite well 

to the forest theme here!

With more expansiveness to my days recently, I decided to finally 

re-organize my upstairs, and especially my bedroom. I'm not sure 

how it happend that I hadn't completely settled in there even though 

I moved here in 2003. I found a wonderful old, wicker rocking chair on 

Craigs List - an online listing of all kinds of stuff for sale, trade or sometimes even 

for free! The rocker wasn't free, but it was a very good bargain at 

$40. Better still, I love it and so does Pasha. 

I framed a couple of older forest drawings and hung them, 

Found a table, finished it and now have a nice place at 

the foot of my bed for important things like sticks and stones.

 I think I am close to a decision about wall color - a light ochre...  

 My constant companion has been very relieved that my travels 

of late last only a few days. He very much enjoys when Boo or Kessie come 

to visit him while I'm away, but he would much rather visit outside than 

in. I'm starting to get the message, too, that he isn't always fond 

of the camera pointing at him.  

Lastly, I've been watching the slow transformation of a lovely 

spider web on a downstairs window. I can't help notice the 

relationship to my spiral drawings. The last image is quite 

a magical doorway to travel through, I think....

A Spiral Beginning

The time comes when one must begin - even when feeling resistance, 

uncertainty, lack of clarity - one simply must begin. 

For that to happen, I know by now, means I must go to the studio and do something. 

I know I've written about this before here. It almost doesn't matter what I do, but 

I must go and know that I am easing into something... I tell myself I can explore, 

write, look at books, arrange things on shelves, sit and drink tea... wait. 

This is my strategy and it works. Eventually I notice something, like a whisper, as 

little by little my work speaks to me, and I begin. 

I've fantasized about being a person who has a rigid routine, where month in and 
month out, I'd know where to be when. But there is an organic ebb and flow to my
art making as it is just one thread in a rich tapestry that is my work. Each thread contributes to the colorful whole, and there is cross-pollination - singing inspires a 
story, teaching inspires a painting, painting inspires a ritual, a walk inspires me to write. The stewarding of the forest and the growing of flowers provides the wind and the insects who, of course, are the main cross-pollinators. 

So I took myself to the studio, journal in hand, to begin. I swept fallen flower 

petals from the floor, re-arranged my inspiration shelves, looked at books and 

images pinned to boards. I sat and wrote in my lovely journal by Oberon Design

- a gift to myself at Christmas that I have been coveting for years. I'm glad I 

waited a few years as they now make a cover sized for Moleskins journals that 

suits me perfectly. 

 

 I spent a moment to admire the variation of zipper patterns on shells, 

and to listen to the conversations between things and in the wind. 

  

One day I started to draw. I played with spirals in atmospheres/ 

I don't much like the results, but something was learned, 

and, most importantly, a dialog has begun. 

Late one afternoon, I returned from the studio, to discover that a pair 

of juncos made a spiral piece of their own, much too close to the front 

door. I wasn't sure what to do about this as they were rather 

alarmed when I opened the door. After much delibration, 

and seeing that the basket was hanging by a thread, I quickly 

tied a new string loop and hung the basket higher and away from 

the door a tiny bit. But they haven't been back. Its late 

anyway, maybe they were just practicing their weaving?  

Pollen is bursting out of the helenium, and plenty of 

bugs are working hard to spread the bounty around. 

Though beautiful outside, last week was so hot that niether of us 

here - the two legged or the four legged - got much done except to find 

the places outside with the most shade and air movement for napping. We're 

both enjoying the cooler days now, but tomorrow I'll be doing a rain 

dance to attract the thunderstorms which are forecast to be traveling about.

Monday update: Rain last night throughout the night! More predicted here 

and there in the week. We need it. I guess I did a rain dance in my sleep, 

along with many others.  

The Medicine of Home

A cool breeze carrying the scent of purple petunias snakes past my toes. I've 

shut off the music to listen to the evening songs of Hermit Thrushes and 

Robins and watch the breath-like movement of the canopy against a blue-gray 

sky. My breath is slow and even and I finally feel a deep sense of calm - I am 

home in the cool forest, the studio is finished, the opening festival has come and

gone and I think just maybe I can begin to find my natural rhythm and flow again.  

I see that it has been about a month since my last post - back when the forest 

was lush and full of salamanders and gleaming with moisture. With plentiful spring 

rains, the foxgloves grew high on one side of the old studio, and the lupine 

on the other.

In the moss garden, a stone bunny shelters in the low growth, and somewhere 
in the forest, Pasha found a bunny-family and brought me a few. The first one 
was quite dead, an offering dropped on the Persian carpet with great pride. 

The following day, he came dashing in and dropped a live bunny at my feet. 
I whisked her up and into a box and still in my bathrobe drove down the road to 
let her find a new home near the field. 

It seemed that June (and maybe April and May, too) was full of dashing about 
preparing for this and that, with less time for art-making and forest-dreaming and 
more than the usual amount of stress and anxiety and goings-on. The day after 
Solstice, I ran off to Florida to help my mother when she returned from the hospital 
after major surgery. It was to be for a week, but ended up being two: a gift 
that my not-so-mainstream life-style allowed. Mum is doing quite well, but 
recovery is slow and intense and has its ups and downs. 

Shortly after my arrival, tropical storm "Debby" came whirling in bringing a week 

of rain and tornadoes and a bit of anxiety. Eventually the sun came back out,  

and the duckies put on their sunglasses and hung out at the pool. There was little 
time to explore the jungle around the house, but I did steal a moment with my 
father for the tour. 

Entering the garden through the arbor, one is met with the smell 

of jasmine and gardenia and little geckos scurrying away. 

 Tall laurel oaks and live oaks support climbing plants,

and twining vines and bands of happy blue jays.

My favorite place is occupied by a magnificent stand of bamboo. 

Silhoutted in the morning light, it was a joy to awaken to everyday.  

My proud Dad leads the tour, and I'm amazed at how much work he has done 

here since my visit last year. We share a deep love of the land - and of creating 

beauty with plants and stones. A shame there are no stones in Florida for him 

to place here and there as he did in Massachusetts, but maybe better for his back! 

Beautiful scented shrubs and flowers and strange succulents 

clinging to coral, birds of paradise, palms and passionflowers fill 

this small garden, as well as orange, grapefruit and banana trees. 

At the far edge of the garden, a moss covered pine marks the boundary. 

I love the draping of the Spanish Moss, but Dad says its a bit to raggedy looking 

for him. 

Back at RavenWood, the garden is dry and thirsty. Little rain has fallen in 

the two weeks I was away and a few favorite plants died. Still there are plenty 

of well established plants in the right soil that are thriving, and happiest of all 

are the native plants.  

One thriving and very happy native is Pasha -kitty. For a kitty who is rarely 

ever inside, he endured the longest time on house-arrest ever! He had visitors 

to feed him, visitors to play with him and even one to do some writing so he 

wouldn't be alone one day. I wasn't sure how I would be greeted when I returned, 

but it was the sweetest purr-fest ever!

The luna moths have gone, replaced by other moths - but none so spectacular. 
Without much rain, evenings are quiet without the singing tree frogs. Even the cricket
hum is strangely low. I'm anxious to get into the studio and see what emerges and 
to wander amongst the trees with Pasha to sit with the stones and drink the wild
forest medicine. I appreciate the lush beauty of Florida - the fragrant flowers and 
amazing birds - but I belong to this land of mosses and hemlocks and pools of still
waters. I'm happy to be home to watch the garden grow for a while.