A hertz-felt thanks

I went west for a few days

after we had finished our class at Newburgh
and I had committed the Bundle Book to Blurb

I needed some thinking space

to sort a few things out

quiet time in wind and rain and sun to mull over things

to smell the heather

and to gaze into deep waters

and to rearrange small pieces of the whirled
while considering new ideas for classes
and pondering different ways of presenting

it was a splendid wandering : made even more enjoyable by Hertz who upgraded my very basic four-door reservation to this glorious chariot.  

I named him Wolfgang and the keys had to be prised from my fingers when we parted at Edinburgh airport. He purred along for over 400 miles on a scant half tank of diesel

I even managed to write a small poem.
it was a very productive time.
and thenI found that the Australian Embassy in Lisboa
kindly mentioned our exhibition
on their website
which pleased me very much

the missing page

there was one more page i wanted to include in the recently published book of student work
but
for some reason i had filed it as 'z.doc', i suppose because i intended it to be the last page
and then
it got lost in the electronic filing system.

but as they say in the old country
"wer suchet, der findet"
and today i found the page so here is the text it would have contained.

I have on many occasions also been a student and would like to acknowledge and thank those who taught me. I wish I could remember all of your names but alas, age hath wearied and the years condemned...and some of the detail has become fuzzy with time.

But here’s a spirited attempt to list at least some of you :

Mrs Pownall [Nature Studies, Shelford CEGGS, Melbourne]

Mrs Williams [English and History, PLC, Melbourne]

Michael Peake [Art, Heathfield High School]

Nalda Searles [string theory]

Karen Diadick Casselman [lichenologist and dyer]

Dorothy Caldwell [textiles]

Christopher Orchard [storyteller and magician of charcoal]

Helen Carnac [enamellist]

Robin Best [ceramicist]

Julian Roberts [fashion]

Roz Hawker (metal magic)

Velma Bolyard (shifu)
Sandra Brownlee (notebooks that beg to be held)

John Kelley (my sax teacher)

Naomi Shihab Nye [poet]

John Schenk [Architect]

David Thomson [nurseryman]

Karoly Szabo [nurseryman]

Bob Blows  [nurseryman]

Tex [whose “real” name is lost but who was a stylish and erudite Professor in the Architecture Department at the University of Adelaide in the 70s]

Victor MacFarlane [Professor of Anatomy, University of Adelaide]

Brian Grigg [human encyclopaedia of sheep]

Arthur Phillips [watercolourist]
Joyce Schulz (milliner, cocktail appreciator and philanthropist)

Nikki Jackson [the miracle of the trashcan kiln]

Nancy Harford (interior designer, collector and passionate "liver of life")

...and of course my entire family, that goes without saying

+  +  +  +  +

i feel much happier now that's done.

in fact, i look a lot like i do in this picture, shot by the fabulous Haley Renee

Ruskin Mill, so beautiful i simply had to share

my walk to work takes me past an exquisite woven fence

where the bumble bees hang out

it's going to be an excellent year for elderberries

 luminous clematis

 fields of flowers

hanging rocks

paving that reminds me of home

enormous trout lurking in calcium-rich water

[the green is a clue]

intriguing people in the forest

[very quiet.]

buildings that look as if they are literally growing from the ground

and a fabulous place to work.

the studio is behind that semi-circular window

+ + +

and at the end of the day

there is a very friendly cat

 

local colour in California

i've just finished teaching two classes in northern California

though only a couple of hours apart [in terms of travel time]

the colours we achieved were radically different

buckeye or California horse chestnut [Aesculus californica], a cousin of the conker [Aesculus hippocastanum]

at lovely Inverness, the local colour for May is very definitely green

from buckeye, wild carrot, nettles and ferns

punctuated by luminous reds and oranges from eucalyptus

[plants which can also be found there, though they don't belong]

...and a few slices of purple carrot 

inland [plotting a course east by north-east] at Loomis

the climate is warmer despite the higher altitude

and the flowering season well advanced on that of the coast

purple prunus abounded and eucalyptus flourish [weed-like] all over the place

 

 

the thread that ran through both classes

[and which runs through them all i think, no matter where they are

or what the exact focus of the class]

is the warmth and community that we share

when we retreat from the busy-ness of the whirled 

to bundle cloth and settle down to stitch

for however many [or few] precious days we have set aside

thank you 

Emma and Sharon at the Tin Thimble ["that could"]

Claudia and Pam [the Gorgeous Grau Sisters]

and all my lovely warm-hearted and enthusiastic students

for welcoming me to northern California

+   +   +

where i am also able to indulge another passion

architecture of the Art Deco period

somewhere just to the left of the middle

here in Sedona, Arizona

there are lots of junipers

some interesting oaks [i think the one i spotted was Quercus turbinella]

hills that look like painted backdrops on movie lots

and many red stones

the houses look as though they might be adobe

but when you get close enough to tap the walls

they sound hollow. that ain't no mud.

drifting along highway 89a after work the other night

i noticed some radical pruning [ie to ground height]

of the roses in front of the Red Planet Diner

so i liberated some of the leaves

warming ever more to Cleveland

i'm daily warming more and more to Cleveland

it's a wonderful place with an incredible diversity of interesting architecture

[this one looked to me to have Louis Sullivan's style, reminding me strongly of the Wainwright Building in St Louis]

there are masses of beautiful trees [even a 'Latvian Garden' which has a sculpture called Mara's Akmens - meaning Mara's Stone - that happily for me shares a name with my godmother]

then there's that lovely lake that changes colour seemingly by the minute

and fabulously friendly people [even at the bank] who offered heartfelt personal welcomes to their town

today Christine Mauersberger kindly drove me around 

so we could run a few errands together before the Shapeshifter class begins tomorrow

and gather a few more supplies [but this below wasn't one of them]

Heinen's at Rocky River blessed us with an abundance of bouquets

i visited the whirled renowned Morgan Conservatory to have a look at the workshop area prior to our class there next week

and i fell in love with yet another rusty bridge

and found poetry nearby

with my initials in it

meet me in St Louis

i was in the woods

and now i'm in St Louis

perched in a room overlooking the old Union Station

the evening light here is beautiful

the architecture is amazing

there are some things they prefer you not to do

and interesting things underfoot

squirrels scamper in the parks and fireflies dance in the twilight.

in our class we have students from all over the US gathering at Craft Alliance for four days of dyeing and stitching.

oddly i was so busy with them today that i completely forgot to take photos...

________________________________________________


ps. a few people kindly made notes about the exhibition of my work at the Katherine Nash Gallery [showing until the end of June]

here are some links

Wen Redmond

Deidre Adams

Lesley Turner

and the latter also put up some nice images of the Minneapolis windfall cloth