peregrinations in Portugal

I've never been to this beautiful country before 

but

it's already on my returns list

and

next time 

I need to know more words than just

saudade & obrigada

there are stones to play with

i've hung my dresses in this castle

surrounded by Sally Stafford's beautiful paintings

   

a fierce guard dog keeps watch on the castle steps

   

the light is so clear you could cut and butter it

and tonight

our exhibition opens

see y'all there?

time out

after the giddy excitement of having my work accepted 

by a rather lovely store in Los Angeles

it was good to retreat 

to the woods and shores of Haystack in order to be a quiet student

thinking about traces and marks

under the guidance of Helen Carnac

the weather varied from almost tropical

to cool fogs and mists

there was time to walk barefoot in the woods

and to eat wild strawberries

i will admit to cooking up the odd brew after hours

there were lovely rust marks on the steel plate

that appeared overnight after i left some fern fronds 

resting on it

light-and-shadow drawings

and the enchanting Maine coast landscape, those rocks

perfect for drawing and dreaming in the daytime

and

at night, the best place to lie back companionably

gazing up at the heavens and the shooting stars

or marvelling at the fireflies below

all the while listening to the lick and curl, slap and splash 

of the incoming tide meeting the small waterfall

that chuckled its way down the hill

through the bog

and out from under the tree roots

to the rocks and the shore

+  +  +

i filled an entire journal

stitching in extra pages

and

even having to let out its waistband

eucalyptus uses + studio placements

the genus eucalyptus yields so much more than just dyes

timber, honey, paper, oil

and

a very useful trick for cleaning rust from tools

i bought this lovely implement when i was working on costumes

in Yamaguchi, Japan

nearly seven years ago

it had been lost for some while

and then i found it again. rusty and in need of care

so

knowing that eucalyptus leaves yield acids and oils when heated in water

and that those acids work to assist a rust reduction whereby the red rust

[ferrous oxide] which is quite hard

is turned black and soft [ferric oxide] and is then easy to remove from the tool

i boiled up my little cutter in eucalyptus and water

after tying some string around the handle in case of accidental patterning

[those are not my paws]

after an hour or so

the blade was as black as its shadow

so i dried it and honed it

greased it with lanolin from a scrap of wool

and waxed the handle

so now it's as good as new

+    +    +

which brings me to the second part of this post.

studio placement.

it's the time of year when i am deluged with requests from people who want to come and stay so that in a few short weeks i can teach them everything i know. they say that in return they will help me with my work.
it's kind of y'all to offer

but
i already have all the help i can handle

 and in case you were wondering

the liquid left over from cleaning the tool

...perfect as an iron-rich mordant.

Blue Monday

I  borrowed the title of this post from legendary musician Mr Fats Domino

[born and raised in the 9th ward -

a short crow flight to the east from where i am working now]

after finding a very pleasant surprise in a bundle this morning.

the berries of Solanum nigrum [a "nightshade" but not to be confused with Atropa belladonna, "deadly nightshade" which is distinguished by its mauve striped flowers] yielded a delightful blue print. at home in Australia i've not had such good results, mostly achieving greens or muddy purples, suspect it's something in the water...

a lot of which fell from the skies yesterday, leaving mud to play in

evidence of much higher waters some seven years ago

in the washed out railtracks

that constitute my happy hunting ground

it being such a good Monday i made it even better

by wandering along to one of my favourite eating houses

[Schiro's, corner of StRoch and Royal]

for the traditional New Orleans Monday dish

red beans and rice

 which proved the perfect internal fortification

for cycling home in pleasantly warm rain in the afternoon

+++

those words of wisdom above

found in the window of a metal fabricators

on Royal

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

the usual

dyeing cloth

stacking stones

revering rust

a good day

 

tomorrow i'm heading north

like this little chap