being [t]here

leaving New Orleans was hard

but other work awaits

my two week artist residency at the Joan Mitchell Center

was extremely fruitful in many ways

and a few seeds for future projects were planted

meanwhile

back in Scotland

Tracey was working hard on the editing of our film

which is now done

and can be seen here

i will be back in Scotland next year

presenting a class i have entitled 'being [t]here'

which will be my only UK workshop in 2014

[because the calendar is full, not with teaching but with other commitments]

humming happily

i'm humming along happily in New Orleans

as a guest of the Joan Mitchell Center

working on a project for an exhibition next year

under the supervision of an old friend

the silk for the project was a kind donation

from my longtime friends at Beautiful Silks

and i have the offer of back-up studio space at NOCCA 

through my lovely friend Nikki Jackson

+

one thing often

leads to another

 and when i need a break from stitching

music is never far away

later on, wandering home

i step into a flower shop

and am given another present

a twig of Eucalyptus polyanthemos

which, oddly enough

was just what i needed

 

the work:life balance

 

 +

 

 

colour literally gathered from the gutters

we haven't had to look far

for beautiful colours here at Maiwa

they are literally drifting to the ground from 

local trees [within 200 yards of the dye studio]

no adjunct mordants are being used

just

leaves and water

paper and cloth

+

i am having a splendid time

[i do hope they ask me back]

backtracking

 

 

there have been some sweet "reviews" of late...

from Christi

and Susan

and

Suzanna

and even from Maiwa

i'm getting quite pink around the ears.

fortunately

my host is letting me cook chowder

[i'm afraid i messed up the kitchen a bit]

which helps prevent too much going to my head.

+

today in class

we took an hour

to focus on one leaf

each of us working with one

and

examining how it looked

and felt

how it sounded

and smelled

and writing down what that leaf evoked for us

before bundling it into a dyepot

the pix above are student work from today

the single leaf reverence bundles

will be opened tomorrow...

at Maiwa

i left Lopez with considerable reluctance

but warmed by the comforting thought that

i will be back. it really feels like another home.

it's a rare thing to feel so compatible with hosts you've only just met

that it doesn't feel at all out of the ordinary to be sitting over the remains of dinner

reading poetry to each other

and comparing pocket music libraries

+

it was a very good time

thank you Christi

and Patsy & John Sangster

and all my lovely students

the train journey up the coast

was truly beautiful

through dazzling scenery

+

now i'm teaching at Maiwa

[again being thoroughly pampered by my kind hosts]

and there is rather a lot of magic emanating from the dyepots

the pavements provided a clue

as to potentially useful material

prunus leaves

literally scraped out of the gutters

the magic of maple

dogwood over prunus over cotoneaster

and good old sugar maple strutting her stuff

my list of special places is growing

i think i may have accidentally nibbled on a pomegranate

metaphorically speaking

leaving is going to be hard

but before i go

i promised the kind folk at the South End Restaurant

that i would mention them in dispatches

in case other visitors to the island want to play it safe

and eat delicious things that are not pomegranates

drop in here to see what they offer

Lopez Island

i have loved the idea of islands

ever since i was a small child devouring Arthur Ransome's stories

about the Swallows and Amazons who

sailed to Wildcat Island

and waged war against pirates

i think Lopez Island might be a grown-up version

of that childhood dream

 

 

and at the end of the working day

a small and secret cove beckons

where

i can imagine the two-masted red-sailed schooner

[that i once saw pass under the Golden Gate Bridge]

might anchor at sunset...

+