weather or not

don't like the weather in Cleveland?

wait five minutes...

magical colour at the Morgan [and some pix for Ma]

i have been staying in a wee treehouse here in Cleveland

and have made a friend just up the street

i asked my new friend if i could take some happy snaps for my Ma

and my new friend [who seems to be of the strong, silent type]

did not object

 

 

Fall is a splendid time of year to be making marks on paper

and what better place to be making those marks

than the renowned Morgan Conservatory?

they have the biggest dyepot i've ever seen

- it took two of us to lift it up onto the gas hob

the pot even has it's own wheelie thingummy to go underneath

in a shape i am most partial to.

[i had to restrain myself from attempting carparksurfing on it]

looking out the back we are surrounded by gorgeous industrial buildings

there is truly splendid brickwork here

all sorts of different brick bonds to be seen

i've spotted English Garden Wall bond and also Scottish Bond [similar to EGWB but with two extra rows of stretchers] which is [on this side of the puddle] called American Bond

 

and so we made colour

using bio-regional dye materials, most of them gathered outside the backdoor of the Morgan

with the inclusion of a gift from the Dogs Above

who had kindly arranged for a branch from a dark coloured Prunus

to be deposited on my doorstep

we had a small and nervous visitor

Tom Balbo kindly put him outside

more images can be found on Christine's pages and over at Lotta's

shifting shapes...and other things

i suspect most of the students of the Shapeshifter class

did not sleep much last night

all arrived with garments ready to bundle

one in particular is on a mission

meet Chelsey Green

who went to San Francisco on a brief vacation

a few weeks ago

decided it was where she needed to be

and was taking a couple of classes from me

on

her

way 

to live there

+++

i think you'll agree she will be appropriately dressed

i had a similar dream at 17

but it fizzled

wishing you stardust and sunshine, Chelsey

and a happy life in my favourite city!

bells and breezes in Bratenahl

curious?

there's more detail at Christine's blog here

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

unexpected paperwork

last night i absentmindedly used the Cleveland wandering map

[kindly provided by Christine]

as a coaster.

i didn't want the condensation running down the side of my glass

to mark the lovely floor in my treehouse

this morning i thought i might go for a wander

and went to dream over the map

which was thoroughly stuck together.

now when this kind of thing happens in the movies

[or when somebody goes to surreptitiously steam open correspondence not intended for their eyes]

they simply whip the offending item over the steaming kettle

and within seconds the problem is solved.

in this instance

the problem was DIS-solved

- clearly the producers of the map have designed it to decompose quickly in the event of irresponsible tourists dropping said item in the Cleveland landscape.

note to students in the up-coming paperdye class : if you were thinking of bringing a local map to include in your work, don't.

stick with undyed, unprinted papers please...

more cleveland

i am so fortunate to be in the hands of the superbly capable momma bear extraordinaire

Christine Mauersberger.

who not only organised four classes in Cleveland

found me a tree house

hung my exhibition [guided by handwritten notes from a cardboard box]

is fixing delicious lunches

collected me from the rental car depot [and has ferried me all over, even diverting for coffee in the mornings]

and today took The Precious

[the youngest of The Three] to the airport, so she could head back to dance school in Oz.

not content with all that

she gave The Precious an exquisite blouse on which there were many beautiful stitches.

sigh.

[i could become seriously accustomed to this rockstar lifestyle]

that picture is a tad gloomy

here's a better look

meanwhile the students were beavering away

good times.

great students in the class

and

loved catching up with Lotta and Kelly again

cleveland

the fall foliage is glorious here in Cleveland

as are the stars underfoot

the Dogs Above have smiled upon us and

our dyed samples flutter like prayerflags in the breeze

the squirrels have left us a few walnuts

the challenge was to combine

a walnut + cloth + string

and see what happened.