september one, lived twice

the journey begins oddly

filled with portents and signs

all too curious to mention

and best not taken seriously

(but they'll be in my novel)

even the man whose eyes tear up

because i remind him of his mother 

which i think may just have been

the effect of too much inflight firewater

otherwise it makes me old

and possibly also dead

after thirteen or so hours aloft

we reach the California coast

blanketed in fog except for

one significant hill above Pescadero

the sight of which always kicks my heart into gear

leaving SFO the taxi driver asks me if i have had any

terrifying experiences in the air

nothing too awful i say

which is his cue to launch into a litany

of gut-wrenching near disasters   

negotiating my release i 

take my encumbrances to the welcome center

where for a financial consideration they 

relieve me of my physical burdens for the day

outside the pavements swell and

roll under my feet - fortunately it is

not the earth, quaking, but my body

set to vibrate mode by the hours of fettered 

rumbling, strapped to a seat

in the flying sardine can

i have things to collect today

some materials for class

a large bag of unruly thoughts 

a ring, and some made-to-measure workboots.

the latter have turned out rather too small

or maybe it is just me, too big for my boots

which could be another sign.
maybe next time cos
good things take time

further up the same street at Macchiarini's

the doorbell won't ring, no pun intended 

but the ring i have come to receive

is truly beautiful with a moonstone

like a drop of Bay water balancing on

a beaten band that looks as though it has been 

pulled from the rubble of a burning building

and so is exactly what i had hoped for.

i do the usual round of favourite places

get my coffee at Trieste, sit awhile on Russian Hill

wander to the park above Fort Mason

snack on cheese under the gum trees there

then walk back to collect my luggage

and drag it across town, giggling inwardly at

the comments that passers-by feel entitled to articulate,

of which the loudest and most critical, oddly enough,

are made by those who share my first language.

they have no idea they are so generously

giving me laughter therapy

and i resist the temptation to say

"schönen Tag, noch!" 

train stations are no longer the romantic places

depicted in Brief Encounter

or in films about Anna Karenina

the temporary transBay terminal is a holding room

for souls desperate to be elsewhere and

the station at Emeryville even more so

where the vending machines make wild promises

but will only sullenly disgorge diet pepsi

filthy stuff that is strictly for cleaning copper

though, once used for that purpose, has impressive 

mordant qualities

i find a tourist map and mark my day on it in thick black pencil

eventually the train pulls in and we fall aboard

i tip myself gratefully into my tiny sleeping closet 

and give myself up to Morpheus for what seems like days

though only a few hours later i awake as we are 

passing through mist-covered desert spiked with piñon and juniper

and wonder if i'm in the right state

then water on which sunlight flashes and blinks

perhaps the merpeople have forgotten to turn their twinkle lights off

somewhere else a broken umbrella hangs batlike

from a bush on the side of a cutting

in Portland i look up and down river as we cross the Willamette

looking for the iron bridge...then realise we are on it

except for the garbled announcements over the tannoy

(there is a special training centre for railway announcers,

run by somebody who teaches them how to 

make announcements in a Turkish accent. 

the same school also supplies the people for 

the Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia)

the Seattle train station is like stepping through 

a time machine into another era

or like stepping deep inside an angel-food cake 

for a white wedding with all the trimmings

i choose the easy way out

and though a braver woman might have 

tackled further public transport

rain is imminent and so i take a taxi.

the driver is old-fashioned and reassures himself 

as to our destination by the simple means of leafing 

through an actual street directory, though i have explained that 

i am heading for a helltell overlooking the ferry dock just

across from Whidbey Island. kindly (and perhaps unusually)

he only switches on the meter after he has closed his book

72 hours give or take a quarter after leaving home 

i enter a room that is not moving and discover to my delight 

that not only does it overlook water, but the doors can actually

be opened wide to the whirled outside

i drift off to the crash of waves and wake at dawn to flat calm

in the distance a ferry hovers in a silver cloud

seabirds stitch their songs across the place where the sealine might be

if it were clear

it's only September 3 but i feel as though i have lived a week 

since the month began

had September 1 twice

and will lose the equinox to the international dateline

but that

will be another story

because now i am here

re-reading a marvellous book i bought at Shakerag in 2010

and soon i shall be 'being (t)here'

but on Whidbey Island, and with slightly longer hair

+      

if you've managed to reach the bottom of the page and would like to read something more important

then you could go here

simple beauty

celebrating the month of twinkle lights and Sagittarian birthdays by giving y'all a present.

leafprinting in a nutshell.

simple is beautiful.

and it's as simple and beautiful as that.

but

if you'd like to go deeper

i would of course be delighted if you'd buy the Bundle Book

or

attend a class sometime

(there's one on Sunday at Poet's Ode)

and while we're on the subject of beautiful

i've gathered together the words you kindly gave

put them in italics and begun to acquaint them with others

there are so many different paths that might be followed,

here is the first one that ensued.

i try for kindness

though i am restless

and would rather meander

through luscious gardens

with time to ponder

the meaning of bespoke

with gratitude

despite confusion

hoping for an epiphany

 with zeal

 and love

never losing hope

for serenity

and connectedness

awaiting the dawning

and the murmur of magic

that particular moment

in which to advocate joy

for now

i fly

mindful

up and beyond

seeking peace

in the precious dusk

fearless 

thank you for sending me these seeds of writing.

words words words

i love words

i keep a bowlful in the studio at home

to dip into

and to play with

when far from home i choose words with my eyes shut from whatever publication is to hand

and i learned (from poet Naomi Shihab Nye in a "new works" session at Haystack) that one of many delightful ways to begin a piece of writing is to harvest a collection of phrases from books randomly selected from an available shelf and then begin to dance with the words

in recent years i have begun classes by asking participants to write down their favourite word of the moment (never fear, it won't be set in concrete and i don't ask people to read it aloud or write it on their foreheads in lipstick...and it's likely to be something quite different in five minutes)

then the words are put into a vessel

(boat, bowl, bag)

along with a few others

and then we each take a lucky dip and begin to write 

the word that repeats itself time after time for me is

loved

what's your favourite word today?

a confession - with a postscript

i've been feeling very bad 

on the last day of my class in Vancouver I was given a card from my students

i put it away to read later because my attention was being called to something in the next room

thought i had gathered it up with the papers from the clothesline 

and have been looking for it ever since

so if there was something in it that i haven't responded to

it's not because i am ignoring you

it's because i've lost it

and i'm sorry

that's all. 

not quite all

am delighted to say that as i was packing for the Mansfield workshop series...the card magically appeared (from a place i had looked in before) and so all is well. i could have deleted this post but hey i figured it might as well stay

+
 

sniffing the wind

it's been an interesting month or two. life's bowled me a few wobblies including the unexpected passing of an old friend - i shan't bore you with the rest of them other than to speculate that i suppose it's the whirled's way of keeping us on our toes. in theory i should already be at the Observatory, cataloging the Solace pennants ready for installation but there are just a few more things to sort out here and then we can be off to the North in a couple of days.

in the meantime, for the first time in a very long time, i have actually cooked something from a recipe (as opposed to hurling various ingredients together and hoping they will be friends).

the formula for Lemon Delicious was kindly supplied by Mary after i tasted her fabulous pudding at dinner last week. i will confess to browning the butter in advance (remember I'm half Latvian) and to only having panela in the pantry (the recipe calls for white sugar) which threw the colour of the mix a bit but it tasted a good deal better than it looked. 

i served it with lemon butter, a translucent smear of marmalade (thank you Mary), a sprig of lemon verbena and a dob of sour cream. unfortunately when plating I wobbled with the spoon and covered the whole thing with sauce thus accidentally obscuring the lovely brown crust. it's not quite so light as the original but you know the old line about getting to Carnegie Hall...practice.

this week i also visited Treasure Ships, an enormous exhibition at the AGSA. after my recent foray into curating i was doubly awed by the work that has gone into deciding what should go where. happily for the curators, the makers of the works are long passed and thus unlikely to query the display of their work... some of the exquisite block-printed and mordant-painted cloths are affixed to the walls at well over head height and so cannot be clearly seen at all. 

but that's a small quibble. 

 

rather than paraphrasing the media release...i'll paste a bit of it in.

" The works reveal how the international trade in spices and other exotic commodities inspired dialogue between Asian and European artists, a centuries old conversation whose heritage is the aesthetic globalism we know today.

[...]

The exhibition commences with the small country of Portugal. Located on the periphery of Europe, Portugal re-mapped the West’s view of the world and created a mercantile spice empire stretching halfway around the globe during the fifteenth-sixteenth century. In 1498 Vasco Da Gama’s small fleet became the first European ships to reach India and landed with the famous words, ‘we come in search of Christians and spices’.  Within a decade the Portuguese soldier –aristocrat Francisco de Almeida (1450-1510) had ruthlessly seized control of the Indian Ocean spice trade and established Portugal’s permanent presence in Asia which was to last four hundred years.

Treasure Ships also presents the story of exploration and trade, discovery and shipwrecks, as well as illustrating the astonishing beauty of Chinese porcelain, known as ‘white gold’, and vibrant Indian textiles created for export around the world."

there's a particularly amusing Japanese painting of a group of Portuguese in which each one of the men depicted has the same enormous nose (as my companion pointed out with a small giggle). clearly the artist was fascinated by a prominently protruding Portuguese proboscis and painted it onto each face. practice makes perfect.

the relics above were retrieved from the wreck of the Batavia. the gunpowder canister at the top is made from copper and i can cheerfully envisage bundling cloth and leaves around it. happily it is under glass and therefore safe.

while we're talking of voyaging and wanderment i'm delighted to say the itinerary for the long-dreamed of wandering to New Mexico has been confirmed. i've been corresponding with Arts and Cultural Travel for some time now and it's looking as though some kind of adventure (but not necessarily the same story each time) with them may become an annual event. i certainly hope so.

here's the link to the very first one. (i'm told one eager soul has already signed up so that leaves 11 places)

and finally, for your amusement and because i've been getting the usual seasonal requests for internship (please let me come and stay with you so you can teach me everything you know during my summer break) and last month had rather a lot from students frantically trying to put together a conclusive body of work (i want to print leaves on my final collection, will you tell me how) and a couple along the lines of "i'm starting a fashion business please tell me which fabrics to use and what dyes and mordants you would recommend for them" (no, i'm not joking) i have been having to compose kind-but-firm letters in response.

as some of you know i do respond, albeit briefly, to questions where possible, but sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. Austin Kleon has gathered an amusing collection of letters composed by famous people facing far greater deluges of correspondence.

re-treat to Tin Can Bay

seven days ago i fell out of bed at 4am to catch an early flight to Queensland where i was met at the airport, given a cosy corner in a comfy back seat and (between snoozing and waking and a delicious lunch) transported further north. 

by the time we reached Tin Can Bay i had been very firmly asleep (and quite possibly making bear noises) for at least twenty minutes - waking/arriving and wandering across to this view had a rather dreamlike quality to it

it was Roz's idea to offer a retreat at Tin Can Bay - she's been familiar with the area for over thirty years, so her offering to share the magic was particularly kind. i had only been there once before, for one night some five years ago. this was to be as big an adventure for me as for the others who joined us there.

i've long had an affinity for tidal areas but have come away with a new love...mangroves.

 everything about them is beautiful...the way their long seed pods line up in the waves

the tidelines drawn by their crumbling leaves (punctuated by more recently fallen leaves toasted orange in the sun)

the seedlings growing from well-fallen seed pods that have managed to plunge their way into the mudflats and take root

while other roots fingered their way upward from beneath

drawing another story on the sand

this was a time to wander

consider

experiment

sample

be still

and listen

and though participants drew, painted and wrote

made bowls, bundles and bags
for me the important thing about the days spent there was not the production of finished objects
but the intangibles
the things that cannot be quantified, described in words, photographed or sketched
seeds that were sown to sprout and bloom, who knows where, who knows when. rather like the mangroves.

so i will hand the last word to Bill
whose writing is as fresh as when the ink first dried on the page so many years ago...
these found by chance through randomly opening a page in a book acquired by one of our number on the first leg of the journey homeward.

chance is a fine thing

 

when i consider that i could as easily have been manifested as a morsel of moondust, a custard pie...or a cockroach...i remember [despite the odd dark moment when i reach for a combination of exercise, chocolate and a zinc supplement to drive away depression] just how fortunate i am to have taken the form of a human bean instead.

even if that form was not endowed with the talents of such as Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren or Judi Dench and had its thespian aspirations thoroughly quashed by being cast as a walk-on witch in no less than three successive school productions.

but back to the bean.

it was a matter of chance that two people [both from European families but different countries of origin that had been displaced as a result of the misplaced ambitions of an Austrian housepainter] happened to meet on the other side of the whirled at Melbourne University over half a century ago.

and that despite being ridiculously young at the time they plunged headlong into parenthood.

one of the two has since been re-absorbed by the universe. the other is still with us. she has a birthday on Thursday.

you might like to pop over and wish her a happy one.

i'm pretty sure she'd be quite chuffed [i would].

clicking on the image below will take you there

and the winners are

thank you all 153 of you who wrote to enter the tsunobukuro give away

the three lucky winners personally selected by Yoda-san [above] were: 

Monique Risch, Violeta Calzada and Kirsty Faulds

and afterward he very helpfully did this [below]

i have tried to answer all of your emails individually but about half a dozen bounced back for various reasons and some wanted me to register as an acceptable address [too much registering!]
but
i have done my best
so if you didn't hear from me
it was not for lack of trying!

only a few hours to go

if those of you who purchase the bundle book

[and those who have already bought it]

email me a copy of your receipt

then

i will make a lucky dip

choose three names from a tsunobukuro bag

and send a hand-embellished ecoprint tsunobukuro bag

to each of those three people

if you happen to mention the book on your blog or facebook

[and send me the link]

you will receive a bonus entry for each separate site on which you do so

entries will only be accepted via this email address

wanderbear[at]gmx[dot]com

last two chances to fly

i love it when somebody puts their hand up to organise a workshop
it means i don't have to do it
my skills lie elsewhere, though i'm getting quite good at finding reasonable value airtickets

having already embarassed myself by emailing someone from the waitlist twice
and being slightly pink around the gills
i am not going to attempt another rummage there
but simply tell you that

a couple of places have become available for the Second Skin class at Mansfield, Victoria [Australia]
in November this year

November 11,12,13, in fact.

here are the details


-->

Join me at Mansfield in Victoria’s beautiful High Country for a three-day retreat during which you will make and dye a beautiful and versatile Silkymerino  secondskin to keep you warm while wandering, together with an exquisite hand-stitched bag in which to carry it with you on your travels.

Each participant will receive an  ecoprint silk goodie bag containing several metres of fabric and a selection of beautiful threads as well as a signed copy of India’s zero-waste dress-making workshop handbook ‘shapeshifter’ and a few surprises. Aesop, bless them, kindly provides us with fragrant cream to keep our hands soft while we sew.

A delicious gluten-free vegetarian lunch [dairy components kept separate to allow for dietary considerations] served with your choice of wine, juice or water will be provided each day, together with morning and afternoon tea and coffee, supplemented by fresh fruit and Haigh’s chocolates.

please send your carrier pigeon through the looking glass if you are interested in securing a place [it will be the last time i teach anywhere this year]


+++ update added July 26 : thank you my friends, the class is full again!

Midsummer murmurs

i had made seven dresses

for the seven daughters-seven sisters exhibition

due to open in Portugal next weekend

but in a bit of a Sagittarian moment

i had an attack of claustrophobia

caused in part

by someone telling me they'd seen clothes

looking very much like mine

in a store in LA

that wasn't Church Boutique

i suddenly decided those seven sisters

needed to be a completely different shape

and so 'slow cloth' went out the window

and speedy sewing came in the door

assisted by Yoda-san

he found it exhausting

so did i.

but it was worth it in the end

and now they are in the cauldron

and that, my friends, is as much as you will see of them

until they have had a chance to dance at Evoramonte

because i want this exhibition to be fresh and lovely

not

a dim shadow

that has already been replicated

and offered for sale by someone else

before the sisters have had time to settle in their castle

+

now please

don't bother making comments that shout down the replicant

or are intended to bolster my ego

this is not about that

because

by happy coincidence

the Dogs Above smiled

and showed me a new way of putting together cloth

to form three dimensions from two

literally sculpting dresses from silk

although

almost impossible to draft on paper

it took me into the Gehry zone

where the model has to be made first 

in order to understand

how the engineering works

and while i don't think i can explain the process

i'm pretty sure i can do it again

and the winner is

thirty years ago today i was with my beloved great-aunt Rose
taking part in the Feast of Santa Lucia
with the Swedish expat community in Paris

it was a wonderful evening as we processed through the streets
carrying candles through the snow
led by a group of girls wearing crowns of lighted candles
their hair protected by alfoil
their long white dresses made from sheets
worn over sturdy cold-weather gear

in some parts of Europe it is traditional to mark Santa Lucia's Eve by setting small boats afloat
to drift downstream carrying candles
here in Australia in summertime that would be asking for trouble

but you aren't here for reminiscence
you're here to find out who will be receiving a wee package by mail.
Martha decided sleep was more important than pouncing on gum leaves
so i had to use other means

and now, without further ado
the winner from the comments left on the blog is

Madam Shen aka Sheri Ricker

and then we have a winner from FaceBook as well
Tarla Elward

finally
because there were a multitude of private emails
[from people who were having trouble leaving a comment]
i dipped for a winner there as well

Brece Hunnicutt


i think i have postal addresses for Tarla and Brece, but Sheri if you could sling me a line via the contact page on my website
here
and tell me your address

i shall get myself organised for a visit to the Post Office on Monday!

thank you all for joining in and leaving lots of helpful comments. there's much fodder for thought...

ever so slightly nutty

 

spotted on the freeway driving up to San Francisco

on the way to the class at lovely Inverness

...

 

no, Officer, i was not talking on my cellphone

and yes, Officer, my vehicle was stationary

[in a traffic jam]

when i snapped the pic

...

and of course the car has a website

here

...

wash test

rummaging for spare samples that could be used for mending my increasingly threadbare clothing i found that one of the cats had "forgotten itself" and anointed this one with a particularly pungent and unpleasant emission.

i could have hurled it onto the compost but it seemed a good opportunity to do a wash-fastness test

so

i put the sample into a jar with very hot water and a bit of "Sard wonder soaker" just to see what would happen

forgot it overnight

rinsed this morning

and discovered that

rather than the colour being removed

it actually seemed to have been enhanced

[the brown of the onion having deepened with added reddish tones]

was it the cat pee [ a known mordant] or

the Wonder Soaker

or

a combination of the two

usually i would simply have used eucalyptus oil in water

but younger generations have stocked the laundry with the soaking goo

to get their shearing dungas clean

so i helped myself to a little...all in the interests of research.

a Good Day

i fed the piglet

[this will be the chorus of today's song, repeat every three lines]

the picture is blurry because milk makes Kowhai wriggle with delight

then i fed myself

washed down with

the picture shows the 'before'

it tastes good after the relevant buttons have been pressed

but is less attractive...

[then i fed the piglet again]

Sam would like the piglet to be fed...to HIM.

Felix was unimpressed.

Max didn't care

after a while i wandered off down a backroad

a little out of my own patch

signs were in the sky

and by the road

and when i stopped to have a look at something over a fence

a border collie shimmied silently along

gave me an appraising look

and came over for a cuddle

...bonus dog therapy!!

putting me in high good spirits

so

i went home again

and after yet more pig-feeding

made another book

taking advantage of the discount offer

at Milk + Moleskine books

available until March 31

and highly recommended!

beignets, bunya and beads

bear with me

the title will make sense quite soon

i love Beignets but having given up wheat last year

[for very good reasons and with a remarkable improvement in my health as a result]

i haven't indulged in these delicacies for ages

yesterday's experiments with spelt and a twist on my little [Latvian] grandmother's recipe for deep-fried goodness on the occasion of the [more or less] 125th birthday of my [German] great-grandmother's tiny frying cauldron 

resulted in some damn fine "fusion" Beignets

that disappeared with [as Winnie the Pooh's friend Rabbit would say] "Astonishing Rapidity"

washed down with coffee of course

which brings me to a fusion of a different kind.

after Roz Hawker and i met at Waiuku in 2010 we parted with friendly wishes on either side

but no huge plans

then

a bit later that year

Roz bravely invited me to come and teach in her lovely garden at Bunya

the pix above are of my notes for that class

[stitched, embellished with cloth and some metal from a tealightshell]

and a little while after that

we went on a trip into the wilds together [along with a friend from over the rainbow]

which has led to other roadtrips

in Oz, in New Zealand and even on the east coast of the USA

roadtrips offer lots of time for talking

and musing 

and coming up with ideas.

here's one we think is really good.

we're going to offer a co-taught class for wayfarers + wanderers 

firstly in Roz's garden and then a week or so later

in a green and gorgeous hideaway in north Queensland

please click on the mark  to read her side of the story  +

Roz is going to handle the bookings for this one

[ i'll be very happy to pass on email enquiries ]

and

you never know

there may be a Beignet or two

Bunya is where the first retreat will be held

and Beads? you may want to bring a few.