ohio

Petrus kindly reminded me of this song...nothing like music from the good ole daze




and while we're at it here's another one



and just to finish up...that view looks much prettier at sunset...most things do

a last look and a fond farewell

other than my home, San Francisco is the hardest place in the whirled for me to leave. 

especially when the outlook changes from those above [note the early french influence in the tunnels above the Headlands]

to that below...

the delightful view i'm now enjoying at 2am in Columbus, Ohio

let's see what sunrise brings...

oh and in case you're wondering, 'map piece' is from 'Grapefruit' by Yoko Ono

guerilla in the jacaranda

here's one especially for that grrrl who knits

there i was quietly directing my elephant [ie normous grey wheeled trunk-like suitcase] down South First Street in San Jose when i was confronted by the sight of what appeared to be a cat-in-the-hat sock

and then it dawned on me [in the absence of the Cat] that it was another one of the guerilla knitsisters up to more public malarky

wonder how long it will last with those cute squirrels romping on it

wish my legs looked as good in stripy socks

yerba buena

when the Spanish came to California the priests named this place yerba buena

literally meaning 'good herb'

for the fragrance that rose from the aromatic groundcover Clinopodium douglasi as it was crushed underfoot by the brothers as they wandered about forcibly dispensing Catholicism to the Ohlone

in the sixties it may have had a slightly different connotation 

i came here this week feeling just a little wrung out...Tolkien puts it perfectly as "like butter spread over too much bread"...and needing a new direction in my work having taught all my tricks during this rather heavy teaching year

the process of opening the windfall bundles that i've been making up here on the eleventh floor has filled me with delight...and gratitude

i'm grateful to this place for refreshing my spirit

and for giving me gifts in the street

windfall leaves and discarded metal fragments

i'm grateful to my family for keeping the home fires burning in my absence

and i'm grateful to my fellow taxpayers who [through an Arts SA grant] have partially underwritten this journey of [re]discovery of which there is yet more to come

as i'm now off to be an anonymous student for a week somewhere further east, in the deep heart of middle America

it'll be good to be on the other side of the fence again

Si, ha sido muy biena, gracias*... Yerba Buena has truly been the good herb...

*apologies to Spanish speakers for dodgy grammar, my linguistic skills are pretty much limited to ordering margaritas in that beautiful language

take two

this time i do make it to Golden Gate Park. some of the locals are very friendly indeed...

i visit the de Young Museum, keen to study the textile collection. 

that particular section is closed. hmm.

i'm doubly grateful to the Universe for diverting me on my first attempt...but hey, the architecture of this building alone is worth a visit 

clad in a copper skin

and with a tall tower so one can see the whirled from above the tree-tops [monster eucalypts close by and not a cocky in sight]

near the foot of the elevator are some exquisite objects that cast delicious shadows. the creator is a San Franciscan. foolishly i didn't note her name.

outside there is an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture 

a series of stones through each of which runs a squiggly fault line that also traces a path from one island to the next. i've borrowed their picture cos mine was full of people 

detail of a 'cloth' constructed by African artist El Anatsui. it's made from the aluminium caps of whisky bottles joined with copper wire in a format that references kente cloth

remember when his work draped a building in one of the Venice Biennales?

later walking down Haight on the trek back to base camp i find more art underfoot

taking a walk on the wild side

i have to admit it...despite being a country gal i absolutely love this city. it plays misty for me and then some.

this morning after a couple of hours hard graft - writing, not swinging a pick - i did myself a favour, went out on Geary Street and hopped on a bus fully intending to head for Golden Gate Park and some research in the Botanic Garden there.

but [yet again quoting John Lennon] "life is what happens while you're making other plans". it did that today and for this i am grateful.

instead of turning south a few blocks at the end of my bus ride i followed a windfall path down the street heading west and finished up at Point Lobos [with a pocket full of leaves]. 

i found a ruin that rivals Delphi... the remains of the Sutro Baths. i lingered a while

found floating feathers

and then instead of turning south i went purposefully north

trees making drawings against the sky

underfoot a stone, polished by many passers

looked very much like Pounamu

greener than the picture shows

onward along the clifftops through fields of flowers where it's warm and sheltered

then suddenly exposed again and slapped by a cold damp wind

i find a lost heart

and a Latvian wild strawberry [Fragaria vesca] 

growing by the sidewalk above China Beach

at Baker Beach [still further north] i find a perfect pocketstone. dark greenblack and smoothly polished. the sort of stone that likes to roll in your hand as you think about other things

such as imagining i see the footprints of a special dog i used to know

Baker was one of his favourite beaches

 wandering on up the hill...following the wind to the Golden Gate bridge

i begin to hear a familiar sound

haven't even had a gin and i'm hearing a tenor saxophone

sure enough, as i walk around the corner of a ruined building up on the battery

there they are

using the perfect acoustics provided by that concrete shell

two musicians jamming

west coast impro and it's good, very good

[thinks, my friend John Kelley would love this] 

it's another icing on the cupcake moment. i seem to be having a lot of those lately. 

after a while they break for a breather. we talk and swap names and sax stories

they are Colin Gleason [tenor saxman] and his friend Dave [i hope i got the guitar player's name right, forgive me if i mucked up...it's easier if it's written on a piece of paper when age hath wearied and the years condemned]

 

Colin and i also compare tattoos

and i take a few photos

would have been better if the tree hadn't been growing out of Colin...but it's not a good place to step backward while framing a shot...bit of a drop on most sides

and the longest one would leave one very wet indeed

and then a few more photos including several at arms length of the three of us [except i later do some cutting and pasting cos all except one of me has a moonface with a double chin. ew. ]

thank goodness for Raybans - much cooler than coverstick for hiding wrinklies

then they played some more

and i sat and listened

and drew in my notebook with notes on colours to slosh on later from the small paintbox

[guess who forgot to pack a water bottle]

there's THAT bridge again

nine hours and nineteen one-foot-at-a-time kilometres after i stepped out of the Kabuki this morning i toddle back into my room

ready for a serious soaking bath

and a quiet tea ceremony

with a small treasure found here in San Francisco

one that will live in the travel bag and remind me 

every time i have tea on the track

of a place that still makes me feel seventeen years old

have cauldron, will travel

the alchemist has taken to the skies again...last seen at sunset gathering windfall leaves on Russian Hill at the corner of Larkin and Greenwich. sadly the wee cauldron is struggling a bit on the reduced diet of 110 volts!

but in the meantime there are bouquets to bestow...firstly on Qantas who surprised me with an upgrade to bizclass on check-in. thanks, oh giant flying Skippy. it was lovely.

and then another bouquet to the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco who also gave me an upgrade - meaning i'm spending the next three nights in a king-size bed in a spacious room on the eleventh floor with a lovely corner balcony and windows that open AND a delumpshous Japanese soaking bath [in which i am about to immerse myself]

on the way across the Big Blue Pond i felt obliged to test if knitting is permitted again. 

it is. photographic evidence below.  

what bemused me on arrival though is the endearing optimism of the local border guard. i won't put the image here for fear of being flung out of the country on my ear but do they really think that 

those people who are actually drug addicts or [and this is as it's printed on the form] perpetrators of "gross moral turpitude" or espionage agents are actually going to tick the "yes" box on the wee green incoming passenger form?

and while we're on the subject of green, here's the obligatory 'view from the hotel window' - an illuminated garden from the point of view of a passing pigeon

 

ka kite ano, Aotearoa...

told  you those swedes was as big as housies...just compare them to the not insubstantial steps [leading up to the Baptist Centre]

and here are the delicious greens slow brewed from a cocktail of green plants. the deepest colour [top right] was taken up by [drum roll] a scrap of wool fabric.

i love wool. it's a miracle fibre. sucks up plant colour, keeps one warm even when wet, can be knitted/woven/felted/stitched or a combination of any of these, is fire-resistant [EXCEPT when superwashed - grrr] and is a sustainable renewable resource [when the sheep flock is managed properly]

 

wandering on from Gore i arrive in Wellington [via Invercargill and Christchurch].  i love flying into Welly. the scenery is magic and when the sun sparkles on everything i know it's going to be a splendid afternoon.

in fact, tis my first afternoon "off" for some time - travel days don't really count as downtime - having squeezed eight days of teaching into a relatively short trip.  the hectic schedule reinforces my decision to restrict future teaching to longer "retreats" once present commitments are honoured. good things take time and it shouldn't be about rushing to finish a "product". this work is about journey and process and whatever object is made during a workshop is merely the icing on the cupcake

so anyway, here i am in lovely Welly. first call is Minerva Bookshop on Cuba Street to collect some kimono that Anne Scott [the proprietor] very kindly picked up for me during a sale at Asia Gallery [and had been hoarding in the store cupboard for some time]

Minerva is one of my favourite bookstores along with Matilda's [Stirling, South Australia], City Lights [San Francisco, USA], Artisan [Fitzroy, Victoria], Ariel [Sydney, NSW] and that yummy architectural bookstore on Montgomery Street [also in San Francisco]

at Minerva i browse. in fact i browse for some time. resistance is useless and i come away with "The architecture of the Quilt - Gee's Bend". i hope to study some of these quilts at the San Jose Museum of Textiles next week...

at 3 pm i wander across Cuba to visit my friend Roger for a lovely chat about art and the whirled and our respective wanderings and what we think about stuff. oh, and he kindly inks my favourite phrase for me...

this of course requires a visit to the Flying Burrito Brothers for a celebratory margarita. 

it's good. [nearly as good as the delicious one, oops, two that Pat mixed for me at Nelson, bless her cotton socks]

their food is fab as well but i have other plans and wander on

sadly there isn't time for visits to all my usual haunts. the Northland Panels and the Botanic Garden will have to wait for next time. so will the Green Parrot.

i have a girlie night planned with my friends Cleo and Rachelle. we eat fish and chips from the Wellington Trawling Seamarket [conveniently located just across the road from my digs] and drink wine made by Cleo's father

we look at treasure that Rachelle has brought in her basket of tricks

we sit and stitch and talk and drink wine and then tea. several cups of tea. it's good.

Rachelle glows.

in fact we all glow happily together, three skinsisters sitting on the floor of a secondfloor helltell room on Cuba Street...

hotere