Looking Back To The Future

Bill and I have a game we play while traveling. We ask: "What was your favorite thing / biggest surprise / most memorable moment?" On a recent trip to Florida to visit my folks, one event stood out for both of us. Of course, it's an event I couldn't record because I didn't take the camera that morning (but that's another story).

The photo above shows what the scene looked like a couple of years ago. It's a place we enjoy walking with my parents. Since I don't have photos of the event itself, I'll just describe it for you.

Along one side of the lake, there were clustered two different types of birds: anhingas, which are common on Florida waters, and wood storks, which we've seen from a distance on other occasions. This time, the storks were just feet away from us but completely oblivious to our presence. They were too busy catching fish. It appeared that the anhingas were herding fish toward the shallows, and the storks were taking advantage of the easy pickings.

It reminded me of a traditional fishing method I learned about some time back, a method often used by the women of a village. Working collectively, a group would fan out and wade toward the shallows, driving fish ahead of them to where they could be more easily caught in dip nets or baskets. The birds' activity made  it easy to see where our ancestors might have come up with the concept of the fish drive.

There are still places in the world where this type of communal harvest method is used. In those places, they know two things.

First, by working together a group may be better able to meet the needs of the community than individuals working alone. In fact, a fish drive can be a very efficient harvest method.

Second, because the harvest is so efficient the group can be selective -- keeping what they need and throwing back the rest to feed them in the future.

There's a lot of food for thought in this. Particularly in Wisconsin, where fishing is practically a religion, and particularly now, when the new governor's proposed "budget repair" legislation threatens the collective bargaining of public workers. There's a lot more stuff in the bill that isn't getting much press -- things like no-bid contracts and the option to sell state-owned heating, cooling and power plants "with or without
solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state." I could go on, or instead you could read the bill here.

There's been much written and much more said about this situation. But one of the best pieces I've read came from columnist John Gurda in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Before you head off to read it, let me share a short excerpt. Gurda writes:

Walker, in the end, does not represent any Wisconsin tradition that I recognize as mainstream. Through most of its history, our state has been animated by a broader, more generous conception of the common good. Republicans and Democrats alike saw government as the expression of our collective will, not an alien threat to our individual sovereignty.

After reading Gurda's column, you might want to dust off your copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed. 

For the common good, I'm in favor of going back to a model that looks more like communal fishing. To borrow a phrase from Gurda, I believe it's a myth that "the prosperity of the few will percolate down to the many." ("Try selling that one to the people of Chile or Argentina," he writes.)

You may not agree. But I'm sure we could work something out if we all actually wanted to work together.

The Long View

4-H sampler from many years ago

Make hay while the sun shines. A stitch in time saves nine. My parents and grandparents all took the long view of things. It made sense. On the farm, if you didn't get a crop in while the weather held, you might not get another chance. And if you didn't mend those pants before a rip got bigger, someone might notice quite a breeze as they walked up from the barn.

The long view. I've been thinking about this a lot over the past year. During the past 12 months, in addition to teaching and making fiber art I have:

• started writing two blogs
• published my first e-books
• started selling my printed books on Etsy
• started selling my print-on-demand fabric designs on Spoonflower

It's been a profitable year -- learning-wise, not money-wise. Money-wise, we can just about afford to celebrate with a glass of Bill's homemade wine, which he makes with stuff we grow or gather, a little bit of sugar, and a big sack full of patience.

There's more wine bubbling away in the basement, working on its own schedule, oblivious to the calendar and to our expectations. I have ideas bubbling away, as well. We learned long ago that the universe cares not a whit about our calendar and our expectations. But we continue to behave as if time is more than a commodity.

With the one-year anniversary of this blog coming up in a couple of days, I want to say a few things now (never put off to tomorrow...).

I'm grateful for those of you who also savor the time you spend in making.

I'm grateful for your patience with me as I learn how to operate in this digital environment.

I'm grateful for your patience with yourself as you tackle new challenges of your own (that's way harder than being nice to someone else, isn't it?).

I'm grateful to you for reading and for sharing your thoughts here.

Color My World

A few years back, most of my work (and most of my teaching) was coiled vessels made with natural materials I grew or gathered myself. I spent more time then with other basketmakers who also worked with natural materials they grew or gathered themselves. This is a group who knows how to celebrate the richness of subtle shades -- brown, golden brown, orangey brown, rosey brown, reddish brown, greenish brown...

Even though my work has branched off in another direction, I still love these natural colors. But to work with a broader palette, I've had to learn a whole new set of skills.

In my studio, I have a shelf of books devoted to color (my favorite is Deb Menz's ColorWorks: The Crafter's Guide To Color)  and three color wheels. Yesterday, this post from Design*Sponge started other wheels turning in my head (the usual ones about different people at different times having different perceptions of the "same" things).

Design*Sponge linked only to Part 1 of Jude Stewart's two-part post on The Wonderful Color Wheel at Imprint. I enjoyed reading Part 2 as well.

After that, I couldn't help poking around at bit at Imprint. Which led me to this post about wild cucumbers -- and back to natural materials. Back to brown. And to this reflection:

We love what we love.

Take a look in your closet, your yarn stash, your fabric stash, at your walls, at the photos you take, at your other artwork. What color tells your story?

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Dye Test

Last week, during the 5-day spinning class I took at Sievers, I wasn't surprised when talk turned to using powdered unsweetened soft drink mix to dye wool and silk. I was surprised to learn that Mexican Kool-Aid may yield better color than the American product. The woman at the wheel next to me is from an area in northern Minnesota that is as rural as where I live. We both assumed there wouldn't be much chance of finding the product in our local grocery stores.

I don't know about her, but I was wrong. It is in my local supermarket -- right at eye level in an aisle I pass down every time I'm in the store.

How many times do we dismiss possibilities because we assume they won't be available so we don't look for them at all? This time, I looked.

It's time for me to make sure I'm paying attention to other possibilities I might be overlooking. After a summer packed with learning as well as teaching, I need to use some of the incubation exercises I give my students on myself. Want to play along?

Recharged

Last weekend I was on the road again, but this time it wasn't to teach or take a class. I went to a Festival of American Basketry event in Iowa's historic Amana Colonies to spend time with people I treasure and to get a creative boost. Your mileage may vary, but I find that 12 or 14 hours in the car gives me some quality time to reflect, mull, plot, wonder, and discover patterns and possibilities that might elude me among the distractions of home and hearth. Beyond that, I had a chance to learn some new tricks, got helpful feedback from artists I respect and admire, and coerced them into to modeling a few pieces from my looping trunk show while I took pictures.

And on the way home I hit paydirt at my #1 thrift shop -- where they had just moved a small mountain of good stuff to the 50 cent bins in the back. I cleaned up, and still had enough drive time left to think about how to refashion a couple of pieces.

So thank you, Joanna Schanz, who for years has organized the Festival of American Basketry and Willow Weekend, another Amana basketry tradition (held each year in February). Once again, I've returned from Amana recharged, excited, and feeling connected to a community.

Where do you go for a jump start?

How's Your View?

This afternoon, I plan to spend a couple of hours bent over in the willow bed looking at the bases of plants as I harvest them. Tomorrow, I'll spend a few more hours in the studio looking at the individual willows I cut today and sorting them by quality and size and utility. In these two tasks, I see the material from completely different points of view. Ah, I love the smell of metaphors in the springtime.

Even though I don't use much willow in my fiber art or teaching any more, the willow harvest is still an important ritual for me. The repetitive tasks of cutting and sorting give me time to reflect on pieces I've put on hold, classes I'm developing, and ideas that are incubating. An idea that's been bubbling up to the surface a lot lately is point of view.

One element that's been factoring into this stew of ideas about point of view comes from a Tumblr microblog called Science Is Beauty. One day it's a post of a micrographic image, another it's something like this animation of an iceberg collision seen from space, which originally appeared at Wired Science.

Out in the willow bed where my hands are full, I don't stop to make lists. I just reflect and let my mind wander. And it seems to work for me. Perhaps it's because all the blood rushes to my brain when I'm bent over? Maybe not. I'll think about that, too, while I cut today.

What tasks help you reflect and get perspective?