Belated New Year, cardboard art, weaving

Handsome Son visited Saturday, bringing shortbread and ginger ale for the New Year, adding to the tea and banana bread I provided. 

Since the first person over the threshold this year was a blonde woman, we missed the first footing. But HS,  the dark haired man arriving a bit late with food and drink, was close enough.

For people unfamiliar with first footing, it's a tradition in the North of England where I'm from.  It brings luck if the first person over the threshold in the New Year is a dark haired man bringing fuel, food and drink. 

Usually men would leave their houses before midnight, with the items - piece of coal, bottle of Scotch, slice of cake -- and chat in the street until they heard the ships' sirens and bells and, locally, pans beaten with spoons, sounding in the New Year. 

Then they'd be welcomed in with a glass of something good and a kiss from the lady of the house. Local legend has it that it had to be a dark haired man, not a Viking red -blond, this being the territory where Vikings raided. Not inviting one in!

We enjoyed our belated observance as a good start.

Speaking of cardboard as an art material, here's a wall piece I made from the insert in a Misfits grocery box 

And the weaving is progressing while I listen to A Pocketful of Rye.

This determined enjoyment and making is protest against the regime. 

Happy day everyone, make your protests heard by your MOCS.  

Words and weaving, Milton Avery, Miss Marple and cardboard carving

Late out of the blocks today, mainly because I thought I'd done my post. I hadn't. I'd only thought about it. Oh. 

I found a great word for Joanne and other weavers, from favorite etymologist Haggard Hawks

You don't have to be a weaver to recognize this situation, but it's more  vivid if you are.

Today was about laundry, changing the bed, even washing the blanket, a sign of spring right there.  

About spring -- the juncoes haven't left yet, meaning they're not convinced it's spring yet. They're even overlapping with the arriving redwing blackbirds and summer robins. 

I noticed quite a crowd of them in the trees with blackbirds and mourning doves, when I was out walking this afternoon. Sunshine and 60s, rain back again tomorrow.

I got back to the cardboard carving this afternoon, and here's where we are up to now

I have to see what should happen in the upper part, the mountains and clouds, to balance the foliage in the trees and buds on the foreground plants. 

I also need to do more foliage after I've thought about it a bit more.This is really fun to work on, figuring out which ideas to pursue and which not.

And, on to a true master, Milton Avery, the painter's painter. This is a fairly early work, i think, but the vertiginous raking viewpoint is there

And his color choices, much more subtle than at first glance.

I was also thinking  more about actors in roles already well known from books and found that a whole lot of actors have played Miss Marple

Some of the names surprised me, but of the ones I've seen, in movies or TV, I  think Joan Hickson is the definitive one. She was also favored by Christie to play her. 

Next comes June Whitfield on radio and audiobooks, very astute portrayal. 

Next Geraldine McEwan, after I got used to her and dialled back the expectation of keen intelligence Hickson had brought, 

Then, far behind, Julia Mackenzie, who didn't seem to grasp the role at all, playing it like a little know-it-all wiseguy.  But to be fair, she played Ariadne Oliver in radio productions and was very good.

And sadly last,  Margaret Rutherford, really miscast, the movie set up like a slapstick horsey comedy idea. She tried gallantly to save it, but I think it was doomed.

Those are my completely unhumble opinions on this vital, gripping,  topic.

In other contexts, too, some actors simply own the part. Like Harriet Walter playing Sayers' Harriet Vane, and Edward Petherbridge playing Peter Wimsey. 

Or the Sherlock Holmeses Sandra mentioned. And Hugh Fraser playing Captain Hastings, back in Christie. And performing her audiobooks. Or Jonathan Cecil performing P.G. Wodehouse audiobooks, pitch perfect.

Which brings us to suppertime, and this morning I'd microwaved a couple of sweet potatoes I'd had for a few days and didn't want them to shrivel before I got to them. 

They were all mashed and spiced in the fridge, for whenever I decided what to do about them.  So supper was an easy salad of hardboiled egg, cilantro, parsley and sweet potato in a pita bread.  I do like a meal I can pick up and eat while I read my current Barbara Pym.

Happy day, well for a few of us, evening, everyone.  Enjoy unexpected combos where you find them.

Italian to Turkish textiles, cardboard art, Susan Sontag and me t

Today there was a presentation from Hajji Baba and the New England Rug Society

The nice part about these programs is that the slides are captioned so you can see the age and usually location of the works.

Here Gerard Paquin was examining the transfer and borrowing of design, from Italian silk weaving to Turkish wool, and most of the slides show silk on the left, wool right. 

The idea was that wool is much less expensive a medium, so it was economical to borrow design and adapt it to purpose. Usually the silk pieces were wallhangings, the Turkish wool were  rugs, and later in the slides, cushion covers. 

I'll just run the pictures since I don't think we're vitally interested in the technical terms he was firing around.

This shows the sheer size of the interiors where textiles were hung.

He also showed a couple of Persian miniature paintings showing rugs in action. And he referred to book design as sometimes being inspired by these motifs.

He's a collector rather than a scholar, so the idea, to him, is to enjoy the designs rather than analyze the techniques and history.  So let's do that! It's amazing to have no-cost access to this kind of work, often in private collections and distant museums.

Nearer home I've been thinking and making cardboard based art.

First, thinking.  I found a paragraph on Susan Sontag's likes and dislikes, which amused me a lot. Quite a few are on my list, too!

I never knew how many preferences I had in common with her. The resemblance ends there, I think.

And I set to work on a cardboard artwork.

This is the divider from a Misfits box, opened up, to make the shape of a Japanese long narrow landscape.

It's corrugated, so I drew my design with a graphite stick, not easy to see here

Then I started carving off the top layer

And seeing the lovely contrasting textures happening

I've been wanting to do some of this carving and got a bit sidetracked. I kept all the pieces carved off, curly bits, because I may use them. This is a low-waste piece ss well as an artwork.

After I got to this point I was so tired I needed to stop, but first I went upstairs to empty the dryer. I found when I got there I literally had to sit on the floor to rest. After a few minutes I was able to get downstairs, where the kettle was boiling, make tea and rest on the sofa.  Art is an aerobic activity! Fine now.

And here's a very appealing artist I just found out about from Jacqueline Durban

Happy evening everyone, late getting here today, one thing and another. Enjoy art and making if you like making, or just looking. All good.

 

Art my way, and finally bread

 I couldn't wait for the Art Shaped book to arrive, so I tried out my materials with my own way of doing it.

I'd seen this image

and liked the concept of a landscape with fissures and confused shapes, but I wanted an aerial view. I didn't look at this picture again, just went from the concept into the materials and had a good time. 

I learned quite a bit about manipulating card and paper by hand. Darrell does a lot of precision cutting in his work, and maybe I will too, after I study his book. But tearing and squashing is more my style.

Here's a step by step, to where I am now. I had to work on the fteezer top and the kitchen island, because the table is covered in jigsaw puzzle. But the light is good.

Left is a painting done on my hand dyed fabric cut and  reassembled tumbling block style, which I decided to use as a base. Good size, already wired for hanging. It's ready for a new life.

 

And found I had to cover the surface with bits of card stock when  tape wouldn't stick.

Under way squashing and tearing and sticking, rock formation ideas

Then I added in tissue paper, for more detailed softer shapes 

And here's where we are till tomorrow, when I paint it, outside, not wanting vapors from the spray in the house 

The colors are irrelevant at this point, just stuff I had lying around, including some of those small rapid paintings I did last summer. They're getting a second life. They'll be painted over.

At first I thought I'd spray the whole thing with the dark green enamel I have ready, then pick out highlights in liquid metallic acrylic. 

But now I think I'll spray more sparingly, to see if occasional visible colors work like rocks. We'll see. This was a good day.

Meanwhile, while I was tearing and squashing snd sticking, nature was creating a wonderful artwork right there as the sun moved round.

I also finally baked bread this afternoon, whole wheat with a bit of white and a cup of oats.

And when I sits I reads, so now that This Golden Fleece is done, highly recommended, and Beasts in my Belfry, likewise, I'm into (writer, not actor) Elizabeth Taylor's complete short story collection. 

 

She's pitch perfect. You have to keep stopping to make sure you see what she did there.  I'd read "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" ages ago and noticed her point of observation is very much like William Trevor in his short stories. It's a similar perception, rather than similar writing.

So that's where we are, and I'm about to order Misfits and see if this week I can get anything on my list, before thinking of a tuna melt for supper, home-baked bread, a favorite easy meal.

Happy evening everyone, follow your own lead, the others are all taken. 

That's at a minimum, which is also the puzzle answer, but you knew that.