forgetgutenberg

A story about an epiphany, illustrated with some jewelry.

This is Obstinate:

Which has been a useful reminder in the face of what often felt like overwhelming despair.

This is Things Change:

Which is not so much a reminder as a declaration.

About five years ago now, I had a conversation with my then-adviser, who said that I was risk-averse, and told me it was going to be an issue. After a fair bit of reflection, I have to admit that he was right. I am risk-averse, in many ways. I like a certain amount of stability, regular schedules, predictable flows of business and busy-ness.

On the other hand, though, I was getting frustrated with feeling like I was in a work-related rut.

And a couple of other things happened, all of which ended with the realization that yes, it probably is ok to just leap off the deep end and assume that even a cannonball is going to be more fun than just sitting at the edge of the pool whimpering about how cold the water is.

So I’m trying it. I’m doing something else. Because things do change, but sometimes one has to help it along.

Right now, I’m kind of in the denial phase. I’ll deal with practical stuff, oh, soon enough. I have a plan. It’s a good plan. I’ll probably talk about it more, as it gets more fleshed out — at the moment it’s kind of an incoherent mess — but basically I am going to try to help run a community studio, and make books, and be an art-making troll in a factory/cave, and print things, and maybe do some of the ridiculous performance book arts I’ve been thinking about, and heck. I guess I can do anything, can’t I?

(The bracelets are from Vagabond Jewelry, the marbled paper in the background is on my handmade paper, and I took the pictures with a delightful new camera that I am for real going to learn to use properly.)

Saturday was an unreasonably gorgeous day (and I had a rather extensive errand to run), so instead of spending time in the shop, I had an Adventure. (I declared it a Day Off for Personal Reasons.)

I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures yet — I made a small tactical error, so I have no way of transferring files from my Shiny! New! Camera! (I love late holiday presents) to show them to you — but here is what I did:

Got on the inbound train at Harvard Square. (There are no outbound trains on weekends until March.) Thought very hard about what I was going to do, came up with two options, and instead got off the train at Charles MGH. Walked down whatever that street is, looked in the window of several antique stores (actually went into one, where I found myself wishing that I had bought a stereoscope at the really-more-of-a-junk shop where I got quite a few interesting things in my childhood; one of the other ones had a chandelier with blue porcelain roses that matched almost perfectly the one I got for less than two dollars at Unique Thrift lo these many years ago), stopped in at Rugg Road, which was … distressing, actually, and my take-away lesson was that I really need to make scrap paper grab-bags.

Then I walked for a while. I took a lot of random turns, arbitrarily, attempting to navigate sort of … towards the harbor. I had, you see, a goal. It turns out that a lot of sort of improvisational navigation will, eventually, lead one to the harbor. It just may also lead one to walk all the way around Government Center and what passes for a CBD here. I have no idea how I ended up at the Garden, so don’t ask.

Fortunately, the Garden is close to where I was going. I think it only took me an hour to weave my way down to something that was at least recognizably harbor. Of course, then I had to walk halfway back around Boston to get to the correct wharf — and I missed the ferry by two minutes because there are two T stops, and of course I found the wrong one first. That’s ok, though. It was warm, and sort of sunny, and tourist-watching is hilarious.

Also, I did successfully get on a ferry from Long Wharf to Charlestown Navy Yard. It was an excellent trip. Short, but also inexpensive; this means I should probably write some kind of letter to the MBTA about how much less awesome it would be to live here without the ferry. There are some really excellent views to be had, and it’s kind of soothing. I mean, don’t look too closely at the ferry. It’s a little rusty. But water! Water is awesome! Open water! Well, kinda.

And then I had to walk through the Navy Yard to get back to the shop (I left most of my stuff there, although sadly not my pocket knife, so no trip to the Constitution for me). That was fascinating. The decaying warehouses are fascinating; there’s definitely interesting history in there, and some really great signs. There’s also some extremely cool buildings for sale, and a large-blade research facility (wind turbines, I assume). As well as something that looks suspiciously like grain silos but may in fact be a construction supply place. There was, once upon a time, a sugar company. It’s long gone, and the sign is faded to illegibility, but the site demolition sign from Massport is still there. Also there are old train tracks — once upon a time, they led to all the warehouses (including the one I work in), but now they’re just there. Going nowhere.

Anyway. I’m glad I got to go out on the harbor. I hope there’s a way to save the ferries — they’re one of my favorite things about living near a large body of water.

And on Monday (technically still today!) I did the first batch of three broadsides in an edition of 125. Hahahaha. What was I thinking? Wait until I tell you about the process …

Apparently.

This is suminagashi, not traditional at all, from sumi ink in a little bottle (I’ve had it for a while, and it seemed worth experimenting with) and Kodak Photo-flo for fun with surface tension. On French Paper Co’s excellent recycled Speckletone. (This batch of paper has amazing wet strength for a machine-made not-rag paper. I’m quite pleased. I hope that the formula is consistent, because I’d like to be able to keep using it.)

I believe that this edition of sheets — it’s something like 50, but they’re not very big — will serve my purposes nicely.

And I have to make lots and lots more, because this is a most excellent way to satisfy the urge I occasionally have to make an edition without repeating myself not even once.

This is the easy way — plain water, ink, and PhotoFlo. FUN. It does seem like cheating, though. It’s too quick. (Which leads me to make mistakes.)

Also, the only color that stuck to the Speckletone was black, by which I mean grey.

Should work for printing on, though, and that’s what I was looking for.

I marbled some paper.

Part of the reason I did so many sheets is that I got over-excited on Sunday and put alum on a rather enormous stack. Then it seemed like a good idea to just finish all of them – I hear tell that leaving alum on one’s paper for too long is not good for it. Also, this kind of marbling takes a fair bit of prep and pre-planning. Best not to waste that, right?

And it turns out that this batch I have of French’s Speckletone marbles quite nicely – which means I am seriously considering doing this again, but with a giant stack of Speckletone. (Most of what I did Monday is recycled lettra/rag blends.)

First I am going to try doing something the easy way. Just to see what that’s like.

So you frog the crap out of it.

It was a triangle shawl-ette that I’d blocked and have considered finished for a while, but … I dunno, it was looking at me this afternoon and I think it will work better as something rectangular. Also, linen improves with use, so maybe this time the finished product will have a more pleasing texture.

As some of you know, my battle cry is “Accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!” So you won’t be surprised to know that I have some choice trimmings in the studio, including these two:

The skull’s name is Oliver. The mask doesn’t have a name. They’re sitting on a copy of Class Struggle which I really ought to get some people to play one of these days.

This weekend was … interesting. Which is what I’ve learned to expect from open studio events. People like to look inside our brain-houses. They don’t really care about the products, they just want to see what we have on our bookshelves. Which is a little weird to be on the receiving end of, but it’s mostly all right. At least one gets to have interesting conversations.

But now, well. Here I am, sitting in the studio in the middle of the night, writing a letter to the internet — isn’t life strange? — and thinking about how to maintain an artistic practice & keep body and soul together. It’s harder than it looks. And I feel like my skills are so lacking, because I am surrounded with such amazing people.

Oh well. Happy December, y’all. It’s a beautiful month — it is a little dark sometimes, but there are lights to make it brighter. Maybe it’ll snow soon. (Then we can all make snow sculptures!)

Actually, that’s not it at all.

Here, have a sneak peek at this weekend:

Now I have to come up with somewhere to put these things.

And I am thinking about using my ability to string together wacky sentences to do something sort of … awful. It is late. I am listening to THRAK. I should probably not make any major life decisions.

New studio installation:

(Having some nostalgia, and some regrets, but mostly it’s just awesome.)