Warping Up a level

Trying to warp the loom we inherited from my dad for the first time was kind of a slog. It’s such a painful time consuming task I was worried I must be doing it wrong, but when I looked it up online, no, other experienced weavers will complain quite heartily about the miseries of warping a loom.

I then came up with my plot to create a sort of starter warp with threads with loops at the end pulled through the heddles and beater. I tried it, noticed it was all messed up, and then took a break from the loom.

Now that it’s cold and I need something to do while staying in sick and watching Free Solo for the 10th time, I made another attempt at this idea.

The starter warp went on perfectly. Half way through I remembered how miserable warping the loom is and the real finger crossing began. Weaving is so much fun, though the first step is not. There’s a reason this task was mechanized…

Anyway… I tied on the actual warp threads and…. it worked perfectly! The threads easily went through the beater and heddles, nothing got tangled, and the warp went on nice and tight.

So this is half the experiment. Now to weave, and then the final test—to see whether the threads will pull back through the other way as easily when I reach the end of the warp. I’m feeling pretty hopeful that it’s gonna work.

It’s nice to feel a sense of success, of labour and ingenuity being rewarded. I’ve been feeling pretty grim lately so it’s nice to get that boost, and to get to look forward to something, to some new and hopeful possibility—even if it’s just seeing if I can make some pretty and soft cloth from all the yarn Julya gave me from her stash. 🧶 ❤️

Sick

Too sick to art—another day!

Health and creativity

It continues to be a trying time, with changes to the healthcare system slowly unfolding. This has made me reflect on the intersection of healthcare and creativity. I was thinking about the deeply meaningful time spent with my dad in the hospital and hospice creating and sharing art. This was possible because of the adequate facilities and the superior help of the medical professionals—mostly nurses—who took care of my dad’s physical needs, as well as his and everyone’s emotional and spiritual needs while we were there. Losing my dad is the worst thing that ever happened to me, but that time we spent together in the healthcare system wasn’t always because of the people who worked there. When my dad wanted to try out a new technique of making eyeSnowScape pieces the nurses even helped me figure out what items found in the hospice I could use to help him realize this idea, both because they had the two minutes this took but also because taking care of his and my emotional needs was part of the specialized care they provide.

I often marvel at those people and the impossible weight of what they do as their job. Firing these people and providing less sensitive care to others is a wound to our collective humanity as far as I’m concerned. I feel sick when I think about other people not getting the basics they need when they’re dealing with the healthcare system.

I’ve been thinking too about my own health and my creative practice. Aside from the ongoing workplace repetitive strain injury (which is feeling pretty good right now—I’m getting lots of exercise and not pushing my limits with the art stuff) I have other health concerns that don’t bother me much because of the adequate healthcare I receive now. When I didn’t have an attentive doctor I felt gross and I never got anything extra done.

We all get sick and die. We will all suffer losses of loved ones unless we’re the very first person we know to die. I want to live in a society that doesn’t brutalize people in those situations unnecessarily but let’s them live to the fullest by providing good care, whether that means for their last five days or their next fifty years. I also want to live in a society that values the people who help the rest of us through those terrible or confusing or scary moments.

Imagine everything we can do when we take care of each other. All the things we can make and share and all the potential we can realize when we’re not just struggling to get by but supporting each other enough to thrive.

Oh well.

Working it out

Still not writing. Still having feelings. Still painting. Just colour. Just working it out with colour.

Brush, motion

Unfortunately it continues to be a difficult time as a public sector employee, waiting to see who will be let go. I notice this mood squashing my focus on my writing—it’s hard right now for me to achieve the level of focus or enthusiasm required to write poetry. Painting though is a bit different for me. I can get into the motion of it, let it happen, and to some extent it distracts me. Not really or fully, but anyway, it’s nice to do something, to make something, at a moment where you feel like you can’t do anything about your situation. Just the brush, the moment, the motion.

The Body and a Break

Nearly ten years ago I got my first full-time office job. I copied and pasted, has bad posture, and ended up with a serious repetitive strain injury that still haunts the nerves in my neck, shoulder, arm, wrist, hand, and back. Over the years I’ve also stored my stress in my muscles. Periodically I’ve dedicated myself to easing this pain with weights and stretching, but I don’t like doing a lot of exercise—I like doing art. When my dad died in addition to the old injury, plus my general bad habits, I became a ball of tenseness. In particular this time I sent the stress into my leg. My foot became sore in the arch, to the point that walking became painful. I didn’t notice what was happening—during those early days I didn’t want to exercise. Anything that felt like getting in touch with my body felt too sad, too tinged with mortality and grief. When my foot began to hurt I did an easy stretch and found something that used to be comfortable was now nearly impossible.

I got over my bashfulness and got a few massages—a luxury I could afford thanks to health insurance but that should not be a luxury—everyone in this kind of pain should have this covered.

I still work at a computer and so am constantly toeing the edge of my ability and old injury and pain. I have a tendency to work out just until I feel better and then get back to art.

In May I pushed myself too far, working on the Magyarázni anniversary projects, finishing the embroidery piece by an arbitrary deadline I set myself. I was wrecked—my back and side totally tense and the ache in my arm unrelenting.

Taking a holiday I got a real break—two full weeks away not only from the work computer but from art. My arm and neck eased up and open.

I’ve taken myself up to the edge again. Prepping the paper frames for the collages settling into my wrist and neck. So I’ve backed off the past few days.

I’ve started a yoga routine. I’ve done it twice but at least I’ve done it twice, including in the morning before work (remember what I’ve said about me and mornings… “no”—basically). I’m doing a progressive relaxation routine. I’m taking epsom salt baths. Most of all I haven’t done any visual art work in a few days. I was going to do some writing this lunch break, but had a headache that wouldn’t let me write—fighting off a cold I think.

I really don’t like stopping myself. But I’m also trying to absorb fully that I have to do this if I’m going to be able to keep going. I’ve spent a long time fighting against my body, so now I think it’s time to learn the place of rest not only in my life, in my body, but also in my art. For a long time I think I’ve thought of myself as having two modes—writing, and blocked. I’ve got much more flow in my life right now—I’m not having any blocked times right now. Maybe I fear time off will lead to being blocked, but mostly it’s just fun to work all the time when I’m full of inspiration. But—after a few days of more intense workouts, my muscles are tight and feel like they’re trying to recover. They need time to come back stronger. I have to start seeing downtime from art not as a detriment but as a key ingredient in the process for me, given the parameters of my ability. It’s thanks to my body that I can make things. I’ve got to give it the breaks it needs. And more importantly if I’m going to learn this lesson I think I need to find a way of interlacing it with my art. I’m not motivated to do it for its own sake, clearly, so I just have to keep in mind that even if my mind doesn’t need a break my arm does, and that while I’m giving my arm that time I can give my mind other opportunities too. Checking out a show. Going out and talking about art with friends. Watching a movie. Reading. Staring at the ceiling. Sleeping enough. Working through a problem. I get so into projects I don’t want breaks or I don’t think I do. Then I take one and I feel good, and more inspired. I can manage my pain, but I can and should also manage my ambitions and pleasure better. This way the pain isn’t just a detriment but a signal, a motivator. The old injury is part of my life that I can’t erase, but what I can try to manage is how I live with it, and how I manage it. Rather than dealing with it in resentful busts I’m going to try this new approach. Know in a few days when I feel better the projects will still be there, and in the meantime I can prepare my mind and we’ll as my arm for these goals.

Busy week in Bummerville

I got out to arts events this week. I wrote another 13 pages of the manuscript with Julya’s photos. I did prep-work for the photo collage series. I even organized my writing files on my computer.

But I feel… something. Impatient and irritable and like I’m not doing enough as a result of some underlying external things. I keep almost writing about it and then not, because it’s not really about my art practice per se, but I don’t think it’s possible to write about my art without these other things right now.

The government recently slashed arts funding to a dramatic extent. This make me feel alienated. With so many mass layoffs announced this week, I also feel like I should turn my art practice into a lucrative side hustle, just in case. This makes me feel like I’m failing at art for not having done so already. This isn’t good because I’ve made deliberate choices to write and make weird niche stuff that is more about my self-expression than commercial viability. So current events have made me feel not only discarded, but also doubtful of own intent in my artistic practice.

Writing that feeling out makes me see how much I want to resist it for two reasons. The first—I want to be resilient and autonomous and not let current affairs get me down… motivate me, yes, but not just bum me out with no positive outcome for me or anyone else. The second—I’ve been really happy with how my writing and art have been going lately and I want to feel good about the progress I’ve made, with that success measured on my own terms. It makes me think of Sister Corita Kent’s rules, in particular—the only rule is work. I’ve been working hard. That’s really all I can do.

Anyway I thought I’d write this because, even though I don’t really like discussing these topics on this blog, they are having a strong and notable effect on my mindset and art practice, and I thought I might say so in case anyone else is feeling the same and would find knowing that they’re not the only one somewhat comforting.

Now—back to work.

Tiny Lights for Travellers

I just finished reading Tiny Lights for Travellers by Naomi K. Lewis and I can’t recommend it enough. It was one of those books that I deliberately slowed my reading of because I didn’t want it to end.

In the book the author follows the path her Jewish grandfather took in his 30s to escape from the occupied Netherlands and the Holocaust, as described in a journal he wrote recounting the journey, the author taking this trip after he’s passed away. Much of the book, however, is made up of other stories from the author’s life, as the trip causes her to reflect on her experiences, family, identity, and values. It’s often hilarious but mostly deeply moving and very thoughtful and welcoming.

I read it at the perfect time for me—travelling to Budapest after my father passed away. Before we settled our itinerary we’d debated taking the train from Budapest to Amsterdam, which would have (rather imprecisely) followed my own dad’s travels as a child refugee out of Hungary. Anyway we didn’t do that, but one of the things Tiny Lights does beautifully is delve into what one gains or doesn’t by retracing a family member’s steps on a traumatic and significant journey they took, so I got to live vicariously just a bit through the book in this way (the two scenarios are obviously different in many ways). One of the things I most appreciated was how the book recounts the extent to which symbolic plans and gestures have their anticipated or desired effect on our lives, and how such plots don’t really lead to closure, because that’s not really how we experience life. The book contains many threads that aren’t tied up, which is entirely accurate for a memoir written by someone young—the extent to which create narratives out of our lives itself a subject elegantly considered in the book.

There’s much more to the book than I’ve described here, and all my own subjective stuff aside, this book is beautifully written, immediate, entertaining, and engrossing. I only wish I could keep on reading it! I’ll probably read it again in the coming years.

First steps

For ages I’ve been rewriting a list of projects I want to do. It’s been pretty static for years and for whatever reason I’m now possessed of a very strong urge to start starting things on that list, and to start finishing things on that list. I think my dad’s passing has a lot to do with it—some of my most treasured memories are of us making art together and putting on the first Popsicle! show at Loft 112. Actually doing the thing we kept saying we’d do was really satisfying and important. I guess I want to keep that going.

In addition to starting a poetry project based on a collection of Polaroid photos by Julya, for which I’ve written two or six sections this week, I decided to finally get started on the discarded photo project I’ve been mulling over for years.

The first time I went to Hungary with Julya we bought some old photos in an antique shop near the parliament building. After that a sort of obsession with these took hold of me. I bought another bundle in Nanton, Alberta, a few from an antique shop in St Henri in Montreal, and a ton from a stall near the door at Marché aux Puces Saint Michele in Montreal over the course of a few visits there. The bundle above is from the flea market.

Anyway I always thought I’d use them in a writing project but it just hasn’t ever clicked. I then decided I’d make each photo into a piece of art and then write a poem to go with them but I just don’t think my response to them is meant to be with words, so I’ve decided to give myself permission to just make a visual art project with them.

I think the reason I don’t want to do any writing to go with the images is because I have really one a few big questions that go with all of the photos and one goal. The questions are—who are these people? What were they up to when the photo was taken—what were they doing and thinking about? And the big question—why did these photos end up neglected in the bin of some store? My only goal is to somehow restore some care to the photos and to the memories of these people that these photos meant to capture. My art is really preoccupied with family and nostalgia and caring for memories and I think it bothers me that these snapshots have been forgotten. I want to give them back some care and feeling.

I keep dreaming of and fantasizing about what these art pieces might look like—I’ve been doing this for years—and today I decided to finally get to it. Like I’ve said before starting is the hardest part for me. So long as a project isn’t started it could be perfect, and starting it means getting into the mess of things and maybe making something disappointing. Another thing that’s been holding me back from starting is not wanting to wreck the photos, but I finally realized I could make little pocket photo corner holders for the photos in the pieces so I wouldn’t need to alter the photos at all to include them. With that issue finally solved o decided just to try, finally, today, to make the first piece in this series.

I picked the photo on the top of the above pile for this first piece.

Like much of my art I used meaningful materials in this frame. I went outside on this blustery day and let nature do some selection for me. I picked the first leaf at my feat as a centre piece for the frame.

I then added lace that I bought in Montreal years and years ago for my short film “H. Wright Photographer” where I used photos of people we couldn’t identify in my great grandmas photo album to make a piece with similar goals to this project. I used paper from a sample pack I bought while shopping with my dear friend Nikki on a trip to Vancouver. I used pieces of yarn trimmed from the macrame pieces I made for the first Popsicle!, shreds of canvass torn when I made button holders for Popsicle! III, and the rough twine which I bought when I first moved back to Calgary and was putting together my rather ramshackle vegetable garden.

i tried to do this—to use meaningful materials—in order to imbue the project with a sense of hormones and comfort, which is the goal of this project. I’m also really fixed lately on the idea of using the materials I have and not buying new stuff to make art, both as a way to reduce waste and as a way to show gratitude for what I have.

So, with Modge Podge and hot glue I put the frame together, made the little pocket for the photo itself, and put the piece together.

And here, at last, after about a decade of mulling over the project, is the first piece. I’m quite happy with how it turned out, and very happy that I didn’t have to apply the photo permanently to make the piece. I’m looking forward to making more of these.

Now all I need is a name for the series… hmmm…

Processing

An “M” found at night on a Budapest sidewalk, under some scaffolding, just off Andrássy.

We’re back from our holiday now and I feel like I’m beginning to process what I saw and learned while away. We went to quite a few museums, mostly of art, and the work I saw had a profound effect on me. But travelling at all is quite a rare and deep experience. Going to Budapest for the first time since my dad passed away was an intense and reflective experience for me as I expected I would be. However, I miss Budapest in a way I hadn’t anticipated. It’s a beautiful, complex place that a week does not do justice to, and I wish I could spend more time absorbing the place. Though I’ve been home a few days I remain jet lagged and overtired, and this sleepiness is mixing with these reflective feelings in a way that at least is very poetically inspiring. I have written quite a lot in the few short days since returning, and hope to keep this up. I suppose this is a very Romantic impulse. I am not a morning person but jet lag has made me one, so I now get to watch the sparse 6 a.m. traffic whistle by outside, recalling what I’ve experienced in this tranquility.

Holiday Golightly, Travelling

I’m off on a big world adventure, just finishing a stay in Amsterdam and then off to Budapest. I imagined I’d have oodles of time to blog about the art and other amazing things we’re seeing but that is of course not the case. I’ll be back to posting regularly once I return, with so many new inspirations and experiences to share.

Last minute

Collage due technically today finished at 1 a.m.

That’s still technically on time…

Endless flowers

I have 40,000 photos saved on my computer. My computer will not let me save any more, but I must for a variety of reasons, most pressingly for our upcoming trip. I backed up the photos except all but 170 that failed (which ones?! Probably the most important ones! Argh) and then went through and deleted the obvious ones… that is, the hundred photos of various miso soups I’ve made. But I didn’t delete enough to empty my camera onto the computer. It’s interesting to see the moment years ago when I began taking more and more photos. But the issues I’m having now are the flora. I know deep down I’m never going through that backed up folder, so whatever I delete is going to be essentially gone. An obvious category would be the thousands of plant photos I have but I love them so. My desire to hang on to them means to me I should be doing something with them. But what should I do with so many flowers?

Nothing much to report…

I have been truly and totally downright busy this past while and have spent about a week not doing much in the arts and crafts department, though did have a fantastic band practice this week. I also went for a massage and had my aching body truly tenderized and have mostly been trying to heal, not do any repetitive strain type activities (i.e. all my writing/art interests). We did go to this rad craft sale by the Ujama Grandmas, where I got a lovely handmade touque. A few things to finish in a hurry in the next week so there’s that. But tonight… not doing much of anything. Getting to bed on time maybe. A truly novel idea…

Scattering words

One of the books I want to write is one based on these misty photos my sister took of people walking on the beach, far in the distance. In mulling this over I realize it’s been quite a long while since I actually used the whole page for a poem. I think because lately I’ve been doing a lot of prose poetry I’ve been thinking in the little blocky paragraphs. I write two ways as well—on my cellphone and by hand in notebooks. I think both lend themselves for me to write in a blocky form, or in a left aligned, break the line when it feels right way. Now that I think of it, in the past when I’ve spread the poem across the page more it’s usually been later in the process, when the writing is done and I’ve typed the poem on the computer. For this project though I think that approach of scattering the words on the page will be integral from the beginning. The photos have a very open, diffuse, ambiguous feel to them, and I think that scattering of words will be key to writing poems that respond to them.

Straining

Having finished one manuscript and having sent that off for consideration I now have a sort of frenzied feeling about what to work on next. I’ve settled on finishing The Winter Garden next, as it’s easy to work on on the go, although I’m thinking rather than one long poem about the last greenhouse on earth it’ll be made up of several apocalyptic poems. I don’t want to stretch that core poem past the boundaries of it being interesting.

However I could also stop trying to finish things for a little while. I have a trip coming up in two weeks that could use some planning, a long list of errands, and I am sore. Time spent writing right now could be easily and probably very well spent stretching.

I don’t know about other writers and artists, but on me making stuff takes a physical toll. Sometimes it’s sleeplessness. Sometimes it’s eye strain. Sometimes it’s neck and arm pain. Sometimes it’s full back pain. Sometimes it’s just the cumulative effects of long periods of time spent neglecting little aches and pains and not making time for other activities.

When I am feeling motivated and inspired as I am now it’s hard to give up a half hour of writing for a half hour of stretching. I am not the kind of person who finds stretching intrinsically rewarding. And it’s not just that I’m not stretching, it’s that I’m typing on my phone which is hard on my arms neck and back. Writing also effects my legs—I have a habit of twisting my right leg into uncomfortable positions that are hard on my knee and ankle when I’m writing.

In May I really wrecked myself working on a piece of embroidery, I wanted to write a series of polished blogs over the course of the month reflecting on the third anniversary of Magyarázni being out and the first since my dad had passed and presenting these thematically relevant crafts I made along the way. What I ended up doing was finishing the craft just as May turned to June and I never wrote a blog post about it. It was so hard on my body I went for a massage and the massage therapist waited for me in the hall after to insist that I must take up doing yoga every day given the state I was in.

I find I don’t really maintain a realistic view of how much I’m getting done. I just finished a project but feel like I must finish another. Maybe what I really need is to slow down a little and stretch my arms and back and neck and legs and feet out. When my arm hurts a lot writing hurts too. Maybe I can trick myself into thinking of stretching as part of my art practice in order to stick to doing it regularly. Though I guess that’s not really a trick.

Done! Well, this step anyway…

The snow has melted and been replaced by grey skies and a pervasive brownish tone all over the city but the Gawain-weather inspiration carried me through—I’ve finished thirteen new poems that are a kind of ambiguous, Steinian retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the perspective of the Green Knight. Proofing them today I’ll say I’m quite happy with how they turned out. And with that, I have a complete manuscript ready to send out for consideration.

Now, I really don’t want this to become a blog of unreasonable and only semi-truthful representations of productivity. This manuscript is one of those things that seems to have taken two weeks but in many ways took much longer. For me poems often take a long time to germinate. I first met Gawain in my second year of undergrad and have been fascinated with medieval English writing since then, and hoping to do something with a medieval source text in my own writing for just as long. That’s the part that usually takes the longest for me… encountering the idea, and mulling it over for a good, long while before the idea for how to do the writing bit becomes clear. The writing part’s the fastest for me, but I don’t usually get going on it until I’ve done the protracted mulling. And of course, in this case, the bulk of the manuscript is Bloom and Martyr, a sixty-five part poem I finished years ago. So this is definitely not a case of “look I finished a book in two weeks!” but rather the end of a long journey, which I’m happy to celebrate.

And now… once I write a cover letter and all that off it’ll go to a publisher for consideration. Finishing a manuscript is just the first step in a long journey to a book, but I do hope this manuscript will become a book soon—i.e. in the next year and a half or two. Fingers crossed.

Also, thanks for reading along. Blogging about trying to get things done gave me the focus I needed to do this. I’ve been wanting to cross one of these projects off my list for a long time and it feels really good to do so. Now I can’t wait to get started on the next item… I just have to decide which one is next! I’ll leave that until another day though. For now I’ve got to start writing that cover letter…

What to do with failed projects?

The first little bit of weaving I didn’t was a truly hideous combo of pastel purple, navy blue, and grassy green. After about 3” of it I realized how terrible it looked and switched to using navy blue yarn to make something less ugly. But I was left with an rectangle of useless and unattractive weaving. I was looking at it today feeling bad about the wasted materials and wondered if it’d come apart. The answer is yes, with only about 5 minutes of effort.

This might look like a semi-useless pile of too-short threads but I’ve recently watched a few videos on YouTube about Saori weaving, where weavers approach the craft in an artistic intuitive way. It sort of seems like the abstract expressionism of weaving to me. One of the things I’ve seen people do is adding little bits of waste thread into their piece as accents and flourishes. It’s pretty cool—it’s a way to turned trimmed ends and little bits like the threads from this failed project into something lovely and useful. As I think about reducing waste overall, as many people are, I think it’s worthwhile for me to think about art supplies that way too. So this way these bits of thread can end up in a new piece rather than the trash, or in an unused piece, stuffed in the back of a drawer. I feel better about that, both from an environmental perspective and an artist one. These supplies don’t end up being only a failed project, instead they can be reused in a more success creation later.

Maybe next time?

So! I started putting the warp-starter threads on the loom, using the warp I’d already put on to pull my grand idea through the heddles and beater and then I discovered this:

The pattern should be shed 1, 2, 3, 4, but in one spot I did it wrong—1, 3, 3, 4. Ah well. I’m not feeling put out though for two reasons. First, I’d been planning to take a more free-form, artistic approach to this piece and so now, knowing there’s a little flaw in it, I’ll feel more free to just play around and try things out. And second, and most importantly, I was able to confirm that the warp started threads work! As I’ve said a few times to David through this process “there’s more than one way to warp a loom” (also I think that should replace the skin-a-cat saying because it’s way less gross). This warp started idea forgoes that flexibility for the sake of speed which is a trade off I’m more than willing to make. I’m sure I can spend quite a while exploring the potential of this way of setting up the warp, and it’s gonna make it easier for me to keep going with this craft because warping a loom from scratch is so time consuming and hard. So—while this plan hasn’t turned out exactly as I planned I’m pretty pleased with where I’m at with weaving right now anyway.

Will it work?

If you’ve ever thought “hmm that hand woven X is kind of expensive” it’s because someone spent EIGHT MILLION YEARS warping the loom to make that X. At about 2/3 if the way through the task I find myself thinking “you know I could just buy a scarf at the Bay.” But the weaving part is really fun and rewarding so… one perseveres.

That being said, this time I put the warp in the loom which is a really backbreaking task (I know it doesn’t look like it but I assure you, it is) and I found myself not being able to face the idea that I did all that for one shawl’s worth of warp. Plus the good chunk of yarn that’d be wasted.

So, I devised a plan. I made colour coded warp started threads with a loop at each end, and am now binding them to the loom and to the yarn strands I originally warped the loom with, one by one, and am now pulling these back through the heddles and the beater. One that’s all done then I’ll wind on and weave until I arrive back at these warp starter strings, and then I’ll pull those back through the beater. When I want to weave again all I should need to do is tie the strings to the warp starters. That is, no counting out heddles on different sheds, no pulling each thread through the heddle, and no pulling the the thread through the beater. Just tie on, wind, and weave!

I hope this works as well as I imagine it will. Cross your fingers for me!