hello, hello

No, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We are just experiencing a complete lack of internet access. I hope it will be resolved soon as I have lots of cool plant-dyed fleece to show off.

Can You Stand It?

A CD with photographs of The Knitted Mile just arrived from Shannon Stratton, one of the curators of Gestures of Resistance. Her photos were so different from mine (given that she was photographing while I was laying the piece down on the road), that I feel I must post just a few here. I don't care what the naysayers say, looking at the photographs brought back to me just how lovely, poignant, funny, strange it was that cold morning in Dallas.

Books, I Like'em

Rather than bore you to tears with tales of packing and racing around trying to pretend that all the loose ends of a life can be tied up neatly in a couple of days, I will share something completely different. Browsing through some blogs, I came across one by a person who lives in Sunnyside: Reading Is My Superpower. I love that name. Anyway, she listed her top twenty all-time favorite books of fiction. While I liked her list, I think I have some differing ideas, although I also realized that I have a very hard time coming up with twenty books. So, here is my list of my ten all-time favorites:

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot. There simply is no better book ever written. Sorry, but it's true.

After this they are in no particular order of favourite-ness.

2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (I also recommend the BBC dramatization of this book)
3. Stuart Little by E.B. White (actually, just about anything by E.B. White)
4. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (not really fiction but a very good book)
5. Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
6. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
7. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
8. The Grey Islands by John Steffler
9 and 10. The whole series of books by Ngaio Marsh, P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers

I never realized I was such a literary Anglophile until just now.

And there is a whole category of books that are only eluded to in that list and this is, novels written for ages 9-12: The Melendy stories, The Wheel on the School, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I could go on.

What's your list? Patti? Shawn? I would ask Helen but I know she doesn't like that.

Shipping Off

Here is my very first order of yarn being sent to the Craft Council shop in St. John's. Actually it is part of the order--the rest will be shipped after we get to Gillams (and I spin it up!). It takes a bit of work to prepare it to be sent. Besides the dyeing and spinning part, I need to measure the yardage, which I can do fairly easily because each wrap around my niddy noddy is equal to two yards. I just count up the strands and double it. Then I weigh the skein and finally I measure the number of wraps/inch. This allows me to say with certainty what the weight is (worsted, DK, bulky, etc.). All that information gets written on the label, which is wrapped around the yarn and taped. Now it is ready to go.

Some of the skeins are newly spun and some had been listed in my etsy shop for several months but had not sold. I have discovered something about selling on etsy--it is harder to sell yarn that is more subtle in its colouring. I have a couple of skeins of yarn that I think are gorgeous but somehow the photographs don't do it justice and it just doesn't leap off the screen at you. I have faith that people looking for yarn at the shop will be able to recognize its beauty in person.

I wish them farewell with the knowledge that we will arrive on the island at about the same time, albeit on different coasts

You Must Be Mistaken

Over at Enchanting Juno, she got talking about stash and that led to talking about being open to making mistakes and forging ahead anyway.

Yesterday, I watched this video about education and creativity. It wasn't anything new to this unschooler but lovely to hear and to feel the reinforcement of ideas that are so often seen as going against the tide or just plain crazy. One of the speaker's main points was that children are not afraid of mistakes: they just go with it and correct as they go and sometimes they come up with something great. He was saying that creativity is about not fearing mistakes.

I am a lucky person - my stock and trade is creativity. As someone once said, you become an artist because it is impossible to do anything else. And if you can do something else, do it! You will be much happier (I would add, and richer and have less stuff cluttering your house). I think the idea that one would be happier NOT being an artist is related to the way mistakes go hand in hand with creativity.

Mistakes are funny things, really. I remember, back in my painting days, knowing in my gut from the first brush stroke - the very first one! - whether or not a painting would work or would suck. And those paintings that were doomed from brush stroke one were so infuriating every time because, every time, I would keep going, knowing that it sucked but believing I could make it right. No amount of paint applied and removed could ever fix it. I know other painters who have described the same experience. Now that I am no longer painting, I have had the experience knitting. Not exactly from the first stitch, but definitely from the first row, I know that the piece just isn't right . I keep adjusting and convincing myself that somehow I can make it work but really I should just chuck it and start something else.

So why do we persist, even when all the signs are clear that this one is doomed? I wonder if this is how George Bush feels about his Iraq caper? He started it, it sucked from the very first moment, but he is sure, sure!, that if he just adjusts this and twists that, it will all work out in the end.

Unlike Bush's war, a failed painting or knitting project is something we can laugh about eventually. We can try again, start fresh or, even better, transform the mistake into something unexpected and new and wonderful. And that's the beauty of mistakes and creativity. It is the only way, the only painful, humbling, irritating way to inch towards something new.

The Pressure Is On

We are winding things up here in NYC and we are casting our thoughts northward. Every year at this time I start to have regrets and doubts about what I am doing and why. Suddenly there are 1000 fascinating things happening here that we will miss and the idea of shifting households seems overwhelming. Meanwhile, I reviewed our next week's calendar and I don't really see a group of hours in which to pack and, oddly enough, Wee Ball Yarns has suddenly become popular in a very modest way but enough that I am wondering when I will be able to squeeze in some serious spinning time. My cup is spilling over. Big time. This mad rush of activity mingled with anxiety happens every year. Yet, somehow, as soon as we get past my mom's house in Massachusetts, which is the usual northern limits of our Sept - May travels, the adventure begins and the excitement of another season in Newfoundland takes hold. That first grilled cheese sandwich with a side of fries is the signal: Newfoundland here we come!

Dressing Up Mutton to Look Like Lamb

That phrase is a saying I heard spoken by Australian guy I met in Rome in 1986 and it has stuck with me ever since. I even used it as a the title of a piece I made in which I covered a sitting room in knitwear. But it comes back to me now because of this item:



Isn't it lovely? I thought so too when I saw the ad on craigslist. A spinning wheel for $50! Great!, I thought, I'll buy it and give it away to someone who has been dying for a wheel. I knew it was old and therefore not a great production wheel, but for $50, who cares. Someone out there needs a wheel and I was prepared to give it to them.

I drove out to NJ to pick it up on Saturday morning. The woman who was selling it only knew that it belonged to her grandmother for at least 50 years. She was thrilled it would find a happy home with someone who could use it. She almost forgot to even take the money for it.

It is at this point that a certain surprise registered with me at how light the spinning wheel was. I have two wheels and they both, while not heavyweights, are substantial enough that I don't enjoy carrying them around much further than from my dining room to my living room i.e. about 5 feet. This one I could lift with one hand. Hmmmmm....

Nevertheless, I got the wheel home and excitedly put a drive band on it (there was none), happily noting that it was a double drive. Cool. I eagerly whipped out a bit of roving and sat down. It was squeaky, but no problem, a little oil will fix that in a jiffy. The single treadle was a little fussier than what I am used to, but in a few minutes I had mastered it. Ok, now to thread the leader yarn. There was already yarn on the bobbin so I just hooked it through the first hook and...what a minute.

Take a closer look:



Notice anything missing? No orifice! Nada, niete, none. This was quite baffling to me. There was no evidence that an orifice once existed. It simply never was. Like any good 21st Century spinner, I immediately sent a note to my spinning email list and what I learned has just blown my mind. Apparently, and are you sitting down for this? Apparently, there was a trend popular in the 1950s and 60s for people to buy purely decorative spinning wheels to put in their houses. That's right, spinning wheels that closely resembled the real thing but don't actually work. And all evidence points to this being one of those. What is maddening is that it is thisclose to really functioning.

So much for my good samaritan impulses. Although I also learned in my research that there is someone who has figured out a way to retrofit a working flywheel and bobbin (with orifice) onto these...er...items, I feel my investment in this one is finished. I listed it on freecycle and almost immediately got a response from someone who is sure they can make it work. (I was really clear that it was non-functioning).

Hope springs eternal.

May Day Schedule

1. Finn and Lucy go to gymnastic/dance class

2. Walk to park

3. Make flower garlands

4. Maypole dance.

We are actually celebrating our May Day with a maypole dance. It brings to mind one of my all-time favorite movies, The Wicker Man (1973 version, please).



The '70s were great...

Get Out Your #2 Pencils!

In accordance with New York State Regulation 100.10, Finn and Lucy are taking the PASS test today. This is the requirement for an end-of-year assessment for home educators beginning when the student is in grade 4 and must happen every other year until high school. The test was specifically created for homeschoolers so it has some nice features, like not being timed, but it is still a standardized test and has all the limitations and nonsense associated with standardized tests.

Yesterday we did the "placement" portion of the test in which the child takes a short preliminary test to determine which level of the main test they should take. In a weird way, it was kind of a relief to discover that they both did about exactly as I expected. Weird only in the sense that I completely disagree with the need for these tests and think they test only the ability to take tests but there I was, feeling good that they did quite well and that their errors were what I imagined they might be--errors of sloppiness not lack of comprehension of material.

I guess a childhood filled with Iowa tests and SATs and such is hard to shake.

But sshhh....must get back to filling in little bubbles.

Smack Down

"Give me a lot of yarn because I can knit garter stitch in my sleep." Such was my boast to one of Dan's co-workers who was coordinating the knitting of a baby blanket for a new baby who has joined the CTA family. Said blanket is a collection of seven 5" wide garter stitch stripes that get stitched together--perfect for a group project. It is made up of squares of colour that are alternated in a charming pattern of lighter to darker colours.

I received the yarn on Friday and proceeded to knit the oh-so-familiar strip of garter stitch with growing confidence that I would finish my contribution in one weekend and claim my prize as Most Fabulous Knitter. No amateur, no, not me.

Garter stitch in my sleep? Fabulous Knitter? Oh my dears, can you guess what I discovered as I reached for the last colour of the first stripe, all puffed up with accomplishment? Here's what I found: the colour "darker blue" and "navy" are not one and the same. And further, that "darker blue" (which I knit in "navy") was the second square of colour from the beginning. The one I needed to be knitting now, a good 25" later is the "navy" not the "darker blue" that I had in my hand.

Can you hear the knitting goddess laughing over the sound of rip-it, rip-it, rip-it?

Moses Supposes

his toeses are roses....



Look! Toe up socks! And, although you can't see it here, I am working on two socks simultaneously! On two circular needles! A miracle of nature, almost. Actually, I owe it all to the brilliant Helen, who willingly (and brilliantly) taught me this stunning technique last Tuesday. She did it all while also providing Finn and Lucy with more information about math relationships that I have done all year long. Gotta love such a full service knitting group.

Lion Brand highlights The Knitted Mile

Lion Brand Yarns has made a blog entry about The Knitted Mile. View it here.

Thanks to Helen for pointing it out to me!

If you want to see more pictures of The Knitted Mile, visit these posts:

In progress

The stripe just before it leaves NYC

Installation Day

Clean Your Bowl

A few weeks ago, the writer of one of favorite blogs posted this under the heading "The only leadership advice you will ever need".

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Tao Te Ching chapter 9

It has stayed with me ever since, especially in the past week or so when every single one of our days has been full to the brim and I know there are all sorts of things spilling over the edge. I hate that feeling! But where do you make the cut? What, exactly, is my work? Mother? Home educator? Artist? Knitter and spinner? All are full time jobs if you do them correctly.

Sometimes, in my weaker moments, I can't help but think: sure, it was easy for the Buddha. He wasn't a mother. He didn't have laundry and meals and children and schedules and clean-up and work on top of all that.

You can be on the path and still be mountains and rivers away.

Poor Old Wee Ball

In all the travels and projects, Wee Ball Yarns has had to take a backseat. I did manage to get it included in the Craft Council's annual studio guide and I submitted yarn for consideration for their store in St. John's--still waiting hear back on that. As our thoughts turn northward and ferry reservations are made, I have been able to cast a glance at my dwindling inventory and start to get excited about another season of yarn dyeing and spinning. I purchased some natural plant dyes (indigo!!) and I am hoping to get a bunch of fleece dyed before we leave so I can start right in spinning. We'll see. Time takes on another feeling in Gillams, so there will be opportunity to do all these things sooner or later.

In the meantime, I have posted some new items, including some new yarn that I am very happy with. Remember my over-spun single?



Pretty but pretty awful from a spinning perspective.

The solution was to ply it with a merino single that had been sitting around on a bobbin.


I love the results--so rich in colour. I keep thinking it is the royalty of yarn because it looks so fancy. The perfect ending for a terrible mistake!

At Long Last

Did you knit for The Knitted Mile? Have you been saying to yourself, "I knit for that lady and was promised pictures of my own to keep and I ain't seen nothing yet!" Well, my great shame has, at long last, ended. I have finally made up little books of photographs for everyone who knit (the key word here is "little") and I will be mailing and distributing them early next week. My sincere apologies for the delay--your hard work was/is very much appreciated!

That said, I should warn you that there is a reason why I make projects that involve great lengths of knitting and not, say, handmade books. Let my love for you not be measured by the straightness of my cuts nor the accuracy of my measurements, but by the sincere intention with which these books were made.

Math (no science yet)

We hit a point this year when I realized that my math skills take a steep decline around Grade 6. Finn and Lucy, both, were ready for more complex ideas but I was not. When math comes up, my mind starts to fog over and suddenly scrubbing the mold off the grout in the bathroom seems like a very pressing, yet enjoyable, task. Better go do that right now - see ya!

This is not such a productive attitude for a homeschooler, especially for the one who is supposed to be creating the atmosphere of ideas. Then, I learned about this essay, Lockhart's Lament.

Read!

Socialize Me!

One of the first things people usually say when I mention that we are homeschooling (although mostly I try to avoid the topic at this point), is "aren't you worried that they won't have a group of friends to socialize with?". Or "what about socialization? It is so important!" Most people who homeschool are probably rolling their eyes about now since it is the first question everyone gets asked. The next one is "what about math and science?"

Forget math and science for a moment...let's talk about socialization.

Truth be told, my views about how many friends one needs in life may be somewhat outside the mainstream. I often feel that so much emphasis is put on being a "team player" and "working well in groups" that it leaves little room for people who have more interior kinds of personalities to be considered perfectly normal and acceptable. At best, they get labeled shy or at worst, told they have some kind of disability that requires treatment. This isn't to say that there are not some people with genuine problems, but I have more than once seen children who are simply more solitary types who live in their heads a bit more than most be labeled...well...just be labeled something other than "normal kid". Normal has become so narrow for children these days.

Plus, I have my own axe to grind. I was always told by teachers and other prominent adults in my life that I was shy. I have spent my whole life thinking, no , believing, that I am a shy person. A shy person with a blog. A shy person who regularly creates large-scale collaborative projects with complete strangers. Wait a minute! Maybe I am not shy! Imagine if I had grown up without that thought constantly echoing in my head.

Better to toss it in the garbage pail after 42 years than never, I suppose, but even better to never have to bother about such nonsense. Do you agree?

Another of the beauty parts about homeschooling is that my children have never learned that you are supposed to feel disdain for younger kids or those other kids, whoever they may be at any given moment. There is very little of the Lord of the Flies kind of competition among the children and there is almost none of the us vs. them stuff between the children and the adults. I don't know exactly why except that perhaps it is because there simply doesn't need to be. We often are in groups that range from infants to teenagers to adults and for the most part, we all get along. I like that kind of socialization.

I suppose I am running the risk of sounding like I am proselytizing for homeschooling. I'm not. I don't think everyone should do it. I know people who are doing it and perhaps should re-consider. But I do sometimes want to counter the fact that parents who have children who go to school seem to feel no problem questioning and even openly criticising my family's decision. Meanwhile, if I were to suggest that some of the socialization that goes on in schools might not be the most healthy thing for some children...well!

Shall we talk about math and science now?

Look Who's Home

This arrived at our doorstep last Friday:



All 57 tangled-up pounds of it.

Gulp.

Il Papa or Big Papi?

So the Pope is coming to NYC. Far be it for me to say he shouldn't come and take advantage of the strong exchange rate like all those other Europeans who are filling our streets. And say what you will about sex abuse scandals and the treatment of women and homosexuals, the man is obviously quite impressive to be where he is today.

But there is just one thing.

Yankee Stadium?

Never!

Changing the World One Pad at a Time

In the way that redeems all the time-sucking waste of the internets, I stumbled across this website: Goods4Girls.org. They collect donations of re-usable menstrual pads (you can make them yourself--they have a pattern, or there are other places on the web with patterns) and distribute them to girls in Africa, where having no access to sanitary supplies, like menstrual pads, often means the end of schooling. A simple, yet powerful, act. And it all started with just one woman asking herself what she could do to help.

If there was ever a better reason to finally dust off my sewing machine...

PS. If you are not using re-usable pads yourself...what's stopping you? It is better for you and the planet. Plus the water you soak them in is like a miracle drink for plants. Everybody wins. Do it!

Turn, Turn, Turn

The spinning/knitting workshop went well. I shared some information about a variety of fibres, passing around samples of raw and scoured wools, alpaca, silk, cotton boles, and angora, then did a little demo of carding and spinning. As always, the wheel was a great attraction (one child asking "what's that machine?") and everyone wanted a chance to try it. Of course I want everyone to try it but I always feel a little bad about it because the first time one tries to spin on a wheel, it is just plain old hard. You watch the demonstration and it looks so easy and natural, and then - whoa - you need six hands and seven feet to make this thing work. It doesn't matter is you are eight or 38. Fortunately, most of the little ones were happy just to treadle and make the wheel go around, so I think everyone came away feeling satisfied.

Lucy did a bang-up job teaching kids to make little yarn dolls and the two other people who knit got everyone going with the knit stitch. Carey brought her needle felting kits and soon enough everyone was making little felted balls. The donated yarn was snapped up and, all in all, it was a glorious, fibre-y day!

For Future Generations

Today we will be heading over to the Broadway branch of the Queens Public Library where Lucy and I will be leading a workshop on knitting and spinning. We are part of a new homeschooling group that formed because we all were frustrated by having to always travel to Manhattan for activites (somehow us traveling to Manhattan was not a big deal, but try to get someone who lives in Manhattan to travel to Queens...you'd think they got nosebleeds or something). The group is lovely and as diverse as Queens itself. We started meeting one Wednesday/month, then we upped it to two Wednesdays/month and now we meet every week. The library has donated its basement space and we take full advantage of that generous offer. We try to mix structured time devoted to specific topics with open time for play and hanging out. Naturally, it was not too long before the topics of knitting and spinning came up - weird how that happens, right?

I have a variety of fibres to share: different breeds of sheep, alpaca, silk, cotton, angora, as well as my wheel, a spindle and maybe some pictures of sheep just for fun. The main point is to teach knitting, however, as there was a groundswell of interest among young and old. Hooray!

As a special bonus, a woman in our neighborhood was seriously de-stashing and I happily snatched it all up so I could share it with all these new knitters. Did I set aside some of the more tasty nuggets for myself? What do you think?

I'm Old Gregg!

It may be a little sad that I went to Berlin only to discover a cult British TV program, but I did.



Go to youtube right now and watch the rest of the episode. I highly recommend it.

A List A Mile Long

But instead....

Look Out: Confused Political Views Ahead

Before I headed to Germany, I was having some intermittent discussions with people who are much more conservative than I am. I like these discussions because they make me clarify the reasons that I hold onto my opinions and to remind me that, while I may think I know how things are and should be, there are many people who hold opposing views who are just as convinced that they are correct. I occasionally read some conservative blogs just to get my blood up a little but also to try to understand where people who hold these beliefs are coming from. Sometimes it works and sometimes I just shake my head and say "no". I love being idealistic about the possibilities of collective society and firmly believe that it is us idealists who are the ones that make change happen.

Among the artsy, international set that I was temporarily a part of, the general opinion about the US was pretty low. Everyone had been to NYC and loved it but they all disliked George W. Bush intensely. I think "wanker" and even "douche bag" were some of the phrases that came to their smoke-filled lips. As a card carrying member of the Green Party (can I make myself more irrelevant??), I am not about to defend W or the US at this moment in time. I was part of the several million strong "focus group" that protested the war, again and again, that W so easily dismissed way back when, many thousands of lives now ended ago. And I have continued to do what I can to register my protest including visiting my congressman and writing many letters. Futility, thy name is leftwing politics. Or so it seems sometimes.

Yet, after meeting the umpteenth person who trashed the US, I started to feel...not angry exactly...but kind of bummed out. The US, for all its many, many flaws at the moment, is quite an interesting experiment. Good things have come from it and, I suspect, will continue to come. But it seemed impossible to say that without sounding like some kind of patriotic bumper sticker. Dang! I'm a Canadian permanent resident! An Irish citizen! Who is ready to blame America first? That would be me! But there I was, feeling kind of defensive. It reminded of a time I was traveling in South India, staying in a village in a small set of little huts created for low-budget tourists. Next to my little hut were two British guys who spent a good deal of their time talking trash about all the "fat Americans" they saw that day and how awful America was (this was the Reagan years, so again, I could not disagree). They were relentless about it. But what really got me was that, in between America bashing, they would play their guitars and sing (wait for it) Eagles songs! And guess what kind of books they were reading when they put down their guitars? Yes! American authors! Tempting 'though it was to point out the inconsistencies in their thinking, I let it go. They were pretty convinced of being right and I wasn't going to change that.

So yeah, like 81% of my fellow citizens, I believe the country is on the wrong track right now. It is a strange moment to feel like I should be defending this place. Fortunately, not everyone only sees the negative. Here are two British guys, and I don't think they are the same ones as my neighbors in Mahabulipuram, who appreciate some of things the US has to offer. Is Human League British? Ok, ONE British guy...

Berlin Diaries - the rest of the story

Berlin was not all introspection and daily meditative art experiences. No, no, no. I was there at the invitation of Sonya, who is ten years younger than me and single (although quite attached) and Berlin is a party city. Indeed, I do not think I have inhaled so much secondhand smoke since my freshman year of college. I decided that cigarette smoke is my nostalgia smell for Berlin. India is a burning smell mingled with spices. Rome is a whiff of car exhaust. Newfoundland=woodstove. Berlin is definitely cigarettes.

As if to prove the difference between 32 and 42, I frequently bowed out of such opportunities as dancing until 7am, but I was invited (read: coerced) into going to a club where every third young woman had dreadlocks and the music was two young men with their backs to the audience using various electronic devices to some effect. Not a good effect, but it was an effect. And then me, with my increasingly white hair and cardigan sweater. Actually, part of the charm of the Berlin party scene is that you can have white hair and a cardigan because no one really cares. It was fun. We were there with a really lovely Danish artist,Ulla Hvejsal, and it was fun, for the moment, to let go of worrying about home and about making art and about trying to speak German and about planning, organizing, thinking, and just sit on the broken furniture and gossip and watch people and invent ideas for future projects with two other artists and drink slightly suspicious beverages and, just for a moment, be part of the scene.

And then there was souvenir yarn:


For fun.


For socks.


For my mom to make socks.


For more socks.


For Lucy, who has already started a scarf.

Berlin Diaries

Here are some pictures of the exhibition Not Stained, Not Pure. The exhibition had several parts but all of it was based on exploring ideas related to the experience, my experience, of understanding how I aim for this goal of understanding the natural order of things and wish to be fearless, and the reality of what I really feel, which is a lot of fear. This seemed very a propos for my trip to Berlin because it called up so many of my deepest fears, beginning with my fear of flying. So I started there by making drawings about that. Each day, as I made more images, themes emerged and I tried to let images come without judgement about good/bad. I wanted them to be a diary of sorts and not about making "art." So, I let it flow: the good, the bad and the ugly. And I found this really cool pen that has a brush at the nib that makes the most beautiful marks. I am so in love with this pen, as you can see.










This image kept coming up, so I decided to crochet it.



These were some others that I particularly liked:







Each morning I would mix drawing on paper with drawing on the wall of the gallery. On the wall, I would write out the Heart Sutra and two dharanis (sounds chanted that have no particular meaning as words). After the first day, I washed off the previous day's writing, let the wall dry, then wrote out the Sutra and the dharanis again in another colour.


Day One.




Day Two.


Day Three.




Day Four.




Day Five

The wall began to be very beautiful with all the colours because it was impossible to completely remove all the watercolour from it each day. For the exhibition, however, I washed off the last writing and left just the stained wall.





On the wall opposite, I crocheted a large piece (about two meters/six feet in diameter).





Even for the incredibly fluent Sonya, the word "stained" was a puzzle. Apparently it is not something that has a real equivalent in German.


I also keep a running log of my purchases in Berlin, which I displayed. (Note the German self-patterning sock yarn...it was a bargain!)

And I did create a sound piece that used the chanting from the Zen Center in New York mixed, or layered is perhaps a better word, with a variety of sounds I collected in Berlin: the grocery store, the U-Bahn (subway), a dinner party, the sirens of the near-by fire station, etc. I am trying to figure out a way to be able to download it, or a sample of it, to my website and the Hope and Glory website, but I haven't been sucessful with that yet.

In retrospect, it looks like a lot of work. It didn't feel like a lot of work. It felt like a very natural and normal part of each day's activities; the normal flow of how I communicate about what I see around me. It made me happy to learn that I still very much love to do that--draw and make work from that part of my person.

So now I have six weeks to reflect and recover a little from these two busy months of traveling before...Newfoundland. But I shan't think of that today.

Berlin 6AM

That was me, this morning...getting on a plane to Zurich and from there, JFK. We landed at JFK at about 12:45 pm, which was nearly 7 pm according to my clock. I have lots of pictures: art, yarn, chocoloate (what else is there?) but for tomorrow. The rest of this day is for getting through as best I can without falling on my face. I'm tired, but it's a good tired.

Not Stained, Not Pure

It is hard to know where to start! I do not have access to the internet at the gallery so I am trying to cram five days of email and information into one hour now that I am somewhere with access. Of course, now I can't think of a thing to say despite that I have been preparing blog entries in my head all day long. So, I will have to share some pictures and see if that sparks anything profound, or not so profound.


This is Sonya and Alex, my hosts in Berlin. They co-organize Hope and Glory and they have been very generous with their time and efforts to make me feel at home here. We are on a double-decker bus heading to Martin Gropius Bau to see an exhibition of an Israeli artist named Dani Caravan.



Before we could get to the museum, however, we had to walk past Checkpoint Charlie, the former point of exit and entry between East and West Berlin. It is now a tourist attraction. I was photographing all the people photographing the people who have just paid 1euro to have their picture taken with a fake US and USSR soldier. Go capitalism! Yah!



Here is a shop near the gallery: Pimp Your Hair. For "Herren und Kinder" which means men and children. Uh-huh.



Now here is an intersection that you will never see in the US: the corner of Karl Marx Strasse and Karl Marx Platz. I stood right there and nothing bad happened to me. I swear!



And last but not least. Please come to the one-night only exhibition of "Not Stained, Not Pure: A Meditation on 10-Days in Berlin" featuring a sound installation, a series of works on paper, an ongoing wall drawing project and a crochet work. Join us at Hope and Glory at 9 p.m. on Friday evening (Emser Str. 126, NeuKolln). Beer will be served.

It is Easter Sunday in Berlin. I survived the plane rides although there were some tense moments. I have been studiously not thinking about the return trip.

I am set-up in the gallery, which is, as promised, somewhat primitive in terms of living space. But it is everything that I need: a bed, a fridge, an electric kettle and lots of space and time for working and thinking. I have been drawing a lot, walking around a lot, and feeling immensely grateful for the German educational system that means that nearly everyone from all walks of life can speak excellent English.

At the moment, I can not post pictures because I have to use Sonya's computer to get internet access. The gallery may be wired later in the week but perhaps not.

The neighborhood where I am staying is almost exclusively Turkish with a handful of Asian immigrants there too. I realized that, in Dallas, we stayed in Irving, which is the Queens of Dallas. In Berlin, I am staying Neue Kolln, which is the Queens of Berlin. Or something like that. Now that I think of it, Gillams could be called an outer borough of Corner Brook.

Always destined for the outer boroughs. Not a lot of glitz but the food is good.