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habitual

for habit, 6 november:
i moved the piano.  by myself.  i am my mother's daughter.

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my love affair with habit continues to grow.  a community coming together around the sharing of a single image, a few words.  a collection of the collective.  i've been smitten since molly and emily launched the endeavor almost three years ago.  i've been inspired by this authentic celebration of lives truly lived.  so much so.  and i've been ever so grateful to participate a few times as a guest.  

for november, they're inviting all to take part.  do join in.

call and answer

a convergence happened in june.  of art and movement.  of the familiar and new.  of two of my disparate (and burgeoning) loves.  of handbound books and dancing.

amanda lovelee's call and answer project brought strangers together to eat pie, to pull prints to be assembled into books, to square dance, and above all else, to celebrate community and connection. when i happened upon the event at the minnesota center for book arts, during the twin cities nuit blanche festivities, i immediately knew.  i was home. 

i was home cranking prints for a poignant little book on community and square dancing to be folded together later for sharing.  

i was home fumbling through the caller's instructions.  allemande-ing left, honoring my partner, bowing to my corner, promenading home. 

home you are and home you be.  i knew i had returned home after all of that spinning and laughing and living and connecting.

for more on amanda's inspiring project see here (and if you look closely you'll even see my absolute joy in one of the sequences).

(and... it goes without saying, but i'm tickled to have found a small, though vibrant, group of dancing folk in my backyard.  it had been weeks since i smiled and laughed as much as i did last night.)

back at it

i'm back in the field.  

i thought i was done capturing images for reclamation, but realize now that the project is as much about me and my story as it is about that of others.

now that i have the opportunity to bring this project to print, to a larger audience (thank you, thank you, arrowhead regional arts council), i am seeing that the photo.making and thought.sharing that happened there was a legitimate way for me to express the darkness, the emptiness, the grief that i felt within as i was working on foreclosure recovery.  my sadness had nothing to do with a personal financial crisis, but so much to do with my sense of home, my sense of self. 

i'm in a very different place today.  one where i can see and feel and truly experience joy, light, abundance.  with this new perspective, i've been reluctant (terrified) to step back to all those images, all those memories.  i see now that if i am to make sense of the personal story, i must go back and take another look from my new vantage point.

of course, it's so much harder than i thought it would be... 

(there's a new online format ahead for me in the near future... the old ones no longer seem to fit.  imagine that.)

habit | long weekend

9 july

six dollars of local berries inhaled in less than three minutes. two extremely happy children each with ten very red fingers. 

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10 july

she insisted she wasn't tired.  two hours later she claimed she didn't nap.  i was exhausted, and grateful for my long afternoon slumber.

. . . . . . . .

11 july

why don't they make bounce houses for adults?

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Returning from a few days filled with the non-stop giggles of cousin love, the habit format seems just the right speed.  I hope the weekend treated you well.

revisiting habit

twenty quarts of berries picked.  some in the freezer.  some in a pie.  some in jars marked 'jam'.  some in the fridge.  many, many in our bellies.

. . . . . . . .

If you haven't heard, habit is having a little celebration this month, and all are invited to participate.  Emily and Molly, and a huge list of guests, have been at it for eighteen months, capturing snippets of a day with an image and a few words.  I'm thrilled to see such a great project continue to grow and inspire.  And too, to be able to join in when the days are long and light filled. 

hope

Tonight, on a long dark highway, I was brought to tears by a religious hymn.  The World radio program ended with the a psalm that survivors in Port-au-Prince have been heard singing as they walk through the devastated streets.  The verse reminded me of the resilience of hope even in the darkest of times, and lifted a bit of the heaviness I've been carrying since hearing the news of the earthquake earlier this week.

Another reminder of hope is the surge of support for earthquake recovery efforts seen around the handmade community.  So many talented makers are sending a portion of their sales to organizations helping on the ground in Haiti.  And Craft Hope has opened an etsy shop and filled it with donated handmade items with all of the proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders.  I just added the last of my limited edition cottonwood leaf journals to their effort.  It's a small bit, really, but one of a growing collective.

May hope abound.

december bits

Today I spent the morning in the office, and then snuck out for a hike and a shopping run.  The trail seemed odd, all muddied and crisscrossed by ribbons of water.  Like October or April.  Definitely not December.  But there was no doubting the season while erranding.  Candy canes came home in my bag; jingle bells came home in my head.  Another box of satsumas ended up in the shopping cart as well.  I swear they're better than clementines.

Did you hear?  There's a reunion of sorts happening over at habit.  Emily and Molly have invited all of the guests from the year to gather together to share slices of their days through the month of December.  I feel honored to be amongst such talented and inspiring women, and too, excited to see the month unfold through the collection of our words and images.  Do visit.

this weekend...

... the invites were gocco'ed, assembled, addressed and stamped (with postage, and too, a tiny stamp carved by me);


...ugly apples from the neighbor's tree were sauced and pie-d;

...a sweater was finished. 

A feverish child was cuddled.  A new cook book was discovered.  The post office line was conquered.  Spiced biscotti were twice-baked.  Jerusalem artichokes were tried (and liked).  Really Rosie was rediscovered.  

And a photo was selected for the Shutter Sisters' Daily Click (so many thanks, sisters!!).

A full weekend, indeed.  I hope yours was restful and rich.

forward

Every now and then I steal away to my attic.  I bring out my gocco printer and paper, or bookcloth, and I pull prints.  There's something relaxing about the repetition.  About the making of many.  There's something satisfying about an orderly stack of notecards.  About the transfer of images from my natural environment onto the page, onto cloth.  Time passes, almost unnoticed. I know this is good for me.

Since I've been finding such peace in the making, and since I'm a girl who needs an assignment, I've decided to open a little shop over on etsy.  If you've tracked the gocco swaps, you'll see some familiar items.  And you'll see some new stuff as well, including hardcover journals with gocco printed bookcloth covers.

The cottonwood leaf screen is one that was retired - ahem, ripped - in the last print run.  There are three limited edition journals and a stack of cottonwood cards in the shop.  A portion of sales from items printed with this botanical rubbing will be donated to the Cottonwood Foundation, an all-volunteer organization that makes small, but significant donations to grassroots groups around the world protecting the environment, empowering people and promoting cultural diversity.  It seems fitting in many ways.

And in other sharing news, I paid it forward, finally.  I sewed up a batch of charlie bags -- three choclate brown linen bags with repurposed cotton lining, one greyish denim one with yellow seersucker lining.  I then paired them up with some gocco'ed cards, and sent them out.  Nine months late.  Many thanks to Marnie, Grace, Kate and Lisa for being so very patient. 

local flavors

We tasted summer this weekend.  On Saturday we traveled to La Finca, our CSA farm, for their spring pancake and planting celebration.  I'm amazed at how much will happen there in the coming weeks.  Some of the fields were planted, many of the beds covered with a thin orange fabric that keeps small plants warm and reminds me of the saffron robes of monks.

The greenhouse was loaded with starts awaiting transplant.  The planting of squash was planned for the visitors, but a frost advisory kept the tender plants in the greenhouse for at least another night and kept the dirt out from under my nails.

On the way home we passed by Brown's Shorthorns, the farm from which we've purchased all of the beef we've eaten in the past two years.  We met Edgar, the timeless midwestern cowboy, on the road and stopped to talk about the animals he was finishing in the coming months.  He mentioned a  twin who didn't get her "fair share of the groceries" from the start and was therefore petite by shorthorn standards, and would offered at a discount to someone looking primarily for ground beef.  I like knowing the people who are growing and raising my food, and too hearing the stories behind the bringing of food to our table.

We returned home in time to cover the tomatoes in the community garden plot and harvest more of the frost-hardy greens.  We dug one of Edgar's roasts out of the freezer, sliced it up, marinated it in some siracha, sesame oil and sugar and put it in the dehydrator to make beef jerky for our upcoming canoe camping trip.  

I made a rhubarb pie using pink stalks grown in Wisconsin and sold at our local food co-op.

And, I signed us up for One Local Summer this year.  We'll be eating at least one meal each week that is made from local ingredients, and will be sharing it here and with other challenge participants.  I look forward to savoring the season.  The weekend tells me we're ready.