Well, it feels like a billion years since I have had anything of any worth to report.  I wrapped up last semester and trucked on home with Marigold in tow to celebrate the holidays.  One of my main objectives, however, was to catch up with friends and visit all the new changes in their lives.  Obviously, I surround myself with creativity so I’m going to share with you the beautiful studios 3 of my friends settled into while I was away.

First I headed to Brooklyn to see Karla Stingerstein who is settled in at Pratt to finish up her MFA.  Above is the fuzzy image from her window of Manhattan….. pretty picturesque.  Chrysler Buidling; Brooklyn Bridge.  I’m making you imagine a little bit (but I do have a crisp image I’m not sharing with you- hahaha).

Here’s a view of her space.  Pretty much what everyone would imagine their Brooklyn studio to look like….  only it’s all hers!

Then returning to home to the Lehigh Valley, Adriano Farinella and Berrisford Boothe, both former artists at the Banana Factory with me, set up shop in the Karl Stirner building in Easton.  It’s a pretty sweet space and beautifully finished.  There was much drooling when I walked through the doors.  The first image is Berrisford’s side then following is Adriano’s.

Studio space has been in the forefront of my mind as I am still waiting for mine new space to be made available for move in.  I’ll definitely share once settled in……

IN the meantime, I also have been thinking about these decadent cupcakes I had at Cakejoy in Brooklyn….. they were really really good.

So it feels like a BILLION years since I last wrote.  This new job paces at a consistent frantic but it’s not to say it hasn’t been fun and rewarding (with a side of anxiety laden).  The big news is (and if you are on Facebook, you already know this) I have accepted the additional duty of the Reed Fine Art Gallery Director and have been training my brains out every spare moment I can get with the retiring Director, Sandy (thanks, sweetie!).  I wish I could share with you the weight and intensity of holding the campus collection of 100 Andy Warhol photographs in my hands last week.  Wow.  It’s pretty cool.

But in that time were I accepted my position, I have also wrapped up my weaving class and now don’t know quite what to do with myself on Tuesday nights.  So instead Tuesday nights have been replaced with class prep and grading.  Jealous, much?  I wanted to share with you however the poem that Carol, our teacher, wrote to surmise the 8 weeks.  Weaving class is far better than evenings grading.

There is something to be said about an out of body experience.  I think we all have had them- for good reasons or bad.  And it becomes a situation where your instincts take over and your brain follows behind.  I have to say I’m not entirely comfortable with public speaking.  Yes, I do believe I understand the irony on that being that my job requires public speaking on a daily basis.  This has been something that have grappled with for years.  I used to throw up before classes when I started teaching and now I just have the flurry of butterflies that occupy my stomach from time to time.  It’s an improvement, at least but get me into a scenario where I have never been- well, those butterflies are flutter a bit more crazily.

Last Friday, I debuted my work in my new hometown of Presque Isle.  My exhibit was at Cafe Sorpreso and part of the First Friday Art Walk.  I put up 18 or 19 pieces from my Iniciar show.  It was an absurdly hurried day since I had only slept about 2 hours because of worrying about 2 of the pieces coming off the Fed Ex plane just in the nick of time of putting up the show.  It’s a long and convoluted story not worth telling here- but I am reconsidering my use of the services of Fed Ex.  (ahem)

So I rushed about my day until finally the opening arrived….  like any other First Friday I have been to, people scurried from one thing to the next and for me being the newbie in town, I didn’t expect so many to come out, which set my expectations rather low.  I pumped up the show in my classes all week and even though many students nod their heads and sound like they will come- I am realistic and it IS a friday night.  Would that actually happen?

I was due to speak at 8:15.  I barely ate dinner.  People started to trickle in- more and more were faces I recognized.  My last count, close to the time I was to speak, was around 70 people.  I’ve had very few situations where I have spoken to a room more than 30-50 people.  Let me just tell you, the extra 20+ bodies REALLY up the anti!

8:15 rolls around- Judy turns off the music- Cliff leans in and tells me we’re going to get started.  After his introduction, people applaud.  But then the applause continues, and someone whistles, and someone yells out- I don’t know what happened to me however I somewhat think for the first time in my life that I can relate to Arsenio Hall.  Something in me had me jump up and down and then where a fleeting fist pump came in, I couldn’t tell you.  Again- mind out of body, body working on it’s own- I am sure that is how Arsenio Hall started his fist pump/crank and “roo roo roo” (I wiki-ed that because I did not know how to spell the sound associated with his fist pump).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenio_Hall

Ok- WHY DID I DO THAT???  Quite honestly, never in my life have I had such a reception.  I have had some enthusiastic clapping.  I’ve turned around a room with speaking but never as I was introduced did I have such warmth.  This makes Presque Isle so much different.

I am not quite sure how long I spoke- maybe 15 minutes.  I hope I sounded articulate.  I don’t think I “roorooroo-ed” but hopefully I made some sense.  One can only hope.

Let me just say, moving to Presque Isle has not been without it’s difficulties, but as I have settled in, I am daily reminded that this was a great choice.  Will I continue fist pumping?  I’m not sure.  Stranger things have happened- it just may be my new thing.

This week I came to the realization that I could burn out.  It happens, I guess and with few distractions to keep me from my job I’m realizing that that whole balance thing I had been working on is in somewhat of jeopardy.  So when I went to weaving class this week, it turned out to not be much of a weaving night but more a night to decompress a bit and chat with the other women.  Maybe it’s in the air but many of my classmates that night were a bit fried.

Anyway, I have been so antsy pantsy about getting to work in my still to be determined studio space- since I am working with the University on this, it seems to move at a molasses pace to make any amount of progress HOWEVER my studio space in part of another exciting development in my position here in Maine, which I cannot share with you quite yet.  But I am excited.

What I can share with you is the cool view from my building.  This week the building where I teach was ReDedicated, debuting it’s complete renovation as part of the campus’ mission to reduce it’s carbon footprint.  The building has been updated with solar panels on the roof, a new biomass furnace that uses pellets made from a local supplier, energy efficient siding and windows, and removed all the asbestos floor and ceiling tiles.  It’s pretty cool to see such commitment to a concept.

So my colleague, Hyrum, and I were able to get on the roof and explore a bit the other day and shot some pics.  I’m glad the snow held off a few days so you can see the expanse of solar panels with the wind turbine in the distance.  Mad cool.

(I have a bunch of stuff to post when I get a chance so stay tuned- in the meantime, I need make progress on my plan for my showing next week here in Presque Isle.  I’m more stressed out about it than I really should be).

you shall above all things be glad and young.

For if you’re young, whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

-e.e. cummings

I love e.e.cummings.  I have for years.  I heard this poem, read by Garrison Kellier, while on the road last week.
His work is incredibly special to me.  And this poem, as I drove down I-95, reminded me that I only live once and I should love heartedly and thank goodness for opportunity.  xoxo

In case you are in Spain, go to this show and then tell me all about it.  I will be dying to see pics of my work there (which Sergio is always so kind to share them with me).   As soon as I have them, I will happily pass them along to you!

(and for the women whom I told you the show was in a slaughterhouse- my apologies, I thought I read that somewhere in my correspondence!)

But Starbucks bellowed out it’s siren song once it knew I was about to embark on a road trip south.  As soon as I rolled into Augusta, I pulled over and walked into the first Starbucks I saw.  When the woman asked me how I was- I exploded with giddiness telling her is was my first Starbucks in 2 months since I had moved to Aroostook County.  I ordered a ginormous Venti Caramel Macchiato.  I don’t even order those at home because of all the calories and sugar but it had been 2 months.  I was going to whoop it up with decadence!!  Needless to say, I was buzzing the entire weekend from Starbucks as I set out to sight see Connecticut.

I was staying in Old Saybrook.  It is at the mouth of the Connecticut River and a picturesque town to explore full of marinas, water, shops, and restaurants.  And complete with a cute lighthouse…..It seems it’s a good place to vacation or just drive around, which is what we did.

Saturday evening, I made my way over to Ivoryton which is an even more picturesque town (or section of Essex) where Katherine Hepburn and Marlon Brando used to do summer theater at the Ivoryton Playhouse.  I was happy to be included in the “Juxtaposed” exhibition at the Six Summit Gallery, curated by Alyssa Monks.  Actually.  This exhibit, of which I saw the work online on their facebook page, was much more impressive in person than online.  I guess there is something to be said for the one-to-one experience of artwork rather than through the filter of a computer screen.

The show, although not advertised as a figurative show, was primarily figurative.  Probably because Alyssa herself is a figurative artist.  Some of the images in the show were just arresting to look at.  The gallery itself seemed small however in walking in the amount of work was just astounding.  It was a great turnout of people and I spoke with many people about my process- which I am always so surprised when people want to hear about it.  I don’t know why.  But overall I enjoyed meeting some of the other artists, viewing the work, and later thai food.  It also had been 2 months since thai food.

For more information on the exhibition, visit www.sixsummitgallery.com

The drive itself was long.  LONNNGGGGGG.  But what was super cool about that was how much the foliage changed as you progressed up I-95.  In Maine, the leaves are amber, crimson, and ochre where south of that, they are only starting to change.  It only seemed coincidence that I arrived at the scenic turnout to see Mt. Katahdin at dusk.  SO MAGICAL!  And I made it home a half an hour than I thought I would- probably because the speed limit was recently changed from 65 mph to 75 between Bangor and Houlton.  Thank god.

I have been pretty busy it seems!  While it would appear that I have not made much progress in my weaving class, I did take some time last week to peruse the book Carol brings into class.  I hadn’t had too much time with it yet but since I have been somewhat weaving with no end result in mind, I thought I would at least leaf through it so see if it would suggest a direction for what I am doing.  It seems it has just enforced that all I want to do is “free form” my weaving.  Which is what I am doing.

What I did learn from the book however was really awesome.  I know that having an art practice can be both a cerebral and emotional experience.  I also know that it is incredibly spiritual.  I began to read about the design of the loom from this book and it was so satisfying to find the significance that this structure has in it’s construction.  So what I am saying, dear reader, I am ok with just weaving and being present for that process.  I know that the process impacts the subconscious.  Being I am constantly stimulated with so much that is new and something I need to adapt to, process, or respond to- “being” seems like it would be simple.  Much like the shavasana in yoga, it is the pose that in appearance seems the simplest but in reality is the hardest.  To just allow oneself to simply be…

Prior to that realization, I spent the weekend still getting to know the Maine countryside.  Being a fan of apple cider but never actually seeing the process of apple pressing, a bunch of us went on out into Carol’s woods and shook some trees free of their apples.  It was such an exciting yet exhausting sequence of events.  Last weekend was apparently unseasonably warm and we were able to meander the grounds with wheelbarrows, ladders, and glasses of wine.  I think apple picking should always include a little of that!  I’ll end this posting with a bit of a “photo journal” of how the day progressed (a bit out of order but the blog gallery does not want to cooperate with me!)- it was beautiful.  The food was amazing (as always). And we each left with a gallon of apple cider (with many, many apples to spare!).  AND YES, I have a new love for chickens.  You see me with Faustina, Gert, Ava, and Myrna- the cutest chickens ever.

This past week at Weaving Class, which is Tuesday nights if you want to mark it down on your calendar, was probably more like the weaving class that many expected.  Our class grew in size and we were joined by a number of SPINNERS!  My sister would be going berserk, I think.  Our new class members all seemed to have sheep and and they spin their own wool from there.  If you haven’t heard me say it before, I have been rather impressed by the general community attention to to their own sustainability.  I was so impressed, that a few weeks ago, I tried making my own jam and pickled beets.  Let me just say my beets were excellent and perhaps did not need canning because I ate them within a few days.  This weekend I have tentative plans to get together with someone to press apple cider.  It’s all too cool for school.

So back to class… this week we received our looms to work from.  May I just say, I was jonesing for the ones Carol made from wood around her property.  They look like they should be incorporated in the piece that I’m making.  Oh and let me just say, I have no idea what I’m making.  I am just going to weave to my heart’s content and see what comes of it.  Carol showed us some of the weaving she had made, which were meticulous and beautiful.  We can all only hope we  get there too!

If you haven’t strung up a loom before, it’s somewhat labor intensive.  That is about all I accomplished during class that night, but I also was socializing a bit with people because well, I wanted to.  The Wintergreen Art Center is a pretty home-y place.  We spread out onto tables, over couches, and onto floors.  It’s quite comfortable.  It’s almost like we all just went to someone’s house to hunker down and weave over tea and coffee.  As you can see, I have chosen the floor to work on and I am well equipped with my coffee and water bottle.  Maybe next week, I should bake something.

More to come……..
(ps.  I’m hoping to make a day trip this weekend so there will be soon more to see.  ANNDDDD next week I head to Ivoryton, Connecticut to my opening at the Six Summit Gallery.  Stay tuned for pics!)

Being the new kid in town and in the effort of NOT being “all work and no play,”  I enrolled in a class at the local art center, Wintergreen.  It’s a beautiful place right around the corner from where I live so it seemed only rightfully so that since I have Tuesday nights off, and it was so affordable, AND I could be doing something creative, that i join up in this new class.

What is the class?  It’s called “Weaving and Dreaming.”  One of my classmates, also named Heather (so far I have met 3 other Heathers in my short time here) described the class as introspective weaving.  So I guess that is the description I relay to you.

The class is taught by a woman, Carol, who I have had the pleasure to meet and start to get to know through some of my colleagues on campus.  She is a local artist and self proclaimed local activist who’s mission it is to enlighten Presque Isle with culture.  To me, she should also add shaman or spiritual guide to that list.

I had no idea what the class would be like.  I had no idea what i was in store for but I had the impression it would not be your straight forward “how to” class.  Carol began the evening talking a little about the inspiration of the class, which partially was from the book “Felt: Fluxus, Joseph Beuys, & the Dalai Lama” (check it out here-   http://www.amazon.com/Felt-Fluxus-Joseph-Beuys-Dalai/dp/0816653542).

The book description reads as follows: Felt provides a nonlinear look at the engagement of the postwar avant-garde with Eastern spirituality, a context in which the German artist Joseph Beuys appears as an uneasy shaman. Centered on a highly publicized yet famously inconclusive 1982 meeting between Beuys and the Dalai Lama, arranged by the Dutch artist Louwrien Wijers, Chris Thompson explores the interconnections among Beuys, the Fluxus movement, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual practice.

Building from the resonance of felt, the fabric, in both Tibetan culture and in Beuys’s art, Thompson takes as his point of departure Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion in A Thousand Plateaus of felt as smooth space that is “in principle infinite, open, and unlimited in every direction,” its structure determined by chance as opposed to the planned, woven nature of most fabrics. Felt is thus seen as an alternative to the model of the network: felt’s anarchic form is not reducible to the regularity of the net, grid, or mesh, and the more it is pulled, tweaked, torn, and agitated, the greater its structural integrity.

Felt thus invents its methodology from the material that represents its object of inquiry and from this advances a reading of the avant-garde. At the same time, Thompson demonstrates that it is sometimes the failures of thought, the disappointing meetings, even the untimely deaths that open portals through which life flows into art and allows new conjunctions of life, art, and thought. Thompson explores both the well-known engagement of Fluxus artists with Eastern spirituality and the more elusive nature of Beuys’s own late interest in Tibetan culture, arriving at a sense of how such noncausal interactions—interhuman intrigue—create culture and shape contemporary art history.

So in the spirit of this book, we began with weaving within space.  It was a pretty vague direction- I suspect that was intentionally.  And as we were all handed skeins of yarn then told to stand up and “weave, ” the weird material processor of my brain started to try and understand what I would do.  Some people swayed (there was music playing) and waved around the yarn; others started tying the yarn to things and then to other things; I stood rather solitary, trying to draw on the floor.  I would become frustrated because people would either walk over what I was doing or drag the drawing away, so i had to come up with another strategy.

When we were told to stop, we were to find the closest person and tell them an object that is woven.  It could have been anything.  I started out with a basket- probably like everyone else did.  But as the process continued, I would frantically anticipate the “stop,” trying to come up with something better.  It all began referencing childhood with my grandmother and the crafts we would make together.  It then fell into the biggie- the arbor I wove for my wedding out of tree limbs, branches, and silk.  For some reason, this hit me hard.  Not that I missed my marriage because I am actually quite happy to not be in the marriage I was in.  But i don’t know why that carried so much weight for me.

Near the end of the exercise, I was one of the last people weaving.  We were to weave until the end of our skein.  I remained to stay pretty firmly planted in my space creating a mound of yarn- until I finally ended up making a nest form.  I found that I was trying to feel like I was building a home, probably because I feel very far from it.  So all in all, I think an utterly subconscious act that is insanely real.

I spend my days pretty concentrated on school.  I am really busy.  I think I also spend much time there so that I don’t think about how far I am from everything I know.

The next exercise was weaving with butter.  Yup, butter.  Joseph Beuys also worked with butter at times proclaiming it a pure material.  So in that spirit, we were asked to all create a butter weaving together in silence.

It wasn’t as easy as you think.  I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to work with it.  I thought it might work a little like clay however what it does is melt on the outer layer, while the inner layer remains tough.  I tried to knead it through my fingers a bit and it didn’t help.  Anyway, I started in on the mat- after most of my class mates were already going and started to try and create butter knots.  I don’t know- I was thinking about knotted nets or something so I went with it.  I spent a lot of time building my first knot.  I also wanted it to look clean and controlled so I spent a bunch of time trying to make the surface crisp by getting the form in place then rubbing down the surface with the melted butter.  Other people in my group seemed to make pathways to other people’s work.  Other people built up structures while others drew and made marks with the butter on the mat.

We talked about it afterwards.  So maybe I was in my own world a little too much during this exercise because many people were trying to connect with others while I tried to connect with my material.  It was brought up that I was somewhat closed off from the rest by the woman who worked next to me.  I had to think about it.

So I arrived at the fact that I am not comfortable trying new things out in front of others.  That I put a lot of pressure on myself to seem controlled and even educated about what I am doing- and this is probably because of the pressure I feel about being an educator and expected to know every last thing.  I also feel that pressure because of the expectations I put on myself when working.  I seem to always want my work to be at a certain caliber- and apparently that also includes my butter work (haha).

I don’t know how great I felt after we were done.  I felt very alone.  But perhaps maybe it was the first steps in acknowledging that after spending the last month and a half being all about work.  I also didn’t feel so great that I have the impression that I do not give off an air that I want to let people in.  It’s somewhat sad but it also feels like a place that i also need to feel like I can trust.  Perhaps this is a place where that will grow.

This is an 8 week course so stay tuned to further reports and revelations- hopefully it will all feel like it will make some sense- emotionally- to me.