rituals

Rituals. We all have them...some probably more profound than others. Every Tuesday and Friday when I pick him up from daycare, my son and I walk down the street to a cafe with a green door to purchase a "special juice". Each time he stands in front of the glass door seriously contemplating the choice. He opens the door and goes to the apple pear section,picks one up and right at the last minute puts it back and says "I don't like apple pear" (he's never tried it) "I like apple cranberry" (he's only tried this one). I think he likes the color. In the beginning, he would walk straight out of the shop..no need for an exchange of money here folks, it's just mine. Now, he plops the juice on the counter, folds his arms and asks for a straw in dutch. The ladies know him now...so does the old dutch man who sits in the corner and drinks wine by himself. Now that the weather is nice we jump on the bike to go home. The juice has to go in my bag for later but he doesn't trust me with the straw yet, that goes in his pocket.



Amsterdam is funny. It can be grey all day and at about 6-6:30 the sun makes an appearance and suddenly you feel like the whole day has been beautiful and you have to celebrate.



I decided to start a new ritual today. It's called "you sit on the front stoop and drink your apple cranberry juice and yell at bikers and boats....and i sit on the front stoop and drink rose." Catchy title?


I got some funny looks. I can't decide if it's because our liquids were the same color and they secretly thought I was saucing my kid up...or if the cold stares were culturally misinterpreted?




Either way sun + "juice" = good!

at my window

This is blooming just outside my back window...



I have resisted cutting some branches and bringing them in...until today. Armed with my garden shears I jumped up over and over until I caught a branch (and until the neighboring construction workers started laughing at me), pulled it down and snipped a few rougue shoots. My son told me very sternly that I was hurting the tree and I looked him right in the face and lied. "This helps the tree grow" I said "I promise you the tree is not sad"...he didn't buy what i was selling, just shook his head and said "no...that's not how it works" and walked away.




these blooms will only last a day on my table and window sill, but oh they are magnificent...

sunsets part 3

The companies I worked with in Peru laughed at me because I would stop everything and lean as far out their studio windows as possible to catch the colors...


sometimes laundry can be beautiful...

sunsets part 2

I am on a tight deadline over the next to weeks...but I have a lot of images I would like to share with you. I may let the photos speak for themselves until I get this work done...

sunsets part 1

The air here is thick with the stuff of beautiful sunsets. When the sun turns in for the night and colors lay themselves across the sky I almost forget where the catch in my breathing originates..pollution or awe.




These images of yarn being dyed bring the myth of Arachnae to mind.


To be a weaver of sunsets....Sifting through light, selecting threads, weaving for eternity something so fragile, intricate and passing.

lions

I have been shooting look-books and catalogs for companies here all week. Among the companies making women's and children's clothes is a lovely woman who makes blankets. These are the kind of blankets you think to yourself "when I am a real grown up I will have a blanket like that"...they feel like heaven and make you dream of naps in a room cold enough for a blanket with just the right amount of sun streaming through the window.

Of course when I brought one of these grown up blankets home after my last trip where did it end up? On my bed? Draped luxuriously over a chair? Nope. It has been taken hostage by a lion tamer. In fact it is now a lion...who lives on the couch, who will not let anyone else sit on the couch because he gets sad if you crush him.

I am bringing back a lion this time. A stuffed one, made from felted alpaca...I am crossing my fingers that the lion tamer will see this as a far superior species and sell the old one off for a song.

wednesday

My lovely translator/model...more of her to come.



On a very strange side note...I found out that they are experimenting with making yarn out of milk?????What? A milk/Alpaca blend.

monday, tuesday

sunday

I found a place full of silence...





...an old monastery with secret rooms and walls the color of sky.

crossing between worlds

Back to Peru.....

sweetheart

My son has started calling me sweet heart. He separates the two words with the emphasis on heart.


He is like one of those people they send in to diffuse a bomb. Just as my frustration level reaches a boiling over point he casually inserts the words into the situation and pouf it's gone.

DVD player is freezing the movie for the 900th time...
"don't throw the motor( remote control) sweet heart, its only frozen not broken"


It's 10:30, I have hours of work to do and he is still not going to bed..
"only one more book sweet heart"

Can only find one shoe in the very messy closet and I am very very late...
"can't find your shoes sweet heart, maybe the bees or a lion ate them"
....AMAZING!

Oh hello sunshine

Spring, you are officially invited to come in and stay awhile.

I had a date a few days ago to see the butterflies and get hot chocolate. I rode my bike for the first time in a long time. I wore a sweater and a coat and I was too warm. We found crocus poking up in little pockets everywhere. My little guy actually said "oh hello sunshine".

back in the saddle

I spent some time in the studio on Sunday...


When I was ten I visited my aunt in the mountains of Colorado. We went horse back riding, my absolute favorite thing in the world at the time. I saddled Povy, my Appaloosa, in her gear and set off amongst the peaks and sagebrush. A snake teased us with it's tail and sent Povy leaping into the air. I went flying and landed kidney up on a sage bush and had to walk almost a mile back to the ranch where I was rushed to the ER. I was white as a ghost and my Aunt made me get back in the saddle for a moment before I went to the hospital. She said if I didn't do it then I might never ride again.
I think this happens creatively sometimes as well...it feels good to ride again.

snow hearts

Where did the last two weeks go? You don't realize just how much of your time and energy you give to a young child until you are removed from it. I had such long days in Peru and I still manged to find time to take, process and post photos...coming back in is another story. I have a lot of wonderful images and posts to share with you but I have to finish a report...a never ending report first....and make dinner...and make a puzzle on the floor (my boss is demanding that right now :)
In the mean time this was the beautiful view from my window a few days ago. Do you see the heart in the snow...that's why I grabbed my camara in the first place....reminded me of this project

Spring tapped on my shoulder yesterday. I swear she was there for a moment and just when I turned around she disappeared around the corner...but she is close.

Homeward bound...

Arequipa, I will miss your colors.

This has been such a heart opening experience. The embrace of new friends, the honor of being invited into someone's world, someone who really believes you can help them...the saturation of color....


I spent two weeks gently encouraging people to consider more neutral colors in order to appeal to western tastes....but I will return form this trip infused by color. Bring on the reds and purples...give me the bright and the vibrant...


maybe I can drag this sky behind me and brighten the grey skies I am headed towards.

Looms

This weekend....

In the blood

Thursday...


I met a woman today who explained to me that knitting was passed down from generation to generation so seamlessly that she didn't even remember formally being taught...it was just always there for her. When she was 6 she began to cut the hair off her family's alpaca and weave it into yarn. Resourcefully, she cut the needles off a cactus and began to knit small sweaters for her dolls. She believes the knowledge was already inside her before she ever knit her first garment...it was in her blood.
The tool you see here is the needle used for a very old hand-loom technique. The woman with knitting in her blood is learning how to use it. I have a scarf/shawl now, woven on said loom, and it turns my eyes very very green. It was a good day.
Buenas noches

spinning tales...

tuesday...

As you can see I am a day behind. I would love to write you a big, long post about my experience here...and I may at some point. Right now I am too tired to think in words. This is really inspiring work I am doing but also really exhausting. At the end of a 10-12 hour day I can only think in images. This spindle came from a woman who demonstrated how Alpaca fiber was spun by hand into yarn. I would like to dream of this spindle, spinning tales of ladders, passion fruit, opening windows and colorful horses through the night.
...good night to you (and good morning to you too if you are elsewhere in the world)