Another Year

Another birthday has come and gone since my last post.  I find it hard to believe that I'm now 72 years old, not that I begrudge it.  I only have to remind myself that six years ago a catastrophic injury nearly cut my life short, so hooray - I am now 72!!  I noticed on my Blogger profile this morning that I started this blog in April 2006, over 13 years ago.  I was only 59 then, still working, still healthy with no thought at all of when I might retire.  In 2011 I took a class and became a weaver which truly changed the course of my life,  but that was still five years in the future.

I'm lucky to celebrate my birthday in my favorite month of the year.  It's absolutely gorgeous right now, though three freezing nights early this month caused our beautiful red maple to lose its leaves almost overnight.  But there are still plenty of beautiful trees to love.

I was invited to join a group of ladies in the newly formed Studio 6000 in Sisters.  I thought A6 was the most glorious studio of all but this one is brilliant in every way.

I have been invited to print here but have decided to whittle down my printmaking to relief only, which is carving images in linoleum and wood, and to find a balance between weaving and printing.  My weaving suffered from lack of time and attention and I'm ready for that to change.  Being a weaver however has opened doors to me like this event.  I guess they figure if you're an artist in one area, you're an artist period, just different.  I would never have been invited into their art world had I not had a medium I was fluent in.  When I say that weaving changed the course of my life, I really do mean that.

We were instructed in the invitation to find a word of phrase to use as our inspiration for our collage.  I've never done a collage before so was completely ignorant of the glue products, and there are many.  I just started cutting and gluing, follow the phrase which I adapted from the Book of Proverbs - she who refreshes others will herself be refreshed.  These will be an installation in a Sisters shop and are all priced the same, as a fund-raiser for Saving Grace, an organization that helps underserved women.  The title of my piece is "Within." 

I have just about assembled everything I need for a home printing studio.  I'm just waiting for an order from Dick Blick with inks and an inking plate.  My light table arrived two days ago.  I purchased the wooden spoon from a woodturner at Fall Fest earlier this month to use as a baren and it is perfect.  I finished a four-week workshop on relief printing last week, the days are getting short, and I am ready to get to work.

These are the last towels I will have time to finish before our guild Holiday Sale next weekend.  I'll start hemming them today and I have sold two already through Facebook.  This is our third year but the first as a two-day sale.  I haven't signed up to help and need to find out where they need people to work.  It will be at the Environmental Center again but since we open on Friday, we will be included in the First Friday Art Walk.  Break a leg!!

And I couldn't let you get away without a picture of Delaney who will be seven months old in another week.  She's what I'll be doing for the next two days and she makes both of us very happy.