So the big news that I never did share, much to the confusion of my few but loyal readers, was that I had started what one friend suggested was the equivalent of a modern day salon. In French, it means a large room meant to receive and entertain guests, a gathering of people, a private gathering of artists, conniseurs and intellectuals, like those exhibits in Paris when the expressionists was just busting out into the main scene in art with their seemingly vague and unintentional brush strokes. It sounds more loftier than what I had planned but I like the idea of the gathering. Last Fall, my long-time roommate and friend moved out and I turned one of the bedrooms into a studio and offered the stash of art supplies I've accumulated over the years for use by me and my friends. Every week we gather for a few hours at my apartment and we work on, well, whatever. This week whatever is the last bits of winter knitting and the beginnings of our Spring Printmaking and Photography sessions. Have a look here .
Nada is knitting a beautiful vibrant green scarf with a Malabrigo wool yarn. She is a natural in knitting. Watching her hands is mesmerizing. Amanda is taking photographs but her true interest these days is cooking and more specifically healthy cooking. See what's in the stove top. It's her amazing fritata. Mary is the expert knitter and by the looks of it will also be the expert printmaker. Katy has been drawing. She made an ingenious set of cards. They sort of work like tarot cards except they are based on characters from literature. She's given us readings which have been uncanny in its accuracy it borders on scary.
For spring we have ambitious plans for printmaking but we start with the simplest, those of potato prints. The potato prints turned out great. I've had these Lotta Jansdotter books that I've been collecting and I've been itching to try these projects for quite a while now because they look so easy but finished at the same time. I like that we figure things out together. We simply followed the directions together. The important thing to note is that you do need some kind of a cushioned material so that the material gives in a bit to make better, clearer impressions. Here, we used felt. My prints are the peppermint pinwheels and Mary made ones that look like a egg nests or bike tires. We don't know what these will turn out to be and I'm excited to find out.
More soon. Really.
ashima
Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many
And whoever sees that way heals his heart.
Without knowing it, from various ills---
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend
--Czelsaw Milosz
By popular demand, and by that I mean Lusso's Mom, I am writing back here in this space. She wrote me a sweet note that said she misses me. I miss her too and hope to see her soon. I do miss writing here. I miss a lot of things lately. I miss taking the train downtown to work. I miss the rhythmic chugging hiss of the tracks, the slow dance of people in trance on the train as they start their day. I miss reading the blog of my favorite artist Mav of port2port press so I splurged and bought this book above about a year long photography blog of mornings between two friends who live 3191 miles apart to try to reconnect to those mornings when I would start the day inspired and awed by their view of the world.
