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11-4-07 There's nothing like charging
ahead full steam if you enjoy working through the problems that come out of
that method of planning. Umph! I experienced the full benefits
of it last week. I had formed a vessel over a really nicely shaped
piece of pottery, and I was really pleased with the way it worked out.
(Sorry, no pictures at this point.) When I cut it off, I carefully
thought that part out...make the cut wavy and irregular so it will be easier
to realign, and when I apply the final coat of handmade paper, the wiggly
line will be less visible than a straight one in the reassembled piece.
Good move, well thought through. Give me some points for that much.
When I fitted it back together to see how that worked, it was perfect and no
problem to line up. Took it back apart, slapped some glue on both
edges, added masking tape temporarily to the outside to hold the pieces
while they dried and set it aside until the next day. At that point, I
fully intended to remove the masking tape...I really did...but whether it
was impatience to see the finished piece as soon as possible or simply an
error in judgment, I can't say, but I left the tape. Why not, it was
flat, wouldn't show under the hickory paper I was going to apply. So I
left it and applied the final coat of hickory paper over that, carefully
smoothing, making sure every air bubble was out and every edge sealed down,
then set it aside for a few days. Imagine my horror when I put it back
on the table and saw every piece of masking tape humped up. There they
were forming a fat, squiggly worm-line around the vessel. Arrggghhhh!
There wasn't any choice but to score along the edges of the tape with an X-Acto
knife and strip them off.
The HMP was fully stuck to the tape, that wasn't the source of the problem.
It was the sticky side of the tape that had released from the vessel when it
became damp from the methylcellulose. (This is a better shot to show
the pleasing shape of the
vessel, and probably help you understand why I thought it was worth
saving.) Even after trimming the tape off, it took some sanding and
two additional coats of hickory paper before the wiggly worm totally
disappeared. It looks good
as is, but I'll do something else with the flat area on top when I think
through it thoroughly. No more of this charging blindly ahead (she
says confidently).
(If you're wondering about the different brown colors in the pictures,
very thinly pulled hickory has two distinct sides. The darker side
that shows individual fibers was formed against the screen. The
lighter side was up on the mould. This two-sidedness can make for some
really nice patterns if it's used alternately on a vessel. It can also
cause some real problems if you're shooting for down-side-up and
accidentally put a piece in with the wrong side showing. Been
there...) 11-8-07 I don't have
time this morning to explain the process behind creating
this vessel other than to say
that I learned more than a few lessons while doing it. (No, this one
came from a well thought out plan. Things just didn't go as I expected
them to despite the planning.) I will share that this started as a
prototype in order to work through a process I'd never done before. I
really didn't intend to finish it, and because of that, I used flawed paper
for the inside. I won't do that again. As the piece
progressed, I liked it more and more, and realized that I would
carry it though to completion instead of stopping when I had worked through
the processed I didn't understand. As a result, before it was
finished, I had to go back and recover the inside with good paper.
Lesson one - don't cheapen a piece by using seconds, even if it's just a
test piece. Second lesson was not to force the shape of a piece.
Go ahead and let it flow. You can guide it and suggest a shape, but
dictating it is fruitless. It's going to do what it's going to do
regardless. I should have known that much from weaving baskets.
A work in progress is a negotiation between the maker. It takes
compromises on both sides to create the final piece.
11-9-07 Someone has written to ask what
this website is about. Since it’s pretty obvious the site is about
papermaking and bookbinding and basketry and whatever else comes along, I’m
assuming this person meant “why is it here.” Sharing is a good
part of the reason – both the pieces and the joy and frustrations that come
while creating them. I find that sharing here online helps me focus and
follow through with projects I might otherwise abandon. But I hope
this website is more than a journaling of craft projects. I hope it
functions as a site about creative thinking and problem solving, a place to
learn different approaches to problems and different ways of seeing them.
And I hope the projects I share become inspirational jumping off points for
those who visit here. 11-10-07
For the past couple of months we've been having rather regular nighttime
visitors. Coons, possums and skunks have been slipping through the
propped open screen door onto the porch each evening and cleaning up the cat
food. Even though I bring the bowls in at dark, there are always
spilled crumbles to tempt the visitors. (Yes, I occasionally forget
the bowls and the visitors get a full meal.) As far as I can tell,
there has only been one possum, a youngster who was
about 1/3 grown when he first started
coming, but over the months, he has filled out nicely. Last night
he slipped onto the porch, but when he wanted to leave, he found Caesar
guarding the doorway. He edged this way, then that, then crept closer,
only to get his nose slapped, and off he scurried to a corner behind the
golf clubs. I couldn't help but grab the camera. See, how
nice and fat and healthy looking he is
now? 11-13-07 (This post
is for Velma. She'll know why.) There comes a time when you just
have to draw the line. As I said on the 10th, I've been
(involuntarily) feeding that possum for a couple of months now, but last
night's meal was his last at this house. I had put out two bowls for
the cats' evening snack, planning on letting them eat, then bringing the
bowls back in. Five minutes later, I looked out and found the little
rascal munching away in Caesar's bowl. I ran him off, came back in and
poured myself a cup of coffee. When I walked back past the door, there
he was again. This time he wasn't too anxious to leave. I
finally backed him out of the door and down the deck, but the moment my back
turned, here he came again. H'okay, little fella. All that was
necessary was to set the trap
in the doorway and in he went. But don't feel too sorry for him.
He has a new home in the middle of several thousand acres of forest land
full of grubs and crisscrossed with streams. Won't be much in the line
of a cat food snacks out there, but he's far less likely to end up as a wet
spot in the street some morning.
11-21-07 I've learned how to beat telephone voice menus! For the
last couple of weeks, I've been engaged in an email back-and-forth with a
certain computer manufacturer's tech support, all to no avail. I
finally had to resort to calling. Given that I despise talking on the
phone, this was a major concession. Even more than I hate talking, I
hate waiting and listening to the wretched canned music and both of those
are givens when you make calls such as this. Still, there wasn't any
choice. What I've learned is that no matter what options you've given
by the "voice" on the other end, just say NO. It doesn't matter if
that's not one of the options. JUST SAY NO!!! By the third NO,
you'll get a pleasant, "I'll connect you immediately with one of our
representatives who will assist you. Thank you for calling _____.
We appreciate your business."
Back to the top 11-26-07
(I have to apologize to you who follow this journal strictly for the craft
end of it because there hasn't been much of that lately. Bear with me.
I'll get back to it eventually.) ** And off on another tangent....
We have a deck that runs alongside the house and beside that is a huge kousa
dogwood that we can see through the living room sliding doors. From
the limbs we've hung two birdfeeders and a large flat container for water.
During the day we thoroughly enjoy watching the birds flitting back and
forth among them. It's my job to keep the feeders full. A couple
of months ago, I was filling them and was buzzed several times by some kind
of flying insect. I never did get a good look, just swatted and kept
on with what I was doing, no problem. The next time I filled the
feeders, I was buzzed again. This time I found out what it was, but
only after I ran into the house screaming for JimT, telling him something
was in my hair and was stinging the heck out of me. Even he couldn't
find it until he took a comb and combed it out. I stomped it and
looked. It was a yellow jacket. What the heck??? What had
I done to upset the rascal? And upset he had been. I don't
know how many times he stung me, but the top of my head burned for two days.
Now, normally I'm pretty quick on the uptake, and I should have realized
there was a nest somewhere close, but this just didn't enter my mind.
I just dismissed it as one lone yellow jacket who was having a bad day.
And I thought nothing more of it until a couple of days ago when I filled
the feeders again and heard the dreaded buzzing yet again. Ack!!!
I dropped the birdfeeder and took off for the back door, getting away
without being stung. This time my mind kicked kicked in and I knew
there was a nest somewhere. Standing inside with the protection of the
sliding glass doors between me and them, I watched as seemly hundreds of
them swarmed around. Early the next morning while frost was still
thick on the grass, I went out with a flashlight. And this is what I
saw - a nest full of yellow
jackets.
And at that point I knew why they had been upset enough to
chase and sting me.
I had been knocking on the deck just above the beam when I cleaned the
feeders out. It's a thousand wonders I hadn't been stung more times
than that one. I took the pictures while they were still lethargic
from the cold, and the nest really didn't seem that big, but when I edited
the images, I could see
yellow
jackets huddled on the surface and cracks going back into the nest where
I was sure there were even more of the wasps. Yesterday morning I
found the hornet spray, filled the cavity with foam and watched as the
yellow jackets came boiling out and dropped to the ground...and kept coming
out...and kept coming out. This morning when I went back, I found some
of them still flying in and out. Bah! Tomorrow morning they'll
get yet another dose of spray. (In that first image you'll see a flap
of wood hanging down. There was a pile of rotten wood under the nest,
as well, and I'm sure all of this was torn out by a coon that tired to get
into the nest to feed on the larvae. When we lived in Versailles, I
saw a huge hole that coons dug in the ground to get at a buried nest.
They're like bears after honey, willing to take the stings for the reward.) |
