Week Two – Again

So I realized I was blocked – again – but in a different way.  Is that progress?  I started “The Artist Way” By Julia Cameron again, for the 4th or 5th? time.  I tried one of the later books last summer but it didn’t really click and I realized I needed to go back to the beginning.

Usually when I do the 13 weeks I look for a way to change my life to match what I want or need.  That is not going to happen this time.  There are too many fixed variables in the system requirements this time.  This time it is all about internal change because the external is fixed.

This time it is much much harder in that I hit a block right in week one.  I have always kind of ignored week ones exercises because I have very little memory of my life before age 13.  They are there but most are not retrievable easily.  High fever and a coma will do that to you.  This time I kind of wanted to look at underlying causes but no go.  I had that problem in the later book in this series too, “Going for Gold”  , most of that is based on digging through ones biography.

This is the end of week two, another really unsuccessful week.  There were days where there were two sentences on the page.  There is in this chapter a lot about the people around me.  Not going there.  I hope week three will be better.

On a positive note, Pan now has fully sculpted legs attached to his body.

My Little Helper

I got into my studio to work this weekend again and my little helper was there to Purr along with me.

sophie asking for a muffin

As I work it sits on a little pillowcase of black satin,  and watches me.  In this case it was watching the muffin I also had.  Every once in a while it would reach out and put one claw in my arm to remind me that she/he loves muffins.

It is called Sophie.  When we got it we were told it was a female, and I never did really check, but I did think it had odd looking genitals…..  Then dimwit here ate a thread with a beading needle attached and the vet informed us that Sophia was really Sophocles.  But as a result the pronouns are a bit awkward because for 9 months it was a she and my mind refuses to do  the gender change.

This cat has totally changed how I work.  Before I was a messy crafter who left stuff all over the place but a few months after the beading needle incident, it found some pretty metallic thread to eat and after 40 stitches in its belly I realized I had to do things differently.  I need to use boxes which close tightly and smoothly because this darling can open them otherwise, and they have to stay closed if they just so happen to “fall” off the desk!  And things that “fall” get chewed up by the dog.  Between the two of them I am sooo tidy now!

I use a big Ferro-Rocher chocolate box as a work space when I am beading because I can close it up without having to put everything away. And all threads get tidied up and put away – immediately.

Sophie also insures I take breaks.  When we lived in Montreal, they got fed at 5 pm when I started supper, here I make supper at 4 but when they arrived they were still on Montreal time and they never adapted to Edmonton time, so now they eat at 3pm.  So at 2 pm it starts bugging me for food.  First it purrs, then it starts giving loving little rubs with its head.  I tell you it is really hard to sew when  cat keeps bumping your hands, the needle goes all over the place, including into me.  As  a result they get fed at 2:30 when I work in my studio.

I did get the sculpting of the chest and arms finished.  Here is Pan with his legs pinned on because this is supposed to be a blog about dolls, not cats.  On Sunday I worked on his right leg, finishing the shaping.

Pan with legs

Spring, eh?

It is just pretending.  A week ago we  got 30 cm of snow and it was -21 c, yesterday it was +9 c and there is water everywhere, including in the large hole in the basement.  But the forecast is for more snow.

Regarding that large hole… Plumbing isn’t rocket science, friends, we have been doing it since the Romans made hot & cold running water a common thing in bath houses.  So how come I have a hole in the basement that will take a good sized body?  It seemed a simple thing, get a back flow installed to prevent the sewer from backing up every time we have one of the new, climate change, rainstorms.  The thing is a foot long, so why do we need a grave size hole that is now filling up with water?  Mostly, it seems because the people who built the house hadn’t a clue what they were doing and they used a honking big clean out trap to connect the inside with the out side.  Yes a clean out trap 4 feet underground and running under the wall of the house. I am hoping they don’t need to dig a hole outside the house in front of the only door which is wheelchair accessible, it would mean breaking up concrete and digging through ground which is still frozen.  Oh and the water pipe coming into the house sits right on top of the this sewer pipe.  Sigh….

rainbow stockings

On the lighter side I have been knitting a lot because I hurt my back picking mom up off the floor.  It made sitting in the studio a pain, literally, so I have been leaning back on hot packs and knitting.  I finished my rainbow stockings.

I started a shawl and a sweater  for my little dog, Katie.  The shawl, Wingspan, has been put on hold until I go to Nova Scotia in May.  It will be a perfect travelling project.  Details can be seen in the link to my Ravelry project page.

I did get into the studio on Saturday and and with the help of some Ibuprofen managed to get a few hours done on Pan.  It was mostly sculpting his armpits, which don’t show so I didn’t bother to take pictures.

One Year

I have been in Edmonton one year this month. One year. So far not much has gone as I expected it to, neither the renovations, the “work”, nor me. The thing that most surprises me is how much trouble I am having dealing with the combination of chaos and rigid order. I am not getting much done because I want to kick at the order and tame the and control the chaos. Neither is possible so why rail at it? Part of me doesn’t want to start anything because I am going to get interrupted anyway, so why bother. And then I get frustrated because I see myself frittering away time and opportunity when the interruptions don’t happen.
I do have the studio and get some time in it on my sisters good days. I have been working on the Pan doll. Here is the WIP so far.

Pan Body parts

Pan Torso

 

Getting the torso sculpted was a challenge.  I searched for my photos and couldn’t find them at first.  Then I looked for some gay male magazines but they aren’t anywhere I shop.  Lots of naked women but no boys.  Most of my photos were from free Montreal add magazines promoting the bars and restaurants.  They don’t seem to have an here.  All I can find free is seniors and job placement handouts.  I finally found a gay travel magazine that had a  swimsuit segment – yeah abs!  Then I found all my resource materials back.  I know, I could have gone on line, I did that once.  I really don’t want to do that again.

 

Should

It has been a while since I posted. A long, dark, cold while. I Should have posted, I Should have journalled, I should have exercised, I should have done more baking, I should have worked on my art more, I should be able to tune out the TVs and audio books, I should be more patient, I should be nicer…… I hate SHOULD.

I spent a lot of my life using anger and a kind of bravado to get where I wanted to be. It is very efficient use of energy, it even got me on the front page of the Edmonton Sun. It is the kind of energy you can use to organize protests, to break through barriers, to climb “Mountains”. It feels clean and righteous. But it doesn’t work for dealing with the situation I am in right now and it doesn’t work for health issues and most off all it doesn’t work for the “Should”s. When I hear Should I get angry and dig in my heels, which doesn’t help.

I chose to be here. I knew it would be hard and a challenge. I am not the touchy feely nursey type person, in fact in school I scored rock bottom on those attributes in the guidance tests. This endless winter has me feeling trapped and struggling. Mom has gotten worse and a couple of times I have hurt myself lifting her or dealing with a wheelchair and snowy side walks, the car has had problems – all little things but they have really gotten under my skin.

I was lucky however, someone on one of the health forums had an issue with her treatment and I tried to help and as I was typing I realized just how much I was answering my own issues. I need to find a way to let these issues flow free. Morning journalling was one way but it is not working. Mom keeps calling for me every time I set a pen to paper, the private time I had early in the morning is gone unless I re-arrange my morning and that is hard to do. Getting up earlier is not the answer, I need sleep.

What is helping is that my sister is giving me a few hours after lunch to escape down stairs to the studio. At first it was hard to switch gears but now I put on my music and meditate for 15 minutes before trying to throw my self into the creating.

Once upon a time I learned to ride a horse (mostly because it looked like my daughter was having such a fun time and I thought in a moment of total craziness it was a mother/daughter thing we could do together) It was going ok (not great) when due to a bizarre combination of circumstances I was thrown of the spooked horse and it was several weeks before I could get back on to it. This was when I learned that you can’t ride a horse by conquering your fear, because it knows and it laughs at you. The only way to really ride a horse is to learn to let go of your fear, anger and anything else that gets between you and riding that horse. You would think I would remember that. It took many tries in bitter November and December weather before I figured it out.

So I have to figure out how to ride this “horse” so I can let go of the SHOULD and just DO it.

Studio Finally

My Christmas present – my studio is finally ready for use.  It is not finished totally but my side is working now. I have even had some time to start using it!!

New studio

It is a converted kitchen that has been used as a workshop when the house was renovated so we installed a new floor and shelving. The room has actually been finished for a few months but we needed to fill the space so we could finish the furnace / storage room.

I had bought some fabric last January and it has been sitting and waiting for me to decide what to do with it.  This time as soon as I picked it up it told me it wanted to be Pan playing the flute.

So far I sewn the legs in dark green and the torso in light green.  Next will be the arms.  Getting all the angles right, reversed and inside out is a challenge for someone who is dyslexic!

pan

 

 

It feels so exciting to be working again.  Before this I was crushing my ideas down.  I stopped journalling because all I was writing was whining about how I couldn’t follow through on my ideas, which made me really depressed.  Now it is like someone turned on the lights.  All my creative ideas are flowing.  My cup is once again half full, not half empty.

 

 

There were a few painful moments as I had to learn to use the new sewing machine.  I whined and moaned until I finally figured it out – I actually had to READ THE MANUAL!  Me, read a sewing machine manual!  I still feel awkward, I have to think about every move.  I miss my old Bernina but really we don’t need a fifth sewing machine here and it was getting fussy.  I have had it since 1975.  I bought it with one of my first real pay checks, it was worth 6 months of rent.

The sewing machine is in my bedroom because the desk is easier to work on then the high counters.

Sewing machine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember the post about Blooming Here ?  Well it feels more like freezing into place lately then blooming.  We have had snow on the ground since the beginning of November, and it is cold, it was -25c when I walked the dog this morning and that didn’t include the wind chill.  When Santa comes tonight he had better have his heated long under wear on!  And to think winter has only just begun.

Lilac outside my bedroom

This is the view from the sewing area.  A lovely white lilac bush and a foot of snow.  I keep telling myself it will be so nice in spring when it blooms.

Tomorrow is Christmas and we have respite care so I am going to spend 2 hours of guilt free play time in my studio!  Once it is all cut and sewn I can bring it up stairs and work on stuffing and sculpting.

The Stockings from Hell

Are finished.

Over a year and a half ago my darling youngest daughter came home from a weekend in the Laurentians “Mama one of the girls had these stockings with lace and things that her mom made.  You could do that, right?” .  Since that was the first knitting she had asked for, and not just grudgingly accepted, I was over joyed.  We shared a mother/daughter bonding moment surfing Ravelry together looking at patterns.  We finally settled on one called “Moulin Rouge”  Thigh high lace stockings, to be knit in black cotton.  Yes thigh high, in cotton that knits up at 10 rows per inch….

I measured her legs, traced her feet and traced her legs and made a couple of swatches.  I started the feet, knitting both stockings at the same time on two circular needles and she moved to Halifax Nova Scotia.  I knitted on, while looking after mother, plastering and painting a bedroom, preparing for an art show, painting a stairwell.  I took some time off to knit some Christmas presents, another hat for my granddaughter ,because she lost the first one.  Darling daughter came for a visit and tried on the stocking – now up to calf length.  Let me tell you there is at least an inch difference between someone who wears a size 5 1/2 shoe and a size 9 and I had been trying them on a size 9 foot, mine, because I had put the paper with the tracing of her foot in a safe place.  No I was not going to frog the sock down to the ankle, far too many hours had gone into them.

In the meantime I moved to Edmonton and finished the granddaughter’s hat and I made some fingerless gloves to match the hat (which I put in a safe place – I found it back last weekend) because I had never made any before so this was a good time to try that.  Once they were finished I tried to continue on the stockings but there was the renovations happening and the only comfy knitting chair was in the livingroom where I had to hear mother’s audio books and she prefers those hot, hot vampire books.

Then came the Kangaroo that mother wanted.  I had found a book on knitted toys and for once mother communicated very clearly that she wanted me to make the kangaroo, so the stockings were put aside once more.

At the end of August we decided that we would have a big Thanksgiving with my daughter and granddaughter form Whitehorse and my other one from Halifax in October and I suddenly realized I had been working off and on for over a year on these endless stockings and I was just over the knee.  So I bought some earplugs and settled down to determined knitting every day.  And I made the deadline.  Then  ……  I cut off the toes.  Yes I took a pair of scissors to hand knit lace stockings!    I removed the excess and reknit the toes.

So here they are – tall black lace stockings with tiny feet!  All finished.  Finally!

stockings from Hell

PS:  Now that they are finished I am knitting bedsocks for my Dad out of thick acrylic yarn that looks like camouflage for walking in dead leaves and mud, but they are almost done and then I am going to knit with a rainbow of colours a hat for my self!

PPS:  The studio is almost finished.  The guests have been sleeping in it.  All we are doing on it now is finding back all the sewing machines and notions and books and magazines and irons and…..  But soon I can work there.

 

Mindful Cooking

This post has nothing to with dolls or making pictures, but it does have to do with creativity and mindfulness.

I moved here to help look after my parents, specifically my mother who has had many mini strokes, because my sister had gotten sicker and sicker and could no longer look after them.  She has continued getting sicker and had some rather yucky tests from which she was just not recovering.  One of the things suggested was a blood test for celiacs but she was to sick to drag to the clinic so I suggested, why don’t we try gluten free?

I did some research and made gluten free muffins.  They stayed in, and so did the other food (non gluten).  Not only did it stay in but by the end of the week she was free from toilet dependency.  At the end of the month I have a new sister, one that can do things for more then 2 hours a day.  One that is not passing out.  One that is thinking clearly.  One that is even thinking about going out and meeting people again and is currently installing a floor in what will be the studio.

My challenge was baking gluten free.  Not only gluten free but diary, soy, potato and baking powder free.  I spent hours reading recipes on line, in the library looking up books and reading them.  The best book I found at the butchers (the owners have gluten issues), “Company’s coming – baking gluten free” by Ted Wolff.   Not only does it have nice recipes but it explains what I can substitute for the other nasties.

But my biggest challenge was “being mindful” , thinking about every ingredient, reading the labels.  It is so easy to be on auto pilot when cooking – baking powder -sure, oops, salt, sugar, butter.  Sometimes I felt like the centipede who suddenly pays attention to all its legs and trips over them.  But sitting on my counter is a fluffy white egg bread that is rather tasty and has no gluten, dairy, soy or potato.  It is my 3rd bread.  The first was a flat little brick, the second a dense but tasty “herb loaf” , but this one is “Bread” – one that will make sandwiches!  My best piece of art work yet.  I couldn’t be more proud!

Bread and rolls

 

Two Hours of Stress

So on Thursday I went to the reception and open house given by the VAAA and Harcourt House.  I wandered through some artists studies, took deep breaths and introduced myself.  Using the “I just moved here in March” as a starting point for discussion helped me a lot.  No, No I didn’t just finally get up the nerve to come out to this thing, I am new here.  I felt so legit.

Why is it so hard to meet strangers and talk?  Sharon at the VAAA introduced me to some people and that made it easier.  Patricia Laing talked to me and took my card.  She passed my email address to some friends in costuming and fibre arts and suddenly I am “chatting” with people and planning on getting together.  So it does work and it is worth the stress.  Why this fear?  It is not like there is a grizzly waiting for me if I talk to the wrong person.  “Stranger Danger”?  Yeah I am not 4 years old either.

On another note, My pets have arrived from Montreal.  Despite of all my worrying they arrived safe and sound, if a little freaked out.  The cat immediate hid behind the furnace and even tried to get under the sub floor.  The dog adored everyone but was incredibly hyper.  Everyone has settled down now.  Both dogs are getting along and the cat has emerged from the basement and even teased the dog this morning.

Katie with my mother

Sophie

Having my pets here really made me appreciate Patricia’s animal pictures:

Blue Kat on Green 20×24 Acrylic by Patricia Liang

Oh and we bought a bed yesterday.  So some time soon I will be having a real bed.

Oh yeah, I guess I am really living here now.

Living Here

Ok so I am not yet blossoming, but I am “Living Here”.  The last of my “possessions”  are on their way – my cat and dog – they are flying tomorrow morning.  I am chewing my fingernails, metaphorically because they taste awful, actually I am snacking, chewing my nails would be better for my health.  I did start working out last week but we are not going to whine about that here.

What I forgot to post last week is that I joined the VAAA “Visual Arts Alberta Association”.  My sister and I went back to Harcourt house to see the exhibition that we thought was on.  It wasn’t.  They were setting up for another one.  So we wandered across the hall to see if VAAA had something.  They didn’t but we got to talking with Sharon Moore  Foster, a potter and sculpture, who signed us up for the VAAA.  We had a wonderful talk about art, time and health.

Next week is “The Works” in Edmonton.  I am planning to go to the VAAA  reception for its “Coming of Age: The Graduates” on the 21st.  We might go to some other exhibits too.