Category Archives: language

Memory…and Text (or lack of it)….and Textile

These first few days of the new year have been a bit of a roller coaster. As the east coast of the US was plunged into a weather condition called a ‘cyclone bomb,’ Bob and I were enjoying mild tropical weather in Antigua, where we celebrated the new year with fireworks that we watched from the deck of Pandora at midnight, shortly after the rise of the first super moon of the new year. All week the moon rose each night, well after dark, for such a display of lunar magnificence—exactly what the doctor ordered on these long nights—although noticeably shorter than January nights in New England. We’ll have a second full moon at the end of the month. A month with both a super moon and a blue moon—what might that conjure up for me?

IMG_7905

IMG_7865

Two days later I saw the moon rise over Bob’s shoulder as we had dinner at a local restaurant in English Harbor.

1-IMG_0425

And one last photo–the moon rising over the courtyard of Copper and Lumber, in English Harbour.

2-IMG_0428

I have not made a new year’s resolution since young adulthood, after doing so throughout childhood and early adulthood never gave  me the desired results. That doesn’t mean I don’t think about resolutions at the start of every year, as well as at the beginning of September each year. Those shortened days in late summer/early fall, along with the start of a new academic year, are always a time for me to reevaluate and take stock. So here I am again, at the start of another year, thinking about another set of priorities and ideas that I will refuse to call resolutions.

Being away from home is also a time when I take stock of my situation and think about re-prioritizing. Years ago, I read The Artist’s Way, and writing the morning pages has always worked a strange magic on how I think about work and get things done. For some reason, perhaps that heady mix of being away from home mixed with the exercise itself, morning pages have a stronger effect on my thinking while we are away each winter. It’s working its magic again this winter. In addition to that exercise, I have started reading Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. A dear friend gave it to me for Christmas, and it rekindled something I’ve missed. I started that book many years ago and never got very far, in spite of thinking it was a great tool. I lost track of the book and haven’t seen it since. What a pleasant shock to receive it again. I am enjoying it and have added its exercises to my morning routine. Of course I hope this will lead to good things and good work!

Yesterday several cruisers joined us in taking a day trip by ferry from Antigua to Montserrat. Most of us have been hoping to visit Montserrat for a number of years. It is a difficult place to visit by boat since it has no protected harbors. You need calm winds and no northern swells in order to safely anchor there and get ashore in a dinghy. Even if you get one perfect day, like yesterday, it’s not enough, since you need to spend at least one night there in order to have time to also get ashore to see the sights.

The biggest sight is the volcano, which of course you can see as you sail anywhere in the area. It’s a huge mountain whose summit is always lost in the clouds. Those clouds are usually emissions from the volcano itself—sulphur dioxide which you can smell if you are downwind.

IMG_7964

Our friends and we decided that the weather was not going to be perfectly favorable at any time in the next week or so, and that we should take the ferry across from Antigua for a day trip. In order to get the most out of our day we decided to hire a tour guide. There were eight of us. The cost of this outing was rather steep—just shy of $400 for each couple. We left Pandora at 6:30am and did not return until 8pm. The downside was that out of that 13 ½ hour day, we spent 8 ½ hours either waiting on various immigration and customs lines, or sitting on the ferry. Our tour was only 5 hours out of that long day! Still, we can now say we’ve been there, and the sights were as amazing as we’d always imagined!

Here is the track of the washout that occurred when the heavy rains began — the rains that came down once the fiery ash rose into the colder atmosphere above and caused massive electrical storms.  20 years later, look at that dry bed.  It’s hazy from the gases being emitted.

IMG_7971

The volcano overshadows every vista on the island. It is present, always. The smell of sulphur is always present too; it just depends which direction is downwind. We drove around the outskirts of the devastated capitol city, Plymouth, that was buried under ash from the last several eruptions during the mid-1990s. The islanders have not yet declared where they will rebuild a new capitol city, so it still feels like they live in the midst of this destruction, over 20 years later. This ruined city held most of the population where many people worked in government offices, schools, and the university that were also part of the city. Although very few people died in the eruption, the population has dwindled by 2/3’s of what it had been beforehand. The loss of homes and jobs forced many people to move elsewhere, and the English government subsidized moving people to England if they chose to leave. It was stunning evidence that what humans have achieved over the millennia is so fragile compared to the force of nature.

Last year when we attempted  a plan to visit Montserrat, I read about a small weaving business on the island called Sea Island Cotton. Before the eruption Montserrat was known for having the best quality sea island cotton, which is cotton grown in soil high in volcanic ash. The fibers of this kind of cotton are finer and softer than cotton grown elsewhere. A woman named Anna Davis started a handweaving company, using this special cotton to weave table linens and personal items. She lost her looms and shop when the volcano erupted, but she has started over in the small village of Salem, and her daughter Lovena has joined her in the operation. Last year I wrote about how much I hoped to meet her.

Yesterday, I finally made it to the island, but our tour did not allow for a stop for one person–me!—to indulge in such a wish! At the end of our tour we stopped at the botanical garden and our route took us right by the shop! I was excited to see it and also miserable that I could not get there! There was a set of Sea Island placemats for sale in the gift shop of the botanical gardens. They were summery yellow and white, in a weave structure called Ms and Os. I loved them, but they were finished with a fringe, which is a pet peeve of mine. I looked at the fabric and did not think the edge pattern could suffer being cut off and hemmed. I didn’t want to buy them just because it was the only thing I could find of the mother/daughter weaving duo! But now I certainly regret it…. We passed the shop again on our way back to the ferry terminal, and it was closed. What a missed opportunity!

Yesterday’s trip was a good way to take my mind off  the first anniversary of my mother’s death. I don’t think I will mark this day in the future, but the first anniversary of a death is always a day when you cannot ignore the significance of what happened one year earlier. I could not help thinking about how people live on in our memories, and it is how we keep them with us. Ancient cultures had no other way of keeping the memory of someone alive since they did not have written language to record these things. Memories tended to die when the last person who knew the deceased personally passed on. To extend memory the Greeks began to sing about their memories, and these songs might outlive the last person who actually knew the subject of the song. It certainly worked with the stories and characters in the Illiad and the Odyssey. When I think about these ancient sotries, which I so much enjoyed reading and studying in my youth, I think about the phrase “Sing you home.” It was the only way humans once had of keeping someone alive, and perhaps a way to send them to the Elysian fields.

So the death of my mother has rejuvenated my erratic attempts to design a tapestry to sing my father home, after his death more than six years ago. This is something that has emerged and reemerged during my ‘morning pages.’ Text and textile and memory. Like song, textiles often served as a story telling method before there was written language, as you’ll remember from more recent times when large tapestries were woven that told stories for the many non-readers to view and understand.  Text and textile and memory intertwined.

Earlier this week I warped my little band loom from handyWOman on Etsy. I made a warp based on examples from the book Norwegian Pick Up by Heather Torgenrud.

IMG-0423

I am enjoying weaving onboard! I’m just practicing a bit of plain weave before I attempt some of the pickup patterns that are given in the book. It’s nice to be weaving something relaxing and a bit mindless. At this point I do have to pay attention to the rhythm and movement of using the shuttle and opening the shed since it is so very different from loom controlled weaving, and consistency is vitally important to the look of the band and the selvedges!

IMG-0438

When we are more settled (whenever that might be!) I will turn my attention to the two small tapestries I have onboard. One is getting so old it is embarrassing me! The other is fairly new. I thought about doing a photo record of all the projects I have with me, but I haven’t gotten to drag everything out of their storage places and take the photos yet. And I’m sure it will just annoy me at the end of this winter to have a record of all the things I didn’t accomplish!   But since it’s also the beginning of a new year, when I am writing my morning pages and reading Twyla Tharp’s book, maybe there will be good work flowing off my looms this year. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

>The Pickwickian Quibbler

>

I have just learned that William Safire has passed away. 

Today’s Telegraph describes him:
”Applauded by his peers as ‘a Pickwickian quibbler,’ he ran a gimlet eye down the solecisms, gaffes, weaselly euphemisms, jargon and sonorous drivel of political discourse and pounced with the restrained relish of a talented linguist.”

Since I am passionate about linguistics, I was a long time fan of his column ‘On Language’ in the NYTimes Magazine. Who will now fill his shoes?

Do you remember his phrase, “the nattering nabobs of negavitism?” Such creativity!

I never followed his politics, but his use and abuse of language was priceless….

This morning I finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  I hope there are many others reading this at the moment, so I won’t say anything except that The Chicago Sun-Times’ review was spot-on for me: “This story, like all great tales, will break your heart, but it will also make you realize—or remember—that sometimes the pain is worth it.”

The garden is calling for attention, but I do not think I will get there today….garden fall anemones

>Lost June!

>I never got here in June. Hmmm…. I was traveling again, and when home, frantically working in the garden. I’ve been away so much the gardens are quite overgrown and messy. I hope I get them a bit tidied up before I leave again at the end of the week. As this is our first really hot week with temperatures in the 90s I’m not exactly energized to get outside and weed.


Look what I finished! Finally! Although I posted pictures of this project on the loom back in Feb., I actually think I put these towels on the loom way back in November! I was full of excitement to give them as Christmas presents, but somehow after the first couple of weeks I couldn’t actually sit down and weave them. Having a guild Show and Tell at the end of June was what motivated me to finally get back to weaving them. I’m happy to have them done! I will keep one and give the other four away, most likely well before this Christmas!

I have just spent an amazing weekend at our regional weaving conference, called MAFA which stands for MidAtlantic Fiber Association. This was the first time they have offered a conference in which one could take only a full three-day class, as opposed to some variation of 1/2-day and 1-day classes. I took a class on natural dyeing, and the teachers were so organized and so well prepared that we managed to dye 76 wonderful colors in only 3 days. We were insanely focused and busy, and we even had to stagger our lunch hours for this class when the rest of the conference had 2 hour lunches which allowed for lunch as well as shopping in the vendors’ hall, but it was well worth it! I will try to take some photos of my incredible sample book.


I am now so thoroughly re-committed to the tapestry project I’ve had in mind for a couple of years now. I want to do it with hand spun, hand dyed yarn, and this class has moved me considerably closer to gaining the skills I need. I’ve got two fleeces waiting (one washed, one not!) to be combed and spun. I’ve done a little sampling on spinning technique. I’ve taken a mentor on this project, or rather, she has taken on me! Her name Vicki Fraser, and she is the creator/weaver of the California Rug Project.

Vicki has been very patient with my questions on what breed of sheep to use and how to spin the yarn. She’s been giving me advice on mordanting and dyeing, which I haven’t even started yet, but I have taken copious notes from my phone conversations with her. This workshop at MAFA gave me the chance to do some real dyeing and get some experience under my belt. The two teachers, Debbie McCrea and Carol Wood, were also very encouraging to me (sorry, no website for them, but they are located in the Alfred, NY, area and are members of the Rochester Guild) and have offered to guide me on the dyeing if I can come do it at their studio. I’d better get spinning.

Meeting these three women who are so willing to share their knowledge with me makes me realize what positive energies are out in the world when one needs guidance. Some people call this synchronicity, which means something like “with time.” That’s just my very rusty ancient Greek coming back to me….I think it must really connote things coming together at the right time, and boy, that is what’s happening here! I feel touched by something greater than coincidence right now, and I don’t want to squander these opportunities.

Hopefully I’ll post pictures soon, and hopefully I’ll post again this month. I’ll be sailing around Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket for the rest of the month, but I hope to get some of the clean white Romney fleece combed before I leave so I can spin while sailing. I’m bringing my electric spinner (made by my husband) because it takes up so much less room on the boat than my wheel. He made it to be compatible with the flyers from my Lendrum. He’s so clever….