Gardening vs Nurturing

Stained Table Cloth

The table cloth has been washed and ironed so now i can see the extent of the staining.
There are lots of pink and black areas.

...and a few holes. I like this area where there is a mended hole and now more holes beside it need repairing....

...or not.

Snow and Cloth

During a break in a snow storm I ventured outside to check on how my art projects were fairing.
The cloths wrapped around the 4 trees were quite wet. If they are still damp during the next warm spell some interesting marks may emerge.

I am amazed at how well the men's suit jacket is surviving. It has been outside for 13 months now. It is made from newspaper bonded to a light cotton.

The cedar wrapped in cloth is in the forest where it is dark. There is lots of evidence of animals running over it and rearranging the loose ends.

Dialogue

It must have been cold last night because this morning there are a lot more fallen leaves under the maple.
The tea cloth I put under it is quite covered.
I hope lots of interesting staining is going on under those leaves.
I have to watch it closely now to catch it before the cotton threads start disintegrating like they did in a previous sample.

This was an unexpected surprise. Even though it is October here in Victoria and I knew the lawn was still growing, I didn't expect grasses to grow up under the cloth.
They have found their way through the eyelets in the tea cloth. It looks like threading.
I could do something with this.

Dialogues Continue

Last year i wrapped the 4 the trees i decided to have a 'dialogue' with. After a few months the unbleached cotton i had wrapped them with showed no signs of the staining i had expected. So I left the trees wrapped and continued the dialogues in other ways.
Yesterday, while i was outside doing fall clean-up in the garden, i checked my wrapped trees and this is what I found.
Staining on the Arbutus wrap...

...and the Douglas-fir (image above), and also on the wraps of the maple and the cedar.
It made me realise i can't rush these dialogues because i am wanting to respond to cycles of time that are different to my own.

I also checked on another dialogue going on out in the garden at the present.
Leaves have started to fall on the table cloth lying out under the maple. The cloth is no longer white but i don't know if there is just dirt from rain and animals walking on it or staining is starting to take place.

I spent today working on sessions for the class i start teaching in November, 'Mark Making With Thread'.
People have been generously donating materials and books for the students to use. I went through the bags and sorted them according to how they could be used in the different sessions i have planned. One lot of fabric is big enough for everyone in the class to have a piece so i planned a session around it.
I also did lots of reading for my dissertation and some brainstorming on a white board to organise my thoughts for the next few chapters. I have done enough reading for now. Tomorrow i get back to the writing.

Spore Patterns

With the warm wet weather we have been having, all sorts of fungi have been sprouting up.
Here are some images of spore patterns made by some of them.

They look like those retina images one now gets when having one's eyes examined.
Or is it mushroom iridology?

Dialogue Continues

The maple tree is showing signs of turning.

It is time to continue my dialogue with it.

I laid a soy soaked table cloth underneath it.

Now I am waiting for the leaves to fall.

Reading

Read this book all day, and finished it.
A great follow up to the previous book on the history of marriage.
Also did lots of gardening today.
I am pulling out invasive species, unwanted guests who have overstayed their welcome. A subject of one of my dialogues.

Martha Cole and Dialogue

This weekend I went to see Martha Cole and her latest work at an open house in Gloria Daly's studio. Martha had taught a book making class there the previous week so we were able to look at the students books as well as Martha's books.
Martha is a world authority on paste paper and their use in book making.
The image shows her 2 of her latest experiments (in her hands and the purpley one on the wall). She is next going to work on  this stitch-paint technique at a much larger scale.
Her work is inspirational and she is a wonderful person.

There was much excitement at home this past week when a severe weather system blew across the west coast. Our trees were blown around and lost small branches but no damage done. I do enjoy a hearty storm.
After the storm I was delighted to see the contributions the trees had made to the dialogue I presently have set up.

There was lots of communication about the storm.

With the rain and warmer weather the grass is growing vigorously.

Clean Up and Dialogue

Now that i have sent this semester's module of work to the UK for assessment it is time to clean up my studio. All of the left over yarn that i had hauled out, i sorted by hue. I have all of my yarns and threads sorted into 24 different hues, each with their own box. I call these boxes my palette. i find sorting yarns like this helps keep my eye for colour in practice.

The dialogue where I staked doilies out under the trees is coming along.

After 10 days it looked like this.

While the agricultural cloth looked like this.

Dialogue Gardening vs Nurturing

This is another dialogue i have going on with a Douglas-fir and an arbutus.

I staked out under these 2 trees a grid of round knit and crochet doilies and squares of agricultural cloth.

I was anticipating the plants in the ground would grow up through the knitting/crochet....

...and be suppressed by the agricultural cloth.
This dialogue is still in place. i didn't send it to the UK with the rest of my work because i haven't responded to it yet except to photograph changes regularly.