Compost And Creativity

Another Example Of Compost And Creativity

2011-06-19T09:41:00.000-05:00

This post on emergency toilet sanitation came into my reader today. Who can anticipate when a tornado/wind storm/ice storm/blizzard or other natural phenomenon will cut off power to a community for days/weeks/more? Don't miss the comments below the post -- good stuff.

Looking Back To The Future

2011-03-09T10:01:00.000-06:00

Bill and I have a game we play while traveling. We ask: "What was your favorite thing / biggest surprise / most memorable moment?" On a recent trip to Florida to visit my folks, one event stood out for both of us. Of course, it's an event I couldn't record because I didn't take the camera that morning (but that's another story).

The photo above shows what the scene looked like a couple of years ago. It's a place we enjoy walking with my parents. Since I don't have photos of the event itself, I'll just describe it for you.

Along one side of the lake, there were clustered two different types of birds: anhingas, which are common on Florida waters, and wood storks, which we've seen from a distance on other occasions. This time, the storks were just feet away from us but completely oblivious to our presence. They were too busy catching fish. It appeared that the anhingas were herding fish toward the shallows, and the storks were taking advantage of the easy pickings.

It reminded me of a traditional fishing method I learned about some time back, a method often used by the women of a village. Working collectively, a group would fan out and wade toward the shallows, driving fish ahead of them to where they could be more easily caught in dip nets or baskets. The birds' activity made it easy to see where our ancestors might have come up with the concept of the fish drive.

There are still places in the world where this type of communal harvest method is used. In those places, they know two things.

First, by working together a group may be better able to meet the needs of the community than individuals working alone. In fact, a fish drive can be a very efficient harvest method.

Second, because the harvest is so efficient the group can be selective -- keeping what they need and throwing back the rest to feed them in the future.

There's a lot of food for thought in this. Particularly in Wisconsin, where fishing is practically a religion, and particularly now, when the new governor's proposed "budget repair" legislation threatens the collective bargaining of public workers. There's a lot more stuff in the bill that isn't getting much press -- things like no-bid contracts and the option to sell state-owned heating, cooling and power plants "with or without
solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state." I could go on, or instead you could read the bill here.

There's been much written and much more said about this situation. But one of the best pieces I've read came from columnist John Gurda in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Before you head off to read it, let me share a short excerpt. Gurda writes:

Walker, in the end, does not represent any Wisconsin tradition that I recognize as mainstream. Through most of its history, our state has been animated by a broader, more generous conception of the common good. Republicans and Democrats alike saw government as the expression of our collective will, not an alien threat to our individual sovereignty.

After reading Gurda's column, you might want to dust off your copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed.

For the common good, I'm in favor of going back to a model that looks more like communal fishing. To borrow a phrase from Gurda, I believe it's a myth that "the prosperity of the few will percolate down to the many." ("Try selling that one to the people of Chile or Argentina," he writes.)

You may not agree. But I'm sure we could work something out if we all actually wanted to work together.

The Gift of Thrift And A Happy New Year

2010-12-31T10:45:00.000-06:00

The last day of the year is a good day for taking down and putting away stuff from the holidays. In our home, there will be a new addition to Bill's shelf of homebrew supplies: The feed and grain coop store in Antigo added brewing and winemaking supplies to their inventory, and Bill got a 3-gallon glass carboy. It's rare for us to spend this much on a store-bought gift, but at 23 bucks there's no way I could acquire glassblowing tools, materials and skills to make a big bottle myself.

Bill got me a set of wool carders at the Sievers garage sale. Everybody else got something homemade. If you were to add up the time we spend making gifts, it would probably even out with the time other people spend going to jobs to earn money to buy gifts plus the time (and gas) they use to go shop for things to buy.

But making everything does take a lot of time, so Bill and I try to alternate who makes the bulk of our holiday gifts. This was my year. You can read how I used fabric reclaimed from thrift shop sheets and curtains, the indigo vat, and bits of fabric from my stash in my gift posts on Two Red Threads.

With holiday sewing done, I had a chance to catch up on some mending. The breeze at the knees was giving Bill a chill where his Carhartt work pants wear out. My studio jeans had a few breezes of their own.

I don't spend much time on these repairs or worry too much about how they look. Apart from an occasional quick trip to the post office, chances are nobody will see them but us. To us, they're just pants -- something to keep us warm, something to deflect sawdust and slivers and stray drops of dye. And to us, patches represent more than keeping garments out of the waste stream. They represent the way we stitch together a lifestyle measured less by our income than by the progress we're making toward our long-term goals.

In truth, it's a tight squeeze. We spend more on our monthly health insurance premium than on any other category of household expense, including our mortgage -- and that's with a $5,000 deductible. Unexpected medical expenses hit us this year, but then it's always something. You feel like you're getting ahead, and a vehicle needs a new head gasket. We don't take it personally. We just do what we have to do to keep our vehicles roadworthy and our bodies healthy and productive. We've been careful, and we've been lucky.

We're making do. And for that, we are grateful.

We hope that in the new year we all can find creative ways to meet the challenges ahead (whatever they may be), and continue to make ends meet without losing track of which ends are important. Happy New Year!

Boil, Brew, Be Done

2010-12-14T07:02:00.000-06:00

5 Ways To Be More Productive from Two Red Threads

Use Your Teapot As A Productivity-Boosting Timer. That's the title of a simple, elegant and doable technique just posted at Lifehacker. It could have been titled "Get The Dishwasher Unloaded Before The Toast Pops Up." Got a small job you don't really want to do? Put the kettle on and get cracking. The challenge is to get the job done before the water boils. Then it's done, and so's your tea.

In the studio, I think I'll dial down the heat on my electric kettle so it takes a bit longer to boil for that first cup in the morning. Then, instead of just shifting piles to make room for me to work my creativity warm-ups, I'll try to do a few minutes of real studio housekeeping while the water heats. Think of it as a steamy version of Beat The Clock.

What games do you play to help you get those small jobs done?

The Long View

2010-11-19T11:49:00.000-06:00

4-H sampler from many years ago

Make hay while the sun shines. A stitch in time saves nine. My parents and grandparents all took the long view of things. It made sense. On the farm, if you didn't get a crop in while the weather held, you might not get another chance. And if you didn't mend those pants before a rip got bigger, someone might notice quite a breeze as they walked up from the barn.

The long view. I've been thinking about this a lot over the past year. During the past 12 months, in addition to teaching and making fiber art I have:

started writing two blogs
published my first e-books
started selling my printed books on Etsy
started selling my print-on-demand fabric designs on Spoonflower

It's been a profitable year -- learning-wise, not money-wise. Money-wise, we can just about afford to celebrate with a glass of Bill's homemade wine, which he makes with stuff we grow or gather, a little bit of sugar, and a big sack full of patience.

There's more wine bubbling away in the basement, working on its own schedule, oblivious to the calendar and to our expectations. I have ideas bubbling away, as well. We learned long ago that the universe cares not a whit about our calendar and our expectations. But we continue to behave as if time is more than a commodity.

With the one-year anniversary of this blog coming up in a couple of days, I want to say a few things now (never put off to tomorrow...).

I'm grateful for those of you who also savor the time you spend in making.

I'm grateful for your patience with me as I learn how to operate in this digital environment.

I'm grateful for your patience with yourself as you tackle new challenges of your own (that's way harder than being nice to someone else, isn't it?).

I'm grateful to you for reading and for sharing your thoughts here.

Makers, All

2010-10-24T14:11:00.001-05:00

Imagine me tipping my hat (knit from handspun yarn, of course) to the folks at my alma mater for their "I Am A Maker" campaign.

You can hear the Makers All manifesto here, or read it at Make.

Yes, No, Maybe

2010-10-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

In the big studio clean-up:

Yes, I saved most of the painted papers stashed in the file cabinet.

No, I pitched the remains of a roll of jute I bought in 1975 for a macrame project.

And maybe I'll keep this cool root. If not, at least I have a picture of it now!

No More Mickeying Around

2010-10-11T18:24:00.000-05:00

At one time, my studio housed equipment for the highway department. For about 20 years, it was the store and central meeting place for our whitewater canoe and kayak school. When we closed that business, it became my studio. We've done some work on the building, and it's paid for, which I love. But it's fall. The flies and Asian lady beetles are swarming in the front windows. And I have a mouse problem -- again.

Old fashioned mouse deterrent -- can lids nailed over holes in floor.

In a rural area, at this time of year the mice are trying to get comfy for the winter. I'm fine with them being snug and happy -- elsewhere. But I don't go and poop in their space, and I'd prefer that they show me the same consideration.

It's my own fault. Over the years, I've collected too much stuff in my studio. Most of it is in plastic bins so it's protected -- assuming I don't get distracted and leave a lid off, or stuff it so full the lid won't shut tight. But there are too many places for mice to feel safe while they poop on my shelves.

So I'm in the midst of a cleaning/thinning/dejunkifying process. This is a guarantee that within six weeks I'll have a pressing need for something I just pitched or took to the thrift store.

Cleaning Day

Still, it feels good. It's like I'm giving myself permission to:

not finish that pile of stuff from class demos this year.
not finish that pile of stuff from class demos five years ago.
not pursue those ideas that seemed brilliant eight years ago (if they were so brilliant, I would have pursued them by now).
not keep a dib of this and a dab of that (I'm thrifty, but the stuff was all dried up).
not hoard every little scrap of fabric (except the silks).

As I declutter my studio, I'm decluttering my head. This is something I've been working on for a few weeks. I've needed to let go of some possibilities and quit letting them distract me from the work I need to be doing now.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll open a can of beans for supper. Those are my favorite lids to nail over mouse holes.

Color My World

2010-10-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

A few years back, most of my work (and most of my teaching) was coiled vessels made with natural materials I grew or gathered myself. I spent more time then with other basketmakers who also worked with natural materials they grew or gathered themselves. This is a group who knows how to celebrate the richness of subtle shades -- brown, golden brown, orangey brown, rosey brown, reddish brown, greenish brown...

Even though my work has branched off in another direction, I still love these natural colors. But to work with a broader palette, I've had to learn a whole new set of skills.

In my studio, I have a shelf of books devoted to color (my favorite is Deb Menz's ColorWorks: The Crafter's Guide To Color) and three color wheels. Yesterday, this post from Design*Sponge started other wheels turning in my head (the usual ones about different people at different times having different perceptions of the "same" things).

Design*Sponge linked only to Part 1 of Jude Stewart's two-part post on The Wonderful Color Wheel at Imprint. I enjoyed reading Part 2 as well.

After that, I couldn't help poking around at bit at Imprint. Which led me to this post about wild cucumbers -- and back to natural materials. Back to brown. And to this reflection:

We love what we love.

Take a look in your closet, your yarn stash, your fabric stash, at your walls, at the photos you take, at your other artwork. What color tells your story?

The Creative Fire

2010-09-23T08:08:00.000-05:00

So far this month, we've had just enough frosty nights that we're back in the habit of a morning fire to take the chill off. On the whole, I don't miss burning wood, which is how we kept from freezing in the old farmhouse. There's more charm in the idea of a crackling fire than there is the bugs, debris and occasional bat carried inside with the firewood.

When we built the new house, we installed a small wood stove for spring and fall and times when the power is out. But we don't keep a big wood pile any longer. We burn wood scraps from Bill's shop when we just need a small fire.

It took us a while to learn how to build a fire in the new house. Where the old house was, shall we say, very well ventilated, the new house is really tight. When the stove is cold, it's a challenge to get the thing to draw. We filled the house with smoke a few times before we learned to open the outside door in the laundry room before striking a match.

Because I've been battling the crud in my lungs this month, each fire has been built with exquisite care. I need the fire to catch quickly and burn clean. I need heat without drama.

As I was laying a fire the other day, it struck me how similar the process is to what I do in the studio when I need to start something new: Lay kindling, open the back door, strike a match, build some heat and coals, then feed the fire.

Over the years, I've smothered my share of fires, in the wood stove and in the studio, because I piled on too much too soon. Lesson learned. I can be patient. Things will heat up shortly. Then I can close the back door and enjoy the glow.

UnMuddling

2010-09-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

Last week I mentioned an idea incubation tool I call my Unmuddling Notebook. It's my personal alternative to Morning Pages, a basic tool in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Instead of writing three pages first thing each day, I write one or two lines in the morning and one or two lines at night.

My evening lines are a task I assign to my subconscious to work on overnight -- things I'd like it to help me clarify or unmuddle. It might be something very specific, or very general. Last night I wrote, "I need fresh eyes."

My morning lines are about what I want to make sure I'm paying attention to today. It might be the first thing that pops into my head when I wake up, or something I consciously pluck from the swirl of thoughts that returns when my eyes open. This morning it was "Reflections."

For me, writing morning and evening lines is a reminder to keep the heat turned up in my creativity incubator, and to be paying attention when something hatches. It's also a reminder that I have some choice in the matter of what gets my attention. Each morning and each evening, I make some choice about where to look for inspiration. Likewise, each morning, each evening, and during the hours in between, I have to let some things go -- maybe not forever, but for now.

Fitting The Pieces Together

2010-09-09T17:29:00.000-05:00

We finally finished the bezillion-piece puzzle we started while my parents were visiting. It's been a welcome distraction, and a useful reminder that eventually things all fall into place.

My mom wasn't feeling well during their visit, but she was happy to sort puzzle pieces. First we found the four corners and the pieces with straight edges. Then we searched for the pieces with the red and white title. Next we worked the map. After my folks left, I worked on the rest of the pieces with text and the faces. While I was at Sievers, Bill filled in the inner border. When I got home, we were down to the hard part -- lots of blue and gray without clear distinguishing marks to help place the pieces. And some of the pieces were not "puzzle shaped." Out of context, they wouldn't hold together while you searched for what went with them.

Does this sound like a metaphor? It sure seems like one to me.

Working on the puzzle has been a good distraction at a time when I need a little distraction. I'm trying not to think too hard about some stuff I have incubating. As Paul Williams wrote a while back on Think For A Change, incubation is:

...a bit like grabbing a wet bar of soap...the harder you squeeze, the more difficult it is to hang onto it.

I'm at a natural transition point in my work where it makes sense to step back and take a fresh look at possibilities. This puzzle has a lot of pieces, and I have no clue how some of them fit it. For now.

Life doesn't come with a helpful picture on the box of what things are supposed to look like when you get it all put together. Sometimes I kind of wish it did. And sometimes I squeeze the soap.

But there isn't a timetable for this process. There's no expiration date on possibility. I've learned to be more patient than I ever dreamed was possible. That may be because I have better tools now for making sure I'm paying attention when all these ideas start to hatch and the pieces start to fit together.

Next time I'll tell you about my "unmuddling" notebook. In the meantime, what tools to you use to keep from squeezing the soap?

Sleep On It

2010-09-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

Mom always said, "It will all make more sense after you sleep on it." Turns out, she was right again. As part of my intention to pay attention as I incubate some ideas that are kicking around in my head, I may be adding naptime to my daily planner.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Dye Test

2010-09-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, during the 5-day spinning class I took at Sievers, I wasn't surprised when talk turned to using powdered unsweetened soft drink mix to dye wool and silk. I was surprised to learn that Mexican Kool-Aid may yield better color than the American product. The woman at the wheel next to me is from an area in northern Minnesota that is as rural as where I live. We both assumed there wouldn't be much chance of finding the product in our local grocery stores.

I don't know about her, but I was wrong. It is in my local supermarket -- right at eye level in an aisle I pass down every time I'm in the store.

How many times do we dismiss possibilities because we assume they won't be available so we don't look for them at all? This time, I looked.

It's time for me to make sure I'm paying attention to other possibilities I might be overlooking. After a summer packed with learning as well as teaching, I need to use some of the incubation exercises I give my students on myself. Want to play along?

Jump Start

2010-08-11T11:36:00.000-05:00

Last week we took the third of three vehicles to the shop, Bill and I both had summer colds, and I hit the kind of stall that requires a battery charger and a jump start. The battery charger I used was for my digital camera. The jump start was an hour spent wandering in and around Bill's shop taking pictures that will become digital brushes in Gimp. I'm much better now.

Have you found a jump start technique that helps get you going after a summer stall? Please hit the comment button to share it!

In A Phrase -- A Creativity Warm-Up

2010-07-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

Summer tends to be my busy season for work. Our summer guests overlook the dust and the weeds. They know I have looming deadlines for teaching proposals that make it so I have an income next year. That I'm scrambling to prepare class materials for whatever I'm teaching next. That instead of dusting and weeding, I'm traveling to teach or take classes. This summer I'm also taking an online class, and doing background research for a new body of work I have in mind. The stack of index cards with ideas to explore gets deeper every day, but most of it will have to keep for later. Later, when the days are shorter and the weeds are covered by a clean, bright blanket of snow.

For now, my creative explorations have to stay focused on a type of creative writing project called the teaching proposal. The challenge is to a) explain what it is, b) convey the goals and objectives of the class, and c) make it sound irresistible -- all in 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 words.

To warm up for this kind of challenge, I've been playing a word game. Over at Project Gutenberg, I found a 1917 book called Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser. I print out a few pages at a time and put them in the bathroom, where I find a few minutes each day to peruse them and circle a few that inspire imagination.

Want to play along? I'll list a few phrases I've circled. Pick one to act as your title, and use recycled magazine pages to make a quick collage that conveys the mood or sentiment. Here we go:

algebraic brevity
alluring idleness
anticipated attention
apprentice touch
ambidextrous assistant
apostrophic dignity
arch conspiritor
babbling gossip
blazing audacity
broken murmurs
a convenient makeshift
a dangerous varnish of refinement
a long tangle of unavoidable detail
a thousand mangled delusions
a snare and a delusion
a thing of moods and moments.

I harbor an eternal and imperishable hope that those who review my teaching proposals await them with feverish anxiety. They probably won't see any of these phrases in the class descriptions I'm writing now. In 100 words or less, there isn't room for a long tangle of unavoidable detail. But who knows? Would you take a class called Shadowy Abstractions?

My Exhibitionist Self

2010-07-06T08:44:00.000-05:00

Stitch London's Stitch Yourself exhibition had its one-night installation at the London Science Museum last week. My stitched self was flying high! I'm in the upper left corner in this detail shot. I haven't decided if I'm embracing, wrestling with, or trying to alter the position of the word "engineering." Maybe all three, depending on how you tell the story.

You can read more about the exhibition here, and about my Mary Poppins fantasies here.

Time Travels Of The Floral Kind

2010-06-28T10:18:00.001-05:00

When I left Washington Island on Friday, the last of the Siberian iris in the flower bed by the Walter Studio at Sievers were fading. Some of those flowers came from divisions I planted shortly after my godson, Christian, was born. His mom and I took a little road trip with the baby, who is now (sigh) at least as tall as I am.

I have lots of Siberian iris at home that need to be divided. I got started on that project last summer, but have a long way to go. They're tough plants with dense root masses, and dividing them takes a sharp shovel, a hatchet, and some ooomph. It's the kind of work where you don't think about much else -- dig, lift, chop, dig, plant, suck wind.

Given my preference and the body I had 20 years ago, I'd try to work hard and get it all done in one long day. I keep forgetting: That doesn't work for me any more. So I'm trying to remember to chip away at this chore -- a few today, a few tomorrow, a few next week.

Funny how I'd like to speed up time on things like getting this job done and slow down time on things like the kids growing up.

Summer flowers send me on all kinds of time travels -- to my grandma's carnations, the delphinium I pulled up by accident in Carol Ann's flower bed, my mother's roses, the recycled graveyard flowers we used (with permission) for two bouquets in each performance of Blythe Spirit my first year of summer stock theater...

Do you time travel, too, when summer flowers are in bloom?

Stir The Pile

2010-06-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

Just want to let you know about another creativity catalyst I've added to this site. It's a box called "Stir The Pile" in the far right column on this blog. When I come across a post that inspires me, I mark it "Share" in my Google Reader. A little snip of code draws that feed into the box. Click on a title, and it will take you to the article.

I've been pulling this feed into my other blog, Two Red Threads, for some time, in a box called "Loose Ends." Since the men in the white coats haven't come to haul me away (yet) for revealing this glimpse of what I find interesting, I'll take a chance and share it with you. These posts have switched on a few light bulbs in my brain, and I hope they do the same for you.

Now I really should go stir a real compost pile.

Too Much Of A Good Thing?

2010-06-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

Last week I taught at an ginormous beading conference, Bead & Button, and my head is still swirling with great ideas. I have a whole pile of index cards with notes and sketches and ideas I can't wait to explore. So the timing was perfect for me to read Susan Murphy's post on How To Turn Idea Overload Into Idea Fuel over at Thought Wrestling. My thanks to Liz Massey at Creative Liberty for the post that led me there.

Like Susan, I need to lay things out in front of me to get a more realistic picture of what's going on in my head, when there's so much going on in my head. I know I can't do it all, so I have to figure out where to start, and then do it. When there's too much of a good thing, as Susan suggests, you have to let the cream rise to the top.
In certain situations, though, I firmly reject this sensible course of action and channel my inner Mae West: Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. That's what I was thinking yesterday when I finally had a chance to sort through goodies my sister-in-law brought me two weeks ago. These came from her bff Annette -- one of the few people who has known my husband long enough to have seen his face without a beard (I never have, and we've been married 20 years).

While cleaning out the belongings of an elderly relative of Annette's, she and Jean started a bag for me. They ended up with four overstuffed trash can liners full of yarn and crochet cotton, small pieces of fabric cut for forgotten quilt projects, balls of fabric strips sewn together. And wonderful UFOs -- pieced quilt squares and crochet projects, mostly

As a person who generates plenty of her own UFOs, why would I take on someone else's? Well, I won't feel guilty about not finishing them the way they were intended. For example, one bit of piecing I plan to send through the washer to fray the raw edges to make a scarf. Since I do not piece, this is an opportunity I would never have otherwise. I think another couple of quilt blocks will become pockets on a pair of cargo pants. I'll take a few pieces with me for the teens to play with at a fiber camp I'm teaching at this summer. But I'm keeping all the pink crochet roses for myself.

The bonus in the bag was an envelope that holds a few grains of rice thrown at newlyweds half a century ago. Throwing rice (or birdseed) at a wedding symbolizes the guests' wishes for prosperity for the couple. When it comes to good wishes, there can never be too much of a good thing, or too long to treasure the memory of it.

Full Bloom

2010-06-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

Siberian iris, lupine and roses in full bloom, and I was home to see it this year! Teaching travel often keeps me away during this short but spectacular season.

I planted these Siberians as a row crop in between the willow beds in (I think) 2003. We're going into our eighth year of drought, another year when it's not looking like these leaves will be prime for coiling. But the flowers are so pretty it's hard to think ahead to the harvest right now and we're just enjoying their beauty.

Play Day

2010-06-06T13:37:00.000-05:00

It's been nose-to-grindstone time lately. Being self-employed, my craziness is self-inflicted. Lucky for me, my husband's sister and brother-in-law had plans to come up for a weekend visit. After a day playing in the studio with my sister-in-law, I feel like I've been to the creativity spa.

The guys went fishing and then cleaned fish while Jean and I played. She and I did some sampling just for fun, with no expectations on the outcome. I have a bunch of new ideas to explore further when I get home from my June teaching travel. I feel rested, refreshed, and ready to go now.

For so many people I know, this time of year is extra busy. Crazy busy. Frozen pizza for supper busy. And when you're frantically trying to do it all, it's easy to feel like you'll never have another creative moment in your life. You may not be able to control the schedule, but maybe you can control how you feel. Can you squeeze in a play day soon?

Creativity And the 3x5 Index Card

2010-05-27T21:54:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks I've spent a lot of time preparing for upcoming classes and writing. The work is creative, but at the end of the day it's hard to point at something and say to my husband, "Isn't this cool?" It's times like these that unlined 3x5 cards save my sanity.

I've been using a Levenger Pocket Briefcase, which holds 3x5 index cards, for close to 20 years. I make notes and sketches on cards. I make lists to keep me on track while I prep for multiple classes. I use cards to capture ideas I don't have time to explore until later. The cards go in files and in piles. Sometimes cards disappear (you've heard of the Black Hole on my desk), then reappear at exactly the right time.

I keep a stack of index cards by my comfy chair in the living room. When I've stared at the computer screen too long and I can't focus my eyes to stitch, I doodle.

Sometimes I use those doodles in projects.

Sometimes I just play with different arrangements of the cards. Like a cross between tarot and storyboard, I can change the story by changing the order of the cards.

Last week, I reached for a 3x5 card to copy a recipe. By mistake, I grabbed one I had already doodled on. Now I'm thinking I might make it a habit to doodle on cards I intend to write recipes on. Do you think I'll be more likely to actually try out those new recipes?

An Ode To Weeds

2010-05-24T12:12:00.000-05:00

I keep hearing from my friends that their adult children, who never before showed an interest in gardening, now want to learn to grow their own vegetables. The spirit of '76 (1976, that is) is alive and well once again.

While I didn't think so at the time, I was lucky that I was expected to weed the vegetable garden as a kid. I learned a few things. And over the years, I've adapted those lessons to my northern clime and my wacky lifestyle. Here are a few things your kids might want to know.

Weeds are not bad. Weeds hold the soil in place when nothing else is growing there. Sure, they compete with other plants for water and nutrients, but they're not evil.
Tall weeds are easier to pull. At least, this is what I tell myself when they get really tall before I have a chance to pull them.
Really tall weeds can be useful. The world did not stop rotating on its axis the year the peas vined up on the tall weeds.
Containers gardens require less weeding. Our lawn is so sandy we're grateful for the green of the quackgrass and dandelions. I have a constant battle with quackgrass in the garden, but not in the containers, which I'll tell you more about another day.

The flower bed in front of the house looks pretty sad right now, because I weed what we're hoping to eat first and the rest when I can. It will all get done, eventually. But as usual at this time of year, when it seems we go from winter to summer overnight, I'm finding it hard to balance the need to weed with the need to be prepared for upcoming classes.

But here's another thing they don't tell you about weeding: Pulling weeds from soil helps give you the confidence to recognize and pull weeds from your life. Or to leave them alone, for now at least. Could it be that some person or commitment in your life only seems like a weed, but it's really helping to support something positive or anchoring the soil until you cultivate something else?

It's something to ponder, anyway, when things look wild and unruly and it seems there isn't quite enough time to make your world look like a magazine cover.

What do you think about while you're weeding?

BYO Reality Creativity Warm-Up

2010-05-10T11:10:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was burning through my to-do list like a house a-fire -- right up until smoke started pouring out of my monitor. Distracted, I let my defenses down and the bug that hit everyone last winter got me. It was a lost weekend. So to get a fresh start this week, I used a creativity warm-up I call BYO Reality. You could also call it the Play-doh Flower warm-up.

Last week, my craving for bright colors for floral-theme class elements led me here. That was before the snow that blanketed our area on Friday night. If anything, the craving is even worse now that the cold snap has probably guaranteed we won't have lilacs this year. Since reality often depends on your point of view, you might as well Build Your Own. At any age, that is best done with some Play-doh.

Just pinch off a bit of Play-doh, roll it into a ball, and smash it around your thumb to make a petal. Repeat to make more petals. Layer colors on the petals, if you like. Arrange petals into a flower. Add more flowers. Put centers in your flowers. Build a whole garden, if you like.

While I was walking around the garden to see how things fared in the cold, I snipped a few daylily and sedum leaves. Then I photographed my Play-doh flowers on the real leaves as well as on a white paper background (so I could drop in a digital background later). You could also make a paper collage for the background.

With that done, I'm ready to pick up where I was so rudely interrupted on Thursday. I hope this warm-up will help me find the creative boost I need to resolve the resolution problem that has everything on the new wide-screen monitor looking kind of squashy. If not, at least I have a splash of color and the smell of Play-doh to comfort me today.

What's your favorite thing to make from Play-doh?