Looks Like We made It

      No, we are not totally out of the woods yet, and yes, we still need to wear our masks, but my darlings, we are starting to see that there is a light in the distance.  Vaccinations against this dreaded virus are well underway.  With the exception of our youngest, who is not old enough to receive the shots yet, my family has all had at least the first jab.  I have never been so relieved to get a needle in my arm!  We can do this! 

We need to do this.  So many have lost so much.  

I look forward to the day the theaters open. It is very hard to be a theatre artist and a theatre professor and not be able to create live theatre.  

Most of all, I look forward to hugging everyone I have had to be distant from for so long.  If I see you, and you say you are  fully vaccinated, do not be surprised if I give you a bear hug! (I may also burst into tears with relief, so just hand me a tissue!)

What is summer without theatre?

      I can barely remember the last time I had a summer that did not include theatre.  College, graduate school, and most years since, summers have meant theatre in some of its most concentrated forms.  There have been summers filled with musicals, or Shakespeare, or modern comedies and dramas, or some combination of all. I have done theatre on showboats, in heatwaves, during hurricane or tornado warnings, while seven months pregnant, inside and outside, with casts of two to thirty.  

     This summer, with theatre closures due to the pandemic, I am not racing to sit in a darkened theatre for tech or dress rehearsals. It is very weird, and oddly, I am getting less done this summer than I normally do.  With no pressure to work around fittings and rehearsals, it feels like I have all the time in the world, and yet, my living room is still not stripped of its old paper, the dining room floors are still not refinished, and the bathroom still not repainted.  But books have been read, and conversations had, marshmallows roasted over wood fires, wine sipped slowly in the warm evenings, and family dinners have lingered long after the food was consumed, so I would call this a success.

       We have tended our sheep, hayed  the fields,  eaten fish caught from our pond, created paintings and collages, taken walks and had long talks. So much of this would have been bypassed with our normal frantic schedule.  Do I miss creating amazing productions with my theatre family? Of course.  I would have had five shows in two different theatres, but  I would have missed the evening the boys and I went fishing in the Susquehanna, watching the sunset over the swirling water.  I would have laughed with my actors friends, but perhaps missed hugging my youngest son as he navigated the first rough patch with his first real girlfriend. 

       Now, as one of our children heads off to law school in two weeks, we are happy for the gift of family time that COVID-19 has afforded us by forcing our schedules into a lower gear.   With all the sadness and anxiety brought on in this dark time by this virus, we are grateful for the silver lining.  

   Be well, my friends.  

It's been a long time!

     It has been over a year since I wrote anything for this blog - too long, my dears, too long!  The last year was filled with the second semester of the new job, writing grants, traveling to Italy to spend two incredible weeks in Commedia delle 'Arte workshops - clowning and mask making during the worst heatwave Europe had seen in a century,  as well as having a glorious weekend in Genoa and Rapallo.  I designed seven shows, mentored theses, designed and taught several new classes, and still managed to keep children, dogs, cat, chickens, and sheep alive.  I am finishing my second year at Hartwick College, where I taught an intense Asian Theatre class in the three week J-term, and was knee deep in the Spring semester and show designs when the pandemic closures started. Switching to online learning has been both fun and frustrating but my students and colleagues are wonderful and have stepped up to the challenge.
    We have been lucky that the immediate family is all together and healthy.  The birth of lambs on the farm keep us busy and have been keeping our spirits up.  Life is good.

    So let's see if we can do a bullet point of the past year.

 .     .    Took a  collage painting workshop at Snow Farm in Massachusetts in June.  Wonderful teacher and great place.

      

Took Danny to NYC to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,

Took Danny and Nick to NYC to see King Kong and watch my former student, Eric William Morris, in the lead - only to find that we had gotten tickets at the time he was on vacation.  Still, we LOVED the puppet work on the ape.

The Three Musketeers of Drew, Barby and Todd were together again when Todd and his family came north for a visit.

 


Spend two glorious weeks in Florence. 

My flatmates and I in the Florence studio with some of our mask creations.

Paints, wine and a view to die for! My special weekend at my friend, Kiara's villa on the Italian Riviera.

Saved many sheep from barberpole worm while Drew was away at conferences.

Had normal farm chores that happen in summer - like haying.










Designed some shows like
Silent Sky

Billy Bishop Goes to War

Managed to spend some family time together on the farm.

A busy 15 months or so, but as always, when I write it down, I realize that I am a very lucky lady.

Where are you Sam?

Can we talk about gasoline?  When I was a kid, there were two kinds of gasoline that my father put in our car – regular, or regular that he pumped himself.  Oh yes, this was a special money saving aspect of the gas station back then.  Gas was a couple cents cheaper if you did it yourself.  However, there was still always the option of letting the gas station attendant do it.  Daddy would pump the gas on trips to the hardware store or lumberyard, but if, for example, we were heading out to Long Island to my grandparent’s for Thanksgiving, he let the attendant do it. 

These men fascinated me.  When we drove into the station, the car would roll over the long, black air hose, dinging the bell somewhere in the repair bay, and we would sit and wait for the man in the grimy uniform (with a name like Bob or Sam embroidered on the left breast pocket) to come loping across to our car. 

“Filler up?” he’d ask, picking something unknown from his perpetually blackened fingernails. 

“Yes, with regular” Daddy would answer.  What did we care about unleaded gas – we were driving a Volkswagen bus – hardly a high-performance car, but one that fit all seven family members with six of them getting window seats.

When Sam (or Bob) had checked the oil, washed the windows, and topped off the tank, Daddy would hand him a credit card, and Sam (or Bob) would disappear into the depths of the gas station, and we would wait for him to return with a little plastic tray with the charge card and several pieces of tissue paper all held together. As he’d pass the tray through the window, I could see the creases in his skin were filled with grease as black as that in his fingernails. Daddy would sign the papers, rip one off and keep it, and thank Bob or Sam who would look puzzled for a minute, then say, “Oh, no, this is just Sam’s shirt – I’m Tommy.”

Where, oh, where are Bob (or Sam or Tommy)?  How I long to see one of them with their grimy hands, as I pull into a gas station, dressed for the theatre, wearing my expensive perfume and velvet skirt.  But no, Sam or Bob or Tommy has departed along with the other heroes of my childhood, Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers.  So, after pumping the gas, and washing the windows, I return to my car, no longer smelling of  “Obsession” or “White Shoulders” but of unleaded gasoline and windshield washer fluid.   I miss you Sam, Bob…

Of keys, and greenhouses, and dye plants.

     A key.  That's it, yet it is a key that will lead to so much!  My college campus has a beautiful greenhouse attached to the back of the science building.  Every day I walk past it as I go to and from my car.  Not a lot of plants are in it; some bromeliads, some ferns, and some geraniums.  There are some random other plants - perhaps from faculty offices, trying to stay alive over winter?  I never see anyone in this greenhouse, which has had the benches removed some time in the past due to asbestos, and never replaced. Hence the lack of activity.  Still, it is light and warm and has windows that open, and water.  And I now have a key.  I have permission to use this greenhouse for my research, and I am thrilled.  Giddy, one might say.
    There is more to this than just growing some plants.  Years ago, we lived in a beautiful house in Baltimore next to a not so beautiful house that had a GORGEOUS, yet abandoned, greenhouse on its property.  I longed to get into that greenhouse.  We even discussed buying the lot next door (the not so beautiful house was situated on a double lot) so we might have the extra land, and the greenhouse.  Alas this was not to be.  So, like a kid with their nose pressed against the toy store window, I would watch the greenhouse sit there with no one entering it, nor loving it.  I watched its slow decay: ivy breaking through the windows and letting water to rot the floor, birds and rodents nesting in the office above the growing rooms, the furnace turning red with rust, the pipes green with patina...
    Now, I work on a campus with an under-used greenhouse - there was a budget crunch after the renovations were begun on it, so they came to a halt.  Since some of my research has to do with plants, I thought I would ask if I might have a small corner of the greenhouse to use.  After all, what's the worst that could happen?  A no?  I'd be no worse off than before.  I asked and got a yes!  I am finally going to have a greenhouse.  Not mine, shared with others, not perfect, but a greenhouse.
     The other cool thing was the Chair of the Biology Department, with whom I have not had interaction since the first week of school, when my mind was reeling with dozens of new names and faces, remembered my name.  It is a little thing, but it made me feel good.  It is nice to be working on a small campus again.
     So I am off to plant my indigo and woad, calendula and madder,  lady's bedstraw and others.  Expect to see me with dirt under my nails and a goofy smile on my face!

Merry Christmas, Dear Ones

   Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.  As we prepare for this special day,  remember to reach out to each other.  That smile at a stranger, or the little bit of help reaching something from a high shelf for a vertically challenged shopper has a huge and positive impact.
     I am a person who hates shopping (ironic with the job I have) but I love going to the store the day or two before Christmas.  Everyone is so helpful.  We were in Walmart yesterday.  I needed to get more vanilla extract and tee shirts.  I went into the baking supply aisle - which was very crowded.   I overheard a woman searching for condensed milk.  Having just passed it, I told her where it was.  Her husband saw me scanning the shelves, and asked what I was looking for, then told me the vanilla was back where I had just sent his wife.  It is the little bits of communication that make this such a special time.  The tiny moments, not the presents, are what we will remember.
    Family, friends, and memories can help everyone have a better holiday season.
   Wishing you all friendship, and love, and days of laughter, and moments of quiet.

PEACE

I Have Achieved Leather

   So after putting the salmon skin in the tannin solution last Sunday, and taking it out yesterday (Sunday), I have learned a few things.  First of all - I think I may have left it in the solution too long, as it is still stiff in places, even after working it.  Second - acorn tannin makes the skins much darker than the Maiwa powdered tannin I learned with.  The finished skin is dark brown, and very pretty,  but it is very different from the  burnt sienna of the Maiwa product.  Third - I need to find some fishermen and have them save skins for me after they have filleted their catch.  I love this process.  I now have to decide what to do with the leather.  The last thing I learned (AGAIN) is that I have a very tolerant family.  The fish skin and tanning solution sat on the kitchen counter in a big bowl for a week, and they just worked around it. Fish in the bathroom?  All heard was, "When will it be done so I can shower?" My husband and boys are kind of awesome.

Here is the rest of the process:

making the protein  solution with egg yolk, oils and detergent

Adding back some of the oils removed in the tanning process

Letting the oiled skin drip dry a bit - again in the shower
If you shower at our house ANYTHING might be in the tub - salmon leather, nettles, felt, anything!

The outer side of the skin - 

The underside still retaining the lines from the drying rack!

I may sand the back of the leather to even out the surface, and I may need to get a touch more scientific in the measuring of the tannins (I think my solution was quite strong) but leather was made and I am pleased with the result.  

end of season

It really is the end of the season here for eco printing.  I missed so much of the fall  plants due to work, conferences, shows and such that I am somewhat desperately grabbing any leaves and flowers that are left.  Here is one piece I have started using sumac and  Japanese knotweed among others:

My salmon leather should be ready to work by tomorrow evening.  Here is what it looks like as I examine it today.  The cross hatching if from the rack I was drying it on.  Interesting!  I hope it stays through the working process. 

My show opens in two weeks, so I will have a little breathing time to decide what to make from the salmon leather.  Next I will have to find a salmon skin supplier - perhaps a seafood restaurant somewhere?

Salmon raw hide

1. I have made the tannin solution from my acorns.
   
2. I have obtained and removed the meat from a salmon skin.
   
   
   
3. I washed said skin.
   
4. I rinsed the skin.  
5. I placed it on a rack and put it in the shower to dry. 
   
6. I closed the bathroom door so the cat could not get to the skin. 
7. I discovered the bathroom door open.  
8. I removed the salmon skin from the dog's mouth. 
9. I repeated steps 3 - 6.
10. I put a fan in the bathroom.
11. I removed the rack and skin and put them in the oven - no heat -  so hubby could use the shower for its intended purpose.
    
12. I have achieved salmon rawhide!

Adventures in Salmon Leather

Adventures in Salmon Leather

Last month I was presenting at the Textile Society of America's Biennial Symposium, and I took a pre-symposium workshop.  I did this because I was there alone, and walking into a symposium of over 400 people is daunting to me.  I have discovered that starting in a working group or class ahead of a conference helps me make a few new friends to have lunch with or sit with on the bus, etc.  It was also a really interesting workshop!

This is the hoped for outcome.

Headed  by artist Rebecca Graham, we had a cadre of artists teaching us - three First Nations artists form differing tribes and traditions, as well as a Scotsman, Peter Ananin, a natural tanner, who carries on the fish leather tradition in Scotland. Rebecca had obtained a great number of skins from a friend who is a commercial chef who saves the skins in the freezer after she has filleted the fish for her meals. She showed us how to scrape off the bits of meat and the scales using nothing more that a spoon.  She discussed the methods of tanning, and June and Charlie Pardue from Alaska's Alutiiq and Gwich'in tribes respectively added their methods.   Peter uses  tree bark for his tannin, 

Charlie uses willow, and we discussed other "found in nature" sources.  For the purpose of teaching consistency, Rebecca used powdered tannins from Maiwa. Aworkshop that is just 6 hours cannot allow you to actually tan the skin, so we did the "cooking show" version of tanning - Rebecca showed the process, but had some pre-soaked skins rady for use to do the final processing on.  The skins must soak in the tannins between 2 to 5 days, so this made a lot of sense.  At the end of the day, we all took home two pieces of salmon leather (the third strongest in the world after shark and something else) that we had worked ourselves.  

Peter's hot pan of tree bark tea.

Rebecca's tannin choice.

The skin, after removing the scales and bits of meat.

The tanned  skin - now leather. 

 So now I am going to try it without the aid of teachers and guides.  I must start by getting my tannin solution, so I am boiling up nearly two pounds of acorns in my old crock pot.  I rinsed them once to remove residual dirt and they have been boiling and getting drained and reboiled . 

Nice dark tannin solution ready to be poured off.

The next step is to defrost the skin from last week's dinner that I asked my ever so patient husband to help me cut from the side of salmon that I bought.  I will grab my notes and get back to you with photos in a week or so!

Addendum:  Photos of Peter's pants from a hide of a roe deer that he  tanned, and stitched, and even made the buttons for.  And yes, I got his permission before shooting a photo of the fly of the trousers!

What Drowning Looks Like: know the signs

A few years ago, on a day trip with friends, we were at a swimming hole in the Hudson Valley, and my youngest son - about 3 or 4 at the time, stepped off the rocky shelf, and dropped down into the deep water.  There were four adults standing next to him, but I was the only one with eyes specifically on him at that moment.  He did not know how to swim yet, and he did not cry out - he just slipped under.  I dove in (fully dressed, as a parent will do) and grabbed his hand, pulling him up before he had been able to swallow more than a mouthful of water.  I shudder to think of what might have happened had my attention been diverted from him.  Please read the following article to learn what drowning really looks like.  It may save a life.

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

Nearly summer

     My youngest son is nearly done with finals, and thus school for the year.  I always breathe a sigh of relief because it means I do not have to get up until 7 a.m. if I do not want to.  (I will still probably get up at 6, but I do not HAVE to!)
      Summer also means more  time at the farm - for me and the kids.  More time to make new friends  like this:

  And to learn new skills like this:

And for me to  get close ups of snake skin for research, and to test how well tomatoes do when planted in the manure pile!

I hope your summer is filled with new friends, new skills,  and lots of tomatoes!

Sometimes you need to find the silver lining...

Nearly three weeks ago there was a big storm in the state of CT. At first thought to be a tornado, it was later determined to be a macro burst.  The small town of Brookfield, where I grew up,  and where I still have family and friends, was hit hard.  Trees down, houses and cars crushed, and massive damage to the infrastructure.  My mom's house, the one I grew up in, lost a huge number of trees - five were completely uprooted, and twelve to fifteen were snapped  with pieces landing across the yard, or through the roof. 

The English walnut

The top of a tree my grandmother gave us when we moved in, 51 years ago

Part of the tree that went through the roof and into my mother's bedroom 

There was some real power to the winds.

So  we spent some time with chain saws and started the clean up process. 

The start of the pile of branches at the edge of the road where the town said to pile debris for pick up. Today the professional crew with the trucks and the excavator and the BIG chain saw will be there to take down or trim the broken trees, move the trunks, dig out and break up the root balls, etc.  The lawn will need some landscaping after the heavy equipment is removed, but that's easy.

     

  When half of the 100 foot pine trees came down, we were left with a view I have not seen since I was a little girl. We can see the sunset in the evening, and on clear mornings,  a little white church, about three towns and four mountains to the west.  Always look for the silver lining!