December, 2018 | Hand

Sweet Christmas Chaos

December 26, 2018 Marilyn Comments 0 Comment

I left home at 2:48 p.m. on Monday, December 24 headed seventy miles north to Roseville, CA where my son Chris lives. It was dry, but threatening. As I drove up the on ramp at Hammer Lane, the first rain drops hit the windshield, and before the next exit the wipers were going on high speed. The heavy rain continued on the two lane section of I-5 until Elk Grove where the road picks up a third lane. Fortunately, the heavy traffic was headed south on the other side of the freeway.

Sacramento had easy, normal rain when I passed through. It was still raining when I arrived at my son’s house at about 4:30. When I stepped into the house, I was greeted with three new faces. Two of them ran toward the door; the third stood there in shock, and quickly disappeared.

Jeremy helped me unload my car of gifts, food, a duffel bag, and pillow. There was a face-to-tummy hug from my grandson, Vinnie, who disappeared until dinner was served. Jer was busy putting food in the oven at the right time, and fixing a salad. I learned all about his new job.

The almost three-month-old kittens were busy checking out my shoes, chasing colorful Christmas bows, and grabbing anything that moved on the Christmas tree. Once Chris got home from work, dinner was on the table in no time, my grandson ate and was back in his room before I had tasted everything once.

I had brought my IPad and was hoping Vin could show me how to do a few things on it, but I was never able to catch his eye, mainly because I couldn’t see his eyes due to his new hairdo.

When I go to Chris’ house, I seem to get caught up in a vortex of image and sound, so foreign to what I’m used to, that I just watch it happening around me, like I’ve stepped into the middle of a movie.

About 9 p.m. the shy kitten made an appearance, keeping her distance from me, while the two large dogs gnawed new bones, and we watched a movie called “Dumplin.” Things shifted into high gear as gifts were wrapped, the TV news repeated itself about every half hour, the kittens got into more stuff, and the Pope reminded us why we have Christmas.

When I got up to use the bathroom at 5 a.m. Christmas morning, one of the cats was outside the door of my room, staring at it, waiting for it to open. When I came out of the bathroom, she was gone.

Christmas morning Vinnie opened most of his gifts and had gone back upstairs before I could finish a small bowl of oatmeal. Once all the gifts were opened, I put on my makeup, and curled my hair. The two kittens attacked the neatly stacked pile of tissue paper and discovered it slides wonderfully on carpet.

Two kittens working over the tissue paper

My grandson went to his friend’s house wearing his new clothes, Chris cleaned up the kitchen, and soon it was time for me to get on the road back to Stockton, with the sun shining brightly. It is nice to go for a short visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

December Rituals

December 19, 2018 Marilyn Comments 0 Comment

Since the end of summer I have been accumulating clothing and household items that need the attention of the sewing machine in the small front bedroom of my home. This room is mostly used for storage of things I might use in my art, as well as my 12-harness loom, a small loveseat with a hide-a-bed for the rare occasions when we have a visitor for a few nights, and my sewing machine.

The Singer sewing machine was my first purchase after I began my first graphic arts job in 1962. It has a cam system with discs to make decorative stitches, and it will sew in reverse with just the push of a lever. My mother’s machine did not have a reverse feature which required me to turn the item 180 degrees to sew over the end of the seam to lock in the stitching. My machine was portable, so I could set it up in front of the TV on a card table. Soon after I got married, I found an old treadle cabinet, with four small drawers like my paternal grandmother had, at a yard sale.

Until the last few years, I did a lot of sewing, making most of my clothes. Now, I mostly repair things. I wanted to get this room cleaned up before I start making plans for next year. Tuesday afternoon I finished the sewing. Next, I will be baking nut bread and a few Christmas cookies.

Christmas is one of those events that can take over your life for weeks or even months if you let it. I used to make hand-woven gifts, bake dozens of cookies, wrap gifts with ribbons and bows—the whole big deal. Then my sons married, had families, and wanted me to come to their house.

When I worked at the Livermore VA for ten years, we had so many Christmas events and decorations at work that I was happy to get away from it at home. When I stopped working full time with the ninety-minute one-way commute, doing all my holiday rituals became another chore on the list. I would decorate inside, but spend all day outside raking leaves. I’d wrap and mail gifts, but never see them opened.

There is nothing wrong with making a special time if it brings you joy, but I came to see it all as a huge distraction, taking me away from subjects I was studying, or projects I was in the middle of. I was spending my time and energy on activities that I didn’t care about, and didn’t seem to matter much to anyone else.

Now, I decorate in less than an hour, putting candle-type lights in my windows. I bake two kinds of cookies I really love, and enjoy a few hours with my sons and grandson on Christmas Eve and morning.

Since I’ve been writing every week about my art making, yard tending, and occasional travels, I see no reason to write a Christmas letter reviewing the year.

My wish for each of you is that you cherish the meaning that this season holds for you. I pray you will enjoy good health and peace in your heart in the New Year. Marilyn

Odds and Ends

December 12, 2018 Marilyn Comments 0 Comment

The apple mystery from last week was solved Wednesday morning.

I generally write my blog on Monday or Tuesday and schedule it to post on Wednesday at 7:00 a.m. When I got into the kitchen last Wednesday morning, there was the culprit.

I believe he got in through the cat door, decided he would stay in the warm house, and was camped out under the dishwasher. The apples were too big to take through that small space.

I put the finishing touches on the collage series that I have been working on the last few weeks. I decided to use them as Christmas gifts, and will post photos of them in January.

I am keeping this one which was made on an odd piece of cardboard with a lower right corner missing. I glued a heavy cotton fabric on the cardboard and put white gesso on the fabric. The pattern on the bottom and the right side was made by spreading thickened gesso through a stencil. After the gesso was set, I painted with diluted, green, acrylic paint.

The panda is sitting on palm bark, under which are some odd scraps of printed paper covered with soft acrylic gel that was scratched while wet. I added more paint, and three fabric roses. The panda was made out of pipe cleaners by my mother more than thirty years ago.

I mounted the whole thing on a 1/8 inch thick piece of balsa wood from the craft store. This filled in the missing corner, which I painted, before adding a shell fragment.

Last Saturday, my basket making group had their Christmas potluck. We have a custom of distributing the handmade gifts we brought, where the wrapped items are set on a table and we draw numbers for the order in which we select a gift from the table, or from a member who already has chosen a gift. The gift can be “stolen” up to twice before it is opened.

I came home with “yard art” in the form of a bird house made from a gourd.

I had a perfect place for it. Some years ago, I attached a copper hook to an arbor set among trees, with plans to hang a hummingbird feeder there. All it ever drew was ants—my hummers want the real deal.

Coming up this week is another potluck on Thursday. And, I will be putting up window lights in the form of (electric) candles, one to each window. This is a custom I have had since I lived in Tidewater Virginia, where every house had candles in the windows. They make the house glow inside and out.

As you prepare for the holidays, may your heart be happy.

The Apple Mystery

December 5, 2018 Marilyn Comments 2 comments

Marilyn’s studio work table December 2018

The photo above was the state of my studio work table last Friday as I was adding “mechanicals” to the five collages I have been working on sporadically last month. Mechanicals is the term the artist Finnabair uses to refer to items she adds to her collage pieces such as gears, screws, nuts, bolts, safety pins, paperclips, and other odd parts of things that have been discarded.

I have been working on these collages once or twice a week all last month because the weather has been pleasantly warm until last week. I began an extensive weeding project a few months ago. It has probably been a dozen years since I cleaned up this area. From a distance, it is all just shades of green, but up close the grass thins out and the whole area looks messy.

Under my big tree, I have been digging out things that don’t belong in the grass such as tiny palm trees, privet, pyracantha, mock orange, and other woody plants that have grown from seed dropped by the birds. I also removed large masses of ajuga, a flat, flowering plant that takes over if not removed, and bermuda grass that sends long strings of itself under these other plants. Today, I finished this job.

The next garden chore will be getting the huge sycamore leaves out to the street so the county can haul them away. Sycamore leaves are tough and do not compost into the ground, so I like to get them out of here ASAP. I also have been picking up apples from my tree at the back of my lot every few days, and bringing the good ones inside. ~~~

My bedtime routine is to shower and then have a custard-cup-dish of ice cream as I read in bed before sleep. Saturday evening, when I went to the kitchen for the ice cream, I found an apple on the floor in front of the dishwasher. I had a tray of newly picked apples on a table near the cat door around the corner from the kitchen, and apples in the refrigerator, but what was an apple doing on the floor? I’m the only one in the house and I didn’t drop it there. So, I picked it up and put it back with the other apples in the tray.

When I found a second apple on the kitchen floor, same spot, on Sunday night after my shower, I became suspicious. This apple had been gnawed at. Maybe he got in through the cat door, but this would be the first time in almost five years anyone has used the cat door. I picked the apple up and figured I’d deal with it in the morning. But I’m thinking: the animal had to smell the apples from outside the house. If it wasn’t using the cat door, maybe it was getting in near the plumbing, but none of the cabinets were open and they don’t shut on their own. Maybe from under the dishwasher.

Imagine my amazement on Monday morning when I found a third apple on the kitchen floor. I immediately put the tray of apples in the refrigerator. The question remains, is this mouse or rat coming in somewhere every night, or has it set up housekeeping inside somewhere? The curious thing is there are no droppings, or other signs of a resident mouse.

Tuesday morning the gnawed apple was not on the end of the counter near the door to the driveway where I left it yesterday. It was, of course, on the floor in front of the dishwasher. It became evident that the critter had gotten up on the sink counter by way of a table where I keep my keys because a coupon that had been on the table was now on the floor.

Making breakfast, I discovered that this guy had also stolen a half-used supplement capsule which was in a tiny plastic dish on the counter. A second capsule was still in the dish. Why did he take one and not the other?

Fortunately, my cleaning person is here today so she can clean the counter thoroughly. When my life hits a stretch where each day seems like the one before, nature provides some comic relief!

Hand – Work

Basketry – Mixed Media – Weaving

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Month: December 2018