the spent madder dyebath waiting for me to pour it into the perennials

started to grow some other life forms

and then i noticed the spoon.

the bowl and half the handle took a refraction bend

and created a non-shadow shadow.

and became disassociated from its reality

i mistakenly got some watercolors on something and used them as finger paint

and a little bleeding from the last of the big orange day lilies.

left in my full sketch book

(thank you Sarah Bryant)

indigo dyed shifu on a piece of flax pigment colored Hark! paper

as it becomes another book cover (maybe my next sketchbook)

this hot august weather makes morning mist

which burns off

HOT

and then there were some new neighbors visiting.

this lady came by and surprised me.

she seemed contented and happy to have new eating

so i tootled down to my neighbor's where i thought she lived

and was met with an ornery response

"those aren't my cows.

see-there are mine"

i must say

there was a little herd, actually, where she pointed.

and a few minutes later her son came along on an atv and took the cows home.

the north country orneriness sometimes rubs me the wrong way.

not a word of thanks, instead an accusation.

the cows were very pretty

wonderful browns and roans, my favorite cow colorings.

i would be happy to have these ladies

across the road every evening,

if only they weren't loose, because of that hazardous

55 mph road between their usurped pasture

and my place.

a potential disaster.

i know.

i watched another neighbor's loose horse be put down

after a car hit her, broke her leg

one winter morning, years ago.

i'm feeling a bit haggard and ragged because of this humid heat.
~~~
so,
in other news,
i received a wonderful bit of travel funding for my Maiwa trip
professional development!
and i had yet another nail in a tire
almost 2 inches long,
necessitating a new tire (thankfully i didn't have to buy all 4,
because with 4WD all have to be the same and this set was new)
and my vacuum broke,
meaning two (so far) trips to the repair shop.
60 miles away or so.
it's a summer of little joys and a few issues.
the summer feels like it's changing, almost over except for the heat,
it's really only just turned the corner
towards autumn.

there's this quote
that found me this week.
about spirituality. but
but i say, it's about creativity, too.
it's about the thing
that wakes you up (past the murky-sludgy stage if you're like me)
and says
"LOOK goddammit"
and get out the stuff and make that thought.
fabricate.
word made flesh.
thought made materiality.
maybe the language of spirit isn't far from the language of making.
so:
Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.
Ken Wilber
~~~
so, I've been working on several things this while,
~ the madder dyeing
~ a couple botanical contact prints for my indigo shifu
~ tending a new small garden at the new place
~ finishing the cleanup and label of ALL the fiber
~ finding yarns for my new pipe loom
~ sorting cloth for Zone 4,
my own work,
and my fall papermaking class at SLU
and
~ i'm going to Vancouver to Maiwa to take the
five day dye workshop.
yep.
Vancouver.

i want to have a more methodological dye experience,
to have a deeper understanding of the basics and then more,
something i never had,
except with chemical dyes.
in the mid 70's.
this week's red daylily flowers
prompted the first quarter sheet contact prints in quite a long time.

i got out my camera
(after realizing that my little red one has some lens damage)

and took a few photos of the garden
after i removed it.

the working metal

and the newly dyed papers

being rinsed

and then drying.

i tried hard to adjust the color
and just achieved more weirdness
apologies.
there was a lot of green.

here the four are in blotters, under weighs

and dried, they look more like this

the exhaust dyebaths from my 35 year old madder
yielded some lovely pastels
on linen cloths

and on silk

this is the rest of the madder

the first dyebath yielded the deep rose
and then the oranges
and then the cloths
and finally the above bits.

i mordanted with alum and cream of tarter
and here are different fibers
both cellulose and protein
the big skein on the left is a darker rose.
how do real photographers get their colors right???

the last five red daylilies as i begin a bundle.

If you see some wonky spacing here,

blogger seems to be struggling lately and sending up weirdness each time i post.

sigh.
of course today, monday,
i have errands-a broken vacuum
-my right rear tire picked up a 1.5 " finishing nail
and had embedded it.
yes, my second set of new tires this year
and the same spot, though different tire as the one that had
three nails simultaneously in it last year.
and it's the one that had been replaced because of that.
apparently i ride on back roads in the country
where people haul around their waste
haphazardly!