Too busy to post

[Photo: Crazy 8 outrigger race]

Here we are almost a month since the last post. Life has been way too busy to take time to post. It's been go, go, go, for a few weeks straight and it has worn the body down to a head cold. Which is why I have time to post while at home recovering. 

[Photo: St. Mary's Church
in Metchosin]

It started with a spin-in at a church by the ocean. A great environment for contemplative spinning, not that we contemplated, we just gabbed, but if one wanted to contemplate while spinning, then I recommend it. Try it. Take a spinning wheel to church.
Then there was two conferences, one workshop on making yarn baskets which I organized, operating a safety boat for a two day series of outrigger races, a spin-in which I organized, and the first bike trip of the year--short into the wind and driven sleet-like rain, amongst other events.  

[Photo: Some thing to do with coal
mining. Note the bike appearing
tiny next to this, thing]

Oh, and did I mention the renovations? It started harmlessly enough, buying a futon couch for the guest bedroom. That is the room also known as the stash room. The room which I suspect also houses Priscilla-the-fleece-less-sheep-that-rule-the-guest-bedroom-wool-stash. In any event, we had a guest due to arrive, so we ordered the couch, which arrived two hours after the guest left. Even with cleaning up the wool stash, the couch looked too crowded in the room. Something needed to be done. I won't get into the details, but it involved moving the bookcases (all three) out of the living room into the office; disassembling the office desk, shelves and counter; repainting the office, living room, dining room, kitchen; moving the loom from the main bedroom into the office; buying a wardrobe-in-disguise-which-will-really-hide-wool for the main bedroom; buying two upper kitchen cabinets for the office; and hauling great hoards of stuff (but not wool) out to the recycle shops. And we aren't finished yet. The office is starting to look great. The guest bedroom however is filled to the brim with paint paraphernalia, office papers, and a ton of office stuff piled 2-3 ft high on the new, unused couch! I am thinking the office is much nicer than the guest bedroom and, hey, why not put a door on the office and make it dual purpose: an office and a guest bedroom!

Homework

Getting my homework organized to begin.

Priscilla-the-fleece-less-sheep-that-rule-the-guest-bedroom-wool-stash, has stamped her hooves and has threatened me, "Get this #@$% stuff out of here. For Gawds sake do something with it. Or else" and 3 bags of fibre samples meant for homework were thrown into the hallway.
Heavy hoofed but she was right, it was time to start my homework after all, it has been 4.5 months since my Master Spinners Level 2 course and that meant I only have 5.5 months left to finish it. Yikes!
I have been procrastinating but for a very good reason. Integrity. After being told in class that my yarn lacked integirty (see the earlier post) , I have been spinning up a storm trying to achieve integrity and I think I am there and now ready to tackle the bags of fibre homework.
So I spent this afternoon laying out all the fibre and putting together homework 'kits'. Each kit is in a ziplock bag and holds the instructions and fibres. So kit #33 for example contains some black Llama and some Frieson x Suffolk sheep fleece and instructions: spin a 10 yard skein of a blend suitable for a knitted vest. It may be 2 or more plies (I'll do a 3ply). Give an explanation of why it is suitable and knit a 3" x3" swatch to demonstrate its suitability.
I reckon each kit will take an average of 3 hours to complete. There are 40 kits and then there is the written work (say 10 hours...maybe, maybe more), plus I have to do a final project that takes at least 25 hours: I have to design, wash, prepare, dye, blend, spin and knit or weave something like a scarf. It is almost enough to cause me to give up before I really begin.  Homework is due April 15th (I'm not sure but let's assume it is around there), and that is 6 months away. That sound like a lot, but in terms of days it is 180 days.
So here is the maths: 40kits x 3hrs = 180hrs + 25hrs major project time = 205 hrs + 10 hours written homework = 215 hrs.
Assuming that in that 6 months I will be in a workshop for 4 days, away on holidays for 9, and out of commission for one reason or another for, say, oh 5 days, that means that I would only have 180-18 = 162 days available, which is about 1.25 hours a day will get me to the finish line. Put another way that means finish one kit every two days. Sounds possible except I work full time and sleep at least 8 hrs/day. I usually have 2 hours a day available. This doesn't leave a lot of room. I better get crackin'.

Kent Monkman - The Triumph of Mischief

Detail of Artist and Model

I am writing this away from the prying eyes of Priscilla-the-fleeceless-sheep-that-rules-the-guestroom-and-Lords-over-my-wool-stash. I am not sure she would appreciate the explicit language and pictures of this particular post. She is a bit of a prude. So I will be quick to get it up before she has an inkling of the sexually explicit (and I won't even show you all the details, but use a magnifying glass on the picture to the left) work of this artist and his alter ego.

Monkman's Cher-inspired seance outfit.

I went to a thought-provoking art exhibit by Cree artist Kent Monkman at the Victoria Art Gallery. Monkman has, a wicked sense of humour and of injustice, a subversive wit and his work playing on role reversals, forces us to re-think, re-image, some of our underlying assumptions, stereotypes and visions of reality about the imaginary indian, painted by the noble whiteman.  


They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. In Monkman's paintings a picture is worth 10,0000 words, layers of meanings on top of layers. He is also a performance artist, check out his seance held at the ROM calling on the spirits of explorer-artists Paul Kane, George Caitlin and French romantic painter Delacroix, while dressed in a, reportedly, Cher-inspired drag queen attire, also in the exhibit. Click here to listen to the dance music of MissChief. The seance was in response to one of his paintings being censored from the First People's Gallery at the ROM. As Monday Magazine explains it:

“They gave us the opportunity to go into the museum, look at the collections and then create work as a response. I went straight to the First People’s Gallery and there you have all these paintings by Paul Kane, this voice of authority. It’s like, ‘What are his paintings doing in the First People’s Gallery?’ Yes, the first people were his subjects, but . . . I thought, ‘I’ll do a painting in response to one of his paintings,’” says Monkman. “I wanted to draw attention to that and hang my painting in there with his painting. So the curator of the First People’s Gallery said, ‘No, we can not allow Kent to show in the First People’s Gallery. We can not allow him to challenge the work of Paul Kane.’”

The Academy

which brought on the seance performance and brought about the ROMs re-thinking of just what should be allowed in the First Nation's Gallery.
In this exhibit, the star of this show is Monkman's alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testicle -- say this fast enough and you have Mischief Egotistical Did I say that Monkman is a master of punning? In the painting titled "The Artist and Model" above, Monkman has painted his alter ego right into the painting. Miss Chief Eagle Testicle (aka Mischief), wearing six-inch heels, a scanty breech, a Chiefs head dress and little else, is the artist painting the naked (penis erect) cowboy. However, Mischief's easel holds a pictograph of her idea of what the white man looks like. See what I mean about layers upon layers of words and meanings.
The picture "The Academy" reminded me of Paul Kane's picture "Clallum Woman Weaving a Blanket". I am not sure that Monkman's Academy was meant to be a reVisionist view of Kane's painting, but there are some similarities, the wool dog in the foreground (see my earlier blog on this painting), the scene in the long house, the viewing of artists creating their works.
In any event, Monkman's imagery will remain with me for a long time.

This post seems to be very popular, so I have edited to add a book if you like Kent Monkman's sense of humour as well as his art, then you would probably enjoy this book. It is written by one of my favorite authors, Thomas King who also has a wicked sense of humour and of injustice. Okay, you need to know it is written for children, but hey, read it for your inner child.

"A Woman Weaving a Blanket," Songhees/Saanich (Central Coast Salish)

Yarn with no integrity!

I did not really want to admit this. It has taken me more than a week to gather up my courage to confess publicly how well, err, how much I still have to learn after attending year two of the Olds Master Spinners course. The course is starting to get technical about our spinning. Things like how many twists per inch (TPI) in your yarn, the number of wraps per inch (WPI), the number of treadles you treadle while drafting a foot of yarn. Stuff like that. Technical things that are expected to be achieved by accomplished spinners, which we were expected to be. We would be given assignments and told to spin it, mark it with all the vital yarn info (TPI, WPI, twist angle) and hand it in for assessment. The instructor would then review our attempts in a class discussion. She held up mine as...

"a perfect example of a yarn WITH NO INTEGRITY! " . I gulped.

I cringed. I grinned like a sheepishly like an idiot. She went on. "It is subject to pilling! And, abrasion! To pulling apart. Wearing out. " Oh myyy gaaawd. I wanted to hide under a fleece. I thought about the baskets and baskets of my hand spun yarn without integrity, waiting for me at home (remember the 774 grams of Gotland I just spun....down the tube.) . Waiting to pill and fall apart. And Priscilla-the-fleeceless-sheep-that-rules-my-stash whom I could hear even from this distance saying "I could have told you THAT."

So much for the learning theory that goes something like 'sleep on it and your brain will incorporate the concepts and muscle movements while you sleep.' Yeah right. If you consider that I started spinning 30 years ago and stopped for 28 years before starting again a year ago, you could say I have been sleeping on it for at least 28 years! To no avail.I spent the two day drive home in the car using a drop spindle, learning how to spin yarn with integrity. Maybe in another 28 years.

Navajo Churra - Is it only good for rugs?

"What the heck is this dirty fleece doing in this garbage bag? Either throw it out or get on with it, for gads sake." This was followed by more muttering, sounds of stomping (of the four-hoof variety) and bags being thrown around the room. So ended my all of two minutes, peaceful chance of revival. Six days and nights of non-stop activity and Priscilla, Queen of the Fleece, had chosen this one and only moment of R & R to bellow out those words from the guest bedroom.  
Upon peeking into the bedroom, I saw that she was referring to the Navajo Churro i had picked up at my first Fibre Fair, where, I perhaps overly excited to see fleeces for sale in large green garbage bags. Whole fleeces. There was Romney, Shetland, and Navajo Churra which I had never seen before. I stuck my hand in the exotic Navajo Churro, piched, pulled and squeezed. It was soft and clean. I bought it without hestitating and then proudly dragged the bag around the room with me as I hunted for other fibre treasures. A sheep farmer spotted by Navajo and tossed her hair while declaring "That's only good for rugs." I sheepishly tried to hide it as she informed me of all the other fleeces that were good for a whole variety of other things. The implication being that Navajjo Churra was good for nothing...but rugs. And I had thought it soft. So much for my skills at checking out a fleece. 

And so it stayed in the guest bedroom in a, err, natural state. Now Priscilla, Queen of the Fleece, was demanding that I wash it. So I did. It still feels soft to me.  

Navajo Churro was brought over to the Americas by the Spanish and the Navajo quickly adopted it. They are hardy and produce a double coat; a long hairy outer coat and a soft downy inner coat. It washed easily in small batches as there is very little lanolin in the wool. I decided to experiment and pulled the long coarse hairs away from the soft downy wool. You can pull them apart or use a coarse comb I used a horse comb (see an earlier blog), separated them and ran them through the drum carder. The white is the long coarser hairs and the grey the soft downy wool. It still feel soft to me, but now I can get three different types of wool from the one fleece, a soft wool, a tough wiry coarse wool (good for warps and rugs) and a mixture which would be good for outer wear.
The fleece probably would have rotted away if Priscilla hadn't made me wash it. I should thank her. But I won't.

Franklyn and Delores

Thank you Materfamilias for introducing me (and now all of you) to Franklyn and Delores. Franklyn is a male knitter (apparently very keen on lace work) who has a marvelous blog which I have linked to on the right hand side of this blog page under the name The Panopticon. Read it and laugh! This guy has a wicked sense of humour. Take the last post in which he shows a picture of his muscular chest and arm showing some sort of rash which resembles a lace knitting chart. It seems he has been knitting too much lately. And Delores is a, well, she appears to be a sheep with bad ass attitude who has moved in with him.  
Photo by Franklin (or maybe by Delores), of Franklin, borrowed from Franklin's Blog The Panopticon
Eureka! I immediately recognized this phenomenon where a hobby can take on a life of its own, move in with you, and take over your life and your home. In Franklyn's case it was a sheep named Delores who moved in with him. In my case it was also a sheep, albeit one that had been, well, fleeced. I suspect she was looking for her fleece that was stored in my loft for, oh, well over 12 years. A naked sheep named Priscilla (and yes, she is aptly named, a little prissy, always expecting perfection and always disappointed with the lack of it) who came looking for her fleece. She found it and is taking her naked revenge by whispering into my ear, things like:
"A serious fibre artist has a serious stash. This is NOT a serious stash."
or muttering:
"More fleece. Frankly, this is not enough fleece. Not nearly enough"  
Priscilla has made herself at home in the guest bedroom surrounded by fleece. While Delores might wallow in my stash, not Priscilla. Priscilla has a clipboard in hand and a pencil tapping against her furrowed brow and estimating the number of fleeces stored in there ... and in the loft, and the laundry room, and how much space is still available. Heck, Priscella is running the house like a warehouse. You will hear more of Priscella in coming blogs. Franklin, if you are reading this, for gads sake, do not let Delores read this and give Priscilla any ideas. I think it best if they are kept isolated.