C-C-Cold C-C-Confusion

On top of my list of Things To Do in Newfoundland is to work on my Knitting Sprawl project. The travel part is completed, although I feel like I could go back to every single place and follow up and fix everything I missed the first time. Now I need to be making work, that is to say, making sense of the whole messy thing. But I feel strangely devoid of the art interest. Not just Knitting Sprawl but making anything at all.

Sure, I might take an arty photograph now and again. Like this one:


I title it: Hooray - it is finally COLD! Or perhaps, COLD: The View Looking Out Blocked by Decorative Yet Random Patterns of H2O Condensation.

But anyway...


I borrowed this book from a friend and it is inspiring me, as Annette Messager always does. I love the energy of her work - the all encompassing way it seems to fill her life. There is no fear in this work. She inspires me to stop pushing aside small impulses and to take some time to explore things that are easy to set aside in favour of more readily accessible work. I don't know - I feel like it is all cooking inside of me, not quite ready to come out. I find myself craving some solid time to only think about making art and then do it.

Did I just contradict myself from my first paragraph? Well, that's what it is like inside my head right now.

Being here means many things have been cleared away from our daily life but there are still many things that need doing that take up most of the day, namely homeschooling and general housekeeping (please, no laughing. I swear I do clean up almost every day). Even this is in flux, however. Well, not the housekeeping part. This morning, Lucy got on the school bus for her first day at school. She agonized over this decision for weeks and finally decided to go three days ago. We registered her yesterday and voila, off she goes.

She was concerned that I would disapprove of her decision, but isn't unschooling all about allowing them to make choices and take responsibility for those choices? Even so, I already find myself biting my tongue. Schools have so many absurdities that are nearly unbearable if you aren't a true believer. So much of it seems like a gigantic waste of time.

Ah yes....wasting time.

Meanwhile, Finnian is off with our neighbor on his weekly hike and natural history lesson. This week's topics are selective timbering, rabbit snaring and having a boil up at the lunch shack. My topics will be sweeping up in the new guest room (almost done!), cleaning the cat litterbox, starting some focaccia and washing floors. If there is time, I might even dig out Knitting Sprawl/Ontario and see where it stands. Maybe it knit itself while it was sitting in that bag in the basement.

Inspiration, I know you're in there somewhere...

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BTW, If you are interested in stretching locally, I will be teaching beginning yoga classes starting this Sunday in Corner Brook (3 - 4:30 p.m.) and Summerside (6-7 p.m.). Contact me for details!