Let the dyeing begin!

We spent the day at our friend Linda's house yesterday and dyed everything that wasn't pinned down.





I was having some anxiety about dyeing those skeins after all the labour involved in making them, in the way it is hard to make a drawing on a sheet on very expensive, hand made paper. But once we started plunging the fibres into those colours, it was so exciting and magical that I wanted to dye everything. And we nearly did too.



Linda used to own a yarn store in Saskatoon. She used to spin too but for nearly 30 years her wheel has sat unused. Yesterday, she used it again for the first time in 30 years! Like riding a bike, my friends.



We had ourselves a good old Newfoundland spinning frolic!

Making hay while the sun shines

After the busy time of getting the big celebration off the ground and entertaining visitors, things have settled down here a bit. But that doesn't mean we are getting lazy. Oh no. Here are some pictures from the nearby organic farm/creative center/gallery run by our neighbor, friend and artist, Colette Urban. She calls her place Full Tilt Newfoundland.


It is in McIvers. Her field looks across towards Benoit's Cove. See that little white blotch up on the mountain...it's snow!


Neighbor Ken Noel on his trusty, 30 year-old tractor and hay baler.

I haven't just been standing around in a hay field taking pictures either. I have been on a veritable spinning binge in preparation for a veritable dyeing binge. I have almost spun up a pound of merino sliver. Here are two skeins drying in the sun:



I have to say, this is some of the best spinning I have done to date. Just look at that delicious merino! Now imagine it dyed a beautiful shade of...?

Slow Down, You Tour Too Fast

Last summer I noticed that nearly every visitor to the museum would do the walk through in about 20 minutes. All my efforts to get them to stop a moment, have a cup of tea and a bun, or participate in some way, were met with a glance at their watch and "no, no, we have to get going...". While I tried not to take it personally, I did think I was doing something wrong--things were too subtle, or there were not enough three dimensional things in the livingroom. Or I thought there was the "museum behavior" issue in which people act as though they are in a museum (a regular museum not my house as museum), and so the idea of kicking off your shoes and settling in for tea was just too far to leap for most. So, I was thrilled when this year's project meant that there are engaging elements in every room. There are places for interaction everywhere, plus audio tours for the people who are uncomfortable with me hanging around them, even some wall text for those who feel the need to read about what they are seeing.

I had nipped the 20-minute tour problem in the bud.

And this year? Same darn thing! Twenty minutes in, and "no, no, we have to get going..." What the...? What about the videos? the audio tour? the chance to try rug hooking or spinning? the opportunity to get your family tree on the wall? the damn tea buns??? Why oh why will no one eat my tea buns?

After thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that it is not all my fault. There is something about being a tourist, even if it is in your own hometown, that makes people breeze through places. People are always on their way to somewhere else and have "just stopped in" which translates to..."20 minutes and we are outta here".

I was discussing this situation with Marlene and she suggested we start a revolution, a slow tourism revolution, based on the ideas promoted by the Slow Food people. Of course, being local is a big part of Slow Food, but perhaps slow tourism, or should I say, Slow Tourism, could mean to go to one place and explore it slowly, on local transport or on foot, or bike. While you may be spewing large amounts of carbon to get to Newfoundland, once you are here, easy does it. Take your time, talk to people, hook a rug, draw a picture, eat a tea bun. Nice and slow.

Let the revolution begin!

Stepping Out

The celebration was held: the weather cooperated; people came and ate and looked and listened; music was played; jelly was judged. All in all, it was a lovely day.

For the full experience in pictures, please click here.

Many, many thanks to Marlene MacCallum for all her hard work. And many thanks to all the wonderful people who participated in Step Out of The Room, and have offered the rest of us a glimpse into their lives:


Finnian and Lucy Allen


Melissa Blanchard


Midge Jones


Lindsey Mullins


Olive Murphy and Leanne Whiffen


Minnie Vallis


Colette Urban


And a fantastic late entry from Carol Mitchell.

You guys are the best!

Spinning: Feel the Burn

There was a funny moment during the Weekend Arts Magazine interview when the host, Angela Antle, thought the spinning demonstration listed on the announcement for our BIG JULY 14th CELEBRATION was going to be an exercise demo. Yes, that old Newfoundland tradition of riding stationary bicycles. No, no, I meant spinning wool and I am hoping to draw in (get it??!) a woman I met recently who has an old wheel and still uses it regularly. I think it will be a whole lot more interesting to watch her spin than it will me, but I can't say for sure she will be able to come.

Her name is Ada and is 83 years old. We met not too long ago. I showed her my wheel and she was a bit mystified, never having seen one with double treadles or bobbins--she didn't even dare try it because it looked so different from her wheel. She did card up some of my icelandic fleece. It was fascinating! She is a virtuoso. As usual, after the fact, I thought I should have video taped her hands. It was so beautiful to watch their movements. But we determined that we must get together again very soon. She has promised to teach me thrumming, which is her big thing. Before she left I offered her two skeins of icelandic I had spun up and she was very pleased, which made me very pleased. A woolen bond!

It was during that visit that I learned that women used to wash wool by hanging it in a burlap bag on the clothes line for a couple of weeks. Either that, or by submerging it in a fast running brook. I decided to try out the first technique since I just happened to have (ahem) some fleece around. I put it in cheese cloth and hung it out. It has been two weeks and I would say it is nearly ready. I don't know why this amazes me so much, but it does!

Of Hedge Clippers and Koans

I've been mowing the front lawn with a pair of hedge clippers. No, I have not become some total OCD uber-Martha. Far from it. Rather, the weather of the past week and a half or so has been like this: dry and sunny for many days and then rain for many days. During those many days of rain the grass, and I use the term very loosely here, decided to use up all that stored up sun energy and it grew to be very, very high. Too high for my push mower, which on a good day seems to mostly mash and crush more than mow. (Nothing against push mowers - I love them and think everyone should use them - but I think I got a cheapy not meant for "grass" of our...errr...quality) In any case, I thought I would just use the clippers on the lawn to jump start the process.

Four days later and I am almost finished. The end is in sight, although I am beginning to think that this is a painting the 59th Street Bridge kind of situation, i.e. by the time I get to the end, it will be time to start over again. But I digress.

Clipping such a vast amount of high grass is a meditative process and one that has its own set of satisfactions as long as you keep your goals simple. And it has offered moments of clarity. For example, just before heading out for today's allotment, I was contacted by the CBC station in St. John's about doing an interview for the Weekend Arts Magazine on Thursday. As I was clipping, I began to imagine all the witty and insightful things I might say and no doubt will forget completely come Thursday. This train of thought led me to think about how to sum up what exactly this project is all about. Something about defining Newfoundland culture - that much I know, but what exactly am I getting at here? That's when I had my moment of clarity: this project is a giant, three-dimensional koan: "What is this place?"

Like a koan, there is no real way of conveying an answer to this question in words. We can talk about it, around it and try to describe it, but ultimately, it can only be known through experience.

This doesn't help me put my thoughts together in a more coherent way for Thursday but I did clip a heck of a lot of grass!

Opening Day...

...was very quiet and kind of grey. But that was ok since Step Out of the Room is still waiting on a couple of the projects and I am waiting for two of the audio guide creators to finish up. Also, it was Canada Day and people tend to have other plans than examining Newfoundland culture. I dunno why - I am always ready to talk about.

We did have a good time AFTER the museum closed:


Fireworks and bonfire on Gillams beach.

It was a day for another celebration too:



Hint: I am the same age as the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Thank you Olive for the delicious cake!

West Coast Morning Show

Yesterday we had a bit of a party over at The House Museum. Of course it all happened at about 10:30 in the morning but we were undeterred by the relatively early hour for a raucous get-together. The purpose of the party was actually to meet with Dorothy King, the host of the CBC's West Coast Morning Show. She is doing a piece about "Step Out of The Room," and she was interviewing some of the participants.



It wasn't clear when the piece will air--sometime next week perhaps. We gave Dorothy far more than she needed in terms of audio recording, and perhaps in terms of scones, molasses buns and tea too.

A short interruption

from our regularly scheduled, Newfoundland-centric, program to celebrate Sunnyside Gardens being voted a New York City Historic District.

Hooray for livable, family-friendly, walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods, and the preservation thereof!

Biting off more than I can spin

Ummm....so it all started when my friend Barb mentioned that the craft artisans in Corner Brook were starting to get better organized and wanted to work together to get more exposure and get their work out to the public. I don't really consider myself a craft artist so I usually hang about the fringe (so to speak) of that group but this conversation put a little bug in my head.

A month later and....this:



I'm sorry. I have an illness. And in my illness, I find myself purchasing and accepting gifts of fleece, even when I already I have piles of fleece. To my credit (HA!), only the sliver and box of white fleece were purchased. The other stuff comes from my dear, generous friend, Janine, who now owns a small flock of sheep (hint: cultivate friends in the sheep industry) and gave me some of her 2006 left overs and a couple of 2007s too. I think it is better not to speak of the contact Barb gave me of a woman in Newfoundland with friends in the sheep industry who is hooking me up so I can work with local fleece. The less said about that, the better. Remember: I try not to let facts, experience, or ability get in the way of my ambitions. Apparently, floor space is irrelevant too.

But look:



Merino sliver....looks pretty nice, eh?

P.S. look what I found at the used furniture store:


Singer Model 179, hand-cranked sewing machine, possibly over 100 years old but in perfect, buttery smooth working condition. Runs like a charm!

What Next?

Here is a link to one of my favorite artworks ever:

A Short History of America by R. Crumb.

Three posts in a day? That's enough, right?

"O" is for 'ospitality

We have a very good friend who lives nearby named Olive. Olive has become my inspiration for the hospitality offered here at THM. When we visit Olive, and we visit often, we walk right in - no calling first, no planning, no knocking on the door. Olive trained us to do that. And she does likewise at our house. Nearly everytime we stop by she has something delicious baked. Her cheese scones are to die for and her jellies and jams have been labelled "the best in the world" by F&L. It seems we never leave her house without being given a little something to take home: the above-mentioned scones, jellies and jams, or a book or magazine, or a dozen eggs from her hens. Olive doesn't make a big deal about all this. It is quite natural and expected as far as she is concerned.

Olive also keeps an eye on things at THM during the winter months, she has taught me to make jelly (only learn from the best!), how to garden properly in Newfoundland soil, she has encouraged me in this project although I am sure some of what I am up to is somewhat mystifying to her, and she treats F&L like the grandmother everyone wishes they had. Really, I can't sing the praises of Olive high enough. I am so grateful to be her friend and to be the recipient of all her wonderful hospitality. But as I say, if I start singing her praises in front of her, she waves them away with "oh no, that's just what you do"

This kind of hospitality is an important part of Newfoundland culture (a big generalization but a pretty accurate one). In some ways, Olive is right: it is what you do here. Many people don't knock first and tea and a bun is expected at a visit. You never send people away empty-handed. And so it is here with THM. But this is where it gets a little funky. Last summer, I always tried to have some tea buns available for visitors, yet 9 out of 10 refused them along with the cup of tea offered. I often felt that would have been different if I had sold them. Somehow, the relationship between me and the visitors made purchasing the food more acceptable. I never did sell it--I just kept offering and sometimes people enjoyed my hospitality, but mostly not.

I also have a gift shop - really a drawer of a dresser in the livingroom - filled with gifts that I give visitors at the end of their visit as a thank you gift for stopping by. The gifts are not fancy. I have a selection of doilies that I have collected from yard sales, some painted rocks that say "Why are you here?" and some coasters made from left overs from the foyer wallpaper. This year, Lucy has made some little yarn dolls for visiting children. These offerings have been better received, although people sometimes seem a little embarassed. Giving things away to near strangers is an odd dynamic these days, I guess.

But this dynamic is what it is all about. Olive sets the standard very high, but I try!


(Olive, as photographed by L on New Year's Eve, 2004)

Glorious

The Tipping Point

Yesterday evening, Ivan Emke, a professor of Sociology at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, came out to meet with a group of North Shore residents to discuss economic/cultural sustainability in rural Newfoundland. The House Museum was host to the meeting. I was somewhat disappointed in the turnout--all the men invited did not show up. I will try not to make unflattering generalizations about the other sex, but one is tempted. But that is neither here nor there. Ivan listened to our many comments and asked some very good questions about what exactly allows a community to survive. One question was, "What is the tipping point? Is it when the school closes? The fire house? what happens to make it impossible for a community to stay together?"

As we thought about that and gave out some ideas, it became clear that the key to it all was in the young people in the community. While it is inevitable that some young people will want to leave the community and see the world, it makes a big difference if they know they can come back, that there is a viable life for them back home. I hate to be a one-note Charlie, but for me this issue harkens to something I have been thinking about a lot lately, which is that were society to value work that doesn't generate lots of money, then it would allow more people to feel themselves rich. That sounds so obvious, but really it would be a major shift in thinking.

Imagine someone who grows their own food, raises animals for personal and community use, fishes, gathers their fire wood, knows the land, lives with their family. Are they rich? In Newfoundland, there are people like that, probably more here than most places in North America, but many people would say they are poor. And likely they do have little extra cash floating around. But are they rich? Ivan talked about trying to get his colleagues to adjust their "quality of life" markers to include some of the above activities because otherwise most of Newfoundland is listed as having poor quality of life, which we know is untrue.

What if we started telling everyone who lived a life like that that they were rich? Would more people stay in the province? Would young people feel less ashamed to pursue vocations like carpentry or mechanics (as opposed to feeling pressure to go to college) and be able to establish themselves in their community? I suggest that at least half of the outmigration problem comes from our attitude about what is valuable and viable for our young people.

One of the participants yesterday is an older woman named Minnie who left home at age 14 to go teach in a one-room school house in an outport on the south coast. She was teaching children from about age 5 to probably her own age. After that job, she went to another part of the province, raised money in a strange community for the school and generally had incredible responsibilities for a 15 year-old. As she talked about all her remarkable experiences, I kept thinking "is it so bad to give a 15 year-old that kind of responsibility?" Perhaps many 15 year-olds would be much happier if they had to deal with the kind of real, live, physical world realities that Minnie had to deal with. Not everyone, obviously, but what if that were an option that was valued as much as getting a BA?

In rural Newfoundland, the tipping point is nearing for many communities. I have heard talk of another round of resettlement. Maybe it is time for that major shift in our thinking.

Step Out of the Room, phase II

The group of people working with artist, Marlene MacCallum, met together for the second time yesterday evening to discuss the next phase of their collaborative project, Step Out of the Room. Since they last met at Marlene's exhibition at the gallery at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in early March, each person has taken a full roll of film on a disposable camera in their homes. Last night, they were seeing their photographs for the first time and talking about how they will become the source for installations throughout The House Museum this summer.

The discussion was great. Each person brought such wonderful stories to the table and there was such an amazing mix of ideas. The ages of the people participating range from 12 to over 80, so many generations are represented. Marlene encouraged everyone to think about the photographs as starting points for ideas, not necessarily ends in themselves, and to think of the house - its walls and structure - as the pages of a book to be filled with their ideas. I encouraged people to think boldly, including working directly on the walls.



It was one of those evenings when I thought that art can happen without a physical trace and still be as real as any painting or sculpture.

Unshakeable Logic

While L was perusing Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, the following:

L: "Was knitting invented before boats?"

me: "Pretty sure boats were invented first. (long pause) Why are you connecting those two things?'

L: "Because if knitting was invented first, we could have called it rowing."

me: "????"

L: "Because you knit in rows...you know, rowing."

The torch is passed, don't mess with it.

Fiber Intake

There hasn't been enough knitting and fiber-related posting going on here. This is partly because I haven't been knitting much and partly because of the photo downloading issue. Let's see if we can't fix that.


Here is a picture of some icelandic wool that I brought up with me. I washed about 1/3 of the fleece the other day. It is drying near our woodstove, along with its newest friend and companion, Minkie.


I immediately set to spinning it. After spinning an entire white fleece, the novelty of brown was irresistable. Look how beautiful my spinning wheel is in the late afternoon sun...sigh...


Some of the finished product.

And here are some other random pictures of life in Gillams of late:


The weather has been cool and grey, to say the least.


But when the sun comes out...the wash.


And, at long last, we see some sign that spring is really here.

What's Old is New Again

As mentioned below, I have been reading and enjoying Casaubon's Book. I am ready to take up the 90% emissions reduction challenge or at least do the best I can considering that we live in two places 1000 miles apart. Newfoundland is a great place for this kind of life and there remain many people here who live very close to the land. It is only in the 50 years or even less perhaps that Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders have become less self-sufficient as part of a deliberate "modernization" scheme that coincided with confederation with Canada.

Last summer, when THM hosted the special project that invited North Shore residents to loan items they saw as related to their heritage, I received many things such as a homemade spinning wheel, a chamber pot, those iron things with which to repair shoes (I am forgetting their name!). Nearly everyone who visited who was from Newfoundland saw these items and remarked about them with a kind of longing in their voice, even if it was to speak of remembering them in their grandparent's home. Without getting too romantic about a past that was obviously very hard, I think it is safe to say that there were some benefits to that hardship. For all the back-breaking work, there was a yield that couldn't be measured in material wealth. And, I suspect, that was what was causing the sense of loss I heard in so many people's voices. On the other hand, I am guessing that, if I asked them if they wanted to return to using chamber pots, I would have been met with a resounding chorus of "NO!" but the spinning wheel? Many women touched it and lingered around it, telling stories about either using one or knowing women who used one, and children flocked to it. Could it be we are missing something?

But Newfoundland poses a real challenge. In many ways, returning to a simpler life here is easier in part because there are still people around with the kind of skills and knowledge that have been lost in other places. Yet, adopting or re-adopting a lifestyle without all mod cons has a kind of stigma of poverty and backwardness that Newfoundland has been trying to shake for decades. The reputation of the "dumb Newfie" has been fading in recent years, for sure, and perhaps it has faded enough so that a simpler life could be embraced as part of a heritage of self-sufficiency that is seen as a model not a bad joke.

I wonder if all this tourist industry talk about "cultural tourism" and "heritage tourism" could not have a good purpose in increasing people's pride in those kinds of unique skills so that they become not just for tourist display, but remain well-integrated in everyday life?

Trees for tourists

There has been some discussion lately on local radio about how the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill (arguably the reason why there is a Corner Brook, or at least, why Corner Brook can boast of being Newfoundland's "Second City") can not harvest upwards of 25% of its trees because they are in areas that have become increasingly popular with tourists. The mill has had to import wood from other places because the goverment has been telling them that they don't want to ruin the aesthetics of the landscape for tourists. Given the increasingly competitive market for newsprint, which is mainly what the mill produces (do you read the The New York Times? The paper most likely came from Corner Brook), the mill is upset that it can't get to its own wood.

The mill has asked the provincal government to create a resource strategy that would clarify some priorities so they can plan for the future but the government is being a little vague, side-stepping the real questions with broad statements about supporting all industries and economic sectors, etc., etc..

It will be very interesting to see what will happen now that a major economic player like the mill has bumped up against everyone's new favorite belle at the ball, the tourism industry.

close your eyes slowly and offer a delusion...I mean...donut

I have been think a lot about validation lately. The House Museum project has been totally funded by me (and my family). I used up the vast profits from my percent for art project to get it started and, despite my efforts otherwise, it is, to date, an unfundable project: too Canadian for US foundations, too American for Canadian agencies. But so what? I don't have to answer to anyone else's ideas about what is acceptable, I have free rein. But....but...

Besides the money thing (and that isn't to be overlooked lightly), grants bring with them a certain amount of validation: we think what you are doing is worth something--money plus our seal of approval. I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud for not having that kind of validation. I mean, anyone could do anything and call it art! Oh, wait.

Perhaps it is all just part of a larger issue I have with seeking other people's approval. I know I am much too attached to the good side of that, judging from how sharply I feel the negative side of it. I don't know. Would I feel less like just one person doing my thing in a little house on the edge of a big rock in the north Atlantic if I had a letter and a cheque from some institution?

Any kind of fairy tale will do, apparently.