One Small Rebel Yell

This Saturday, I will be participating in the boro-wide open studio event in Brooklyn from 11 am to 7 pm.  I will be presenting my ongoing performance, Be A Rebel Or Just Look Like One as part of my collaboration with the project, Battle Pass.  Click here for all the details.  

My fellow collaborators include Sasha Chavchavadze, Eva Melas and Paul Benney.

The open studio event is both days on the weekend but I will only be presenting my piece in person on Saturday.  There will be a small installation of based on the performance on view on Sunday (and in the studio through the end of September). 

Please join us!

The studio is in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn and there are nine other artists participating in this building alone - there are over 1,000 participating in all.  While I am excited that there will be so much to see this weekend, and I am thrilled to be able to present my piece and work with the other artists, I do object to one aspect of this event, which was created by The Brooklyn Museum.

Their idea is to have visitors vote on their favourite studio and the artist(s) with the most votes will have their work presented at the Museum.  I hate this idea.  Please allow me to say it again: I hate this idea so very, very much.  It taps into the very worst of what the art world has to offer, pitting artist against artist in the most meaningless kind of competition.  And worse, the Museum is marketing it as being "community-driven".  Bullshit!  It is just another example of modeling art after cut-throat, "let the market decide" capitalism.  Our studio is ignoring the whole, vile voting business.  Hear that Brooklyn Museum?  Don't Vote!  And you can tell 'em I said so!

While I am on the subject, I also have come loathe this whole Kickstarter campaign thing.  If you have not heard of it, it is an online site where everyone and their Aunt Betty can raise funds for their creative project.  Beyond the fact that now artists are supposed to shill for money from their family and friends, it signals (to me) our collective end to any notion that art should be supported by the community through public funds.  Because, you know, art is business and artists should be more business-like.  

You know what? 

 F*ck that.

Of course in a country where we let people die before we would offer them access to healthcare, we close libraries because they are "too expensive" yet have limitless dollars to kill people, destroy resources and annihilate cultures in pointless, endless wars, in a country like this, telling artists to suck it up and raise your own damn money is really not surprising.  But why do the bad guys always get to win?  There is such a narrowness, a stinginess to the vision of who we might be as society....why can't the big, generous ideas take hold (again)?

But anyway.  

Come visit me in Brooklyn.  Make a cockade.  Be A Rebel...if only for a moment.

Wednesday

Poem
by Joe Brainard

Sometimes
everything
seems
so
oh, I don't know.

NY Art Book Fair

Coming soon!  The NY Art Book Fair at MoMA/PS1.  The fair is FREE and open to the public.  It runs Thursday night to Sunday evening, September 27-30. 

Public fair hours are as follows:

Thursday, September 27, 6–9 pm 

Friday, September 28, 12 pm–7 pm

Saturday, September 29, 11 am–9 pm 

Sunday, September 30, 11 am–7 pm

What makes it extra groovy is that I will be there helping out at the table of one of my all-time favourite organizations, Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA).  ILSSA's motto is "As many hours as it takes" and describes itself as a "membership organization for those who make experimental or conceptual work with obsolete technology".  

From their website:

Impractical Labor is a protest against contemporary industrial practices and values. Instead it favors independent workshop production by antiquated means and in relatively limited quantities. Economy of scale goes out the window, as does the myth that time must equal money. Impractical Labor seeks to restore the relationship between a maker and her tools; a maker and her time; a maker and what she makes. The process is the end, not the product. Impractical Labor is idealized labor: the labor of love.

It is run like a union with each individual being the sole member of their "local".  I am a proud member and I am extra proud to be helping out at the book fair.  I will be there with my spindle, just so you know.

And just so this isn't an image-free post, here is a picture I took on a recent trip to Hamilton, Ontario.  We were on a desperate search for sandals for Lucy before a wedding.  All we could find were these:

We declined.  But later, we did see a brave soul walking around town with a pair on.  More power to ya, lady!

More, More, More

Check it out!

Zabeth has done it again:  another gorgeous lace design for the current issue of Vogue Knitting.  Here is all the pertinent information:

Lace Scarf
Designer: Zabeth Loisel Weiner
For sizes: Approx 14 x 60"/35.5 x 152.5cm
Yarn Information: The YarnSisters, Inc./Zealana Pearl Yarn - Amounts: 1 hank in pearl

Vogue Knitting Fall 2012, photo by Paul Amato for LVARepresents.com

The Very Early 80s

Remember that time in your life when you would willingly wear a plastic bag on your head, all in the name of fashion?  Well, Birnam wood do come to Dunisnane.

Fear not, for while the early 1980s may have made an appearance in our household in the form of florescent hair colouring, I, myself, have made it to the 21st Century.  Or so I told myself when I became the owner of an iPod shuffle (in order to be able to listen to the chants that I need to memorize).  When I made this remark to Finnian, he scoffed.  

"More like 20th Century!"  

You can't win around here.  Maybe I should dye my hair pink?  Orange?

What's Next? Boiled Peanuts?

It must be those hazy, hot and humid days of summer - there have been so many of them.

The light is thick and golden and heavy.  Maybe it is like this in New Orleans all the time?

I miss the cool, blue light of Newfoundland.  I miss it so much that I actively try to not think about it.  Good thing I have so much training in putting my mind to be where I want it to be when I want it to be there.  My mind wants to be on a rock in the North Atlantic but somehow it got stuck in a William Faulkner novel.

Could such a plant seriously exist any place labelled "northerly"?

As I write this, the cicadas are singing their pervasive chorus.  Everything is green and lush in a way that seems, frankly, unnatural.  Next thing, I'll be talkin' right slow-like and voting Republican.

Amazing!

What happens when you bring six young men and six young women together for three weeks?  Not what you might think!  Sometimes something really amazing happens...

Ba Da Bing

Everyone is happy.  

Finn is in the northern woods and on the northern waters of Maine, paddling a 22 ft. long canoe that he made (along with 11 other skillful teenagers).  Lucy is camping in the Vermont woods with a group of young women who are, no doubt, as strong and clever as she.

What about Mom?  What does she do with that rarest of rare things:  time alone?  

It is called camping, Brooklyn-style.

This Machine Kills Fascists

Happy 100th Woody!

Into the Proper Hands

We have all done it: enthusiastically decided to take up some new skill or interest, eagerly purchased the necessary equipment, and then....quietly set it aside for a few days, months, years.  A friend was telling me that this describes her every attempt at taking up a fitness routine.

When I shop at thrift shops, I always have the feeling that stuff doesn't ever really belong to us.  It just shifts around until it finds its proper owner.

Yesterday, these two threads came together as I became the proper owner of a generous bag of spindles, niddy noddies and very high end fleece.  It was all originally purchased by a very enthusiastic would-be spinner.  She had signed up for the class.  She had purchased her materials.  And then.  Some time later, she gave it all to a friend (the talented Zabeth that I have been featuring regularly).  Zabeth may be a lace genius but she is not a spinner (yet - I am not finished with her yet).  So the bag of materials sat around Zabeth's house for a good long time.  And then.

Come home to mama!

I don't know the person who bought all this stuff but she has amazing taste!  She had a modest, beginner spindle - perfectly serviceable.  But look!  She also immediately bought a Kundert!  And a Turkish spindle.  And two sizes of niddy noddy.  Her fleece choices show excellent taste in sheen and softness but, perhaps, not such a good awareness of what is best suited for a beginner.  Baby alpaca, kid mohair, and 100% silk are not beginner fibres.  But, um, I like them.

A cat using a spindle!  Possibly the world's cutest photo ever.

Webster likes them too!  The best part of coming into this treasure trove was that I was immediately able to give away one of the spindles (not the Kundert - I am not a saint) and some fleece to someone who showed interest in learning to use them.  Ok, I might have told her that she needed to have this interest.  But I was not wrong.  And she has two children that I know she will teach.  And she teaches high school art so maybe she will bring that into her classes.

So you see, you never know the results of your one action.  Sign up for a class!  Buy materials!  The whole world is waiting!

A Match Made in Heaven

First, this:



Then, this:

Well over 500 yds of squishy Rambouillet yarn (hand painted fleece by Widdershins, of course!).  It started as lace weight and then it bloomed.  It bloomed like a teenage girl on her first date.  It bloomed like a lily at Easter.  It bloomed and blossomed and decided to be larger than lace weight.  But still beautiful.  And soft.  I think it is destined to fall into the capable hands of the above mentioned Zabeth (Loisel) Weiner.

Very Practical

Zen is “the biggest joke that has ever been played in the spiritual realm. But it is a practical joke, very practical.”  

Chogyam Trungpa

Brilliant!

Vogue Knitting Early Fall 2012, photo by Rose Callahan

My brilliant friend, knitwear designer, Zabeth Loisel Weiner, created this lace shawl for Vogue Knitting.  It is in the latest issue, Early Fall 2012.  Doesn't the mere name of the issue make you want to start knitting?  Please check it out!  You don't even have to be as brilliant as Zabeth because she did all the hard work of figuring out the pattern.  You only need to knit it.  


And, believe me, you do need to knit it.

For sizes: 50" wide
Yarn Information: Madelinetosh Prairie
Amounts: 1 hank in Mourning Dove

Teach What You Know (and What You Believe)

Two weeks ago, in teacher training, we studied with a terrific teacher, Fran Ubertini.  She is a great combination of high energy and straight talk, being born and raised in Brooklyn in a big Italian family.  Plus she knows her stuff and has been around long enough to have worked through exactly what yoga means to her (hint: it ain't just asana).

At the end of our weekend of training, she lead us through an agna laghava sequence, which I think means something like "lighting the flame" but please correct me if my Sanskrit is off.  In the Desikachar tradition, there is a lot of attention paid to how yoga moves prana (loosely translated as life force, energy, or sometimes even breath) and apana (waste, elimination).  Various asana create more prana or work to burn up apana.  It is all on a subtle plane and not something immediately tangible.  In agna laghava, we practiced the asana by doing a full inhalation and full exhalation and then, while holding on the exhalation, actually moving into or out of the posture.  I think that means we were using prana to burn up apana, if I understood it correctly.

Although it is simple in concept, it is not a practice for beginning students because it assumes that you have a rather large breath capacity and that you are generally fit enough that the series of postures you are doing are not challenging from a physical standpoint.  In other words: do not try this at home.  It is something to be done with the guidance of a teacher who knows you and your breathing patterns.  While Fran didn't know us very well, she figured that we were basically good to go as 500- and 700-hr teacher trainees.

We did some rounds of a very simple sun salutation and then some other standing postures - nothing fancy - but it was totally and completely transformative.  By the time we finished, my state of mind was still and clear and totally ready for meditation, which if you believe the Yoga Sutra, is the main purpose of asana.  The thing is, I had never really and truly believed that.  I believed that yogis did asana because they lived in the forest without access to healthcare and needed a way to stay healthy (a description of how asana practice came about that I once heard).  I believed that our bodies retain a memory of emotions and events deep in our muscles and that asana can help release them (why do I often want to cry when I deeply flex my right hip?).  And I believed that doing asana simply makes you feel good - because it does for me every day.  But as a preparation for meditation, I did not believe it because it never was for me.  I mean, everyday, I simply sit on my cushion to meditate.  Asana had nothing to do with it, and so this mysterious connection never felt like a connection.  Until it did.

When it did, it kind of rocked my world because it made all the criticisms of ashtanga that my teacher has been sharing with me (after twenty years of practicing ashtanga herself) seem valid.  Even as I have learned a lot about myself and my body through ashtanga, the fact remains that it is limited in terms of helping one to achieve the eighth limb of yoga: a state of samadhi.  I would go so far as to say that practicing whatever series you are working on will never bring you to that state.  And I think it is not a sustainable practice once you reach a certain age.  Although I know people in their sixties doing it, in a way, I feel a little sorry for them.  Do they still need that much asana?  Why?  This is an important question!

After confessing all, my teacher gave me a new daily home practice that is (surprise!) an agna laghava practice.  It isn't much asana and the main focus is the breath and concentration of mind.  It is surprisingly difficult!  But I really love it.  As for my dear ashtanga practice?  I have decided to call it my workout and I do it after yoga and meditation.

It is an awesome workout - you should see my biceps!

The Best of TImes, The Worst of Times

One of my sisters was here recently for a visit and high on her list of places to go was the 9/11 Memorial.  To be honest, I did not want to go.  It is hard to see this site as a tourist destination.  The original act of senseless violence and the subsequent wrong turns and bad ideas that it spawned leave me feeling less than thrilled about making it part of any itinerary.  But Sis wanted to go, so we ran the gauntlet, which is what happens to those who feel the need to visit the memorial before it is totally open to the street.  It will be someday when all the construction is completed but, for now, one must get a free visitor pass at a location several blocks away from the entrance.  This not-so-brief walk also allows the construction workers taking lunch to have a front row seat to view all the tourists heading to the site (it was ALL tourists - why do they want to see this?).  If you enjoy being inspected by many construction workers while they eat sandwiches, then I recommend this visit to you.

After the visual inspection by iron workers and other tradesmen, you go through a security check that makes an airport security check-in experience seem like a joyful welcome from your favourite grandmother.  So, if you enjoy being manhandled by people in light blue shirts who have been trained by some rogue nation's secret police, then I highly recommend this visit to you.

After some vigorous inspection and humiliation, then you walk through an endless roped off area - back and forth like some kind of surrealist movie sequence.  In fact, it was so bizarre and yet compelling that I was seriously regretting not bringing my video camera.  I was regretting it until I was accosted after taking this one photo in an attempt to capture the way people were moving through the space.  Apparently, no photographs were allowed here, although it is not at all clear why since photographs are okay at the actual site.  If you have ever wished to be a participant in a Kafka-esque bit of highly guarded choreography, then I recommend this visit to you.

It is much more interesting with the movement but I can not fathom what would befall
anyone who dared try to record it.

Battered in spirit if not in physical self, we persevered and entered the actual memorial site.  Amazingly, it is quite moving and cuts straight through whatever bitterness you feel by the time you enter the gates.  The other visitors were remarkably subdued and respectful.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is a very powerful experience.

I think it is a testament to the design that anyone was able to feel anything other than a sense of despair at what has happened to public access and our collective sense of paranoia since 9/11.  Indeed the disparity between the experience of getting into the memorial and the memorial itself is perhaps the perfect illustration of the state of the country today.  The very best and the very worst, side-by-side and completely interconnected.

Did I Show You This?

Over 400 yds of lace weight Shetland beauty spun from a fleece hand painted by Widdershin Woolworks.  Dear Ani (the genius behind Widdershin) nearly met her death after a visit to Israel - no it wasn't terrorism, it was a mosquito who gave her a West Nile like virus.  The handspinning world was on tenterhooks and we didn't even know it!  She is on the mend now, thank the spinning goddesses!

Anyway,  I don't care what anyone says, Shetland sheep are very cute, their wool spins up like nobody's business and the resulting yarn has a sturdy integrity that is unmatched, except perhaps by Icelandic wool.  Nah, I think Shetland is best.  

As Finn once said in response to my telling him that I thought I liked spinning *better* than knitting:

Oh no you dittn't.  (add your own sweeping, snapping gesture).

(No Impact Week - Day #5) Don't Be A Drip

The focus for the fifth (and for us, final) day of No Impact Week was water.  To be perfectly honest, I didn't make any changes in our water use during the week.  I felt that I had pushed Fin and Lucy to their limit with the other changes so I didn't insist on altering the way we consume water.  Others in the group that I was participating in this experiment with did much better.  One household cut their water use in half with very simple methods of catching grey water (the water used to wash and rinse dishes, for example) and using that water to flush the toilets.  Others shut off the shower after they had gotten wet, soaped up without the water running and then did a quick rinse off.

My one goal was to re-install a diverter from our downspout so that rain water will again collect in our rain barrel.  I didn't get that accomplished during the week, but I will.  No Impact Week doesn't actually have to end, you know.  Truthfully, most of it was pretty painless and actually improved our lives.  Is that really surprising?

No Impact Week ends with what Colin Beavan calls Eco Sabbath - a day when one gives back to the community.  For our group, we had a three options for a morning of service: work on a farm in Red Hook, work in a community garden or attend a tree stewardship workshop.  Lucy and I went to the tree workshop.

It was a straightforward session that gave us the basics about how to care for street trees.  The trees are owned by the city but do not really get much care once they are planted.  As you might imagine, city life is pretty hard on the trees and even a little care and make the difference between survival and firewood. New York City trees don't really end up as firewood; they end up as garbage and is there anything sadder than seeing a tree go in the garbage?  After getting our instructions, we went out as a group and took care of four street trees.  It was kind of shocking to notice just how uncared for most trees are in the city.  Suddenly, we saw dire circumstances everywhere!

Lucy was so inspired by our experience that she immediately signed up online to adopt the tree in front of our house and then went out and began to care for it in the way it needs - first by removing weeds, garbage and ivy around it.  Eventually we will plant some flowers and mulch around the tree pit, as it is called.  Truly, there is a huge need to care for the trees that add so much to city life.  The workshop took only a few hours and our efforts make a visible difference to our neighborhood.  Consider taking this on!  It isn't a big commitment but it is an important one.  Plus, we met all sorts of people walking by who were curious and happy about what we were up to.  A real community building effort.

After our labours on the street, the No Impact Week-ites gathered for a picnic of local, organic homemade food in Fort Greene Park.  Yum!

We were very happy about our nice lunch!  

And since it made such lovely pictures, here are some photographs of the pasta I made for the pasta/kale salad that was my contribution to the picnic.

  

It was a good day and a great week.

(No Impact Week - Day #4) Pump It Up

Yesterday's area of focus was energy use.  I was out and about, using up my own personal energy so I wasn't able to post anything.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, we have been using an oil lamp in the evenings instead of our electric lights.  The first night, everyone was pretty excited and we ended staying up late, talking and laughing.  Ahhh....just as I dreamed it would be: family bonding, heart-to-heart conversations and lots of intimate togetherness.

The next night, my friends from Germany stopped by for a visit and sat in the near-darkness with us.  It was fun but we all got sleepy rather quickly and they left not long after arriving.  Do we get more boring in the dark?  I wonder.

On Wednesday night, Fin and Lucy began to rebel.  A couple of nights is one thing but this was going on a little too long for the tastes of some.  Fin staged a strike - he refused to wash the supper dishes if the lights stayed off.  After a tense stand-off, the kitchen lights were turned on and dishwashing commenced as per usual.  Last night, a sense of resignation seemed to have settled in and, as the house grew darker, no one protested but no one seemed inclined to talk either.  Even I began to wish I could just go read a book in bed.  I am currently re-reading Kristen Lavransdatter and you know how that is.

Tonight will be our last night with the oil lamp.  I am thinking that perhaps we should try to have one night/month when we keep the lights off.  It could be just enough to keep us appreciative of the convenience and benefit of electric lights and to have that time of closeness that darkness brings forward.

The other thing we have been doing to reduce our energy use is to power up the laptop batteries in the morning and then unplug them.  If their charge runs out, then no more computer use that day.  I think it is a good system and one that I want to keep in force after this week is over.  It manages to save energy and give some boundaries to computer use all at the same time.

As part of this experiment, I also learned about solar powered chargers for cellphones and other devices.  They run around $30, which seems pretty reasonable.  I think they are smart idea given that charging up these devices sucks up power at a surprising rate.

Pump it up - you don't really need it.


ELVIS COSTELLO - PUMP IT UP by huntylch

(No Impact Week - Day #3) Please Sir...May I Have More?

The focus for Day #3 of No Impact Week is food.  For us, food is also our main area of consumption in terms of where we actually spend money.  It is a matter of making choices and setting priorities.  I am still wearing sweaters from high school but I willingly pay more for organic and local food.

Today we will go to the market at the Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm that is within walking distance from our house.  Why is it called Brooklyn Grange when it is located in Long Island City, Queens?  Did they think it would have more cachet to put Brooklyn in the name?  Although there are few thing us Queenites like better than to roll our eyes at the faux hipster borough to the south, it seems there is a more prosaic reason for the name.  Here is their answer from the Frequently Asked Questions section of their website:

When we started our company in 2009, we thought we had a site in Brooklyn locked down. We were all living in Brooklyn and put together the plan there, so the name made sense. In spring of 2010 we had to look for a new site; subsequently, we found our current location on Northern Blvd in Queens. At that point, however, we had already established an LLC under the name “Brooklyn Grange,” had begun using the name in public at our fundraisers and events in the winter and didn’t want to confuse the folks who had been following our progress and supporting our efforts. We’ve kept our name as Brooklyn Grange, but we are thrilled with our new home in LIC, Queens and have really enjoyed meeting the community there.

So there you have it.  They aren't snobs, just victims of the vicissitudes of the New York City real estate market.  And who among us hasn't had that experience?

When we started this experiment, I decided to allow myself to use whatever I already have in the pantry and fridge.  The No Impact Week began immediately after I returned from sesshin and it is safe to say that I was pretty much unprepared for it so that rule seemed sensible if we actually wanted to eat anything.  It has forced, nay - encouraged, me to be creative with what was on hand.  Although I have heard a few complaints from certain parties who shall remain nameless but whose initials are Fin and Lucy, I think we have had some decent meals cobbled together from odds and ends.  I am noticing that we have almost nothing getting tossed out because it has gone by its edible stage.  Plus it is fun to be forced to be creative in this way - I feel like a participant on Chopped.

Do you know where your food comes from?  What non-local item could you give up?  Bananas?  Avocados?  Coffee?  Ouch - that's cutting close to the bone!  Fortunately I have a large store of coffee in our cupboard so the most drastic sacrifice has not needed to be made.

(No Impact Week - Day #2) Change and Change and Change

Here is some more 1970s idealism from my favourite TV show ever, Free to Be You and Me with Marlo Thomas.

Today's challenge, trash and transportation, is added to yesterday's focus on consumption.  In terms of trash, we do our best to recycle whatever New York City allows us to recycle (which isn't as much as you would think) and I compost our kitchen scraps.  Since I was raised with parents who grew up in the Depression era and steeped us in their "waste not, want not" attitude, being wasteful is not one of my issues.  Please be assured, I have many others but this is not really one of them.  We are ahead of the curve in eliminating unnecessary trash from our lives but I know we can do better.

Transportation is a little trickier.  Normally on a Tuesday, I would drive to Brooklyn for several errands, including the week's food shopping.  Since this week, I am trying to only buy at the farmer's markets, I don't need to drive today so I will take the subway.  It is a little over an hour each way into Brooklyn from Sunnyside - longer than driving - but not terrible.  And I can knit in air conditioned splendor!

Did you know that Rosie Grier is famous for his crochet work as well as his crying?  Maybe I will shed a couple of tears just for Rosie while I knit on the N train this afternoon.