I know it's been forever since I posted last, but I just have to tell you that life on acreage isn't as easy as life on a neatly groomed and completely grassed (by someone prior to us) 1/2 acre. There is never an end of things to do, and they never all get done. And there is always a crisis of some sort. And there is a heck of a lot of dirt.
For those of you who have never lived west of the Mississippi, let me explain. Most of New Mexico os covered by scrub brush and dirt. It really is a lot prettier than it sounds, but the dirt combined with the spring winds, well, it gets everywhere. When we lived in Rockport, MA, I used to walk around the house in white socks. See, there's no dust or dirt on the ocean, and those were the breezes that blew in our windows. Since living here in Santa Fe, I've put away all the white socks. I can't even get them on my feet without getting brown smudges on them. We have a dog, We have a pond, and the dog likes to swim in the pond, roll in the dirt, and then tromp through the house. I've had to completely give up on my ideas of how a floor should be kept.
All that aside, I have been working on some new things, though they're not the things I'd thought I'd do here, as time work and emergencies have allowed. One of the peculiarities of living in the high dessert are the power spots you come across and their effects on you. When I came here, it was with the intention of picking up on my mosaic work again (no I don't have any photos, as all that stuff is still in storage). I thought; "Hey, Santa Fe is going to be just the place for glass - just look at all the glass blowers and glass artists in town". I had good intentions. No, I had GREAT intentions. And so now I'm working in fabric.
I've started quilting again after a hiatus of what, twenty years? I REALLY wanted to work in glass, but my hands reach for fabric and thread instead, and I'm quilting with a passion I didn't know I had for this medium. Funny. And funny peculiar, not funny Ha-Ha. The upside is that I'm working on two, actually three projects, though one is still conceptual. The first, is the Cottonwood project, which I've shown you - nothing new on that front, I'll start working on the grasses next.
The second, is born of a morbid fascination I've developed about all the fence here. Coyote fence, barbed wire fence, chicken wipe, horse wire, adobe walls, fence, fence, fence. The only fences missing are the rock walls of New England. And while I understand the need to keep the coyotes away from the chickens, I have to admit that I don't like the fences. They break up the soul soaring landscape and carve it up into little human sized parcels. Clearly, I must have been here in a previous life, as I can't stand to see it all turned into private property you can't hike across. Clearly - I need more acreage, and someone to take care of the dirt.
In that vein - I've begun the first of what I believe will become a series on fences. It's called Where the Deer and the Antelope Play ***. The image size is 12 X 16, with the borders it's 16 X. 20 I've altered one of the photos I took previously in Photoshop, printed it on extravorganza, fused it to pfd fabric and painted in the background with neocolor II water pastels. with the photo blown up to full size, I'm using it as a guide to thread paint the details using Gutterman rayon matte threads.
You can see that I've really only started the thread painting, with a dark grey and black. I haven't decided whether or not to cover the entire applique yet or even most of it, it depends on how it all develops.
One of the other things I've been doing while we listen to books on tape in the evenings is beading. Not having TV does have benefits - one of which is increased time to do creative things. Since the sound of the book can follow you throughout the house, you're not tied to sitting on the couch staring at the box. I've baked, I've quilted, painted, beaded and done a whole host of other things that I never did watching TV. That said, I dearly miss HBO. We do get Netflix movies, but I want to watch Big Love and the new Sookie Stackhouse, Vampire series by Charlaine Harris. I've read all the books and LOVE them (great light summer reading) and am wailing about not being able to watch them as they air. Yes, I know I can buy or rent them after the season is finished, but somehow it's just not the same.
Anyway, the beading. I've been making these little fish:
The pattern is from Beawork, Aug/Sept 2005, and once you get the hang of it, you can modify it to your hearts content. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but I can do a fish in two evenings and I adore the little guys.
I've also finished freeform peyote bracelet and started another, in blues this time, called River Walk:
I love the way laying out the bead selection inspires what you create, much like putting together a yarn basket for freeform. The downside of working this way, is that I invariably "NEED" some color or shape I don't have that necessitates a trip to the bead store. Sigh.
I promise not to be such a laggard, I've missed keeping up with by blog reading as well as posting and have been trying to catch up with everyone's activities. I always miss you all when I don't know what's going on with you. So to make up for it - at least a little, I'll leave you with a shot of the irises blooming outside of our temporary office door. They really do look like that - I didn't touch this photo in Phoptoshop.
The light here is so clear and bright, everything shines. It makes up for the dirt, many times over.
*** Just a note on this particularskull and fence photo. When I shot the first photos in the fence series, I was so taken with how they came out, that I went over to Bighugelabs and put them, in my flickr account, onto a black background. I happened to notice that you can make motivational posters out of your photos and it hit me like a light bulb going off: fence + skull +black and white + my current frustration with the dirt and bureaucracy here = New Mexico, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. It looked AWESOME! I showed everyone and they howled with laughter. In my excitement at how it all turned out (and in my innocence), I had a poster made and sent to Anthony's dad. I thought he would chuckle about it a bit, since A had been telling him about all our tribulations.
Guess what happened. Not only did he NOT think it was funny, he decided that I went to all that trouble to get in a dig on his hunting! He thought I was making fun of him, or being angry at him or I don't know what. Sigh. Sometimes the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.
Ron, if you read this, know that the photo was taken as part of a series on fences I am working on. Know that animal parts present themselves randomly and periodically, and that occasionally, if I am lucky, I get a great shot like the one I sent you. Know that I did all this with a series of quilts in mind. Know that you'll probably see a lot more of my work with skulls and bones in it and that it's because we have so much of that here - it's kind of hard to ignore and not because I spend all day thinking about the fact that you hunt. I ate some of your wild boar - remember? I wasn't trying to be mean to you - I was trying to cheer you up. Ah well - so much for that idea.
When can we hang out? That's what I want to know!
Posted by: scoutj | May 24, 2008 at 10:33 AM
OK, if you can afford it, and it fits in with what you have, check out a product called water sorb - found at http://www.watersorb.com/ . We've used it in our garden to help retain moisture, and it works wonderfully. It's also used in soil retention (i.e., dust control), and can be sprayed onto the surface to prevent erosion. It's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than some things, and it may help you to get things growing. I know that it certainly drought-proofed our garden, when we were in California - to the point where, once it was established, we could cut the water in the middle of the summer and just let it keep on going.
Good luck with things - you're at least being artistic, which is something!
Posted by: DaviMack | May 21, 2008 at 04:53 PM