SACRED SHARDS: Carpe Diem I

Spent the entire day yesterday working at the community center's pottery studio, 10:30 AM- 7:00 PM. As the day went by I took pictures of my work and the materials used.

This morning while downloading and organizing recent photos from my digital camera I found several older pictures I'd intended to post and write about on my Sacred Shards Pottery blog. They'd been neatly filed on the computer several months ago, then forgotten in the onrush of life.

I need a system for keeping track multiple creative idea streams over time amid the continual shift and resurgence of various priorities. Sometimes the Quiet Little Life isn't so quiet.

Here are links to two of these photos with recent posts on my Sacred Shards Pottery blog:

• VESSELS: Carpe Diem I (in progress)
• VESSELS: Carpe Diem I (glazed)

They describe the process of making a pottery piece that came about through accident and happenstance. The piece turned out well though entirely differently from what I'd first envisioned. Despite obstacles, I set out to SEIZE THE DAY.

(c)2010 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: Air Drying Clothes

I've decided to take the challenge over at Fake Plastic Fish to air dry at least one load of laundry each week. Have been doing this occasionally, but not in any methodical way. The idea is to use the electric dryer less, thereby consuming less electricity and contributing in this small way to reducing global warming.

This week, already, I've air dried two full loads of laundry with very little extra effort.

This is the week each fall when I get out my winter clothes and put away my summer things until the following May. Always a bitter-sweet exercise, marking the passing of one season into the next. This morning I washed and hung out the following in the sun on a large wooden rack:

• 12 sweaters [mostly purchased from second-hand stores last fall, still good as new]
• 3 long-sleeve tops
• 1 sweatshirt
• 6 pair of heavy socks
• 1 polar fleece vest

I just checked and found that these are nearly dry after just 5 hours of letting the sun and air do all the work.

The wooden rack came from a crafters store near my house, Cape Cod Crafters, that unfortunately no longer carries them. I asked when I bought it several years go and was told it was handmade by a craftsman in the Ozarks. I wish now that I'd kept his information. With another rack like this one I could dry several loads of laundry at once. Fully expanded, it's 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and about 5 1/2 feet tall. Folded it's 4 ft x 2 1/2 ft x 6 inches thick, and will stand on its short end against a wall, out of the way.

Yesterday was cloudy, so I used a smaller wire rack set up in the bathtub, plus several hangers on the shower curtain rod, to dry a small load of laundry in about 24 hours. The few things that were still damp this morning got a 10 minute touch-up in the dryer. This brief touch-up also softened the items that had a stiff, crunchy air-dried feeling. That load included:

• 2 polar fleece jackets
• 2 tops and 2 bottoms of silk long underwear [To be worn indoors as a layer under other warm clothes, so we can keep the heat set at 65F during the winter, saving $ and heating oil.]
• 10 cotton handkerchiefs [Started using these back in May to replace disposable Kleenex tissues, reducing my use of disposables and the energy consumed to make them.]
• 2 long-sleave shirts
• undergarments not suitable for air drying in publicly visible areas of the house or outside

All very easy to do. I just have to plan ahead so I'm not rushing to get clean clothes to wear for the same day, washed and dried in a hurry.

In the process, I feel more connected with what I'm doing. Ironically, returning to the old ways of doing things brings me more firmly back into the present moment.

The freedom promised by mechanized, electrified 20th century technology is frequently squandered on mindless worries and shallow distractions. If I know I can hurry around getting things done at the last minute, I often do. The freedom I truly enjoy is freedom from worry, freedom from distraction that comes when I'm fully engaged in what I'm doing--and when I plan ahead for tomorrow's needs.

We should make sure that the impact we're having on the environment through our uses technology is, at the very least, being traded for something of lasting value. If not, then returning to more traditional, low-tech ways might be a better answer.

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

SACRED SHARDS: Documenting Recent Work

Too long I've been making things and selling them or giving them as gifts without taking pictures or making sketches for future work.

Today I set up a make-shift photo booth in a well illuminated part of the house, got out my "good-enough" cheap digital camera, and started documenting my work.

This heart shaped bowl and matching ladle will be a gift for a family member and his bride, getting married this weekend.

I'll be making more in the coming weeks for sale on Etsy, in local shops, at LUNCH shows and in my art show booth.  Wanted to make sure I could remember what these looked like since I won't have them on hand as samples.

Taking and editing these photos was also a useful practice run for the things I need to do for my Etsy online store and for my own website.  They will go into my file of potential work samples to use when approaching retail outlets and and artisan shows.

A bowl made for a baby girl, now a two-year-old and feeding herself.   Took me a while to finish it and photograph it before giving it to her.  Bad Auntie Kay.  Still, it's great for finger foods and reheating little portions. 

A couple of adults have told me they wanted one for themselves--customized with their own name or a special word--so I'll probably be making them in a variety of sizes and colors.

This one is about 5 inches across and 2 inches high.

A similar bowl was made for a baby boy family member, but I didn't take a picture of it before giving.

I also made sketches and took measurements today so the next go around will be easier.  I jotted down notes on glazes, processes, and where the JPGs of these images can be found on my computer.
All this was time consuming, but I'm hopeful that by honoring past effort in this way--by documenting it--the process of making many more will go more smoothly, and perhaps lead to new ideas that otherwise might have been lost.

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: 2009 Green Goals

The Crunchy Domestic Goddess Blog  has encouraged readers to share their Green Goals for 2009.  Here, I've included my 2009 ECO ACTION goals as well as 2008 accomplishments.

As I write this out, it looks like a lot, but I realize how much I was able to comfortably do in 2008 even though I was quite sick for about 4 out of 12 months.

I hope this inspires others to try a few things.

Winter Energy Saving - 2009 GOALS:

• Use humidifiers more consistently to make the house feel warmer (even though it's cooler)
• Reduce heat loss by using window drapes and insulation kits (in addition to mini-blinds), and door draft stoppers
• Decide on a place to put up clothes drying rack indoors in cold months to air dry more loads of laundry
• Continue to do the things started in previous years
• Use or preserve all the winter veggies root cellared in the basement
• Go get a lap blanket and a cup of hot tea, rather than turning on a heater, if I get cold while doing sedentary work in my studio

Winter Energy Saving - 2008 DONE:

• Replaced the thermostat with a programmable one and set it to lower temps
• Dressed more warmly, even indoors, to tolerate lower thermostat settings
• Brought out extra blankets and quilts
• Used the woodstove only as needed, wood cut sustainably from our own property
• On sunny days used box-fan to pump warm air from the sunroom into living areas
• Kept doors to unused rooms closed
• Shifted sleeping and waking hours to maximize use of daylight for illumination, and let the house cool off during darker, colder hours
• Learned and used root cellaring techniques to store fruits and veggies in our unheated basement

Food and Household - 2009 GOALS:

• Select, buy and use a solar rechargeable reading lamp
• More food and goods purchased from local producers, at farmers markets, etc.
• Set up and use rain barrel to catch water for veggie garden
• Mulch garden early to minimize water loss and weed growth, using leaf/grass mulch from our property
• Learn about simple cleaning solutions to make and use at home
• Reduce the amount of non-recyclable packaging that comes into our house
• Go to the town's toxic waste day to dispose of non-rechargeable batteries, and other items safely
• Use rechargeable batteries from now on when ever possible
• Establish routines for taking out the compostables (If it sits inside for too long, yuck!
• Take cloth bags into all stores, not just for groceries
• Phase out use of Britta Filter system (non-recyclable unless the company changes its policy) and find a way to make drinking tape water more palatable  (Allowing a pitcher to sit so chlorine taste evaporates?  Adding lemon?  Or just getting used to it?)
• Use a glass for water around the house rather than a Nalgene bottle.  Use Nalgene bottle only for time away from the house or work outdoors.
• Maybe get a stainless steel water bottle to replace my old plastic Nalgene bottles.  Water that sits in them over night acquires a taste that makes me uneasy.
• Find my grandmothers handkerchiefs and cloth napkins and start using them.

Food and Household - 2008 DONE:

• Replaced all light bulbs in the house with energy savers
• Continued to compost most of our food scraps
• Learned to grow veggies from seed started indoors and set out when the weather warmed
• Reduced standby power consumption by rewiring studio with all equipment grouped on outlet strips to be turned off when not in use
• Dried some loads of laundry on large wooden rack (want to do more but lack privacy)
• Cooked most food from scratch using non-processed ingredients
• Started using 7th Generation cleaning products and other eco-friendly cleaning products
• Used the library more or bought used books, fewer new book purchases
• Almost all new-to-me clothes purchases were gently used, second hand (Except undergarments.  Ick!)

Transportation - 2009 GOALS:

• Run more local errands (1-2 miles from house) on foot or by bicycle
• Modify a used stroller with large wheels or get a "granny cart" to transport groceries home on foot
• Use bicycle more, have seat post adjusted for a better fit, find the most comfortable way to carry purchases or library books
• Learn to use regional bus lines for errands and outings as possible
• Get comfortable using trains for trips to cities 1-3 hours distant, instead of driving
• Remove unnecessary junk from my car to improve mileage

Transportation - 2008 DONE:

• Took a summer vacation without air travel, patronizing mostly locally owned restaurants and more local lodging
• Combined errands on single outings to reduced driving
• Drove at or slightly below the speed limit in the slow lane on the highway
• Used cruise control more
• Kept to a leisurely pace on surface streets
• Ignored the hotheads who wanted to speed around me
• Did better about leaving early for appointments so I could drive more efficiently
• Opened car windows in warm weather at speeds below 45 MPH rather than using air conditioning

GAIA LUNA: Fall Harvest 08

Happy Autumnal Equinox, to those in the Northern Hemisphere.  It's a day to celebrate our creative harvest.

The picture above is the last big harvest from Gaia Luna: one spaghetti squash, half-a-dozen each sweet italian banana peppers and bell peppers (red and green), a few jalapeno peppers, several acorn squash, and an arm-load of under-sized delicata squash, all topped by a bunch of pink cosmos.

This is far more than I thought the garden would produce with so little water and weeding during the height of summer.  It falls far short of what I had envisioned last spring, but vastly exceeds my most desperate hopes during the many weeks I was confined to the house.

The only credit I can take for this harvest is in minimally preparing the soil, planting the seeds and erecting a fence to protect them from deer, all prior to the first weeks of June.  Everything else, quite literally, was done by the sun and the wind and the rain.  At the end of it all, I simply walked out with my clippers and gathered what the plants chose to supply.

Other things didn't go so well.

The zucchini, yellow crook-neck, and patty pan squash plants I'd grown from seed were stunted when I mistakenly pealed off their paper pots before planting, damaging their tiny new roots.  This and the lack of water yielded only a handful of summer squash.  This was a blessing in disguise.  They produced just the amount I could deal with.

I planted three kinds of cucumbers.  Because I couldn't get the rabbit fencing up, groundhogs and rabbits got into the garden and ate the growth tips off each.  Two varieties died from this and lack of water.  The third, the lemon cucumbers, produced prolifically enough for many salads plus a large jar of refrigerator dill pickles.

I planted tomatoes, too, but didn't get nets over them.  Bluejays and crows carried away each tomato before it had ripened.

A large net was thrown over the blueberry bushes, but it had unnoticed holes in it this year.I hadn't the strength to fix it.  Catbirds got in and ate all the blueberries.  There will be no frozen blueberries from the garden for my breakfast cereal this winter, no blueberry jam.  Very sad, but ...

There was another solution.  Once I was feeling better again I went to a pick-your-own orchard and brought home fruit to freeze and can.  I brought peaches, to eat fresh and preserve, home from vacation and from a local farm stand.  I made friends with someone who had more zucchini than she knew what to do with so I could make bread-and-butter pickles.

More soon about the meaning all this has communicated to me, in the world of gardening as metaphor.

HEALTHY: Best Foot Forward

I'm back.  Dipping my toes back into the pool.  Toes painted with hearts (I did this myself) in celebration of health restored.

What a summer it was!

Didn't go at all as planned.  I planned and planted, but fate had other designs.

I won't go into details here.  Enough to say I was very sick for over two months.  Couldn't garden.  Couldn't do much of anything but read, sleep, teach my lessons, stay out of the heat, and try to figure out how to get well.

In both the literal and figurative sense, weeds overtook the garden while I was dealing with this extended illness. 

My greatest emotion now is gratitude.  Gratitude that I'm well again and able to do the ordinary things of life, like laundry and grocery shopping, without a struggle.

My heart goes out to those who live with chronic illness.  My struggles are just a shadow by comparison.

Coincidentally (or maybe not) an artist friend, Sarah, recently had something to say about both weeds and illness on her Art Calling blog, in two separate, lovely articles/reflections on these topics.  

After reading what she had written, I thought it might be of value to jump back in here and, over time, share some of the things I've discovered during this recent detour.

It's easy to post when things are going well.  Not so comfortable to write for public view when all my best intentions and efforts are lost in a tangle of weeds.  

The choices I make for many years to come are likely to be influenced by the lessons learned from this difficult time, now past.

Not going to say it all today.  Just glad to be back.

Peace!

Kay