Well, Ben's been home all week, and we've been gardening - or clearing, more like one small patch. On Tuesday and Wednesday we spent about 10 hours working on a small triangle rescuing small and not so small rose bushes from weeds, removing one blade and cutting off one dead branch at a time. It's been very time consuming; I thought a good day would enable us to finish this, but so far, 10 hours later, we still have a bit to go. And I've been enjoying Ben being home so much I took this week off. We'll be out the door in the next little while.
Jo, my friend from the drawing class but who is taking the term off, and I got to talking about the class yesterday, and I concluded that Ronette's drawing class, to me, is my weekly right-hemisphere massage. This is why I don't worry if my drawing skills don't improve. I get the most out of the weekly injection when I can get into the zone and let go of my controls and just let my legs and arms do their thing; that's my priority in the class. So some days, I don't enjoy the session particularly but I come home with OK drawings; some days I have a bunch of nonsense scribbles but still come home relaxed and even elated. Now I understand the discrepancy. For the most of this year, (roughly my third year in the workshop,) I haven't worried too much about sticking to Ronette's instructions nor what others may think of what/how do there, and this must mean I'm halfway in the zone by the time I arrive at the classroom.
I expect more talks with Jo next week when she's going to give me some lovely ground-cover plants - very sculptural looking wee thing, but i can't remember the name of it. She also thinks I am developing a style of my own; I wasn't aware of it and in fact flexibility and lack of commitment in how I draw was my strong point, so I must probe her more on this point.
This is something I did at the last session of last term; it was a long pose, so inevitably the model moves, which usually drives me nuts because I have to reorganize my entire drawing when that happens, but I came up with my own remedy. I was thinking of those flip-cartoon pages as I drew for 20 minutes. I enjoyed the drawing of it, because I was pleased with my problem-solution, but as far as drawings go, it's not one of my interesting ones. So why did Ben and I not work in the garden yesterday? We had crazy spring gusts from all directions with some cold temperatures almost all day. In addition, my group, Marlborough Weavers, made the annual trip to come and visit Richmond Weavers just down the road from where I live. I believe these visits started three years ago when Marlborough visited Richmond in 2008; some members have known each other for eons and there are some new members; in this context, I'm still quite new. We don't have a formal workshop or meeting, but we have a detailed show-and-tell, sandwiched between morning tea and lunch. And the rest of the time, we mix and mingle and talk about the weaving, textiles, and travels that took place during the year.
Richmond weavers have small tables of stash reduction attempts; I knew this so I deliberately left my checkbook out of my backpack in the morning; the dirty yellow cone was hiding but "she" and I connected immediately, almost telepathically. These are reeled silk from a massive Swiss mill/yarn shop which closed a few years ago, and owner/Richmond weaver Julia Murbach acquired "a small portion" when she lived in Switzerland.
Julia told me the brighter yellow has a mind of its own; duly noted.
2 comments:
Oh yes, I understand why they were talking to you.
Shouting, inviting, dancing, prancing, and everything else you could think of, Dianne. Almost parading naked! (Them, not me.)
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