Tidying

Mom's scarf is done. See how much yarn I had left at the end 109cm before washing later today.

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I'm done studying GDPR for now. Because I don't have EU customers and I have under 250 people working in this entity, there are only two tiny things to remedy, eventually:

1) Find the key to the top drawer of the tiny filing cabinet to store my tiny backup drive and paper records when I need them locked up, (even though the filing cabinet is probably easily upliftable by any big guy in a good shape);

2) A privacy policy page on my website, i.e. this blog. I have a draft but it is far from serious, and I'm not sure how serious I have/want to sound; and associated with this,

3) A standard way of saying, "I do this, so please consent," before I continue to communicate, and I don't know if I need consent from just folks in EU, (because however do you define that?) or everybody, so I'll probably ask everybody.

As with many things, my difficulty is to separate the weaver part from me, or the weaving "business" part from my life. I even started worrying about email addresses and culled a whole bunch from contacts, (although I know how to find most via blogs/websites/Facebook;) use of links in my blog, (because this could be seen as a business website rather than/as well as a personal journal, even though at their end the links are publicly available;) and a few other things I forgot as soon as I thought about them.

The whopper was the fines if I'm found non-compliant: "up to €20 million or 4% of the company’s global annual turnover of the previous financial year, whichever is higher." I only saw 4% at first and joked about mine being between NZ$4-40. Ha. Ha. Ha.

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I closed the May Sale. I sold two out of 18 pieces; had not-exactly-an-inquiry for another, and may still sell another in two weeks' time. Now I have to "close" shop which entails:

1) Deciding what to do with the leftovers, options being: keeping in my shop/store, but at what prices?; flood the Suter, (a few were always going there if they weren't sold); charity shops; or force them upon friends.

2) Prep shop/store pages accordingly, although my Japanese page usually only links to my English page;

3) Prepping the pieces that will go to the Suter: tags, labels, paperwork;

4) Check/store all other pieces until I decide.

Curiously, I feel less bad today about the sales than I have for the last few days; I know what tasks I need to do next and I'm glad I'm pragmatic.

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I've had this indescribable mental picture as well as an almost false muscle memory of weaving on a tapestry loom on my... consciousness for a while. Almost false because I've only sat in front of a large tapestry loom once, in 2000 at the Christchurch Art Center, and although I remember the fact of taking part in that public, collaborative piece, I can't recall the experience of sitting and weaving. Anyway, this visual and kinetic sensation (?) has sustained me during May Sale and propelled me to this... weird optimism that I'm going to enter the next phase of my weaving. Which strangely correlates to the reason why I wanted a sale in the first place. (In addition to my needing income before the Japan trip.)

Alternatively, it could be a case of what athletes do, (where they imagine each minute step of their performance and rehearse it in their heads? There's probably a name and an acronym for it,) working too well.

It's not been a bad thing, in fact more like a slightly guilty pleasure, imagining me sitting up, rather than bending over, and looking at what I'm weaving in front of me, not below. Although in this recall/imagining, I can never see the textile/project.

I try not to get my hopes up too much as I'm still the same weaver and a new loom isn't going to propel my work significantly without hard work, much less automatically. But feeling optimistic.

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Now that I'm not gungho about belonging to the art realm while loom-weaving, (praise pragmatism,) I'm not gungho about reading about art vs. craft any more. When I do come across a good read, I am able enjoy and agree/disagree more freely. This morning Maureen posted this on her gallery FB page:

Which lead me to look up the Risatti book, which lead me to this blog post, which lead me to all kinds of links, some of which I read, which lead me to putting three new-to-me books on wish lists:

"The Theory of Craft", by Howard Risatti
"By Hand", edited by Shu Hung and Joseph Magliaro
"The Craftsman", by Richard Sennett

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I'm relishing, the cyclical nature of life. Nothing specific prompted me, but it does feel as though we get a few second chances.