Intermittent Streams

Intermittent Streams

Intermittent: Stopping or ceasing for a time; alternately ceasing and beginning again. This is the definition given in the Random House Webster's College Dictionary, and it also defines my writing habits since last May. Job hunting became my primary focus last spring and it paid off - I am now working full time as Treasurer of a small town and I love it. I have mixed emotions, of course. I no longer spend afternoons in my studio and far less art is being created these days. But we do what needs to be done and I did finish the piece pictured above, which I consider one of my master works.

I once worked as a cartographer and loved the swirls and eddies of elevation lines and the interpretive story they told. Often there would be a sparsely dotted line in the cleavage of a canyon or between elongated alpine lakes. In the key at the bottom of the map these dots were said to represent, "intermittent streams".

Beads over net and fabric - detail

During my years of working in the field for the Forest Service, the dotted lines on my field map would often warn me of upcoming brushy and boggy areas that would be difficult to navigate. Other times, the dotted line would turn out to be beautiful wide and sunlit beachy areas, strewn with rock, drift wood, and sparse shrubbery. You just never knew for sure what it would be. It was part of the thrill and mystery. Of learning to have a little faith in your map and your own skill in finding your way.  



In recent years, hiking with friends, one in particular, is how I have gotten back into the wilds of Idaho. We often hiked up trails that would have a stream running alongside. Some were prettier than others, but I always found myself gazing at the tumbling, sheeting, and ever moving water. I would look beneath the shining surface to see what I could see...  rounded rocks, ribbons of sand, glinting fish...  all arranged and defined by the running of the stream.

Paper Map

My hiking friend moved away last summer; also doing what needed to be done to keep her own life moving and flowing. She asked me to create a piece for her and immediately images began to swirl and form in my mind and then on paper. Near my drafting table where I draw my paper maps, I laid out several Georgia O'Keefe images and strew my own photographs across them. Glancing from these to my drawing, this piece seemed to form gently and easily. Very little erasing, minimal hair pulling, and no cursing.

Returning to an office job after several years of being on one's own is not easy, no matter how grateful you are for the job or how good the job is. Having this curvy, vibrant, involved piece to work on while making that adjustment added energy and grace to both projects. I am happy with both of them.

Island and Beach

Silk beach grass overlay

Scene from my daily walk out Roseberry Road

Transition, Transference, and Trimming it all up

Last Berg - taken this a.m.

Winter is a long haul in a mile high city, and I'm happy to say we have finally rounded the bend on that one. All that remains of a mountainous heap of snow and ice in my personal corner of paradise, is this lonely little ice berg, slowly receding into the rest of my yard. Hallelujah. With the retreat of snow and ice begins the annual and very necessary clean up of elemental damage - yesterday, I hauled off 7 top-heavy loads of spruce and fir needles along with heaps of dead pokey branches I trimmed away from underneath the canopy. And I'm not talking about those cute little wheelbarrows that come in various colors and have a shallow little bed - I'm talking about a construction job-site wheelbarrow with a big wheel in front, massive handles, and a deep folded steel bed that holds one whale of a lot. Oh, how I love hauling away the dregs of winter and letting the light of spring into my yard and into my life. As I work, I think metaphorically of all that the trimming away and letting in of light means; to me, for me, and for those involved in my life.

Where does your path lead? What are your priorities?

When I started my business, Thea's Bee Beautiful, I thought I could successfully run two completely different businesses. It has been several years now and I still find that I trudge guiltily past my sunny studio door way too often with the ticker-tape inside my head reading, "Studio Time = 0. Again".  I kept telling myself things like, "Once X happens, THEN I will have more studio time". Well, as you can guess, X would happen and then the next X would pop up and so on until weeks would slip by with no studio time. This spring, I finally made the decision to phase Thea's Bee Beautiful out of my life and work in my studio full time. I realized that if I had spent all the time developing my art business that I've put into TBB, I'd be...  well, who knows. The point is, I want and need to give it a shot. Art is what I do best and I keep shoving it to the bottom of my priority list.

I was not looking forward to talking to my daughter, Anna, about this decision. It's been a decade since she and I first started conceptualizing this business when my late husband and I were looking at small organic farms to buy in Eastern Oregon. The plan was to grow our own flowers and herbs for use in skin care products. Anna had started collecting formulaic research and we were all excited about our prospects. All these years later, many things have changed and Anna and I have kept working on the skin care line. She has a lot of vested time and energy in this business already.

Much to my surprise, when I broached the subject last week, Anna grew very excited and exclaimed that she thought she and Dustin (her fiance') might like to take it over. After a consultation with Dustin and friends, Anna declared her interest in becoming the new owner/operator of Thea's Bee Beautiful. In the words of a friend of mine, what an elegant solution.

Anna and Dustin, Scott and I, are in a time of transition with Anna and Dustin purchasing their own little organic farm and deciding to marry, and Scott taking a job in the back country that keeps him from home Monday through Friday. The transfer of my business to Anna and Dustin makes sense in this context. It's as if we've come full circle together.

Anna makes her 1st Batch

The last three days, Anna and I have gone over many aspects of the business and spent a full and long day making Fancy Face Cream and Everyday Hand and Body Cream. It was a joy to spend that time beginning the process of transferring knowledge and technique to her. I even found myself laughing out loud and told her once that I felt so simply and thoroughly happy - and that feeling of simple happiness tells me this is the right decision. It seems to be a rare thing that decisions made are met with such clarity and sureness afterwards.

Measuring Hydrosol

As we sat side by side in the "work room", putting the finishing touches on over a hundred jars of product surrounded by my distiller and all the Things that go into Thea's Bee Beautiful, I found myself wondering what this room would look like emptied of all that once we move it to Dustin and Anna's place. All those empty cabinets and empty work table...   then I had an AHA!! moment. I've been looking over my studio wondering where on earth and how on earth I was going to manage and organize all my paints, mediums, and paint table in addition to all my fabric based stuff. Wonder no more - it will all transfer nicely and neatly into the old TBB workshop! It is a perfect and wonderful solution.

I sign off here today feeling happier and lighter than I have for a long time. I'm feeling so good about all the changes in our lives and the way we are handling them. The dovetailing of my business into the life and business of Anna and Dustin, along with their upcoming marriage, makes my own life seem more complete even while I am trimming it up. I'm simply trimming it up so that it can expand in a new direction. It's so exciting.

Linen from Greece - hand embroidered and appliqued

P.S. Today is Anna's Birthday. One of the gifts I gave her is a gorgeous linen tablecloth and napkin set sent to me by her great grandmother in Athens, Greece, upon my own marriage to Anna's dad. It arrived with a few stains and I enjoyed thinking about the dinner parties that put them there. I added a few of my own and now pass it along to her so she can add hers.

Elementary, My Dear Thea

5th Grade Art in the Gym

I just completed my 3rd year of teaching 5th grade art in public schools funded by Idaho Commission on the Arts. It is such a rewarding experience and I am feeling especially grateful this year that the project is completed.  My classroom teacher, our local art's commission director, and I decided on a very large project this year that demanded a lot from everyone involved. The theme was Stream Restoration and Trout. The project was a 3' x 5' banner involving the topic and yards and yards of fabric, hand sewing, machine sewing, and lots of fast moving hands, elbows, and crawling around on the floor. Thank goodness, an empty classroom provided the space for all of us to get down and get to it. And thank goodness for all the people who donated time, materials, and encouragement! Yikes. I had one very scary moment at the beginning of project construction. Preliminary sketches were done (I'm always so impressed with the variety and imagination shown in my student projects), all the banners were stretched out on the floor ... big, blank, muslin 3' x 5' canvases waiting to be covered in colorful, large (yards and yards and yards!) swaths of fabric. I panicked. I did NOT have enough fabric to cover 19 such large projects! I started searching for donations as soon as I left the school that day and was humbled and gratified by the generous response. Particular thanks go to Granny's Attic here in McCall, Flight of Fancy in Donnelly, and Keep Me in Stitches, also of McCall. Without you, this project would have gone through a redraft or two!

On Night's Plutonian Shore

Each year, too, I am reminded of the enormous responsibility our school teachers have; not only to provide their students with an education, but also to guide and assist them in all manner of topics and situations - often on the fly - that require flexibility and creativity in their responses. What an accomplishment it is to complete an entire school year!

Plutonian Detail

During my teaching time, I kept my own art projects small and just did things spontaneously. I had always wanted to do a piece based on Garrison Keillor's annual Halloween reading of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" - when Garrison says the phrase, "... on night's Plutonian shore..." in his low, gravelly voice, I just swoon. This image is what I came up with - no preliminary sketch, just making it from: commercial prints, hand dyes, glitter flat ribbon, black leather sequins, charcoal glass beads, mica chips, and some hand stitching in black pearl cotton. It was more fun than should be had!

Another project made me feel just plum happy to be working on it - bright springy colors and a photograph printed on fabric that I took last summer canoeing up the North Fork of the Payette River:

Hollyhock Detail

Hollyhock

 And this next one? Don't know yet! Just know it will be really fun to do because I have been wanting to use pieces of hornet nests in my compositions for years - now is the time. This will be a warm up for a much larger piece I have in mind. It's good to practice with new materials a bit before you go whole hog. The photograph is one I took in my yard last fall and you can just see a hornet nest swinging in the upper right corner in an aspen tree - that same hornet nest is now in my studio, a piece of which you see in the lower left of this photograph. Beautiful, gray, striated papery stuff that just yells to be used in my fiber art!

Fabric and Nest Material

Solar Squalls and Snow Storms

Today, our little planet was hit with a huge solar squall - I watched video tape of this squall yesterday morning and held my breath as I watched a section of the sun's surface bunch up and gather itself together for a grand expulsion into space of energy particles, heedless of any repercussions... It seems that nothing dramatic will happen, and I am grateful. I hear via NPR that we may be graced with some lovely northern lights, courtesy of our Sun and its most recent temper tantrum. I have been fortunate enough to see northern lights from my bedroom window three times this winter - one time in particular I remember because it came immediately following another solar storm which I suspect also took out my 2006 edition computer (one of my excuses for not blogging in so long a time).  So while I appreciated the light show, I was very unhappy about this unexpected and very costly side effect of our Sun's "off gassing". It made me stop and think a bit more yesterday when I heard of yet another approaching sun storm. It is easy to take for granted the lazy loops through space we make every day. I'm beginning to appreciate that our existence is incidental and precarious. Dependant on the steady behavior of a distant star.  My daughter and I were driving home from a hot springs soak yesterday afternoon and heading west with the lowering sun beaming directly into our faces. We talked about how everything that happens to our sun, happens to us. We are utterly reliant on this dispassionate relationship. As large and rock-solid as the mountains seem that surround us here in Long Valley, they could be gone in one vast solar burp - and us with it. I found myself thinking of a phrase I love from The Book of Common Prayer:  This fragile earth, our island home.

Scott & Ethyl dig us out

View from bedroom window

Not discouraged by these reflections, I find myself  leaning into new challenges and sharpening my eye towards equanimous resolution to life events - even snow storms that bury us when friends of ours are gardening a scant 40 miles away.  Encouragement came in the form of robin song while at the hot springs yesterday - just one short little trill; and while I couldn't spot her, the familiar song is undeniable and is a harbinger of spring. Even though it was only 6 degrees this morning at my mile high house, I know for certain now that the season is turning towards warmer sunnier days.

A snowstorm seems like a minor challenge amidst life's storms and squalls.  What happens when our own bodies bunch up and ready themselves for their own expulsion of particles, heedless of its inhabitants reaction? Health issues are rather like our reliance on the sun - dispassionate in that our bodies do what they do with or without our given consent. Yet we are utterly reliant on this imperfect vehicle to carry us through our own lazy loops that we make through the space of our lives.

For many years, I have suffered odd joint pains and muscle spasms. Not having any other experience of bodily inhabitation for comparison, I was unclear as to what significance these manifestations had. I did know better than to go very far without Ibuprofen. In my back-country wanderings with my late husband, I would sometimes wonder if I would be able to make it back out without a big production. I became balky about making hiking and athletic commitments. The last two years, these symptoms have blossomed into full time and sometimes debilitating pain. I am grateful to my doctor for putting a label on this condition: fibromyalgia. 

Giving something a label, or identification tag, helps me grapple with what it really is... for me. What does this disease mean for me?  How will it shape my life? What steps do I need to take to make my life better given this new circumstance? Will I make the decision to follow my doctor's recommendations?  This may seem like a given but it is, in fact, a choice and one that is not always easy to make. For others in similar circumstances, or facing a new physical issue, you know what I'm talking about. When your doctor looks at you and says, "..this is life changing.." your senses go on high alert and you know decisions are coming your way.

Things are sorting, sifting, and reorganizing themselves in my soul's pantry.  I am figuring out what I need to add to my general provisions and what I need to throw out. My "equanimity" is being challenged and I hope to maintain grace and composure as I face skepticism and doubt.  Fibromyalgia and many diseases/disorders are not readily visible to others. During my late husbands last months, I was sometimes approached with a questioning, "...but he looks fine!" Not quite an accusation, but an expression of doubt that anything was truly wrong.  

 We humans are funny creatures. Often quick to reach a conclusion about someone else, we forget that each of us has our challenges.  And to each of us, these challenges are significant, requiring thought and decision. Did someone offend or snub you today? Behave in a distant manner? Consider they may be mulling over their own dilemma.

Teaching and Creating in my Little Town

Fish Sketch

I am teaching art again this winter to fifth graders in our school district.  I have taught in New Meadows, McCall, and this year it is the little town of Donnelly.  Each year, I am surprised at how much I enjoy this project - I did not like children even when I was a child myself, preferring the company of adults. I was the kind of mom who loved her own, but wasn't looking for a playgroup to join... I view this as a healing in my life; the enjoyment of being with and interacting with children. 

For this years project, we are creating fabric banners 3' x 5' in size.  Pretty large, but I want them to have something super fun to take home with them! (many thanks to Lori of Granny's Attic - I wouldn't have the fabric for this without her generous donations!) The theme is centered on stream rehabilitation, trout, and trout habitat in our area.  We are working with a text entitled, appropriately enough, "Trout" - you can see one of the beautiful photographs in this book at the bottom of my photograph here.  I was captivated by that large hazel-colored fish eye and it was the first thing I drew in my thumbnail sketch that will become my own banner.  The photo is not great, but above the fish eye you can see a trail of bubbles leading to the surface, some waving stream grass and a few pine trees.  Next to the "eye" is a full sized trout nosing downward and into a pile of trout eggs resting in the pebbled stream bottom.  I really like this sketch and I am looking forward to translating it into fabric on my banner working alongside my enthusiastic, welcoming and intelligent fifth grade class.  Having met only once so far with my class, I am already charmed by them and looking forward to more.  They are really into this project and that makes it even more fun!

Farm Fresh Eggs!

Donnelly is a quiet, charming little town.  One of the focal points of the town is the charming and tasty respite of Flight of Fancy coffee shop (best pecan and maple bars ever) with it's wonderful little Glory Bee market.  I stopped into the market on my way back from teaching to pick up some eggs, and this is what I found:

I love it.  AND, they are the prettiest, nicest eggs I've found in this here valley.

Queen Bee Night Cream with Royal Jelly

On other fronts, I am still building my ETSY store with my Thea's Bee Beautiful  products.  I just posted listings for my Everyday Lip Balm and Everyday Lip and First Aid Balm.  Part of the process of doing these listings is discovering all the photos I need in order to properly display and showcase a listing.  A few days ago, I found I needed a photo of my Queen Bee Night Cream with Royal Jelly in both the 1 oz. and travel size for my website updates.  It was a brilliant sunny day and I needed an excuse for a walk by the river with my trusty dog anyway.  So I packed my travel basket with product, my camera, and ...  for some mysterious reason...  this fabulous crystal globe my mother-in-law gave me years ago.  And darn if it wasn't just the perfect thing.  Look at this photo:  The light was zinging through the globe and was entirely too bright.  Solution?  Put a jar of night cream in front of the shaft of light! The jar seems to glow from within which is what it also does for your skin.

I've chatted quite a bit now.  I so enjoy writing these blogs and know they tend to be lengthy, so I thank you for opening and reading them!  I leave you with another picture I took during the Queen Bee photo shoot of an old sheep herder bridge across the Payette River: