Updates and Life Lessons

A lot has happened since my last post about migraines and red bugs. I:


- Went to Toronto for a day. It feels so much more like home than Burlington. I drank great coffee, toured through the textile museum, bought fine paper, and had fun picking out goatskin for a little side project. 


- Learned that food colouring is food-grade aniline dye. That's coal tar, baby. Coal tar in your food. That chat was actually the second-most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. Forced into, like when your grandmother made you talk to her friends at the supermarket when all you wanted to do was buy jam.


- Realized that a lot of people here don't take me seriously, probably because I am young. We'll come back to this in a minute.


- Made beautiful, beautiful grey from walnuts. 


- Went on a hectic one day road trip to Montreal to see the Gaultier retrospective. High fashion and chocolate mousse were well worth 14 hours in a car.    


- Got a bike! It's an old 5-speed cruiser. Heavy and gorgeous as any cruiser can be. Handles like a dream. 


- Organized a natural dye demo for this Wednesday and was subsequently embroiled in the most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. It was actually an email exchange that I had to step away from, even though that meant letting someone else win...




I've been feeling for a while now that I'm treated differently because of my age. To be specific, I'm treated like a kid instead of a fully capable, educated adult. It's a weird thing to think about and maddening to experience, and in almost every iteration of defining it to others I sound like an unappreciative jackass. I do value the help and guidance I'm receiving! I DO! But there's a difference between support and hand-holding, and these hands do not want or need to be held.    


I was very much looking forward to being creatively challenged during this residency, but I didn't foresee every other punch thrown my way. Being an AIR here is trying my patience, my emotional strength, my grace, my ability to adapt, my common sense, my ideas of what I want to do with my life and whom I want to do it with, my budgeting skills, my faith in the universe, my bonds with the people I love, and so much more. 


I imagine, after six months of being irked and goaded and babied, there will be nothing left to bother me. I will be as tranquil as the moon. Direct as an arrow. More resilient than stone. Slower to anger than a glacier. 

A Big Sack of Bugs

I haven't written much in the past couple of days, both for the blog and to friends and family, because I've been terribly homesick and lonely. Every time I tried to sit down and peck out anything the tears would start and then it would all go downhill from there. 


Having a migraine kind of stops you from feeling sorry for yourself and just makes you wish you were dead, so while it may only be a lateral move, I can at least say I'm not sobbing. 


Today was actually okay. Instead of sleeping in until the glorious late morning hours and prancing around dusting things and drinking tea at home, I hauled my cold and miserable ass out of bed and went in to the studio for a colour theory workshop taught by the fabulous William Hodge. 


You can never take too many colour theory classes. It's fascinating and invaluable and you always learn something new. William is, in a way, responsible for my residency. He's also blunt and hilarious and knows colour inside and out. TAKE ANY COURSE HE OFFERS BECAUSE HE IS AMAZING. Did I mention I like him? 


So I got a brutal migraine about an hour and a half into the class. Someone gave me some advil and it helped take the edge off, but it's pretty hard to work with colour when light itself is trying to kill you. There were some upsides:


1. William Hodge is awesome for a lot of reasons. One of them being he gave me a god damned bag of cochineal. Just picked it up on a trip to a cochineal plantation during a vacation, heard I liked natural dyes and thought I might like half a pound. No big deal. 


2. Spending at least half an hour in the solarium's tropical plant-filtered air does a body a world of good. Two goldfish live there whom I will name, befriend, and consider pets for the duration of my time here. 


3. Due to my raging migraine, three people took pity on me and offered to drive me home. 


Let's get back to the cochineal. I had planned on using natural dyestuffs from the neighbourhood for my colour duing this residency, but let's be honest here. When life gives you free cochineal, you grind up those bugs and dye things red. I've got unlimited access to cochineal, walnuts, horse chestnuts, rose hips, osage orange, and a number of other potential dye plants. Obviously cochineal isn't a plant, but it'll satisfy my need for red and flesh (ha!) out my palette. 


Again, I wish this was a dyeing residency and not a weaving one! I made up a couple of fine cotton warps yesterday to get the ball rolling with the weaving thing. The Christmas sale is coming up and I want to weave some scarves and colour them with natural dyes and eco-printing. I've barely done anything on cotton, so I'm very much looking forward to testing it out. 


William mentioned one of his students made a ten-step colour triangle using natural dyes. Insane? Yes. I want to do that too. 

Camilla Valley Dream

Yesterday Nancy and I took a day trip to Collingwood and the surrounding area. I popped into a tiny bookstore called the Crow's Nest and chatted up the ladies who run it (there's an art gallery on the second floor, a delightful children's section in the basement, and two beautiful afghan hounds snoozing behind the counter), and grabbed a fantastic americano from a cafe down the street. 

Don't let looks fool you, the decrepit Crow's Nest is a hidden gem.

And then we drove to Camilla Valley Farm, a famous yarn supplier and picturesque farm. It's gorgeous. We spent over two hours perusing their stock and fondling yarn. I had to put down so many lovely things. Sigh. 

This little grey building houses all your dreams. 

The most adventurous hen making sure everything's okay. 

Between my family (over the weekend I traipsed all over London and St. Thomas, saw Elton John live, ate at an incredible Italian place (Spagos. GO THERE.), and was surrounded by hectic love for three days) and the Guild members, I will see all of Ontario before Christmas.