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October 29, 2006

Shut my mouth

Peter and I went for a little drive in the countryside yesterday afternoon, taking our sweet time on a circuitous route to Hockey Mom's, stopping to browse at Reed's Odds & Ends (we got an old Risk game with all the pieces for 5 bucks!) and counting the Waffle Houses. I have been living in Georgia for nearly a year and a half now, and this was the first time I had ever seen a cotton field. I was pretty excited; Peter was willing to pull over to let me take pictures, but drew the line at allowing me to get out and pick some and look for boll-weevils.

North Georgia is nothing if not ugly. I tried to make it prettier by taking the photo through the windshield in order to give it that Japanese woodcut blue wash at the top, but still. Meh.

Posted by jodi at 11:29 AM | Comments (4) | categories:  athens : jet set

October 23, 2006

silent hands

Those of you who know me in real life will be surprised to hear that I have not worn any of my bracelets since July. For those of you who do not know me in real life: for more than ten years now I've worn a collection of silver (okay, silver-coloured mostly) bangles and black jelly bracelets on my left wrist that I never take off except to make paper, to make bread, or during those periods when I injured my wrist enough to need to wrap it up. And when I got this tattoo. I initially started wearing them because Peter has silver bangles on HIS left wrist, and I thought it was cool and the sound they made was beautiful and I wanted to be like him. Neither of us takes them off to sleep, and the soft tinkling as one or both of us flops over in the night is always a comfort: it's the sound of my body, and the sound of my beloved.

July was unbearably, gut-wrenchingly hot; having returned home from Georgia I should have been able to handle it, but we don't use air conditioning and there were nights where I thought that the solid mass of heat in our bedroom would press on my chest until it had stopped my breathing completely. When I was wiping the mixture of rust and sweat off my arm three times a day and finding a rash developing beneath, I realized that the bracelets had to go for a while. I'd intended to put them back on when the weather cooled off, but it didn't, and then I had to come back to Georgia and, well, it's Georgia. Too hot. For the first month I felt terribly off balance, like the left side of my body was too light, too flimsy. It's been four months and sometimes I still feel that way, especially when working with my hands, printing, knitting and sewing. And in bed, every time I roll over and that familiar sound isn't there.

So yesterday I put one of my bracelets back on. I'll add them slowly, just one or two a week, to give myself some time to get used to the feel again. I've started with the largest and heaviest bracelet I have: it's stainless steel and was made by a blacksmith I know, a child of the steppes who now lives in the hills of West Virginia, named Lucianne (pronounced "Le-Shawn"). She made two of them and I bought them right off her arm, one for me and one for Peter. Peter's is smaller and more delicate; mine is heavy and clunky. The "his" version, I suppose.

And just two short nights from now, Peter and I will be together again and I'll be comforted by the gentle clank of his arm in the night for a few precious sleeps.

I've cross posted this from my flickr page, because I'm a lazy slag that way.

Posted by jodi at 09:03 PM | Comments (7) | categories:  self-absorbtion

October 22, 2006

better than the Boomerang at La Ronde

This month has been crazy. I'm getting a lot of work done, and it's work I'm excited about, but everything else seems to be just on the verge of falling apart. This is that point in the semester where I get sick to death of everything I'm doing and just want it to end so I can start fresh, a cycle I'll have to break myself of when I'm no longer in school (incidentally, Peter recently informed me that thus far I have spent 24 of my 34 years in school, including this year. I'm really looking forward to being finished with school forever).

Here is the piece I worked all day Friday and a few hours on Saturday installing for this week's exhibition:

I'll travel the Atlantic flyway with a hummingbird on my back, 2006

It's not at all what I intended but I think I'm happy with it. You can see a few more images at my flickr page, and I'll put up some more after the reception on Tuesday. Here's a detail of the birds flying home:

I'm feeling desperate to go home, and little things keep adding to that desperation. Things like the temperature going back up to 85 just when I think it might finally be fall, running out of money on the first of the month (a record for me, I think) and my colleagues not knowing who the Group of Seven are. But Peter will be here for a visit in three days, and I know winter break's not that far off. And then, this will be half over.

Posted by jodi at 10:49 AM | Comments (5) | categories:  in the studio

October 16, 2006

backseat quickie

Yesterday morning was spent entertaining a charming crowd of firefighters and campus police, who happily joined with Nara and I (the only crazies who come in and work at 8:30 on a Sunday morning) in a rousing game of "what's that burning smell?"; had I known they would all be so much fun and stay until lunchtime I would have ordered pizza or something. Tab the electrician was also called in, and despite having been to our building five days last week and now Sunday morning as well, turned down my offer to set up a nice cozy cot for him in the hall. Go figure.

As blogging hasn't been in the top of my mind of late, I didn't think to get the camera out until after they were gone. But let me tell you: I've never been the sort of girl to get all wet and bothered over a man or woman in uniform (except maybe a hockey school uniform), but hell some of those people were hot! You'll just have to imagine it instead. And imagine jackets coming off, releasing the acrid scent of the last fire as they fall to the floor; little slivers of hot firefighter and cop belly showing as they stand on a ladder with their heads in the ceiling, turning 360 degrees while sniffing to see what direction the burning was coming from. I must say I was not as impressed by this technology as I was with the heat seeking camera.

At any rate, they finally left and then I spent the afternoon putting the first applique layer on this quilt:

Posted by jodi at 06:59 AM | Comments (9) | categories:  in the studio

October 13, 2006

meet tab, boy electrician. fixes fuse boxes in a single bound.

I feel I'm becoming intellectually lazy, and I bore even myself with the endless "look what I made" and "I hate the weather". Creatively I'm thriving, working my arse off and loving it. But I feel I have little to say here other than show-and-tell, and can't muster up the energy most days to make the effort to write anything worthwhile when I could be letting my mind wander and doing something else, something more productive, with my hands. I've been hanging around on flickr a lot instead, and find the casual back-and-forth banter there much easier; more like a conversation and less like an essay. And it's so much less effort to just post a picture and say little.

So. I'm not abandoning this space. But until some of this crushing load of work lifts off my shoulders I might be scarce here; if you can't live without daily updates on every little thing I'm doing (and I know so many of you can't) then come on over to my flickr page and join in the conversation.

Posted by jodi at 08:28 AM | Comments (4) | categories:  self-absorbtion

October 11, 2006

mortuary (irving layton)

This winter, I will knit myself a pair of poetry mittens. Fingerless, with embroidered rather than knit-in text, so that I can control the letter style more to my liking. This is what they will say:

Flesh has fallen away. Trees
And buildings are summer's skeleton;
Wind has loosened, disarrayed
The separate ribs, the evidence of bone.
Dead, deposited relics
Shored up clean against a stiffened sky,
Fixed by the mortician cold
Moving his fingers over them ceaselessly;
While the snow, decently to inter,
Drifts between the spaces, everywhere.

Posted by jodi at 08:37 PM | Comments (4) | categories:  poetry : projects : true patriot love

October 09, 2006

Like tossing dollar bills from an eighth storey window

I know that a good portion of you don't give a rat's ass about me or my art or my bitchy opinions and potty mouth, but are here for the knit. Where's the knit, damn it??

I still do that, you know. It's just not a top priority right now.

Here are a few things I've been picking away at, only during spare moments or in transit:

This was my backseat-of-the-car project on the drive to Ohio and back for the MAPC conference last month. I haven't knit a stitch on it since, and likely won't pick it up again until at least the end of this month; perhaps by then I'll have decided whether or not I hate it. It's loosely based on Tubey from Knitty (sorry, I can't be arsed to put in links today; those of you who care know where to find this stuff and the rest, well, don't care). The shrug portion is one skein of Malabrigo, and I've made it short and added a ribbed edge to make it look like Glampyre Stefanie's One Skein Wonder. The body is a recycled lambswool, and instead of ribbing and stripes I'm doing stockinette with a big fat spine-y cable down the centre front and back. The sleeves will be long, and green, and also probably have some sort of cable detail.

Do you think I'm going to look like some sort of Star Trek alien in this? Or like a sexy hot mama with a shrug over her sweater? None/all of the above?

This is Stefanie's Simple Knitted Bodice (from Stitch Diva Studios). I'm making the body and sleeves separately in order to have a contrasting yoke, and have eliminated the lace detail on the body (I will still include it in the sleeves, though). The yoke is two skeins of Noro Silk Garden; I'd been hoarding the one skein of it that Bonnie sent me last year, and had to chase around to find another (discontinued colourway) in order to have enough for a yoke, then had to spit splice about eleventy-billion times to get the colours to sort of match up in front. Gah. The rust colour is a recycled wool/acrylic blend. Again, not sure yet if I like this or hate it, right now it looks a little like something I would have loved back in my neo-hippie days when I had hair so long I could stuff it in my jeans pockets. The drastically plungeing neckline, however, is definitely right up my alley.

I'm also working on something sexy and spring-y for Interweave, the deadline for which is fast approaching. So these two sweaters won't see much action for the next little while; I've got quilting and embroidery and printing and drawing and paper-cutting to do that has to take priority, as my continuance examination is coming up at the end of the semester. And a show in the courtyard gallery in two weeks to prepare for. I'm not too stressed out yet, but every night I get less sleep than the night before.

The glasses are holding together so far with glue; if they fall apart again I'll have to tape them, as I can't really foresee a time when I'll be able to buy new ones. But for now, they're still on my face.

Happy Thanksgiving, eh?

Posted by jodi at 10:37 AM | Comments (8) | categories:  sticks and string

October 08, 2006

thank you

I should be less ungrateful. I don't have to live on the street. I am healthy, as are most of the people I care about. I have found someone who loves me enough to encourage me to leave him and go 1200 km away in order to get a better education than I could get at home. My time here is almost half over. I finally feel like I'm good enough to be in grad school, and am making work I'm happy with for the first time in a long time. This afternoon I will phone my family, and then maybe I won't feel so alone, for a while.

And, at least I'm not completely blind without my glasses, which just now, as I typed, leapt off my face in two pieces that ran off in opposite directions, citing irreconcilable differences. That loose arm has already been spotted making the rounds of the singles bars; the lenses are inconsolable.

Posted by jodi at 03:12 PM | Comments (8) | categories:  self-absorbtion

October 03, 2006

overheard recently on the north/south bus, university of georgia: they really ought to make those signs a little more explicit

exhibit "A", last week sometime:

silly girl: these seats, where it says "please reserve these seats for seniors and the disabled"? I used to think that meant, hey, like I'm a senior? And isn't it nice that the freshmen have to move to let me sit here? But, like, then I found out it means old people.

exhibit "B", yesterday:

first guy: up here where the sign says "office of the president", I thought that meant Jimmy Carter or you know, like, someone else famous. Not just, like, some president guy of a university.

other guy: .......

So, by "someone else famous", do you think he meant, oh I don't know, some other former president of the United States, maybe? Or just any random famous person, like Paris Hilton or Donny Osmond or some guy who won on a reality tv show? Because, I could so like totally understand why those people, or some dead former US president, would have an office on a university campus way before, like, some president guy of that university.

(is Donny Osmond even famous anymore, or am I just dating myself again like when I talked to my drawing students the other day about how even in black and white we always knew that Gilligan's shirt was red because of the intensity of the gray tone and the one mature student was the only one who didn't glaze over?)

Posted by jodi at 11:28 PM | Comments (10) | categories:  athens : dumbass

I dreamed about this painting last night

One of my colleagues found this next to a dumpster behind the Vet School last year and hung it up in our studio hallway at Green Street. Later Audrey silkscreened the text on it as a test for this Hooper Turner painting.

So, I don't remember the context but this painting was in my dream last night. I think it may have been lying on the floor next to something red or partially covered with something red, but that's not really important to this story.

This morning at the studio, I came out of the computer lab to find Louise, our morning janitor, blocking the hallway with a garbage can (funny, it was a red can) and gazing at the painting, rapt. She didn't move the can out of the way as I approached so I walked up behind her and said, "I dreamed about this painting last night".

Louise said, "what was it doing?". I said I didn't remember and she said, "it stops me every time" (for full effect you must imagine this spoken softly in a sweet southern accent, it stahps me every tahhhm).

Every day, Louise stops in the hallway and stares at this painting. Should we give it to her?

Posted by jodi at 12:03 AM | Comments (5) | categories:  dumbass