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August 13, 2008

a stupendous lack of focus

Ten or eleven years ago in another town in what seems now like another life, I returned home from Pennsic to find the most splendid wrong number message on my answering machine:

(each work delivered slowly, with theatrical emphasis): "After having his fill of Starbucks coffee, Blair has returned from his vacation."

(sung, slowly and seductively, and with great feeling on the last two syllables): "caaaallll meeee, I emm-eye-ess-ess-eee-dee YOUUUU!"

I sort of wish I still had that message saved so I could play it back to myself every time I come home from being away. And I wish I knew this Blair dude.

It's slowly sinking in that August is half over and here I am at home, on my own front porch which is nowhere near Georgia or school. I keep sniffing the air, looking at late-season flowers whose blooms I haven't seen in four years, grinning and sighing. It might be driving Peter crazy, I'm not sure. All I know is that I missed the end of summer trememdously. Late in October when it's cold and miserable here and I remember how lovely and warm it still is in Georgia, where I'm not, I may change my tune. But for right now it feels awfully good to be here. Tonight I will eat my first Southern Ontario sweet corn in four years, and over the next few weeks I'll put up jars of Leamington tomatoes for winter. Forgive me, but I feel another of those contented sighs coming on.

My professional life is not such a picture of contentment. I have plenty of ideas and little motivation. I want to do a design collaboration with a local business, I want to do another performance similar to Study for a Remnant Factory (only with a knitting machine), and I want to organize a fashion show, and for these I actually have to go out and meet people and ask for things and all that hard stuff. As well, a lot of deadlines are coming up in the fall for exhibitions and residencies, but this is the easy part (asking people for things in writing is always easier). I'd like to pick up where I left off with the knitwear design but I feel like I have too many ideas and can't focus. And then there's this job I'm thinking about applying for. And then there are these ten dresses that need their hems hand sewn before I can print on them and put them up for sale in my shop. And then, and then. . .

I did find the time to update the portfolio section of my website and my curriculum vitae (how good it felt to delete the words "candidate for" in the education part!). And I added to my "works in progress" page this collaborative piece that Jessica and I have started:

We've already sent out a proposal to show this work (which is very much still in progress) abroad, and if that doesn't pan out we'll have plenty of time to find somewhere else to show it since we'll be working on it for almost a year. To see a statement about the work in progress, go here. To offer me a job or a publication or a show or some kind words or a date to walk downtown and drink tea, please do so here: jodi(at)jodigreen(dot)ca.

By the way, as it turns out there was very little bad weather at Pennsic this year, and thus very little in the way of hysterical claims of tornadoes and monsoons and what have you (a Pennsic rarely goes by when people with walkie-talkies aren't going around telling us there's some sort of natural disaster on its way). We rarely left our own camp, preferring to laze away the days in the company of our dear friends. There was knitting, whiskey and a cool breeze off the lake flowing right through our kitchen (wilderness camping this is not: we have a large kitchen tent and sitting room, a heated shower, running warm water for the washing up and portojohns within sight of our front gate). The pirates and belly bunnies were so plentiful it was hard to choose which to shiv first. And yes, I did indeed see a man wearing a loincloth, ugg boots and a banana. Truly the vacation that has it all.

Posted by jodi at August 13, 2008 10:30 AM | categories:  art stuff : jet set

Comments

Posted by: kelly at August 14, 2008 01:35 PM