The Fisherman's Thought

The Fisherman's Thought

While there is time before Father's Day, I've been thinking about what men think about.  I can ask Friedrick at any time, "What song are you singing in your head?"  And he'll come back with an instant answer.  It might be Seven Bridges Road, Amy, Beautiful Tonight, Rock and Roll Heart, St. James Infirmary, Faded Memory, or just about anything.  When you open your mind to a little mental picture of going fishing, do you see a lunker trout rise up out of the misty water to take your hand-tied fly?

I have the coolest Brother-In-Law.  He's the guy who saved the Air Force hundreds of thousands of dollars by coming up with a better way to de-ice the wings of airplanes.  That was when he was a chemist.  Now he's a CPA.  Maybe I relate to him because he's kinda like me... a nerd about many things, with a curious mind and (perhaps unlike me..) the knowledge to 'go there.'

For him, tax season is like a marathon race.  By April 16th, he's overworked and ready for about a week of healing at fishing camp on Lake Tenkiller or someplace else.  So, knowing that he hasn't been playing the scenario of a big lunker trout nearly often enough these days, I made him this little window into a thought about trout fishing.  And pheasants.  It is made of 1/8 inch pine with copper trim, Bombay mahogany finish and lots of little tinkering parts from watches or something.  It is about eight inches tall at the arch, and just a tad smaller between the windows than a business card. 

I would love to do a custom piece for you to give for a Father's Day present.  Email me ( ktibbits@lrec.org ) if you have a special guy who'd like a window expressing his favorite things--- sports or nascar, guitars or fighting roosters, his family and favorite book, or just something extremely avante garde and wierd.  Heck, I can come up with the ideas if you're at a loss for something really kampy and cool.

Depression Era Wall Quilt, Framed

I made this textile piece for Salina Clinic, and it is framed by NDN Art Gallery in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  Remember those wonderful aprons you might have seen your grandmother wearing when she was haning out clothes on the clothesline?  My grandmother, Lizzie Carter, had one that had big pickets and contrasting piping, and it had a bib front with a button or sash in the back.  Some of those were made from flour sacks.  Back then, in the days before carry-out food, women cooked every meal at home and men would sometimes carry a lunch pail or come home for lunch.  People mostly lived on garden goods which they grew themselves.  My grandmother lived near the peddler man whose house was on Lee Street.  He would come around in a cart drawn by a horse or horses, with a load of produce on the back in a cart, and right there at your home you could pick out some great food grown fresh, to fix for the next few meals.  My memories are from the 1960s in Tahlequah Oklahoma, but my father Gene Carter remembers earlier days.  Women would buy bulk flour and sugar in big sacks about the size of a pillowcase, and they'd rip the seam open, to make a yard of material.  At the store you could choose which fabric sack you wanted, and women would save them up for sewing a dress, apron, shirt or quilt.  Flour sack quilts and yard goods in the 1930s were bright and colorful--- social historians say that folks wanted bright colors because the economy made their lives drab.  But I don't think life was that drab.  Earlier colors were, though--- the dark and sad shades of the nineteen twenties and teens gave way to these bright colors, about when new dyestuffs and chemistry were being innovated.  An earlier blog featured "Trip Around The World" variation quilt--- one in my collection of antique quilts.  This little quilt is a miniature abstract variation on that vintage quilt, and it features authentic reproduction fabrics documented for that same time period.  Not all of these designs were flour or feed sack or cornmeal sacks.  Some were yard goods of the time.  Back then, bolts were usually 28 inches wide in cotton, and printed using a roller method on one side of the fabric.

This mini was made by stripping reproduction fabrics then turning the "stripes" sideways and making each one into a square... or often a rectangle.  Then I used black to pair the postagestamp blocks into one-inch blocks (approximately) and pieced them like a log cabin, only in reverse.  The resulting optical effect is a spiral moving from the center, outward, clockwise like the passage of time.  In the middle is a Cherokee Star.  That's a golf ball at the bottom.  It was phtographed behind a golf ball, sort of by accident.


This peice is spoken-for and will be acquired by Cherokee Nation Entertainment.  Cherokee Nation passed a law allocating a percentage of each building's construction budget for the purchase of original Cherokee art for the building decor.  That's a wonderful law because it keeps artists fed, and keeps the arts communital in vitality.  Thanks to Cherokee Nation and CNE for buying this textile art.

Murder Mystery Weekend

Dennis and I are headed to Eureka Springs for a Murder Mystery at an 18th century bed & breakfast cottage this weekend.  I forget why I dread leaving home--- I was taught that one should always clean house before going.  So I've swabbed the toilets in case the cats knock over both water bowls, vacuumed in case we need to send someone into the house while we are gone, done up the dishes to deter pests, washed all laundry, put away Winter quilts, packed clothes and Edwardian costumes, and carried out the trash.  Well, OK, I am going to carry out the trash next.  Changed the litter box, put out food for all the critters, watered the plants and erased excess email.  Now I'm so tired that I'll welcome to adventure with no regrets!  Hope to have some cool pics to post when home, about Monday.

Got Plans?

On Sunday March 7th, join us for a fundraiser for Dave Holbrook.  For years at Kooter Brown's Music Tavern at Caney Ridge (Barber), Dave hosted fundraisers for every cause and every person in need.  When Granny Sowers needed a truck, Kooters hosted a bikers' event.  When STIR needed a place to host a 3-day Songwriters' Earth Day Weekend Jam, Dave kindly offered Kooters--- and organized a Poker Run too.

A week ago, Kooter's new location in Tahlequah caught fire and much of the restaurant and bar were destroyed.  This fire also took the life of Jewely Herrington next door who owned Jewely's Pet Grooming.  Dave claims he had some hand in naming Jewely's business.  (She had intended to call it Jewely's Doggy Styles but Dave pointed out the ambiguity in that business brand.)   Jewely was a sweet and beautiful woman, and she will be missed very much.

So tomorrow, we're going to try and balance the scale of Karma just a little bit, by raising some money to help Dave with whatever is next for him in his life-- whether it be to start over or just walk away from his business and his baby that he had just opened on New Years' Eve or thereabouts.

Sometimes in life we seem to have our path in front of us in a clear way, only to discover that fate has moved the foot path.  But when it happens we can find the best in everything and not let fear of changes be an added obstacle. Our ability to cope is directly related to our ability to cope.  In other words, the sooner that we accept facts and look to the future, the sooner we can move on and adapt.

Sunday, come to Scooter Music Tavern at SH51 and the Bypass for great music, free food and some of the best folks you could ever call friends.  There, you can get a sense of  the kind of friendship that pulls people thru tragedies.  Dave and I both lost a parent within the last 5 weeks, and   we know first-hand how much we're loved by the people we love too.  There will be some good musical jam.  Hours are 3 pm to 1 am Sunday at Scooters.  Bring an auction item, or bring money to buy some cool stuff from the auction table.  Dennis Tibbits will be the auctioneer.

Invitation

We're debuting a new 3-man combo on Saturday March 6th at KTK Steakhouse in Tahlequah, about 6:30 to 9:30.  The food is excellent there.  I recommend the filet mignon and cream brulee, sweet potatoes and french onion soup.

Dennis Tibbits, Leonard McCracken and me, Fluffy, will be playing.  Leonard jams with us often at Scooters and elsewhere, so we think we'll have a wide reportoire of songs that listeners request as well as some local originals that are pretty popular.

When we play, someone always requests, "Chicken Poop."  I hesitate to even put those words in a blog because internet filters may hide my blogs.  But last week a bus driver told us that all 30 of his bus kids sing that song as they toodle down the dirt roads.  I have this wonderful mental picture of kids growing up to help clean up water pollution to the river because they've heard the simple compelling story in a song.

Citrus & Raspberry Charmeuse Silk

 

Citrus & Raspberry Charmeuse Silk Scarf

I have mixed feelings about silk.  I love the texture and it is divine to hand-dye because one never knows what will happen.  It is unpredictable--- or maybe I just have not worked with it enough to know what to expect.  I've almost never had a bad experience with it.

But then, it is made from the destruction of silk worm cocoons.  I've bought them before, the pecan-sized white cocoons that would pass for papier mache.  Unwind the threads or tear them apart, and inside is a withered little caterpillar.  That's the creepy part.  How can something so beautiful come from a background of destructiveness?

So yes, I do wear silk sometimes.  And I work with it professionally as a textile artist.  But somehow the ugly little secret about silk's origins is always there as a sadness in the back of my mind.  Shifting to vegan products is certainly a possibility.

This gorgeous silk charmeuse scarf is big and wide.  I'll be listing it soon at etsy, if I haven't already.  It is $15.

Urban Trends

In Europe, more people live on every square mile of land than here in America.  In Jamaica, there are vast unoccupied areas of beautiful lush jungle habitat, and yet people there also surround themselves with an intentional urban landscape.  It is a beautiful and functional landscape. 

Not too long ago, I stayed at a little cluster of cottages in Jamaica.  The owner’s dad was sitting on the step one morning as I went for a walk to find a vendor selling nice local Blue Mountain coffee.  “124 mangoes ripe,” this elder gentleman (in his late 80s) informed me.  He gestured toward the big fruit tree which shadowed overhead like an umbrella, and to the ripe fruit all around on the ground.   He was inviting me to breakfast, in a Jamaican casual way.  There was something verdant and abundant about a tree lavishing big ripe mangoes for as many as 124 passers by.  Fruit trees are like that.  

(My daughter, sitting outside Mikey's at Green Leaf Cabins in Negril, Jamaica.  Local men sit around and play dominoes there, faster than I can do the math.  If you visit Seven Mile Beach at Sun Beach, stop by and see my tiedye fashions for sale in Jennifer's Gift Shop there at Green Leaf Cabins, on Norman Manley Boulevard.  And don't miss one of the best roadside jerk chicken grills called "Best of the West." ) 

By urban landscape, I’m not talking about skyscrapers and utility lines, and parking lots.  Outside of America, most of the people living in fertile regions with a moderate climate, surround their homes with an edible, or otherwise useful, landscape.

Driving down Mexico’s Emerald Coast on a road trip, you can still see people living in modest little homes who use horses or mules to press sorghum in their front yard.  The animals, strapped to something like the horse exercise carousels in Oklahoma, go round and round.  This cinches and presses the canes, which are like bamboo, to crush out the juice.  A family member or neighbor with a big paddle stirs and cooks the sap over an open fire in the yard, making the sweet and iron-rich molasses which will be used for cooking or as a table condiment.

Further South, visit the Mexican village (now a city) of Papantla and you will find a culture of vanilla there.  It is grown by many.  Seller after seller features their vanilla beans in the local farmers market.  Some grow extra, and trade it for other needed things such as tools and labor.

Other places yet, one may find an informal guild of  weavers or potters, silversmiths or luthiers.  In families and among neighbors they hand down the technology of their craft. 

In America, we have some analogies.  SPIN farming is small-plot intensive gardening.  It is a new trend in Oklahoma.  People share learning so they can grow food on small patios or in a small but rich deep garden plot.  Even smaller, one can  buy a little kitchen nanogarden taking up less than 2 square feet of space and capable of yielding fresh herbs year round.  And in rural places dotting the Oklahoma roadsides and backroads, the landscape still has vestiges of subsistence farming from the past— some farmhouse amidst fruit trees often with the signs of a past garden plot.  These are landmarks, whispering a bit of the history of the past or future. 

Revitalizing urban homesteads, I predict, will grow more popular as more and more people  reach a point of change and authenticate their consumer consciousness.  We seem to be ‘regionalizing and localizing’ in our preferences.  Local food.  Regional music.  Shopping as an adventure to find unique and individual things instead of things mass-produced machine-made disposables.

 

Maker Fairs are springing up as a weekend happening in large urban areas.  People go to see Indie artisans and gadgety inventor geeks at work and play.  Visitors can sometimes pay to make their own stuff there onsite at some of the booths.  What girlie girl would not love to make herself a purse which illuminates inside with LED lights when opened?  At a Maker Fair, Guys can punch leather, rig a little robot for the coffee table, or make a bookshelf that appears to have no visible means of support.  There, you might find  a floating MP3 speaker inside of a mylar balloon.    

Sooner or later, we have a hankering to live in a world with our imprints.  Learning to do cool stuff is a dividend in customizing an intentional lifestyle.  

Resources:  Read about the pole diving religion of Cempoala Totonacs at http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totonac ;   Yardify your food at okspinfarmcoop, a yahoo group.  Make stuff:  www.instructables.com .  Get bits here:  http://store.makezine.com/  See that speaker:  http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/554