I Think the Clouds Are More Purple Than Blue

I should be reading Technopoly right now. But I’m at a computer in the library flipping through flickr photos and listening to hail on the window. It’s raining so hard, I can hardly see out. Run, Lady With Blue Shirt, run! You ought to have brought your umbrella if you were so determined to straighten your pretty hair.

*Good* assigned reading.

Bah. BAH!!

Sadly, my camera froze to death. I might have to start drawing illustrations instead. Maybe it’ll be good practice.

Hide on Hiatus

I went snowshoeing in the marshlands today instead.

Marshlands and woodlands. Just outside the suburbs.

Snowshoe compadres.

Honey, Let’s Play Hookey ‘Cause It Snowed Last Night…

…and tonight, and tomorrow night, and Friday….

Bah. Bah humbug. I’m supposed to be on the road right now. But due to a few circumstances and forces of nature, I’m here until Saturday. Don’t get me wrong – being at home is not a bad thing. Not to me. But I hate breaking momentum when it comes to road tripping. It took me a whole five hours to convince myself it was okay. The next two days are going to be fantastically productive, though. They need to be. I’m ticked. So ticked I might clean.

I only clean when I’m in a fantastically good mood or a fantastically bad one.

On the bright side (glower), I can finish tanning the deer hide from the relative comfort of my basement. Here’s the update:

After one day of Murphys: the oil/fat is still floating to the surface. I keep scraping it off and applying more Murphy's.

Today - it's turning dry, stiff, and white. I think that's right. Is that right?

The fur is so beautiful. I'm so sad I've been soaking it. I should have stretched the whole pelt. The fur's not weak enough from the epson salts to scrape off yet, but I'll try again tomorrow (2.5 days). *Sniff*

My trusty workspace, freshly mopped. Note the retro kerosene heater. It's toasty. Where're my marshmallows... Actually, it melted a heavy-duty plastic tub. Is that not slightly scary? It was very twisty afterwards and I had fun playing with it.

Morgan (dog) got into the basement and tasted some Murphy’s and deer fat. We’re monitering her for ill-effects, but she’s okay so far.

Stupid dog. Good thing she’s so cute…

J/K Morgan. You’re smart.

25 Bottles of Rootbeer on the Wall

Once it dons its glass bottle, it becomes the drink of champions.

It is, after all, my elixer of motivation.

The past week or so has been rough, folks. On the bright side, I’ve knit a hat and begun the tanning process on a deer hide. I’ve also finished season one of Lost. Gooood show.

Yet for some reason I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. I think it’s the black hole syndrome – when you’re half-conscious, you don’t realize you’re doing anything at all. Hmmm. It’s back to school soon, though, so I’ve got to pull myself together.

It’s a dog…on my futon.

In the meantime: Tanning From the Home (and Heart!)

Honestly, I don’t know if I should even hope for a smidgeon of decent leather from this enterprise. There are a million virtual recipes online and very few chemical breakdowns (i.e. This-Is-What-Happens-At-A-Chemical-Level-During-This-Process-So-You-Can-Find-Your-Own-Materials-Instead kind of articles). Thankfully, through a combing of blogs and Lowe’s employees, I’ve pieced together my own Process.

STEP 1. Find someone with a dead deer and a big knife. Procure that already-detached hide.

STEP 2. Flesh the hide. This involves scraping/cutting all the membrane, tissue, fat, muscle, misc. off the hide. the actual hide is the SAME COLOR AS THE FAT. It’s just a little (little tiny!!) bit dryer. The fat must come off. The skin must stay put. Experiment on a little side piece until you’re sure you know the difference. Also, youtube.com really comes in handy. Also, also…do this with the hide draped over something round like a pvc pipe or a log. I did not discover this trick until the very end. If I had earlier, the process would have probably only taken two hours as opposed to six. DO NOT SALT/DRY OUT THE HIDE BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS! You will be dealing with stubborn jerky. I learned this also from youtube.

Note the cunning little cherry apron that Mom sewed for me.

STEP 3. Brine that sucker. This can mean either (a) packing it with common NaCl (non-iodized) salt and letting it sit in a freezer/other cold environment for about a month or (b) soaking it in a nearly saturated salt solution (salt+water). “Nearly saturated” means the salt ratio is so high that there are more salt molecules than the water molecules can deal with. Think Great Salt Lakes salt slushy. This step sucks the moisture out of the hide so that the salt can bind with the moisture, get sucked back in, and preserve it. After this step, if done properly, a person can dry out the hide and store it for a bit before actually tanning it.

STEP 4. (OPTIONAL!!!) De-fur that sucker with something high-alkaline. I’ve read to use a diluted lime+hardwood ashes solution, then a diluted vinegar solution to stop the alkaline action. Lowe’s guy told me that epson salts work just as well. Soak the hide until the hairs are easily scraped off, scrape ‘em off, then rinse the hide well. Native Americans just weighted down the hide in a fast-moving stream and let the water do all the work. Hmph.

I wish I could find a fast-moving stream.

STEP 5. Tan it! This process involves removing all the fats/oils that will corrode and replacing them with new oils that will preserve the hide. There are all sorts of recipes for this involving alum, etc., and sites recommending that you buy a solution professionally made. The best I know of is the brain technique, which uses parts of the deer that would otherwise be scrapped. The details are thick in the blogsphere, and I won’t go over it because I’m not sure I’d get it all right. Stale pee is also acceptable (somehow).

As for me – I’m using Murphy’s Soap-Oil. I’ll let you know how that goes. All I know now is that it’s taking out the fats all right. It takes out the fats and mixes to form this foamy slime that hangs in ropes. YUMMY.

 

Stretched and Slimy.

Close-Up.

Half I’m keeping the fur on, half off. I need leather for my muckaluck commissions (knitted boots).

Hopefully the fur part will be tanned by tomorrow night, because I’m planning on taking the other hairless part back to AR with me in my hatchback, slathered in Murphy’s, well-sealed in a tub. I just don’t feel like dealing with two tanning hides on my trip back.

Wool-Ease/Acrylic-Sleaze….BAH.

My theory: the little brown fuzzies are the lamb's wool. Why...?

Lion Brand Yarn: Wool-Ease, Thick and Quick. You promised me nothing you didn’t deliver. Wool-acrylic blend. Without even bothering to seek out the ratio, I snatched you off the Hancock shelves… but I ought to have known better.

However, I feel as though all my yarn store snobbery has been officially justified.

86% acrylic. 10% wool. 4% rayon.

...because those were the only fibers that held dye.

Never have lamb fleeces been so pointlessly incorporated.

Why even bother listing wool as an ingredient? I suppose my first clue should have been the advert: “machine washable and dryable!” Seriously…Wool-Ease. No shame.

It soaked in this dye bath for ten hours.

And this is the result. The color is draining out further, even as I type.

Again, I only blame myself for this pointless foray into the world of dye and acrylic. Never again will I assume that a product has enough wool to hold color merely because that’s what it is named.

Fantastic for some projects, be then as it may. Click here for the official site!

Mysteries of the ‘Verse

Dying ceramics somehow seperates the pigments.

I used the standard egg-dying process: 2 Tbs. vinegar, 3/4 cup hot water, 2 tsp. food coloring (per jar).

Green-blue dye seperated into yellows and seafoam greens.

Blue-green to right, violet to left.

The violet batch. Some red clay was present, and it soaked up all the red pigment, leaving a true blue on the rest. In a few days, the ceramics absorbed it more fully and the pigments faded from the surface a little.

But the question remains:

Why did they seperate in the first place?

Dead Week Kick-Off

Kurt's "Intense Focus Face." Not "Bad Mood Face," as my housemate thought.

It’s that time again, folks. Deadweek. The week of test preparations.

Or, if you’re an art student, the week of project deadlines.

If you’re an independent study art student, it’s the week to evaluate how little you’ve accomplished in proportion to your overblown self-expectations.

So this weekend I took a minor road trip to visit Kurt in Oklahoma. It was a belated birthday celebration of sorts involving chess, Mexican food, and Saturday Night Live. Also Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I also brought a blank canvas and my oil paints so I could make him a belated birthday present. So I sat him down in a nice, comfy papazan chair, converted the kitchen trashcan into a makeshift easel, plugged in Afro Samurai, and spent an intense two hours of alla prima oil painting (where you paint everything in one sitting, start to finish).

Yes indeed. Afro Samurai himself, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. More pressurized blood and deadly stuffed animals than you can shake a stick at. Or a paintbrush, for that better. But fantastically done from an artistic standpoint.

I think my style was slightly influenced. But it might be all in my head.

Just before I hit the road to get there Friday night, we (ceramics class) completed another raku firing. Nothing happened this time…no accidents…no close calls, even. I need to get my adrenaline fix elsewhere, because we’re just getting too good.

At least the holes in the gloves give some sort of excitement. I can remove things until the gloves begin to smoke. The catch is stopping before the flames start.

Here are a few interesting tidbits about raku for those who have little know-how:

(i.e. things I’ve learned in the past month)…

1. Tongs can be used as a stable extension of the kiln handle, so the opener’s arm hair can remain intact.

2. Raku firings need a special team of three: an opener (for the kiln lid), a remover (operating tongs), and a guy-who-throws-on-sawdust-and-shoves-bucket-overtop-and-down-into-the-sand.

3. Just because the glaze doesn’t say “raku” doesn’t mean you can’t try it…if there are metal oxides, it can be reduced.

4. Bandannas keep hair alive and intact.

5. It really is better to do it outside, if at all possible. Some funky fumes happen.

6. All that junk on there afterwards…you can scrub that off.

Pre-Comet

Post-Comet

The buttons on the top row are the “Shake It And Scream” technique taught to me by a good friend. Rapidly cooling the glaze forms major cracks, and smoking it immediately after forces carbon down into the cracks, outlining a spiderweb pattern of black.

The bottom row is the “Reduction” technique, where you place the buttons on the combustibles and seal it as soon as possible, forcing the heat to eat all the oxygen in the air and turn to the glaze, ripping out those oxygens through a chemical process, turning the metal oxides back to their pure metal form. The longer the glaze is exposed to the air, the more the color and less the metallic effect. Any exposed bisque is smoked black.

Reduction firing - I used a traditional raku glaze and a "normal" glaze called Antique Green, which contained oxidized copper."Shake and Scream" yellow (which didn't get shook long enough, hence the lack of spiderweb) and Antique Green (reduced).

Also, I tried to burn off strategic areas of carbon off a different pot I had previously smoked (harharhar…yeah…I know…get over it).  At first, I figured kerosine and rags would do the trick.

It was buried in the sand to keep the outer shell's temperature cool to keep its carbon on. I didn't need to worry though, because a little fire like this didn't burn hot enough or long enough to make much of a difference.

So…plan #2: de-smoking with a blow-torch.

I figured there wasn't much danger of setting the concrete floor on fire. So that's where I worked.

Despite my efforts to keep the torch moving and the heat consistent, the pot still cracked. It's okay, though, because they fit the piece. Once I figure out how to effectively light and photograph black objects, I'll post a good pic, because it worked in the end. The inside's white, fading to black as it approaches the opening.

Finally, since the pot was still warm from the blow-torch, I waxed the burnished surface. Waxing on a cold surface can produce a white residue after about a week; it’s important to melt it into the surface. Even in his treatises on fresco, Alberti recommends heating a waxed surface. Story old as time, song old as rhyme.

Post wax. Sooo shinyyyy....

Tripping Over Northern Arkansas

R.I.P. Rust In Pieces.

We stopped for milkshakes at a the Mountain View drug-store/soda-shop. Pictured here is my stalwart travelling companion.

While we drove, Kurt and I hashed and rehashed over our graphic novel plot: a lovely blend of southern gothic and classical legend.

Trespassing for the view.

The reason for the trespass. A couple of trucks drove up, though, and we scarpered. Northern Arkansas comes with an inherent respect for shotguns.

One of the resident angora goats at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View.

Church of the Free, home of the extra brave. There were trucks parked outside, so we assumed something was in business.

A gutted cayote strung up in a grisly way to warn off other predators. Or for extra cheer, as Christmas is just around the corner….

Okay. So I didn’t get the chance to finish the sweater. And the photos from the show have yet to be blogged. But they’re at home, and I’m at school, and I have these photos instead.

They were taken a few weekends ago. A contact from the Ozark Folk Center offered me two free bags of Angora goat seconds if I could get to Mountain View. I enthusiastically accepted, called Kurt and asked if he minded his visit turning into a road trip, and made plans to stay with a couple of cousins up in the hills.

Thus ensued a weekend of cultural immersion.

Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

Where in the world indeed.

So much has been happening these past few months. The hatchback and I have spent quality days and nights on the road together, along with Hemmingway on CD and a Southern Gothic or two just for variety. Every time I stop to write a blog entry, though, something runs amuck.

-I can’t get my photos off of flickr without a Mac.

-My computer shuts down or freezes.

-Overwhelming guilt at blogging instead of research-papering causes writer’s block.

But I can’t take it anymore. I just spend an hour on ravelry.com getting my project info in order, and now, although I can’t blog everything, I’m going to get some stuff on cyberspace so Left Brain can breathe a little easier. It’s equivelent to cleaning my room or organizing the spice cabinet (my roomie’s current guilty pleasure). Too many projects. Must make lists. Must organize brain.

Here are the places I’ve gone in the past month:

1. Savannah, Georgia – will blog later.

2. Greeneville, South Carolina – with K and family.

3. North Carolina – with K and family and more distant family.

4. Tennessee – with K and family and more and more distant family.

5. New Moon (3:00am showing) in Little Rock

6. Mountain View (stopping along the way to spend quality time with relatives) – with K. Will blog later.

I’m finally home from my latest excursion: Thanksgiving with my man and all his relatives.

Kurt's family doesn't do coffee. Guess what's been doing overtime since my return.

 What to talk about? I guess the best way is the classic photo montage.

It's just a little crush/obsession.

Church of Christers party like no one else. Except we call it “fellowship.” The first day in South Carolina yielded a bonfire with an attendence of 80+, a shooting match, and a string of dinner parties and devotionals lasting through the rest of the week. The picture to the left is one of many artistic tributes paid to Kurt from his most ardent fan in the congregation, a young lady who wouldn’t express a lot in words, but was very clear in her intentions nonetheless.

This is Kurt swimming. She made him a present, no doubt meant to dominate “Ferry Tale,” and which waits in the lower-left of the piece.

One amazing game we played was simply a round of creative writing prompts. We’d take turns providing the prompt, then time out three minutes of freestyle writing and try to guess, in the end, who wrote what. In a creative family, it’s a riot. And a crazy-good way to really get to know people.

Speaking of “Ferry Tale”… it’s finished!

I think I'm going to attach the ferry ticket, or maybe a leather re-creation as a tag.

Named for the fateful ferry trip to Mackinaw Island, this past summer, where Kurt re-kindled our romantic dealings. The yarn, you may recal, was from an alpaca named “Zarzamora,” which means “blackberry” in Spanish. Although I tried a short row pattern from knitty.com, and various others, the hat failed failed failed until I just gave up and decided to free-style crochet. Here’s the result.

I wasn’t horribly pleased with it, offering to frog it a sixth time and try again. Kurt said no.That was okay, though, as the yarn was starting to deteriorate from the stress of frogging. Next weekend I’ll steal it to make the final touches…and maybe add another row to the brim. This is the AMAZING thing about crochet: you can add whenever, wherever. And there’s only one loop to worry about unraveling, as opposed to twenty or two-hundred.

Kurt wrastles.

Regardless, I’ve taken on a few Christmas commissions to help load the under-tree this Christmas. This called for a trip to a LYS. With the help of some Ravelry connections, I was able to hunt down The Needle Tree…a wonderful little shop in downtown Greeneville run by a sweet lady named Kitty, her cat, Lola, her grandmother, and her retired showdog. It’s located in a yellow house a little past the downtown area, and well worth a visit. The atmosphere is mellow, the ladies ready to help, and the button and yarn selections scrumptious.

Click here for their website!

 Managing to steer away from the $50 yak and bison yarns (It’s dangerous and difficult to obtain bison down, as it was explained to me. Let your imagination fill in the rest.), I found some wonderful kettle-dyed merino nested together in a rainbow of jewel colors, filling a basket tucked away in a corner. Its squishy goodness makes me salivate. Knit up, it feels like you always imagined cumulus clouds did when you were five.

Fluffy.

   Compare if you will. The yarn is made by Malabrigo.

Fluffy.

 

 

 

 

 

The bowl in the picture to the right was thrown by a guy from my ceramics class. He set his pants on fire last week while we were doing a raku firing…More on him later.

It would be funny to quantify blog entries by repititious runs of “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” I’m on #4. I suppose you could count that as a qualifying statement as well.

Also, some fun Greeneville thrift finds from The Clothing Warehouse, located downtown, near (or on?) Coffee Street.

The world through the Eighties.

I needed a pair of shades. Kurt rocks the aviators. I found my own idiom.

It's like they were cast from cherry cough syrup.

 

Okay…almost done.

Turkey day consisted of a 5k race (I was spectating), sibling rivalry, two sets of grandparents, various aunts and

Post-race paparazzi shot.

 uncles, three states, lots of food, more food, warmth, and light.

 

Pre-felts: ASSEMBLE! (well...almost...)

 

<<<Also felting.