February 2010

What follows is this entry’s text. You also NEED to see the image in this entry.

Entry #1: Spinning & Dyeing

One of my favorite hobbies is handspinning yarn and dyeing it with natural dyes. For thousands of years, all textiles, everything from sails to lace, were made from yarns spun by hand and dyed, if they were dyed at all, with dyestuffs gathered from nature. Now we have machines to spin the yarn and then weave it, and petrochemicals to dye it with. Many of us do not even know how a spindle is used, or what it means to mordant wool. Spinning and dyeing have turned from a necessary part of life to an esoteric hobby. After all, if there is no need to spin, why take the trouble?

There are many answers to this question. Perhaps the simplest is, “Because it’s fun.” But “fun” does not capture the essence of the craft. The essence is transformation – the transformation from fluffy wool into tight-spun yarn, from undyed white into brilliant color. It is taking disorder and creating order and beauty from it. It is creating something that never existed before, and that will never be replicated. In short, it is sheer creativity.

The picture shows yarns I’ve spun and dyed, along with the spindles I spun it on. (No, I did not make the spindles; they are there because they are the tools I used, and as display devices for the yarn on them.) The larger spindle has undyed wool, the smaller one has some dog hair from my friend’s poodle.

Dyes, from left to right:
(All dyes are on wool)

Dark green: Onion skins overdyed with indigo
Yellow: Onion skins
Bluish-greenish-gray: (wound into ball) Onion skins, mordanted* with copper sulfate, overdyed with indigo
Magenta: Cochineal
Gray-blue: Indigo on gray wool, no mordant
About the Dyes

Cochineal

Cochineal is an insect that lives on the pads of prickly pear cactus. It builds webs that look kind of like miniature cotton balls. If you squish one of these webs between your fingers, they will be stained with bright red juice, and if you then wipe your fingers on your clothes, you will have a really hard time getting the stain out. The red juice is the dye from the body of the insect that lives in the web. To use the dye, you have to pick the webs off the cactus pads one by one until you have as many as you need. It takes a lot of bugs to dye a skein of yarn, too, because the amount of dye in each insect is so small. (And yes, I gathered the cochineal for that skein myself. That wasn’t so fun.) But the results are gorgeous – cochineal has to be one of the brightest of natural dyes.

Onion Skins

These are the papery skins of normal onions, the yellow kind. To use them for dye, you collect a bunch of onion skins, simmer them until the water is dark-colored, strain out the skins, and add your mordanted* wool. Then you just wait for the wool to get to be the color you want. It’s a popular natural dye because it’s easy to get, makes a nice color, and uses a comparatively simple process.

Indigo

You have probably heard of indigo; it is the classic blue-jeans dye, although most “indigo” used on blue jeans today is in fact synthetic. There are only a few plants that produce a colorfast blue dye, and indigo is by far the most famous. It’s also a little unusual in that it doesn’t require a mordant; instead of being absorbed by the fibers, indigo just sticks to the surface of the fibers and rubs off eventually. This, incidentally, is what causes blue jeans to fade.

*”Mordanting” is the process of treating the fiber with chemicals so that it will absorb the dye better. This makes the colors brighter and more durable. There are too many mordants, with too many different effects, to describe here, but the one I used for all the examples (except where otherwise noted) is alum (pickling alum, the kind you can get in the grocery store).

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What follows is this entry’s text. You NEED to see the site to see the original paintings that go with it.

It’s a great compliment when people pay me good money to make a special painting for them. If it’s to be a portrait, not everyone can come and sit while I push paint around a canvas for hours on end. So they send me photos of their children and grandchildren, pets, and even houses or favourite landscapes.

They want me to re-create an image that is personal to them, realistic and instantly recognisable. They choose photos that are about how they see themselves, and how they want others to see them.

I love the continual challenge of striving to meet the very particular expectations required of me. It means I get the opportunity to paint subjects I wouldn’t normally be able to choose, and develop delightful friendships with people all around the world. And I get paid for doing it – how cool is that!

But there is a flip-side to my passion for painting, which may be more about myself. It starts with a pure white blank canvas, and no plan. If thoughts and imagery try to butt in, I push them away, until my mind is completely cleared. Only then, do I pick-up the first brush to hand, dip into a random colour, and just paint.

If the brush is large, the paint strokes turn out broad and flowing; sometimes the marks are small scribblings that make no sense at all. But on I go, putting one colour next to another, adding shape, tone and texture, until suddenly, to my own amazement an image emerges, that ‘speaks’ to me. And then some other part of my brain takes over.

The ‘Red-Haired Madonna’ was created this way. I have loved being a mother, and somehow with this painting I said everything about how it felt when my boys were small enough to keep safe in my arms. For a few short years, I had the power to protect them from the bad in the world. How different that painting is compared to ‘Mother of the Missing’; the fear and terror in that haunted expression were dredged-up deep from some frightened place.

The still watcher ‘In Disguise’ could be a metaphor for those times when I can’t always be what I want to be; occasions when I have to adopt an extra personna to hide behind, or get to fight for me; then biding my time until the crisis passes, I can then remove the layers and relax into myself again.

When I was younger, it seemed that any troubles I had were mostly self-inflicted. Being a quick learner, I dealt with that. As I get older I’m having to fight on the side of the angels, against forces outside my control, or experience. The old skirmishes have provided a useful apprenticeship.

I used to dream of living on a Mediterannean island where I could spend my time languishing in a ‘Summer Daze’. I live on that island now, atop a mountain overlooking the sea, but still I dream of being somewhere else. (see Figure in a Landscape)

Friends and other artists are a constant joy. I paint about those I meet day to day, in reality or in cyberspace.

At the end of the day I have the love of my life and best friend. We’re an ‘Odd Couple’; my grandmother would have understood us. People likee us, she would say, were “Somat together and nowt apart”. And if you don’t understand broad northern English dialect, that means ‘something together and nothing apart’.

So are my abstract expressionist paintings autobiographical? Or are they like characters in a book, conjured by artistic licence and imagination? You be the judge

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Spirit of Author
I don’t think I will enter this contest. I really don’t think I’m very creative. It’s not that I don’t want to push back the bleak. I do. But how do you push a cloud of fog? I mean, all I really do is write.

Well, maybe that’s not true. I used to be pretty good with clay, but now I don’t have any access to supplies or tools, so that’s gone.

I tried carving wood. I like the walking stick I made, but I’m lucky to have kept all my fingers.

I’ve built islands on paper, castles in the sky, geography that would be such fun to walk, run, climb, swim, and dogsled through. I’ve drawn backdrops so complex that their architecture tells its own story, and I don’t want characters to talk over it.

I’ve taken pictures that tell stories far more intriguing than anything I ever wrote. I’ve painted pictures that have no meaning at all.

I’ve sung my own songs. I’ve danced my own dances. I’ve laughed and cried and grinned and sighed over my own kind of rhymes.

I’ve walked along my own foggy roads, and I’ve knitted wisps of clouds into bridges into the unknown, and gone exploring. I’ve stolen bits of the world out of the fog and churned them into stories, written but not shared.

And in the writing I found my soul, and it’s full of these hazy treasures. There live the people of the fog—heroes and villains, pirates and prophets and people who work in deep space. Some of them are only visiting, and others were born in the dim corners of my creative spirit. They speak languages I invent and talk about things I’ve learned—things like the mysteries in multiverse theory, and the simplicity in a shadow. They’ve found joy in the face of anguish and pain while celebrating. They’ve flown on a boat’s wings and brought the wind home. They’ve battled my bleak, bottled it, and broken the bottle so I can fight it too.

So what if my life is the only one made less bleak by anything I’ve done? I still count, and I matter, if only to me.

My name is Liz, Danzier, maid of mist. I’m the girl who spins bridges out of fog and dances across them to visit places both safe and unknown. I have a scar on my forehead where I sledded into a rock. I have blue eyes so light-sensitive I can barely see in broad daylight. My knees give out and I give in; I ebb and flow like waves on the shore. And I’m still climbing my mountain.

I think I will enter after all.

Here’s The Link

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Why would a character want to be a character?

Why do I want to be a character in someone else’s story? Well, I already am a character in my own life. I recreate myself periodically (usually hair color, most of which belong in the Journal of Irreproducible Results). I have written since I was 12. I’m old enough to know better now, but that hasn’t stopped me. I create worlds and then forget what I set out to do in them. (I had a partner in crime on storytelling/universe spinning, but we gave it up because … well, we ran out of compatible worlds. Mine have dark hopes and she doesn’t like demons, even friendly ones. Or tentacles.)

Why do I write? I can’t help myself. I’m a “what if” person. Some people might regard this as unfortunate since this means I write a lot of fan fiction for no profit other than the occasional pat on the back. I like plot holes. I like online teaching and created a syllabus and several modules for a practicum about how to critique … you guessed it, fan fiction. Not that the ideas couldn’t apply to other critiquing, but a lot of us are far closer to our fan fiction writers than we will ever be to our favorite professionals. (Yeah, we gawp at the pros; those brilliant, creative world builders whose works we love and will never, ever be able to emulate. What we’re supposed to be ourselves? That’ll never fly. Laughter)

I helped create a trio of devastatingly individual kids. The eldest writes on Gaia, mods creations for people, and does original art work. She’s an anime kid whose hair changes color with the wind and who is steadily progressing toward producing her own animation vids. She draws with dangerous Japanese flair. The youngest girl made me a grandmother in December. She’s into make-up … not the facial kind, the movie kind. (OK, there are faces involved here, but body parts and prostheses as well.) My son creates food. Just not in my kitchen. (Bad kitchen.)

Mostly, I like to tell stories and entertain people. I work the front desk for a Division of a Community College. I keep our students informed and entertained, I try to keep it light and help them do so. Finding out your financial aid isn’t available and you’ve missed a hoop to jump through is deflating, disturbing and downright tear inducing sometimes. My job is to point them in the right direction, use my vast store of academia lore to steer them to shore and help them out, as much as I can. It’s not a job, it’s an adventure. (1961) ß academic talk for that’s copyright the US military, I am not plagiarizing it! (Actually, I think it falls under the fair use doctrine.)
I have previously been horribly mutilated and killed in a fan fic story under an assumed fan name. So I have experience in these things! I was very out of character for that one.

The rotund, black clad, high heeled boot wearing, Year of the Dragon grand mom that I am is not fond of pictures being taken of same. (I had to avoid a professional photographer this weekend due to my phobia.) Descriptively, I am about five and a half feet tall, carry about an 11 year old of extra weight, absolutely adore boots (high heels, low heels, no heels, mid calf to thigh hi … no, I don’t own any of the latter, but I like them), wear fake nails that impede my typing until I shorten them 48 hours later and wear a lot of black in spite of whatever I’ve done to my hair lately (right now, silver whitish to reddish blonde at the ends. Last month red. Six months ago dark brown. Before that, black and around and around we go, where it stops, no one knows. So, pick a color, any color!)

I know what a chibi is (sometimes I am one). And whether I get to be a part of the whirld or not, TalysMana resonates on a level I have had few stories ever hit. I like it, I like the world, I like the concepts, I wanna play … to keep myself busy between classes and work, I think I’ll go play with my plot bunnies. One of which seems to think I need to finish a screen play for my husband to shoot … Crazy? You betcha. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Online I’m dragon (little d please), in RL I’m Sallie.

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For those who know me, I’m sure you’ve realized that I’m not the type to go around handing out my emotions, poorly scribbled out on index cards because, oh, I just couldn’t keep my shaking hand straight because I’m just so terribly devastated about my oh so dramatic teenage life!

I’m not the kind who wishes to put on a show for everyone to see, only to have them gather around to tell me how bad they feel or how sorry they are. I’m not the kind of person who wants everyone to know what goes on inside. You see, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t want any attention at all. Period.

What? Is that weird?

You see the same old baggy clothes, sweatshirt, tied back hair, and hunched over appearance and you say “There’s that quiet girl.” That is, if you were to notice me at all; if you were to give me more than a passing glance.

I am known as “Quiet Girl.”

I am the one that everyone whispers about only once, saying only a quick, “she never speaks,” to her friend. “I wonder why.” I am the one that makes teachers say to me, “I am going to hear your voice by the end of the semester.” I even trick some of them into telling me that I’m one of the only “good” ones in a class full of cheerful, talkative people.

Ha! Funny how much silence can accomplish.

Funny how quickly it deceives its receivers.

To all but a select few, I am the one who tricks the world into thinking I’m not actually there-that I am nothing more than a passing waste of space you’ll never see again. You know, I’m perfectly fine with that. You could wonder all day about why I’m so reserved. You could ask me “Why? What have you to hide from the world?” But I won’t tell you anything. You might think I have nothing to hide because you think the “I” that you see is the real me in all its introverted glory. You aren’t aware that the only reason you have to ask in the first place is because I have a lot to hide.

That’s right, you’ve all been fooled.

I do have a true self; an outgoing, loud, confident self that stands up fervently for what she believes in. I hide it from the world because it’s proven to be harsh for little to no reason other than that it doesn’t approve of my “odd” behavior.

Fear not! For my true self is still here. It lives on without strings in my imagination as its own character. It dances to its own tune with little to no regard for the silly rules and constrictions of our modern society. My true self is not one entity either. It’s split into many, each housing one of my key traits. To entertain myself, I’ve built a character around each of these aspects, and then painted a world for them to play in inside my mind. That world is Cael, and those characters’ main traits become painfully apparent as they interact with each other and stumble along the life I’ve created for them. I watch as they overcome the challenges I throw at them.

At this point, the average person would ask, “What purpose could that possibly serve? Besides making your hidden insanity more apparent than it ever was before?”

Insane? Perhaps. Ingenious? I’d like to think so.

Cael is where I work out my life’s problems; by myself, in my room, deep inside of my head. I don’t need any real persons half-assed sympathy. I don’t need to throw money at a therapist for advice. Everything always works out in time.  If you want to call it unhealthy, be my guest. I’m only as crazy as you (yes, you).

I love bones. Have I mentioned that? I have a nice collection of animal leftovers in my bedroom. Feathers, crystals, fossils, teeth and claws–basically anything from nature that catches my fancy.

Some call it strange and disgusting.

I call it sacred.

I’m not sure what it is: the fact that they’re the hollowed, lifeless remains of something once living; or that somewhere deep inside of me, I want to believe that those bones and seemingly lifeless objects still house the essence of the creature that owned it. It’s quite a childish notion to some. But I love the idea.

I show it to the world only through my wearing of clawed necklaces and many charms depicting my totems. I always have a necklace on, oftentimes several at once. It’s a way to express myself without the requirement of me having to actually say anything. Ha, how lazy of me. It works after a while, it really does. The one I wear every day without fail is the slender, hooked claw of a badger. It’s like a protection talisman. I never leave home without it.

Now, don’t make a mistake here, as I’m certainly not the superstitious type.

I’m more of the overactive-imagination-causes-hallucinations type.

Don’t get the two mixed up. Please. You’ll upset the menagerie of spirits that follow me wherever I go. Hmm? What was that? I hope you’re not jealous that the voices only talk to me.

To this day the fanatical muses of my mind nearly always come out as scribbles on a page. Sometimes they’re words. Sometimes they’re pictures. Occasionally they come out as music notes. I mean, it’s strictly individualistic, you know? Sometimes a picture of a sad apple just isn’t as good as a song or story about one. It happens.

All I know in the end is that the undeniable urge to express myself is always there, always throwing rocks at my (already cracked) window until I can’t stand it any longer and cave. I shove that pointy piece of graphite onto a flat piece of processed wood and drag it with all that is me. Alexa.

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Creativity

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[Be A Character In TalysMana Contest Entry -- http://TalysMana.com -- James Joseph Emerald's Entry]

I’m a creator. I create pleasure, fun, excitement. I’m a performer. I amaze, enthrall, entice. I have the imagination of an artist, with the detailed knowledge of a scientist. I use whimsy and precision, together, to approach perfection. Every time.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “boy, this guy sounds like he’s got the most glamourous job in the world!” Well, you might be surprised. I am a bartender. And although it can be glamourous, it’s probably one of the most frustrating things a person could ever work as. At least, it is for me.

I invent cocktails. I am what some would refer to as a “mixologist”, though I always found that term to be silly. A fancy word just for the sake of it, with no real meaning. It isn’t even accurate. Being a good bartender — even making a good cocktail — isn’t just studying what to mix with what. Maybe it’s just pointless perfectionism, but I find there is so much more to it. I’ve put a lot of research into the science of taste, and I have a degree in psychology (which isn’t exactly relevant, but it shows where I’m coming from with this), so I put a lot of thought into every drink I pour. I try not to bore people with the details, but it goes beyond balancing tastes and colours, into the realms of the unfathomable. The basics are instinctual — like anything one is truly good at, I could hardly explain what I’m doing half the time — but the beauty is in the nuance. The ability to pick up on the mood of a patron, and make small alterations to the recipe, to account for it, is something I pride myself on. Sweet, sour, savoury, salty, bitter — all of them have effects on the human psyche. It’s part of a survival mechanism: sweetness is comforting (appetitive, signalling desirable food), bitterness is exciting (aversive, typically signalling toxic or harmful foods; danger), et cetera. The perfect cocktail is in the mouth of the beholder, after all; a matter of taste.

I’ve worked in a lot of bars around Dublin. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m famous, or anything, but I have a reputation in certain circles. The main obstacle is my outlook. You see, bars in Ireland fall into two categories: “trendy bars”, for spoiled pretentious yuppies, clad in designer outfits, who haven’t done an honest day’s work in their life, and need to have model-quality good looks just to get past the bouncers; and the rest, which are simply outlets designed to capitalise on our national pastime — binge-drinking. As I’m sure you can tell, I have no love for either, and there really isn’t a middle ground. So I drift from bar to bar, trying to find the right place for me, pretty much starting over every time. I have a few fans, but like I said, I’m not famous.

I do have a signature cocktail, in case you were wondering. Or two. The first is the Emerald Miracle, which is a pun on my surname (and its colour), and the second is the more popular Cobalt Miracle, which is another pun, reflecting both its colour, and the fact that Cobalt Blue pigment is a poison, like alcohol (of course, there’s no actual Cobalt in the drink!)

The recipes are quite simple: the Emerald is just melon liqueur and gin, while the Cobalt is Blue Curacao, Cointreau and dry Vermouth. Simple and easily remembered, means easily varied. But the key to them — and what makes them popular and exotic — is the ‘Miracle’ part. The miracle fruit is a berry native to West Africa, which contains a certain chemical called ‘miraculin’. Nobody knows quite how it works, but it is able to bond to the tongue’s taste buds, ultimately making everything taste sweeter for the next half an hour or so. (Article: http://www.imbibemagazine.com/Miracle-Fruit) The Emerald, which is already quite sweet, becomes overpowering — a mistake I learned from, though some people seem to enjoy it, oddly enough — but the Cobalt Miracle works perfectly, as the bitter liqeuers are magically transformed by science. It’s a majestic duality. And it’s a reminder that despite all our technological advances, nature still has plenty of mysterious wonders to offer.

But as satisfying as it is to invent a new, out-of-the-ordinary cocktail which people really enjoy, and as challenging as it is to make each one as great as the last, it is also very frustrating. Few are daring enough to try new things. The kids all want their alcopops and ciders (that’s the high-alcohol European kind), the yuppies all want the latest faddy drink (even if it’s terrible, they’ll force themselves to “acquire the taste”, the irony being that the fashion trend will move on before they even come to stand it) and the men all want their familiar beers (yep, you guessed it: Guinness). The sad truth is that when it comes to alcoholic beverages — especially in Ireland — nobody cares about passion or finesse. They just want to either look cool, or get drunk.

But I don’t dwell on it. After all, your average paperback reader just wants mushy clichéd romance novels, or brainless slashers, but that doesn’t stop talented writers from going out and pouring their hearts and souls into their work. I pour mine into a glass. Don’t ask me why. I guess my father was always the old fashioned type: loves drinking good whiskey and smoking cigars — even brews his own honey mead — and it rubbed off on me a bit. Drinks are one of the big things we talk about. But ultimately, it’s a great creative outlet. One of the few that engage all five senses at once.

So there you have it: James Joseph Emerald, the bartender. Perhaps not what you were expecting, but I hope I’ve made a worthy case for the creativity — and conflicts — involved.

[999 words (Not including header and footer, in bold). Kinda cheeky, eh?]

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