I have just been feeling so out of sorts all summer. Like I am A.D.D. in the studio, jumping from one project to the next, never really finishing anything, just leaving scattered trials and samples of this and that. Constantly forgetting things, running back up the stairs for this and that , going from making paper, to making frames, to designing a new booklet, to phone and email correspondences, to writing a grant, to net making, to shopping to cooking, wondering how to fit in, swimming, sleeping and reading. And I am not even getting paid for all this, well I am getting a $125 week stipend while here. I just feel like a kid in a candy store some days, waking up with so many choices of things to do, and just don’t know which one to choose first. If I give it some time, I can sometimes figure out how one task for one project will lead to the next, but somewhere along the line I screw the order up and have to back track, or abandon my tracks to take a new trail of work.
Have had the studio to myself most of the morning, so been spreading out from the basement to make paper, to the kitchen to boil hemp to be made into paper as well as a pot of golden beets to add to my salad, and actually branching out to my neighbors studio to dry a batch of paper, while she is away for the weekend. And then in the studio were there are lots of print out samples for my book, getting a new screen ready for making bigger sheets of paper, to testing out a new way to float my plants in the tubes, and then writing away on the computer.
Last night we had the freakiest little adventure, one of my studio mates and and I were working late when I looked out my door and quickly saw a black shape fly by, I said oh no I think there is a bat in the building. My neighbor looked out hers and saw the shadow of the creature fly by as well, she quickly shut her door and peeped out through the peep hole to see what it was, she determined it was not a bat but a bird, but how did a bird get in? We discussed going out to open the window in the stairwell but when she slowly creeped out the door on all fours to crawl out the bird flew towards her and she quickly jumped back in, it was both so scary and funny at the same time. When she looked out again the bird was gone. I finally figured what had happened was that upstairs another resident had been keeping the windows open to air out the very hot 3rd floor space and probably did not have the screen down so the bird flew in, and I had left the door open to allow for more airflow and so the bird probably flew down by accident, but thankfully found its way back up, just not sure if it got out. The next day I asked the upstairs studio person and she said she had not left any windows open, and saw no bird. So it is just a mystery…
Just came back from south Portland where I met with my new roommate and her boyfriend and father for what I had hope would be steamed clams at the famous Lobster Shack, but alas no steamers, only fried clams. next time back to J’s. But got to sit by the coast for the first time since I have been up here to take in the waves and sunset. I swear this must have been the coldest place on the East Coast, it actually got quite chilly with the fog rolling in. What a strange coast line sort of reminded me of Northern California with the fog horns blowing, but instead of rocks, this coastline is made up of what seems like huge chunks of petrified wood.
