#14 Listen to a live jazz band

Bonsai!
I unexpectedly completed one item today in the most unlikely of places.
I went to Japanfest this afternoon. http://www.japanfest.org/

This event used to be held outside at Stone Mountain but this year moved to a new location inside the Civic Center. The new location is a lot more convenient for me to get to but I’m reserving judgment on whether or not it is a good move as there was a lot of bottlenecking in the layout of the place and events. Too many people crammed into too little space. Hopefully, if they keep it in this location, they will learn from this year’s mistakes.

However, I really enjoyed having the musical concerts inside the Performance Arts Center area. Here is a real stage with good acoustics and adequate seating. So, in a very happy mix of things American and Japanese I listened to not one but two live mini concerts.

"Autumn Breeze" Jazz Concert by Shunzo Ohno and a Blues Concert by Tomi Isobe.
Both had great musicians and good music. Cool man….

My other great find was the good kimono vendor booth and treating myself to two silk haori jackets that were on the special sale rack because I simply couldn’t choose between them. Here is what a haori jacket looks like.

http://www.kimonosource.com/japanese_kimono_information/about_haori.htm

I bought myself a grayish blue-green one and an old rose colored one. Very soft, toned, colored silk, unlike the loud, garish, too-bright colored stuff most everyone else was looking at. What can I say? My artistic training by my Japanese professor has finally sunk in to appreciate the more subtle color palette the Japanese would prefer for themselves.

A beautiful fall day was had by all.

Book review for The Subversive Stitch

This book is a history of embroidery from the mostly English point of view. Written in 1984, it is a study of women’s history and women’s role in society as it is reviewed through the shifting notions of femininity and the roles ascribed to women through samplers, decorative arts and dress and a touch on modern fiber art, though this aspect could due with a more recent look at current artists who use stitching as a medium for expression.

In the middle ages women worked alongside men in embroiderers’ guild workshops as apprentices, designers, and stitchers of gold, silver and silk and embroidery was thought to be equal of painting and sculpture. But, by the eighteenth century embroidery was considered to be a task exclusively suited to women, and by the nineteenth century the fine stitchery expected of women of the upper classes and the skill work extracted for slave wages from working-class women, had become both a symbol and instrument of female subservience.

Drawing on household accounts, women’s magazines, letters, novels, and the art works themselves, Rozsika Parker discovered pockets of resistance: paradoxically, while embroidery was employed to define femininity in women, it also provided a way to negotiate the constraints of the feminine role. “Polly Cook did this”, one eighteenth century child’s sampler states, “and hated every stitch she did in it.” Good for Polly.

The images of the embroideries were amazing work. The writing itself was a bit dry and academic, which I suppose is to be expected given the subject matter.

Book review - Things I Didn't Know

I first heard of Robert Hughes some years ago when I was watching a PBS television series, American Visions. He struck me then as a brassy Aussie who knew his art stuff but was also quite bombastic at times in his tendency to get carried away. His memoir is oddly compelling and frustrating at the same time. Here is a review that I mostly agree with so I will try to not repeat the same stuff.

http://www.powells.com/review/2006_10_30.html

It opens with the horrendous car crash that nearly killed him several years ago. This was an opening story that really grabs you. Then it proceeds to his childhood, which was not too awful except for losing his father early and for the requisite catholic boarding school which seems to be an excellent way to turn most people who are exposed to that particular brand of education off of religion in general.

His personality is oversized and he has made his share of enemies as well as a ton of friends. The description of his first marriage is blunt and apparently was such a train-wreck that I felt sorry for his baby son who was stuck with parents who clearly should not have been parents at that point in their lives. To later find out that he and his adult son were estranged prior to the son’s suicide is very tragic. But Bob has no fear in exposing his less than endearing traits as well as his talents and strengths. I think that writing about one’s own life must be incredibly challenging and making it readable even more so.

My main complaint about the book is that it took so long to get to his arrival in America (this book is 395 pages) that it suddenly ends in the early 70s. So we don’t find out anything about him for the past 35 years of his life except for the car crash that was at the beginning of the book. He was an art critic for Time magazine for 30 years. Where are the rest of his stories?

This book left me wanting more.

Books, books and more books

Well, I’m making some progress on #16 Reading the Current Books on my Nightstand. I even managed to finish a couple (see below in red). However, I have also added two new books to my growing collection but haven’t listed them here yet. I’m missing the whole point of this goal, aren’t I? Not supposed to be adding one for every one read.

What can I say? I’m hopelessly in love with my books. It’s a sickness . I even added up the number of pages for my journal group a few weeks back and was startled to realize that these books alone add up to 8,752 pages. That would mean I would have to read something like 10 pages every night in order to catch up just these books. I don’t know about you but I can’t always get to my book time before conking out to sleep every night. So this goal will be a real challenge but I am enjoying it nonetheless. BTW, its not hard to guess what my primary interests are either is it?

I’ll give each book its own separate entry as I finish reading them as a book report. Didn’t you hate doing those in school? Strangely now I think its fun (I grew up I guess) and love reading book reviews because it helps me determine whether I’m going to add that book to my stash or not.

Stay tuned for my first report next.


Things I Didn't Know - a Memoir by Robert Hughes
The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker
The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy
Audubon and his Journals by Maria Audubon
Weaving New Worlds by Sarah Hill
Mark Twain-An Illustrated Biography by Ken Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
The Original Illustrated Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Sculpture in the Age of Doubt by Thomas McEvilley
Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama
1000 Places to See Before Your Die by Patricia Schultz
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
JR by William Gaddis
Matisse The Master by Hilary Spurling
Silk and Religion by Xinru Liu
Bauhaus Textiles by Sigrid Weltge
Carpets Techniques Traditions & History by Jacques Anquetil
Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up by Beverley Jackson
Women Travelers by Mary Morris
Pictures of Nothing by Kirk Varnedoe
The Hidden Life of Art by Clare Gibson
50 Essays-A Portable Anthology 2nd edition, Samuel Cohen
Ikat II by Lydia Gelder

Update for #26 Make the Dichotomy series

Dichotomy = Division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions.

This is the first piece in my Dichotomy series. It's called "Erased". The text behind the pattern is obliterated; mostly gone except in memory where it is scattered, no longer whole. Two layers, two meanings, one moment in time.

Nearly all of my artwork gets a personal name. This time the name/concept came first. This series is an abstraction of deeply personal meanings but I have chosen to use a formulaic method to represent these thoughts using hand-dyed cloth, text and graphic pattern to render the work.

The art is not completely finished but the top is done. Later on, after all the tops are finished I will come back and complete the work.

I'm thinking about the next one right now. It will be called "Brise Soleil".

Birthday Dinner

I am a fan of Japanese steakhouses. It is the type of restaurant we seem to gravitate towards whenever there is a family celebration to be had. I rather enjoy having my meal with built-in entertainment. So we ended up at Yamato’s in Duluth for my birthday dinner. Maybe not my first choice in places to eat but it was a Friday night and I figured if we went out rather early in the evening the restaurant wouldn’t be crowded. I was right. There was no waiting and we were seated immediately at a table that had another family sitting on the opposite side from us, a young Indian couple there with their in-laws. At Yamato, the prices were very reasonable and unlike many sushi bars where you are stuffed in like sardines, you are out in the open. The chef had some good moves in his repertoire. He was excellent at juggling a raw egg and flipping it right onto the top of his rather tall chef hat. His flops: the onion volcano was a bust and failed to spew forth it’s flaming top and twice he tried to flip a piece of food into hubby’s and the other guy’s mouth. Both guys missed the catch. The chef wisely didn’t try this stunt with any of the women present.

The downsides? The food was plentiful but not especially memorable. After I had stuffed myself full of fried rice, veggies, steak and scallops and was settling down to enjoy the rest of my white wine, I accidentally knocked it over and shattered the glass. Acck! I was only half way done with the Chablis. Darn! The buzz was just starting too.

Oh well… it was a very nice birthday after all with only a tiny mishap so I am rather pleased that I had a good day to celebrate my 53rd.

Every year I still can’t believe I’m getting older. The good news: another fun thing to cross off the list.

Visit to the zoo

Hurray! I get to mark one thing off!

Today was an absolutely beautiful, indian summer day with fall, practically and literally, just around the corner so I took the day off and went to the Atlanta zoo. It couldn't have been more perfect: great weather, no crowds, and I finally got to finally see my baby in person. Her name is Mei Lan and she is one year old.

I was going to show you her photo here but I can't figure out how to get my photos inserted where I want to in this post and I've wasted at least a half hour on that so all I can say is that she was taking a nap the whole time I hung around the panda exhibit.

You can watch her yourself during the work weekday here. (note to self - figure out how to format this thing better!) http://zooatlanta.org/animals_panda_cam.php4

The gorillas were too majestic in their grouping of at least two females with about 3 or 4 little ones hanging around doing what all youngsters do; picking on each other.

The meerkats were amusing as well with the two groups currently separated from each other. I think it is the males and females. But they can see each other through the glass enclosure and were busily showing off and scouting. One posed very nicely for me.

All in all, it was a great pre-birthday gift to myself.

Action Items for September

You say tomato, I say toma(y)to. How do you like my new car? It's got nothing to do with my list but that's how life happens isn't it?

Hey, it's Labor Day so I should get back to concentrating on labor for the next 999 days. So, what the heck do I want to call these individual things-to-do? Items, goals, stuff? I suspect I'll use lots of words to describe my process along the way.

I'm taking a business approach to working through my goals. Besides the ongoing habit items, here are the other things I plan to tackle this month:

Continue reading through the nightstand books

Go to the zoo

Organize the upstairs studio (a biggie)

Finish the first top of the Dichomoty series

Get my passport renewed

Pick a cool downtown restaurant for my birthday

Visit the Hindu mandir

Pick one room to get rid of clutter (yeah, this one can also count for cleaning up the mess in the upstairs studio)

Write a letter to myself

This should keep me busy all month.

Turning Over a New Leaf

So... in declaring myself underway, upon closer inspection, I see that many items on this list are really about creating or re-establishing healthy habits.

47. Making a weekly menu and shopping list
50. Practice yoga every morning for a month
53. Practicing a centering prayer
71. Walk daily
72. Lose weight
84. Ride the exercise bike
85. Walk the outdoor trail once a month

Which ones should I work on first? Why all of these certainly deserve attention right away.

The yoga is easy to get started again. I am using the AM Yoga tape by Rodney Yee.
http://www.amazon.com/AM-Yoga-Beginners-Patricia-Walden/dp/094567189X

It's very gentle and geared for beginners and that is where I'm at right now. In the two years since I last did this morning ritual regularly I am astounded at how stiff I have become. If I let this decrepitude continue I'll become immoble in a few years. Yikes! I'm not ready to succumb to getting old yet. Wake up call to lumber up. Literally.