9/9/9 - And yes, today is my birthday!

Today wasn't an especially significant birthday for me. But the date was memorable - 9/9/9. Ten years ago I had a 9/9/99 party, which was unusual and memorable. I was doing open mic poetry in Chicago then, so my husband Clinton and I created a performance space in our home. We rented sound equipment and lit it as best we could with the lamps we had. We invited friends, family, co-workers and neighbors to join us that Thursday evening, and they did! We had musicians, a dancer, and lots of poets. We even had featured performers, just like the real open mikes do. When I look back, a lot has changed with some of their lives. Melanie, who hadn't performed in a while before that, has gone back to singing and playing guitar at cafes and folk festivals. Janet did her first public east Indian dance. She went on to perform in full costume as part of a Bharat Natyam dance troupe, then branched off to become her own choreographer, mixing her graphic designer skills in her dance presentations. Shelley (Miller), one of the featured performers, joined me in a duo called Moon Lodge for a couple years, then went on to be part of the faculty at the Old Town School of Folk Music with two CD's, a website, lots of videos on YouTube and a performance schedule of her own. You go, Loud Girl!!!

But some sadness has since happened, too. Connie, who did Native American drumming and led us in singing along that night, has succumbed to a brain tumor. JJ Jameson, who was a lovable curmudgeon of the Chicago poetry scene turned out to be an escaped felon and was returned to prison in the Boston area. (Currently, there are friends from his church trying to get him out on parole and bring him back to Chicago. There's also a documentary out there all about his life called "Killer Poet.")

So here we are again! Another birthday with nothing but "9's" in the date! I had been thinking of what I'd do this time, but finding the energy and money to get the house really cleaned up and fixed up - we have issues - just didn't seem possible, given my crazy schedule. So I got together with friends at lunch - Melanie the singer was one. And for dinner Iwent to Wildfire in Glenview with my husband Clinton, My brother Mike and his gal Kymm. The place was packed and there seemed to be other folks celebrating their birthdays throughout the room. Mike's birthday was Sunday, 9/6/9. So we exchanged gifts, ate too much, drank a bit, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! All our dishes were outstanding, including dessert.

Clinton surprised me with some appropriate gifts. He continued the theme from my last blog entry, which was about seeing the film "Julie & Julia." He dug in the pantry and found my mom's copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. I thought my mom owned it, but I couldn't remember if I had it or not (she died 8/14/99, shortly before my big party). It was exciting to look through her worn copy from 1970. Throughout were clippings of recipes from newspapers, notably from the St. Petersburg Times back in the 80's. That meant she took it with her when she and my dad went off to FL for the winter months. A time capsule. Clinton continued the theme by buying me Julia Child's autobiography, "My Life in France" which looks wonderful - lots of photos.

So how has my life changed in the last ten years? In that time I've been a poet, a singer/songwriter, a novelist, a college teacher, a jewelry designer and a collagist. I still have my full-time job in educational publishing, but it keeps changing, mostly getting more technical and less hands-on. Wish I could find the time to pursue all my creative interests simultaneously, but that will have to wait for retirement, which is now only five years away. My Etsy shop, the galleries where I have my craft work, and the ones I'm trying to get into will help supplement my income in the years ahead. I look forward to more creative adventures, whatever they will be. Maybe I'll get that novel published and bring my compositions together in a CD some day. I finally have ideas for drawings, so I'd like to try my hand at that again soon. I'd better get busy, before I run out of time!

Back to the Blog with French cooking on my mind

It's been way too long since my last entry! Last night I saw the film "Julie and Julia" and had a wave of remorse about not keeping up my own personal blog. So I will try to be more committed.

The film also was a flash from the past. The first time I ever saw Julia Child on TV was during an art class. My mom and I were taking painting lessons from an elderly artist in her basement. She had a penchant for keeping the TV on. One day, close to Christmas, there was Julia in glorious black and white showing how to make a Yule log. It was hard to ignore that voice! But it was also great fun to see what she was up to. The Yule log was a cake with chocolate frosting applied to look like bark. To enhance the realism, Julia set up a broomstick horizontally and flung some gooey substance at it. It dripped as gravity took hold. Eventually she gathered it up and it became the moss on the log cake. I think it was caramel. Next she made meringue mushrooms in two pieces and stuck something sugary between to act as a glue. But when the camera focused on it, the top of the perfect looking mushroom fell off! After that, we were hooked. We enjoyed the classes, but we also enjoyed watching Julia. She loved to add wine and we speculated that she took sips from the bottle every now and then. And not everything was perfect. But you had to love her good humor and her effort!

My mother, Lorraine, was an ace cook. She was constantly clipping recipes from the newspaper and trying new things. I'm sure Julia Child became an influence for her, too. I haven't cooked from a recipe in ages, but would like to try again. The food in the film looked delicious, so I'd like to find Julia's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking! Is great cooking in my genes? I want to try cooking the French way, just to find out.

Back in the 80's, I dated an actual French chef! His name was Jacques and he reminded me of a young Anthony Quinn. The accent, his looks, and his cooking were totally seductive. I lost my heart in a doomed relationship. He was a recovering alcoholic who longed for his ex-girlfriend. When they ran into one another unexpectedly, that was the end of our romance, though we stayed friends for a short time after that. A friend had me over for dinner once and I promised to cook for her. But instead, I brought my French chef friend over to her apartment where he cooked us both a fantastic New Year's Eve feast! It beat going out and fighting the crowds. But when we got to midnight, there was an awkward moment. So we all kissed and hugged and that was that.

Bon appetit!

Art as Comfort

Two things coincided late in 2008. I got connected to a knitting group at work and started enjoying that craft, and then my father became ill and died. The group at work dispersed after the person who inspired it found another job. But my knitting did not. I found solace through the repetitive motions of making intersecting loops with yarn. It was how I grieved and I didn't want to do anything else. I had no motivation to make jewelry or work with paper or write. But what resulted in that period is a collection of scarves and a cowl that became gifts for family and friends. I found comfort in the activity, but I also gave others a piece of that comfort with those gifts. Now I'm working on a larger piece that will be either an afghan or a baby blanket. We'll see. It's full of imperfections, yet it's soft and textured and subtly colorful. I haven't gotten tired of knitting, but I've found my way out of doing just that. I'm back to making jewelry and even using bolder colors and textural combinations. But the collage is still a struggle. It will come back, too. I have lots of obligations ahead of me where my creations will need to be ready to sell.
In general, I do find art and craft making to be a comfort. When I get into that zone and time slips away, I'm so in that moment! I'm one with the universe and one with my work. And I find that even more ideas come. The door to my creative unconscious opens and the world beyond is filled with possibilities!
I've been knitting a lot tonight, so now it's time to visit my other pleasures. I bought some new materials today so I'm off to see what I can do with them. Maybe I'll talk about that next time.

My first blog

I've been meaning to start a blog, and now I have! I can blame Etsy.com. That's where I have a shop called stockwellcottage, but its full name is Stockwell Cottage and Garden. It's a name with multiple meanings. I have a cottage industry. I often work in Galena, IL in a historical home (where we spend many weekends) which we started calling Stockwell Cottage. But then we replaced the weeds in the postage stamp garden with lots of perennials to create a cottage garden of ferns, coneflowers, sedum, hostas and loads of ground covers. I like to garden, but then I like to do lots of different things. Which led me to Etsy. My shop reflects my interests in making jewelry and working with collage. I guess you could say I create in the cottage and shop is my garden. I've just joined the Collage Etsy Team, which is very new. And that's my first Etsy Team, so I'm excited. I wanted to post comments to the team blog, so I had to start my own blog. But that's OK. I'm looking forward to it!

Karen