Peters Valley: Day Three

I woke up in rough shape on this day. Maybe a little too much wine the night before. A big headache and a dehydration problem. I have not mentioned that there was a sign in our house warning that the parks department had posted a "boil water advisory" for our house. We were told we could brush our teeth with it, but don't chug. I really needed to chug. I just never thought to get myself any water to keep in my room. I wandered downstairs to see if there were any sympathetic souls around, and saw 2 big cooler jugs of (clean) water in the kitchen for the first time. I had barely even been in the kitchen before that, because, you know, why? Anyway, that brought me partially back to life. Then I saw Crystal in the hall and she had the Ibuprophen. I was on the road to recovery.

We had to get ourselves out of our lodgings by 10 am, so I was taking an armload of sheets down to my car. When I got to the porch, a woman ran around the corner and said, "You want to see some bears?"

Along with tick warnings, there were bear warnings posted all over the place at Peters Valley. We are starting to see bear in some unexpected places in New Jersey, so it is really no big surprise that they would be there in the woods. Still, up until that time, I had never seen a bear outside of a zoo. I dropped the sheets and ran around behind the house with her (I think she was taking a photography course) and another bystander. We went a short way on a path to a pond, and there were two black bear on the other side of the pond. And get this: The woman was bird watching, so she had a pair of binoculars with her! ( No camera, though) I was struck with how big the ears are on a bear. Kind of Mickey Mouse- like. They were looking at us, and we were looking at them, and the fact that there was a big pond between us made it seem pretty safe. Eventually they lumbered off. Really cool!

So then I finished packing up my car and made my way over to breakfast. For your information, every single time I went to a meal, I told the food nazi my name, Chris Mundy, and every single time he acted like he had no idea who I could be, and I would have to say Chris Murphy, and then he could find me. You would think he might catch on after a while.

Peters Valley has a craft store, with many tempting things. I had stopped in a couple of times, but this time I bought a mug for my husband. His favorite mug had recently crashed. He usually brings me back a heart when he goes away for the weekend.

Back in the studio, Barbara showed us some more slides. The evaluation form went around and also a form for us to fill in contact information which was copied and shared. I still have to find that and rescue it from among the chaos I dragged out of my car when I got home. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Everyone hung up what they were working on and we talked about it.

At this point I must mention that I am just learning to take pictures of things in my life. It isn't that I don't know how, it's just that I will be so into what is going on, that I won't think to take pictures. I remember my son's first birthday party and how I forgot to take a single photo. Fortunately my mother can't stop taking pictures. What I am getting at is that I wish I had taken better pictures of people's work, and that I had taken pictures of the people. Inexplicably, I have a picture of everyone in the fine metals studio, but hardly any pictures of the people in my own class. Weird.

The rest of the day was spent working on projects, if we wanted to. Everyone was leaving early, so I packed it in around 3:30 pm. I left with more than I came with, largely thanks to Bev, who was trying to move and had a couple of bins of fabric and scraps for the taking.

I thought a lot about my life and the directions it has taken. I look at the students at Peters Valley and wonder what they will go on to do. The decisions you make early in life are so important. I know I need to go back to school. I just need to figure some things out.

Peters Valley: Day Two

The sun woke me up at the crack of dawn this day, and that's OK. Breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:30, so I had time to stitch on a little side project I had developed. Then it was a shower and then make my way back up Thunder Mountain Road. I saw a green heron on the marsh, and a beautiful woodpecker, that I still have to look up and identify.

Day 2 was the day we soaked the paper off of our transfers. We all had mixed results, largely due to the weather. Barbara gave a slide show, and she also showed us a quilt that she brought to put in the faculty show at Peters Valley. The main section is a leather glove that belonged to her Aunt that Barbara washed and spray painted gold. She took that piece and had it reproduced by a printer, into a repeat pattern on fabric. That fabric is what made up the rest of the quilt. She told us that she had 5 yards made, at a cost of around $800. Very interesting idea, don't you think? A bit expensive, but... Then she mentioned an opening she was having in June, in of all places, the Clinton Art Museum. This is 12 miles from my house and I drive through Clinton on a regular basis. Mary says she can go as well. Looking forward to that.

After this we were to work on projects of our choice. We were cautioned not to feel we needed to come away with a completed project. We only had one and a half days left. We could continue with our fabric experiments or try to start a project. I took one of my transfers, a bird, and painted her with fabric paint. That paint is something else that has been hanging around my studio that I hadn't tried. I started making an arrangement with the bird and the bleach-penned denim patches. They seemed to have a similar quality. Then I took a piece of burlap and arranged everything in a symmetrical pattern, with the bird in the center. Barbara came along and rocked my world a little. I ended up with different fabric and an off center bird. I played around with the arrangement for a while. At one point I spread the fabric onto the floor to cut it, when right next to me was a big table!

There were two college students among my classmates. I noticed that they did not even try to start a project. I think they have plenty of opportunities to work. Robin had just learned to make french knots and was just making so many beautiful knots. Cathy was the other student, I remember hearing her talk about trying to arrange her school around her two young sons.

Bev was a retired art teacher whose daughter was an accomplished artist and a former student of Barbara's. Cheryl was a recent widow who was emerging from a painful time in her life, but you knew she would be OK because she had so many interests. She ended up making one of the best projects. Kim and Jannika were friends and came together. They are both prolific and experienced quilters. Kim described herself as a "gadget girl" and really knew the ins and outs of all the different sewing machines. Jannika was from Holland and had a slightly off way of speaking English that was delightful. She reminded me a little of Gunnel. If you have ever visited her blog, you would know what I mean.

At dinner we sat with some of the people from the fine metals studio. They were hammering out bracelets and other jewelry in that class. The teacher, Wayne Werner, was a real character and was cracking us up at the table. He invited us to a party in that studio in the evening. Check out this man's jewelry if you get a chance, it is fantastic.

Wayne came into the fiber studio later (Fine metal is right next to fibers) looking for a picture of a tick. There are signs all over the place with tick warnings, and there was a pamphlet stapled right on the wall in our studio. That wasn't cutting it for him. By the way, if there is internet access at Peters Valley, I wasn't aware of it, so googling an image was not an option. He said he needed the image because he wanted to forge a bronze tick to hang on the wall in the food house! There was quite a bit of art like that around, maybe left behind by students or instructors.

We get thrown out of the fiber studio at 10 pm, but I guess if the instructor stays, you can be in the studio as long as you like. That's why the metal studio remained open. Mary and I went over to hang out. There was wine and beer in a 5 gallon pail with ice. They were all working over there, banging away, making some really cool stuff. Wayne was working on his tick. I was just checking everything out, and he asked me if I wanted to "bang on some metal?" "Hell yes." was my reply. A young man named Kat (Cat?) was the student assistant in that studio. He annealed a piece of bronze for me that was already in a ring shape. Annealing is when you roast the metal with a torch and then quench it in water (Some metals you quench in oil, but not this) This leaves a brine on the surface, which I had to steel-wool off. Then I put the ring on a rod that is a ring sizer, and I had to bang on the ring with a hammer, which made it bigger, until it reached the size I needed. I got carried away and got to size seven, which is almost too big for any of my fingers. Then I had to bang the ring on it's sides to flatten that back out. Then I banged with a sharp hammer, to make ridges all around the ring. I was given what I would describe as a vegatable peeler for metal. I scraped along the ridges I had created to shave off the high spots. Then I polished it and, viola! A ring! I don't really think small forge is for me, but I really appreciated having an opportunity to give it a whirl.

We were hanging around talking after that, and I was running my fingers through my hair and found a tick. Wayne was thrilled. He took a picture with his phone and zoomed in. Unfortunately I never saw the finished tick.