oil

The Pipeline is the Punchline

10 inches wide x 8 inches high, across two pages of a notebook

collage

I spent the last week in Alaska. Three days were spent in a Chautauqua workshop on Oil in Alaska; two of those days were in the BP conference room listening to many lectures on the production of oil on the North Slope. Then the last day, we went to Prudhoe Bay up on the Arctic Ocean to see how BP gets oil out of the ground and sends it down the Alaska Oil Pipeline. There will be much more about this in subsequent posts—stay tuned.

Today's post is really in response to Illustration Friday's theme, punchline, put up last Friday. I created this piece out of images from various brochures and other publications that I saw while in Alaska. As good as BP might be about their safety and environmental concerns, their bottom line is still, indeed, the production of oil and soon, if all goes as they plan, natural gas. And the pipeline(s) that move the stuff are the end of the North Slope story. This is where the fuel goes to get to the Lower 48 where we use it all up. And of all the oil that we use here, 20 per cent of it is produced by BP from the North Slope of Alaska, up on the Arctic Ocean, pulling the stuff from underground reserves that were laid down millions of years ago. It is a long, long story.

great concert

Allison Krauss and Robert Plant played at CMAC in Canandaigua last night. Excellent show!

With T-Bone Burnett, who produced the album, Raising Sand.
This is quite possibly the best concert that I have heard in many years. They sang and played for two hours, everything from Siren Song to Led Zeppelin stuff. Who would have thought that Zeppelin could actually sound tuneful :) There was one fellow who thought he was at a Zeppelin concert; he kept hooting and hollering and whistling so loudly that it was quite distracting. But I guess this is the closest that he will come to hearing that band ever...his dream was fulfilled.

where are they going?

The Forgotten Are Leaving

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

Illustration Friday thought that the word forgotten would be a difficult theme to work with. Too much is forgotten in this world to make it hard to interpret. Could have gone anywhere with anything. I chose this route. Go with it. Maybe it is better over there.

new world

New World

10 inches high x 8 inches high

collage

Illustration Friday's theme this week: Baby. A new person.
How many more people do we need? It's the Earth that needs to be reborn.

an outdoor show

I was asked to participate in a local artisans and crafters outdoor festival this weekend. I have never done an outdoor event, nor did I particularly want to, but decided that this was a good opportunity for me to try something new, to see how it might work. I bought a tent and spent the past two weeks feverishly working on building an inventory of cards and prints of my collages, printing out labels and packaging everything up. Bought a tent. Decided to use my quilts as tablecloths for the tables. Colorful.

Friday's set-up: No neighbors yet. I left only the furniture, curtains, and tablecloths/quilts in the tent overnight (closed-up tent, of course; weighted down).

Saturday morning: This is what it looked like at 7 a.m. The boxes of stuff in the foreground are my neighbor's on this side. Then there is my collapsed tent with the furniture partly moved to set up the tent again. It had rained overnight, with heavy winds. This event is being held on a hill and our line of tents was at the end of the driveway, a tunnel for the moving wind from the west (in this photo, we are looking north). Beyond me are three more collapsed tents, then one standing, then two more down. Everything is sopping wet.

Saturday, a couple of hours later: I'm all set up again. But notice the bulging left side on my tent and on the one to my right. The wind kept blowing and blowing, getting stronger all day, up to about 20 mph. Everything was blowing down. Both tents on either side of me collapsed again. I took mine down at around 1 pm and was moved to a gazebo on a sheltered side of the main barn on the festival property.

I traded one $9 card for a couple of wooden puzzles with a woman who makes them.
I sold one $3.25 card to the husband of a friend.

The weather for Sunday, today, is forecast to be like Saturday but cooler and maybe less rain (yes, it rained during the day, too). I decided not to go back. Cut my losses. Clean up the chaos in the house instead.

And so that is my first outdoor festival experience. Possibly my last.

hunting for home

Check out the bee swarm in my backyard! They were buzzing away all afternoon around this maple. After dinner, I thought to go take a look; it's getting close to sunset, cooling down. And there they are, keeping their queen warm.

I wonder where they will go tomorrow?

why worry indeed

Why Worry

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

Another theme starting with a "w" from Illustration Friday, and a worrisome one at that. Just what is there to worry about? Man is progressing as he was directed to. It is up to him to define what being stewards of the Earth means, and so he has done so. Really, why worry at all?

I would worry about what women think.

how

Here is My World

notebook cover

collage

How is it that I am successful at making paper collages but am having difficulty translating that into fiber? What is it that I do when making paper collages that I don't do when using fiber? What do I see in paper that I do not see in fiber?

Tell me, please.

Clarification, I guess: The question is, Is it possible to translate vision from one medium to another?

adirondack sky

Spring sky between rain showers; this, at Blue Mountain Lake last week. What colors, eh?

ah, the world

Worldwide
10 inches high by 8 inches wide
collage

This week: wide is the theme. Go see what others have done. See here what the world is become, and who cares about it. And what the world is made of, for good or ill. Aah.

morning quiet

Yesterday morning, at Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. No people sounds yet, just the birds. And only the birds. No breeze, no rustle of leaves, no water slaps. Loon calls. Unidentified birdies singing their morning wake-ups, a very pleasant 6-note melody that ended on an anomalous gutteral, screechy 7th one. Surprise!

electricity

Bipolarity

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

Electricity=that which is caused by the movement of charged particles.

Polarity=the presence of two opposing principles.

Bipolarity=having both a negative and a positive pole. And that's when all hell breaks loose.

needed giggle

Watch and smile. I think the cat with two legs on firm ground has the best understanding of how to deal with life's unceasing flow of stuff to get done.

PS. If the thing above doesn't work, try going here.

middle of the water

Here it is: the halfway point between Albany and Buffalo on the old Erie Canal. Camillus Erie Canal Park is just west of Syracuse; 400-some acres stretch along a section of the old canal that gets filled with water each spring so that we can get a really good view of what the canal looked like back in the 1860s and into the beginning of the 20th century. This version of the canal is what is left after the first enlargement of the original channel. In the 1910s, the final enlargement of the canal was built, changing the route—in this case, bypassing this section completely—and changing its name to the New York State Barge Canal, reflecting the newer use of the thing.

warning: snake ahead

Planting Knowledge

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

Another week, another theme from Illustration Friday. This week, the word is seed. Seed, seeds, seedy. Planting them. Seeds of love. Seeds of war. The end always follows the beginning. Beware of what you start.

international fiber collaborative

Yesterday was the opening reception for Jennifer Marsh's Wrapped Gas Station International Fiber Collaborative in Syracuse, NY. It was a cloudy and chilly day, but many people came out to listen to some music, to eat some food, and to celebrate her accomplishment. I was one of 450+ participating artists—there were also something like 2500 elementary and other students involved. (My panel is the one directly to the right of the upside-down duck; it's called sunset over picnic and is knitted and sewn.) Her website explains better than I can what she is doing and why. Check it out and enjoy!

red crows

Red Crows: Work in Progress

about 6 inches high x 11 inches wide

fiber

Every fourth friday of each month, there is a challenge issued for those of us who had signed up for it. The point is to make us think about the elements of art and to create something from fabric/fiber to fulfill a particular theme. The last two themes have been about recycling, the latest using denim. I don't like working with denim. It's heavy and bulky; it frays and spills lint everywhere. This piece is made of lightweight denim, stamped and sewn. The thing isn't finished; I'm deciding on how to bring in grass-like something so that the crows are standing on or in it. And the middle is too much in the middle, pulling the eye nowhere or off the piece completely. More of my fiber creations are at the Fast Friday site here, as are pieces made by the other participants (you'll need to click on "show all posts" to see everyone else's.

wrinkles

the age of the earth

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

Another Illustration Friday theme: wrinkles. The definition in Winston Simplified Dictionary, 1925, for wrinkle is, "n. a small ridge or furrow on a smooth surface; a crease; colloquially, a useful hint or idea or an innovation." In 1998, the definition (from the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary), reads, "n. 1. a small furrow or crease in the skin, esp. of the face, as from aging or frowning..." Sometime in those 63 years, the more general became more specific, from any smooth surface to the face, which, when one really thinks about it, is never smooth. Even a baby's face wrinkles and furrows when it smiles or doesn't. And the "new idea" or "innovation" in 1925? By 1998, it is a separate entry in the dictionary and it reads, "n. informal. an ingenious trick or device; a clever innovation."

how I think

This is Fear Country

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

I've been asked, how do I come up with these collages? So, here is how. Start with the theme; this week, Illustration Friday's prompt is primitive. I riff on that. Look in several dictionaries to find, "pertaining to the beginning; original; simple or crude; old-fashioned." I connect with simple and with crude, crude oil, simpleton, what was in the beginning and what is being lost by our simple use of petroleum products and digging in the dirt to get oil and gems and to make the surface of the earth useful to us. And so it goes and I end up with this. I pull out images that feel to me like the thoughts running through my head on this subject. I cut them up, arrange them, glue them down, scan the image, and now you see it. But then there is the bit about the title. During this creation, I was listening to T-Bone Burnett singing a song called Fear Country; it struck the right bit in my brain, naming the artwork, saying what I mean.

And that is how I make a collage.

erie canal aqueduct

Old Erie Canal State Historic Park is a section of the first two versions of the canal that runs from Dewitt to Rome. Almost 17 miles of it is filled with water and is, therefore, navigable. There are three aqueducts on this section to traverse. This one is off Butternut Road at the western end of the park. When the canal was built, there were many streams that had to be crossed and the only way to do it, with the technology available then, was to build a bridge to carry the canal water over the stream—an aqueduct. What is left of aqueducts today is usually the supports that held the wooden "tub" that held the water of the canal. In the winters, these wooden structures would be removed and repaired. On the right in this photo is today's bit of an aqueduct; it is wide enough only for a kayak or a canoe, but it is an aqueduct, a bridge over running water.

when we fail

You Lose

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

What do we lose when we fail? Illustration Friday's word of the week is fail.

erie canal

The first enlargement of the Erie Canal came soon after the thing was built (1825). The enlargements expanded the locks especially—widening and lengthening the lock; doubling the lock so that boats could come and go at the same time. Gere Lock #50 opened in Camillus in 1845. These gates are on display at Camillus Erie Canal Park, a 420-acre town park that has water in the old canal for paddling, towpath for walking, and a museum. Go. Spend the day outside. Get some Vitamin D from the sun. Waves your arms in the air.

spring water

Flint Creek is full and rushing to join Canandaigua Outlet. Part of the Ontario Pathways trail goes along here; this was the creek the other day. Strong water, moving fast. Cleaning itself and its channel. The fish are there somewhere, too.

worth

Ah, another Illustration Friday theme; this one is Save. What do we save? Memories. Money. Ourselves. What does it mean to save, anyway? So close to Safe, so far from reality.

FDIC

10 inches high x 8 inches wide

collage

wind

The town of Eagle, in the Southern Tier of New York State, is a forested place, hilly, with some large dairy farms. And now, the entire town seems to be participating in a wind farm. These majestic windmills are everywhere, and they appear over every ridge as one drives up and down the roads. Impressive.