Water Damaged Photos

January 26, 2007

This is my photo-washing station. Luckily since I have LOTS of photos to wash and dry, I have great scenery for my work — one of Russ’s aluminum and plexiglass paintings that hangs in our group room as a partition to hide to all the snacks in the kitchen behind.

Every day I do another batch and lay them out on tables to dry. Last week, someone on the QA list suggested I look up how to save wet photos on the internet (thanks very much!) and I found this website. At the time, I was laying on the sofa, but this site reinforced the urgency of the situation, so I jumped back to work. I wish I had read these ideas earlier, but everything still seems to be working although it’s been over a week. As suggested I did freeze one box of lower-priority photos because there’s just so darn many of them, and my back is killing me!

There are too many to take to a photo shop, especially because all the shops here have been without power for a week and are behind on their other jobs. I also read another site that says that now preservatives have been washed off the photos, so they will probably fade more quickly. We have been planning to scan them when dry. Since all of these projects happened in the ancient pre-digital-camera days, it would be nice to have them on computer. But there’s too many, so I’m definitely using my editing trash can.

This photo was taken before the green machines arrived. Now that they’re here, the photos are drying faster but it’s also a lot messier. There are cords and tubes on the floor everywhere, a lot more dust in the air, and the green machines keep blowing circuits. Yesterday the DSL was down most of the day. I was feeling a bit lonely with no email again, but it was nice to get home and read so many of your nice posts. It really cheered me up — thanks!

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Green Machines

January 24, 2007

Because there was so much water released in the offices by the broken sprinkler system (first it rained, then it flooded), the whole place has to be dried out to prevent mildew. So now there are about forty noisey green machines –high-powered fans and dehumidifiers — running night and day. It’s a little like trying to work inside a windstorm, so it seems ironic that we have a whirlwind painted on the wall of what used to be our conference room.

This is ground zero, where it all started, but now the custom desk and carpet are removed. Nice of the de-humidification company to bring decor-matching equipment.

Not only all carpet has to be removed, also all the ceilings and (wah) our beautiful tile floors. I think the hand-glazed walls may be the only thing safe from total replacement.

This was my office, peacefully drying out slides and papers. That was before they torn out the ceiling and the green machines blew papers all over the place.

My studio in the back of the warehouse fared pretty well, except water from the flood crept under the doors and into the carpet. It wicked across the room, spoiling lots of things I hide under the table and into the flannel on all my pin boards. So we’ve moved those down to dry.

What about all my fabrics, you may ask? All okay, except that I had them packed so tightly on the shelves, that just to be safe and prevent any potential mildew problems, I’ve moved them off the shelves so the de-humidifiers can circulate air around them. Tomorrow we’ll move more green machines back here. Some really nice art books are drying on the table, and Madalaine waits patiently for all this to be over.

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Barn’s Burnt Down

January 23, 2007

Barn’s burnt down –
now
I can see the moon.

Masahide
1688

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Simple Things

January 20, 2007

Yesterday the sun was shining, so some of the ice melted — but not much. Today was cloudy and snowy and now an icy rain is falling. Predictions are for another two inches of sleet, so this does not bode well for getting back to normal life. Here’s a link to more ice storm photos.

Yesterday I had a photo session scheduled at my Perils of PaMdora show at Pool Art Gallery for a March article in Signature Magazine. Although it was difficult, the photographer and I decided to go ahead as planned. It was a great opportunity to get some restoration advice for water damaged slides and photos. His advice seems to be working better than expected, so maybe later I’ll write it up to help other artists who might someday have this problem.

I was hoping to look really sharp for my photo session because Bob is an awesome photographer, but as my friend said, we’re all looking a little rough these days. Since I have been staying up all night at the studio trying to clean up the flood, I told Bob he had to Photoshop the bags out from under my eyes. Just as he finished and packed up his equipment, a transformer blew up nearby and the whole building lost power, so we finished just in time.

Walking around my show yesterday reminded me of objects that I put in the installation — little things I hoped would express joy in the creative process, a love of my artistic materials of choice, and other small and simple things. These are embroidery threads that I wind on old wooden spools to keep them organized.

Last fall I saw photos of a Kiki Smith sculpture using jars — and although her concept was very different from mine, I was inspired to include some jars of dye to express the amazing process of hand-dyeing fabric. It was a little tricky to get them to look right — I ended up using bits of vintage lace, something I had been wanting to experiment with anyway.

Before this storm hit I was working on photos of my show to put on my web site. But I’ve had to drop most creative pursuits for the last week because this storm has become a serious situation in which lots of people are really struggling to just to survive.

Thanks so much to all of you who have sent email sympathies and offers of help. For others, it may be easy to second-guess choices that people make in such situations, but folks here are doing the best they can and have been quite resourceful. We are luckier than many, having a small generator to run the boiler and radiators in our house, a couple of lights, the TV, and DSL box. But to truly keep our house warm, we’ve had to burn a fire around the clock — and cutting and thawing ice-covered trees for firewood is a full time job.

Then there’s making ice on the porch to keep food in coolers at the right temperature, preparing candles for after-dark, feeding the neighbors and elderly people that we have taken in, keeping their abandoned house pipes from freezing, and yada yada yada…. Not to mention many of these people are still trying to go to their day jobs on top of all this survival stuff. I have a new respect and understanding for how hard it is to be a pioneer, a farmer, etc….I’d rather get back to my job of being an artist!

Since we got power back on at our house on Thursday, it’s been a little easier, but there are still lots of dark neighborhoods around us. And if you get the power back, you can lose it just as fast because the whole city power grid is unstable and under repair. So we’re still stocking up on firewood, and inviting our neighbors over for a shower and load of laundry. It is surprising how important these simple things are if you haven’t had them for a week.

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From Bad to Worse

January 19, 2007

Another day breaks in the crystal forest. Meanwhile, news from the inside isn’t good…

Even though we’ve been running generators around the clock to keep things above freezing, the 4 degree weather for two nights in a row with no power got us. The fire sprinkler system in the ceiling at the studio frozen and exploded when the power came back on Wednesday night, sending thousands of gallons of high-pressure water everywhere. Luckily a City Utilities worker saw water pouring out of the front door, and was able to turn the water off at the main.
The offices and front warehouse were flooded with six to eight inches of water so everything on bottom shelves and in all my files drawers is soaked. The worst place the water exploded was right in the middle of our photo and slide room. See that black hole where the light is falling down? That used to be the ceiling.

There’s nothing like opening drawers and seeing a lifetime of slides floating in water, not to mention all the family and wedding photos albums I was storing in that room. And camera and video equipment. So now we’re working around the clock to control the damage. This is the photo and slide triage room.

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Another Dark Night

January 15, 2007

Another night without power. And the excuse to burn candles to make things romantic. At the same time, I think about the ingenuity of simple things, such as putting a string in wax to burn and make light for a whole evening. I think we often take what we think are simple technologies for granted. But to invent such a thing before it was common probably made major diffences in world history.

I discovered something important today — how to make a cup of coffee without a coffee-maker. I found a funnel, lined it with a coffee filter, and poured boiling water through it to make a good cup of coffee! yay — the first few tries were not so good, because I was used old pre-ground coffee. Then I got the chance to try to some better pre-ground coffee beans, and Success!! Especially after adding the cream that’s been sitting out on the porch.

Luckily we have a gas stove-top so we can cook and boil water. Luckily also, I have some talented friends who make hand-carved coffee mugs with things like giraffees and little funky cars on them, because I truely believe, even if you’re roughing it, you should do it in the artistic style in which you are accustomed to.

Not much luck at the studio, however. We returned today to find the power company’s efforts in vain. Three power-poles have fallen over…

and crashed terribly. Several more poles are tipping dangerously.

I hope to get more photos of the trees that I saw today. But tonight we’ll sit by the fire and try to re-charge for tomorrow, when the temperatures will be even lower. Thank goodness that we have a big fireplace to dry and burn wood.

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Ghost Town

January 14, 2007

Nights are dark without electricity, but I like to keep lots of candles around. I usually just put them inside of clear canning jars so they make lots of light and are easy to carry around the house. Except I got a little carried away and created a tray (a Mexican bar tray) full of candles.

The reason there’s no electricity is we’ve been hit by a terrible series of ice storms. There’s not much ice on the road, but the trees have been covered with thick coats of globby, gleaming ice. Walking outside of our house feels like walking into a ghost forest of deathly white trees, into a ghost town where almost all the houses are dark. If you stand outside for more than a few minutes, in the unnatural silence you will hear the eerie noise of branches falling and trees crashing down somewhere from the weight of the ice.

We haven’t had any power since Friday night, so a lot of time is spent working on alternative ways to stay warm — gathering down jackets and lots of blankets, gathering and drying out fire wood. I’ve been checking in with some of our elderly neighbors, because if you walk around the neighborhood, you see that a lot of people are blocked in their own driveways with fallen branches. Actually there are branches and trees and power lines fallen down over most roads, so it’s difficult to drive anywhere even if you do get out.

We were hoping the studio would get power get power soon because it’s in a commercial district, but so far no luck even though yesterday there were eight trucks working on the street outside.

Once the power company gets a power line hooked up, another one falls somewhere else, so half the city is without power. The worst part of all this is, the weather forecast for the next few days predicts temperatures dropping into the low teens in the day and lower at night. So for lots of people who haven’t left town already, the trick will be to stay safe and warm until the end of the week.

Here’s the view out our front door. We can’t even walk this way because of fallen trees.

And in the back, this hundred-year-old tree has been shattered. This summer we’ll miss its shade and already our yard squirrels and dog are mourning the loss. We might just have to use it for firewood though, if the power’s not on soon.

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White is a Color

January 12, 2007

I try to always carry a little spy camera around with me to snap photos for my inspiration files — especially ideas for color schemes. And often while getting haircuts, I’ve admired this little box from afar, but yesterday I finally got out of the barbar chair to capture it.

My hair stylist says this company has been making bob pins since the 1930’s and probably never redesigned the package in this time. Good thing! because I think it’s so handsome in simple pink, black and white.

It’s a great example of something a friend taught me — white is a color. Previously I knew that white in terms of light is a mix of all the colors of light. And white in terms of pigment, as in mixing paints, is an absence of color. But once while judging a student logo competition, my friend Mary who runs her own graphics studio, turned to me and said, “These students haven’t learned that in graphic design, white is a color.”

I’ve thought about that often since then. In some of my quilts I’ve used white as a color, as you can see in The Singing Telegram and Blue Christmas. When you use white, you have to be more careful while working — not to get it dirty! My dog Mochi walked through the warehouse one day, smelling every odd thing, then smelled Blue Christmas which was on a low table. Horrors — a dirty smudge! Had to ban the dog after that, but the spot came out and you can’t blame her really — she’s so smart, maybe she knew the quilt was about her!

So here’s a toast to white (as I raise my morning glass of milk!)

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Vote in the FiberArts studio competition

January 8, 2007

Yay, I’m a finalist in the FiberArts Magazine studio contest! I’m not sure why I entered, except that the fact that the prizes are mysteriously not named added a little intrique to the whole thing. It about killed me to enter, because the deadline to submit photos and written information was the same day that my show opened on December first.

But I had to take some photos anyway of my studio right before the show, because I figured it would never look better than when it was full to the gills with work in progress. Except of course, I had to clean it up…..yikes!!!

The sad part is I don’t think I entered my best photos. Silly me, I had this crazy idea that I would make another, probably illegal entry from PaMdora, not really to cheat — but because I thought it would be funny if she entered the mock-studio installation at the Pool Art Center Gallery. Unfortunely, it proved to be too much for me, and I never got the joke studio submitted. I know you think I’ve been slacking off in the art department, but since the opening of that show, I’ve hard at work on a re-vamp of my website which will include a photo tour of that installation.

In the meantime, enjoy a visit to FiberArt Magazine’s website. You can read stuff I wrote about my studio. There are also 43 other artist studios on display, and you can VOTE here for the winners (hint, hint, I’ve been selected for the Best Stash category :)!

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Refrigerator Art

January 7, 2007

Around here we celebrate the New Year’s most all of January. Some people make New Year’s resolutions on January one, but I usually have to start with something like a rough sketch and fiddle around with it for the whole month.

This arrangement is on a refrigerator in our kitchen. I’ve covered it with magnetic letters that I got at a vintage salvage place in Chattanooga called “Estate of Confusion.” The magnetic letters were all brown, so I sprayed them with Krylon paint. At the center is the schedule of classes (aerobic, step, spinning, combat) at the gym near our studio. I guess it shows that most of my New Year’s ideas have to do with health and fitness. Here’s some resolutions I’ve been thinking about:

Cardio workouts five days a week
Drink a glass of of milk every morning
Eat more vegetables
Get a better haircut
Use more ribbon

When our nieces and nephews visit, they like to play around with the letters on the refrigerator which why I put them there. If they are missing a letter to spell something, they can use a Scrabble letter to fill in. You can turn anything that’s not too heavy into magnet art by getting a roll of magnetic stuff at an office supply store. It’s easy to cut with scissors, and already has adhesive on one side.

We call this refrigerator our beverage refrigerator. There’s also a lot of sauces in there. If we ever finish remodeling our kitchen, we’ll have to find another place to store all those bottles and my magnetic art.

Here’s where we store everything else. Magnets don’t stick to it because it’s stainless steel. Russ took the doors off and polished them with his magic tools at the studio. The patterns he said were inspired by something — can you guess what?

So far we haven’t met anyone else who has his-and-hers art refrigerators!

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New Year’s Yoga Mala

January 2, 2007

Happy New Year’s everyone! Okay, I admit it — I have been a blog slug for the past three weeks, and am trying my best to rise out of slugdom. But really, wasn’t it only a few hours ago that Dick Clark’s countdown was on tv, and we were opening the headache-inducing champagne. At midnight, it seemed like a great idea to run outside, fire up the cooker, and grill some steak and eggs and listen to the center-city fireworks over our garden wall.

Anyway, I’m not ready to list a bunch of new goals and resolutions — it was enough to get out of the house yesterday to participate in the New Year’s Yoga Mala at a downtown loft. Especially because I already know how much fun it is to do 108 Sun Salutations in one afternoon. Thanks for the photo, Kirsten! Russ asked me when he saw it, why do they call it Sun Salutations when he said all he saw were a lot of moons.

I also took my camera to the event, and even tried to capture what it looks like half the time. But it was a little hard to hold this downdog pose and hold the camera.

I learned long ago in public high school that the best way to get out of class legally is to become the class photographer, so I bought a camera and got someone to teach me how to develop and print photos for the yearbook and newspaper in those pre-digital days. So likewise, whenever I got tired of doing the sun salutes, I took photography breaks.

Overall the event was pretty cool — about fifty people showed up, there were real live improvisational musicians playing all sorts of strange instruments, and a singer-chanter who counted the chants on beads. And snacks! For all my yoga friends, I’ve put together this slide show of the New Year’s Yoga Mala.

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