Fairy Clutter

More fairy faces

At what point do fairy faces become clutter? When they spill out of the sour cream container I've stuffed them in? I actually threw one away the other day. It just didn't even remotely work. But each one is a little personality, they really become alive.

Change a-comin' - Time to De-Clutter

Change is inevitable... we can go kicking and screaming or laughing and dancing! I aspire to laughing and dancing, although I'm not immune to the FUDS - fear, unhappiness, doubt, and stress - acronym and concept thanks to Serge Kahili King. What to do, what to do, minge minge minge, whimper. There is always SOMETHING we can do. Some small thing, some action towards change, can make the turning difference.

If nothing else, you probably have a spot on your desk, an area in your purse, maybe even a whole shelf or a ROOM full of stuff that could be sorted out, cleaned up, filed, thrown away, or recycled. Robin Atkins has been writing about this over on Words Paint. and her thoughtful analysis of her resistance has me thinking about my own.

Grey polka dot fairy face, highly brightened. Paper was fragile and dark. Brighter orange spots on eyebrows are soggy and paper dissolved to white.

We all have our own reasons to hold on to stuff. I was the "keeper" in our family and kept a lot of our family treasures and memories. I loved having my grannie's manicure set after she died. She had the most beautiful nails, always beautifully polished and buffed. (I don't have beautiful nails.) I always kept every letter and most greeting cards, almost every gift given me, unless it was so ugly it broke itself immediately. It symbolized family and continuity for me.

At 23, I thought I might be staying in France for a while, maybe permanently, and one of the things I took with me in my carry-on was a specially made (by my brother Mark) wooden box holding a big porcelain darning egg, swaddled in excelsior. It was my great-grandmother's and I can remember my mom actually using it when I was a small kid, to darn my father's huge wool socks. I brought it home 6 weeks later. 23 years later I moved that same wooden box in my carry-on, and 5,000 pounds of other stuff in a big ship, across the ocean to Kaua'i.

I was leaving everyone and everything I knew and loved. Again. For the 2nd time in 2 years. After I'd just furnished a big apartment and had a more or less coordinated "theme" and furniture that actually matched, thanks to my sister Lola and Ikea. I wasn't being dramatic about it, or anything (not ME), but I really felt like I needed a nest I knew.

It all just kind of got out of hand when the shipper guys said I should make an inventory of my stuff and its value. If I couldn't replace it all for $5,000, then it was worth it to ship as much as I wanted, since it would still cost about $3,000 to insure, custom-crate and ship the art and framed tapestry and art supplies and books that I definitely wasn't leaving behind. For another $2,000 I could ship furniture and pretty much anything else I wanted to keep. Not only that, they'd pack it in Seattle, hold it on the dock for 3 weeks, ship it, and unpack it and take away the rubbish afterward in Hawaii.

That would give me the time I needed to find a place to live. I called it "The Princess Plan." I so loved my mover guys on both sides of the water.

My books - just the plum 300 of the 800 I had - valued out at $15,000. The art supplies, about $5,000 on their own, and I'd just spent almost $2,000 on furniture. You see the economics of it. It was grand. I shipped cases of my mom's home-made jelly, each jar bubble-wrapped individually. I may still have some of those jars! There was a lot of wheeling and dealing and giving away. I winnowed it down to 5,000 pounds - $1 per pound! - and arrived with enough furniture and linens to furnish a 2-bedroom condo on the beach, and enough art supplies to last for years.

I just didn't know how smart the whole thing was until I'd lived here for a while. Smart because there are limited shopping options on a small island in the middle of the sea, and sometimes the quality is poor. There is no Ikea. Repeat, there is no Ikea. Everything has to be shipped in, freight added, which is sometimes the same amount as the item. You have to really want something to pay twice the price for it.

There's another tall one like the one on the left, just around the corner in the hallway. The big one has been reinforced with a plywood back and some interior shelves, thanks to Matt. I'm sure this extended its life by many years.

I've been very grateful to have had my big Ikea bookshelves. We are still using them, 12 years later. We sold off many of them after the big fire, and I'm sure they are still in someone's garage in Wailua, doing yoeman duty. I still have about 150 books, and I married a man with books of his own. ("Must read" was an important requirement in a husband, but somehow I forgot to translate that in my mind into "Will have hundreds of books of his own. And papers, too.") We are always trying to winnow them down to "essentials."

Books are our friends, colleagues, and tools. I've always regarded them as such, and felt secure in them. People friends come and go, books endure. In the tropics, they also mold if you don't open them and enjoy their company.

Furniture moves around the island. I've had 3 sofas since I've been here, none of them more than $300 and all in good condition, and re-sold later after we'd used them for a while. I've had several big wooden tables - our current one cost $10 and we got it 2 houses down the street and walked it home.

Home is where the books are. The tall brown shelf on the right was new then, a gift from a client. Empty shelves, what a fleeting luxury.

I don't have a lot of the stuff I came with, including the giant tapestry or my parent's metal bed frame. I do still have a dresser my dad built. And more art supplies than ever, shipped in at great expense, or purchased on the mainland and brought back in luggage.

I like "little things." I live and work in a very small space, and it will never be Zen-like or probably even very clean. I just try to keep the clutter to a minimum, or at least well-organized. I work at little areas of it at a time. I don't judge myself when I just need to play dolls, or bead, instead.

And I ready myself for change when I do it, because making small changes creates ripples that make bigger changes. Clearing the clutter opens the way.

Fairy Faces

Happy New Year!

I've been drawing fairy faces.

Freshly inspired by the prospect of Elinor Peace Bailey coming to Kauai in March, I ordered a bunch of patterns off her website, including a couple of fairy patterns. They were lovely, but I didn't like the head so much, so I made my own. Then I got out "Creative Cloth Doll Faces," by Patti Medaris Culea and gave myself a little drawing tutorial. This is such an inspirational book. She really details the eyes out, but mine are so small it's difficult to get that much detail. The heads are only 2 inches high by 1.5 inches wide from ear to ear.

I like drawing every day. I think I've improved a bit, although some of these earliest ones still had a lot of personality, big crooked mouths and all. Miss Pink, in the upper left corner is the culmination of a lot of drawing. Her eyes are fairly level, more or less the same size, and her mouth doesn't take up 30% of her head.

I'm having so much fun!

12 new friends

Happy Anniversary - 5 years!

Our happy day - September 18, 2005

Five very happy and eventful years... 6 weeks after we were married, there was a big fire next to our house which changed our lives, helped us divest ourselves of a lot of "stuff," and understand what was really important in our lives - to be safe, and to have each other - and the cat, of course!

We moved into a tiny studio - the "teacup" - and learned to live small and snug with a tabletop oven and a hot plate. We had a disturbing absentee landlady and noisy neighbors,  and ended up breaking our lease and moving out 2 months early.

Our next home was Cloud Rest, a sweet and funky 400 square foot cottage in Moloaa, one large room with a hip wall on one side. We lived there for 3-1/2 happy years, next door to our good friends. It was a sweet property, many fruit trees, and really good energy on the land.

Our current home is small, but has many neat features: storage, closets, a full bathroom, a full kitchen with a stove and full-sized refrigerator, a bedroom with walls and a door that closes. The back door does not enter into the bathroom... Plus room for Matt's woodbench - and now the beadio, too.

Tablecloth spread out on king-sized bed and doubled back

We had a lovely morning, celebrating with breakfast at Ono Family Restaurant, scene of our very first date. Then on to Home Depot for potting soil and lacquer. When we came out of the store, we were addressed by a young man who offered to fix our trailing front bumper and buff out one of the most ragged spots and primer it. He had everything he needed to do the job, and did it well. We thought we'd been blessed by a car angel. When I got home and told Abbie and Jack, the roofer, about it, Jack said that there are a couple guys on island who do that, some of them not so honest or good. This one was good and he did a good job on something we hadn't gotten around to fixing for almost 2 years.

I did some potting in the flowerboxes over at school and then came home to play in my beadio. I got the curtains entirely done! It was sweet sewing in the beadio for the first time - making curtains out of a tablecloth we used for our wedding, on our anniversary.

Matt reflects as Peggy sews

Making curtains

It took most of the afternoon, but they were done and hung right after dinner. I'm not sure what the round light spots are - orbs? Or spots on the lens? Not in any other photos. Will have to examine the curtains themselves in the morning to see if there are actually round spots on them.

They make the window a lot softer

It felt very snug, private and peaceful in there with the curtain closed. And then we went down to town and got cake and ice ceam and sweet rolls for breakfast tomorrow morning. What a great day!

Beadio Before and After - It's All Progress

At the beginning - light stacked against the dark wall

People always say, "It's all a process." As if that makes it easier to make all the steps! Sometimes it's comforting when that process is taking longer than you'd like it to, but I think I'd rather say, "It's all progress."

It's hard to remember how dark it was in there before the pine went up. At Christmas, it had just been sanded, and the old shelf unit sanded down to bare wood. You can see how beat up the white wall was.

The "winter" scene with a foil lake and train on a siding

We set up a table in the middle of the room and 6 of us celebrated the sacrament of sharing Christmas dinner together. Definitely a cozy meal! I had so much fun looking at the Christmas photos that I just can't resist including these 2, too.

Elf available - will work for cookies and milk

Elf available - will work for chocolate

It's Christmas all year 'round for some of us! It was Christmas again yesterday (and maybe my birthday, too!) when I went to get the final pieces to complete the beadio. A fan is essential, it's so hot in there in the afternoon, and AC is just a fleeting dream. A power strip, for plugging in the sewing machine and the glue guns. A floor lamp, to complement the small bench lamp. They are both "daylight" fixtures and produce a very bright, white light that is perfect for beading.  Between the 2 of them, I will have good light and will postpone putting in fluorescent fixtures over the workbench area. And finally, 2 spring-loaded curtain rods for the window.

Whew! That was a lot in one day, even though I had set specific money aside for it, money I earned doing an extra computer job that involved a lot more development time than paid time. I learned a lot, anyway! And I could see that lamp and fan and curtain rods hanging out there like a ripe, juicy carrot on a stick.

I am actively trying to be frugal, although it seems to go against my core nature. When Matt says I was a princess in another life, I think he may just be right! Maybe part of noblesse oblige is not squandering what you have on frivolities, but I doubt it. A princess is obliged to live as well as she can, for the sake of others who can't. My "very well indeed" is pretty humble compared to some of the studios I've seen in magazines, but I know the SECRET OF LIFE.

It may be simple and pieced together (like this photo), but it's a palace to me

It's not the size of the room, it's the aloha there. And 6 coats of fresh paint!

I haven't had to buy a container yet! I am using what I have, which is many, of course. When we moved from Cloud Rest I went out and bought a lot of coordinating plastic tubs, because I wanted some long-term storage. Paper boxes don't work in the tropics. They mold, can't be cleaned, and insects love to eat them. Yum, the glue is particularly tasty. The rectangular tubs on the top shelf are actually the drawers from a flimsy 3-drawer rolling unit that collapsed under the strain of a sewing machine and other things stacked on it for too long. The stucture had no integrity anymore, but the drawers are just fine, and serve to corral my ribbons, and small blue tubs of doll parts and other interesting bits.

I dream about getting 2 rolling tabletop island units with shelves and drawers underneath. They could roll right under the shelf unit, pull out to be used as tables when needed, and store everything I currently have in tubs and cheap plastic drawer units. It's good to dream! In the meantime, I will continue to use what I have.

Fabric sorted and stored in a dark corner

I've had these tall narrow containers with blue lids for years. If I had 8 of them, they would stack up to the beginning of the peg board, and lie fairly flat against the wall in a rainbow of colors. Another simple dream. I sorted all my fabric by color, and this amount doesn't seem unreasonable for 35 years of collecting. I have purged it many times, especially after the fire next door in Wailua. I like having fewer things. I think I still have a lot. It's great to be able to go into a cupboard and find something you stored against a "rainy day," or in my case, a big dinner party.

I love linens, and have kept far more of them than is justified by our lifestyle. Some things are harder to divest than others. French linens call to me and comfort me. I feel happy looking at them, I like to touch them, I like to feel the grandmothers that wove them and embroidered them a century ago.

It makes sense (almost) to have 14 bath towels when we each use a fresh one every day. It doesn't make sense to keep tablecloths that are 10x16 feet, when that is bigger than the largest room in your home, even if they are the most beautiful blue cotton damask ever. We used this particular cloth before the wedding. We set up 2 banquet tables end to end in the garage and covered them with this one humongous table cloth and then laid lace on top of that. It stayed up most of the time and we ate all our meals out there. Only in Hawaii have I ever seen people party in their garages like this.

They will be beautiful blue cotton damask curtains. All those happy memories will radiate into the new space.

Blessing the Beadio - 13 months later

After the blessing - before the incense burnt a small spot on the newly painted shelf. The doll represented my ancestors - who were doubtless looking on, scoffing and tutting.

 It's September 1 already. Pre-Christmas panic usually sets in around now - or at least it used to, when I started making things in July, except that I didn't really, and so by September 1 I'd start to feel just a bit worried. Now I don't even pretend to make all my presents, so I don't have to worry. God Bless AMAZON.

(No, they don't pay me to say that. After reading blogs for a couple of hours, I feel like every one has a disclaimer somewhere. And I wish I was one of those artists who are somehow subsidized by craft companies to play with their resin and stuff.)

The shelf wall with the new oven

Matt photographing the beadio and getting himself in the picture

It was really a happy day on Sunday when we blessed the beadio and I began to move my stuff out of the back closet into my own creative space. I got up at 8 and cleaned it thoroughly and then put on a clean dress for the blessing. Our intentions are for creative energy, new ideas, a space to be alone and a space to be together.

The whole room is 64 square feet. Compact. Still, roomy compared to the 15 square feet of cupboard that has been my studio for the last 18 months - along with my lap, of course.

It has great acoustics. The pine paneling creates an air pocket that makes every voice sweeter. Or maybe we're just sweeter when we're in there because it's such a honey of a room. We go all gaga in there because we put a lot of love into making it, not to mention time and money. I know I am going to spend many happy hours in there.

The sofa bed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cupboard studio - beads are in bags on cookie sheets and trays

I wanted a sofa bed or something off the floor that my sister or other guests could sleep on. I don't like sleeping on the floor in the tropics, or anywhere else, for that matter. This is a tiny sleeper loveseat, that folds out into a single bed. I will have to take a nap on it before I decide if it's comfy, but we can always put a futon or some feather beds on top of it. It's a comfy loveseat. It has a black plastic "leatherette" - ha - cover, which is washable. It will soon have a quilt over it - I even found one in all my stuff as I was moving it - the perfect thing to make a slipcover out of.

Heresy of heresies, I am thinking of cutting up a quilt I've had for 40 years. Well, parts of it are shredded already. It was my bed quilt for many years and covered other chairs before this sweet little loveseat.

So with the loveseat and the shelf wall, that's about it - the bed folds out to the opposite wall with about 4 inches to spare. I have already started moving stuff in there and there is a lot of it.

So much stuff - what is in all these boxes that I haven't played with in 18 months?!

I unpacked most of the stuff that was in cardboard boxes, because I wanted to get rid of them. They are a prime roach heaven, but there weren't any. They must have all been in the kitchen cupboards. Towards the end, I was just staging boxes on the table, pulled out to the window wall. I still had to get everything else organized, dusted, and back into the "back-of-beyond" closet in the bedroom. I still can't believe we can actually walk back there. Or we could, anyway, before we put Matt's big saw back there!

This weekend we will work on his wood-working space together - it has become the repository for a lot of rubbish and everything I didn't want in the beadio, plus the new lumber for the expanded work bench and wood loft.

I finished up about 9 and was too hyper to relax. At 10:30, I went out for lemon cookies. As soon as I ate them, I was ready to sleep.

This one last picture is probably the best one of the day - one of 2 happy geckoes that live in the room. Matt took this one, and most of the others. When we laid this tile down on the concrete floor, it really became a ROOM.

Stripey walls and a beautiful transom

Progress on the beadio is all due to this lovely guy, still working on it whenever he gets a chance.

My progress on blogging sort of matches the beadio progress. There is an intention there, but life sort of intervened. I had cataract surgery, Matt had a couple weeks of musical inspiration and had to record, school got busy for both of us, family came to visit.

I've spent hours researching using Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter for complementary internet marketing, another of the hats I wear on a different gig than my day job.

Matt was also inspired to create the preliminary drawings and carving for the pierced and lighted transom above the door. The carving along the bottom reads "Deep Roots Are Not Touched By The Frost."

This is a shot of the left side of the door on the "stripey wall." The dark area that looks sort of like a window is actually an opening into the wall, where a pegboard will hang. Matt hand-picked this pine to create this stripey pattern and it is just spectacular.

All that remains now are the pieces that need to be stripped down smaller, and the trim pieces. Then it's sinking and filling the nails, and on to sanding, sanding, and more sanding.

It's really coming along! It's a sunny, golden, happy space.