poetry, daily.

April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. Beginning April 1, there'll be something here every weekday. I'd love to see if you join in--leave responses to writing exercises in the comments (or a link to your post), tell me what you think!

(P.S.: you can steal a little banner like the one above by clicking here and downloading it.)

this joy+ride

Some poems have been taken by This Joy+Ride, and you can see them there from today (March 15th) til the end of the month. Thanks, Shari and Sheri, for picking me.

airmail

Girl of the future, I'm sending you a crown airmail...

If you are waiting for an email about your public transit tickets and your cameras, please wait a little more--it's coming. I've been working on this, haven't had time for much else. But I haven't forgotten. If you're still interested but haven't gotten in touch, please email ohbara at gmail dot com. The project will entail you receiving something in the post, taking a high-quality digital photograph (I'll specify what), then sending me back the photo (via email) and a public-transit ticket of any kind from the place it was taken.

Recently: Benoit P.'s photos. Kyoto Chirimen Museum. Magritte's house is a museum, too. A short video (not new, but still funny) about art school.

And more good mail. (Thanks, Gracia & Louise! Poems soon.)

printing (again)

Playing with pieces of old prints in order to get ready for the class I'm teaching at LPW next weekend, I made this, which is pleasing on lots of levels.

♥

and that's all!

bunnies * konijntjes * shop * winkel

Guess who'll be in the shop today?

Meet Kaatje, Loetkin, Maartje, Elleke, Geraard, and Lien.

They're all made of cashmere and backed with the same fabric as their legs, with hand-embroidered faces and their particular personalities. Each konijntje comes with a name tag (not shown).

Last day to buy in time for Valentine's Day is tomorrow, if you live in the US, Thursday in Europe, Monday of next week for the UK. I can't guarantee arrival before the holiday due to the vagaries of the Post here, but those are my guidelines.

and then there were...

Well, you know what happens when you leave rabbits in a room together. There are five 'vlaamse konijntjes' (Flemish bunnies) here now, and more on the way. Probably in the shop around the end of next week, in time for Valentine's Day.

the story of making things

Pictures of art I love and the story of why I like it (and so why I make art), for the Belgian for Christmas, You can see them here.

a list, and help required.

Forgeries, masks, games, double agents (triple agents), clementines in the winter, granny-smiths in the summer, some Borges and Neruda, lots of wandering around Paris by myself, pretend mushrooms and plastic goldfish, nasturtium leaves (like dollhouse plates), red notebook, trains, a photobooth.

The lovely Belgian gave me a new camera for Christmas. The one I had, I'd had since 2002 and then it cost me about $70. It's not bad--it's fine for documentation--but it's about 2 megapixels (my mobile's camera is more powerful) and it doesn't like to focus and it eats batteries like candy. It is such a luxury to be able to take clear photographs, of high quality, and at a large size.

I'm thinking of where my prints will go and I think photography (and the rest of the list above) will be a big part.

I need volunteers from other places in the world who will take a photograph (I'll send instructions) and send me a used train ticket. Any takers?

we wish you a mushroom christmas

...and a fungi new year.

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His name is Arnaud, and he is the last of les Champignons de Paris. (You can find them here, along with many other mushrooms I have made or found.) With the others, and with ornaments and prints and bobêches and necklaces and patchwork bags and pretty things, he will be at the KiosKiosk in Nottingham where I'll be part of a shop. We're just up the way from the main Christmas market, so get a mug of mulled wine and come say hi.

If you're in Nottingham, stop by and see me. The KiosKiosk is on Pelham Street, across from Homemade Café, just up from Zara. You can see some of the things I've made here. We're open Tues-Weds-Thurs this week (1-2-3 December) from 10-6 T/W and 10-5 Th. I'm with Amy Blackwell and Hollie Brown.

If you're not in Nottingham, some things will be up for sale on Monday, December 7. Check here for details.

bird woman, a case history

She appeared in my drawings after I lived in Venice (2005). The Plague Doctor is a clear relation. One very rainy night during my first year in England I made the mask. And then, when I needed to sneak around, or startle birds, or be generally wilder than my normal situation allowed, she would come out.

She is very weird. She is fearless. She will come into your garden with a large pair of shears and steal your best rose. She has truck with Papa Lazarou. She has a camera. She disappears. She stares immoderately. Her umbrella is waterproof. Suddenly she is next to you.

bobêches

Getting ready for a little Christmas market here. The bobêches in this photo are new ones for my candles, to replace (for now) the spring ones with many colors of flowers. White roses and rosehips for winter. I've made some to sell, too; you can see them here. I'll also have hearts and mushrooms and other small things, and prints.

I will have a small selection for sale here, too, in early December. Anything you particularly like? Commenting won't bind you to anything, I just want to know what appeals. See recent production here.

Happy weekend!

making and thinking

Heart ornaments filled with lavender.



Downtown Nottingham getting ready for Christmas.



My roses are still flowering.

"To understand our situation in reality is not to define it, but to be in an affective state....Thus we are responsible beyond our intentions" (Emmanuel Levinas, in Entre Nous, p. 3).

benoît has the biggest smile

And that is all that needs to be said, probably.

I hope you are smiling, too. I taught today for the first time in so long and remembered how much I love it, and lots of other things, like how happy being in a classroom makes me, and how good it feels when people really value your work. Now I'm going to study and hope for blue skies again tomorrow.

here is another sort of mushroom

claudette




delphine




marcel



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For a Christmas market or two that I'll be in in Nottingham. I love making them. I enjoy making their 'clothes' the most.

Recent finds:

You Can Make It Easy
Vlijtig
Foodbeam
It will stop raining

Two I have liked for a long time:

88
Flor de Papel (again)

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Listening to Garrison Keillor and catching up on some work after a full day of poetry and chestnut-confectionary making. And lots of silly time with Neele and Ben. I've been listening to a lot of MPR lately and it's very nice. I miss having a radio. But I love that I can listen to radio from home (though six hours off the 'right' time) and I love that now I have a landline I can call home for free.

Happy and connected.

Lendings

finding it

Since the beginning of September, after almost two years of hiatus, I started making things again. I don't mean in the once-a-week studio day way that I've been making prints (which is about making things to process what else is happening around me), but in a more general here-a-minute, there-a-minute way that's much more like how I worked when I made things to sell. Making things all the time! It feels so good. I wonder if part of it is that I really gave up reading most crafty/makey blogs about 6 months ago. I was overwhelmed by all the information and all the things I felt as though I'd never have time to do. Without that stimulus (for the most part--I still look at blogs I enjoy but it's much more pleasing now, more relaxed, it doesn't make me feel weird pressure) I think something got freed up so I could finally just start making things again. And now, preparing for Christmastime markets, I looked through my photos for inspiration--to see all the things I thought of, my ideas, and get inspired. It felt really empowering to see what I had made and feel like I could make things to sell again.

all the small things I made for you

This print and one other just got into a set of three shows--one at the Rufford Craft Centre, one at the Leicester City Gallery, and one at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. Well, that's all right!

knitting and Foucault

...thus is made a PhD. Apparently.

Now I'm beginning the third year in England. The fourth year living away from Minneapolis. You can see what happened so far here: Dole, England 1, England 2.

Lili Scratchy makes such playful things. I love them.

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trade, part 2

All right, I have a bunch of small prints made with gold leaf, and I just got my sewing machine fixed, and I'm moving into a new house this week. Add to this the fact that there aren't many stockists for good (and affordable...yes, Liberty's a 2-hour trainride away) cotton here, and this means I'm on the lookout for trades. Here's what I'm looking for:

1. Heather Ross prints. Not picky about the yardage--most things I make are small. I like the recent fairytale ones especially!

2. Polka dots like this one (yellow with white dots from Echino) or this one (pink or blue or brown....).

3. Soft quilting cottons with bright patterns (things like Anna Maria Horner's or Amy Butler's designs).

4. Yardage of plain cotton in dark orange, mustard, deep bright red (a more pinky/orangey red than a purpley red), or springy yellow-green.

In general I like pinks, oranges, yellows, green-blues, yellow-greens, eggplanty purples, and brown.

Here's what I have to send back:

1. Small etchings in very limited editions, printed this summer in Leicester, with gold leaf chine collee. There are a whole variety of little etchings: coldframe, garden, snails, girls. Depending on what you have to trade, I'll send you up to three.

2. A very few larger prints--ask and we'll see if we can work something out. I do have one of the new house/home prints as well.

If you're interested in trading, leave a comment here with your email address and what you have to trade and I'll email you to arrange something.

berries

Filled with lavender for a friend's birthday. Yesterday it rained heavily, steadily all day. I heard it (beneath the sounds of Sigur Ros) on the skylight while I read articles and took notes and worked on the NPS website and cut and sewed these strawberries.

I only want to have things and make things that I 'know to be useful or believe to be beautiful'. That goes for all my creative work, whether theory, poetry, printmaking, or sewing. And for what I buy and for what I bring into my space.

and we're live!

{Note to self: always double the time you think anything on the internet will take.}

But it's done! The site's updated, (almost) everything is in the shop (I have some flea-market things from France that I haven't put up. May save them for later this summer), and it looks great, if I do say so myself.

I'm using Etsy this time, so if you got a coupon in the mailing list email and you want to buy something, the coupon won't work. Durr. Email me and I'll make sure to slip a few extra surprises in your package to make up for it.

Happy weekend! I'm off to the library to find books about silhouettes.

garden party

(What it means is the kind of late evening with lanterns, lilac trees that have bloomed out and now are hung with shadow, the first stars; fireflies.)

(What it means is an afternoon at a redwood picnic table and the sparkling, shifting color of light through leaves, the smell of calamine lotion and its particular pink.)

(What it means is ice tea, a good novel, three hours all to yourself in a thunderstorm after heat, then two close friends for dinner and cake in the greenhouse you built out back.)

Shop update :: Summer Collection I/ Garden Party :: Saturday, June 2 :: noon, CST


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[welcome to my new house]

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