The End of October

 

Source:Marina lay upon a couch

https://www.craftscotland.org/craft-directory/makers/joanna-kinnersly-taylor/work

Autumn

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=88&issue=2&page=11

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=88&issue=2&page=10

Mary Oliver

 

From American Primitive 

A Shropshire Lad

 

A Shropshire Lad, XL

Into my heart an air that kills  
  From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
  What spires, what farms are those?  
  
That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,  
The happy highways where I went  
  And cannot come again.

by A.E. Housman 
Expired 35mm film from a Olympus OM10 camera he gave to me a few years ago, but that I never had opened. Just developed this past weekend. 
He passed away yesterday. 

Drawing South Podcast

 I spoke with mikewindy, my former sculpture professor at Flagler College, for his Drawing South Podcast. I had not spoken to Mike, beyond social media interactions, in roughly 15 years. It was beyond great to catch up and talk about art making. Mike is a great artist and teacher-and the questions and foundations he laid in that class are things I still feel today. Check out the podcast here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-conversation-with-amelia-eldridge/id1548410092?i=1000693035807 . He has lots of great talks with other artists as well. And here's a link to Mike's own website https://www.mikewindy.com/  . Thanks for the listen.

Artist Statement 11/21/22024

 ARTIST STATEMENT

“...suddenly, it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room.." - Shekure, My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Through the isolation of specific body parts, lines, and shapes I explore the structure of the human form. The body serving as an archive of experiences of space and the passage of time. Through the act of physically engaging with my materials, I descend back to this sensual world I inhabit. I use the work as a means of scrying, desiring to understand this vessel I inhabit. My desires have become enmeshed with my meditations on the cycle of the seasons, and the textures and spirits of the natural world. Techniques, crafts, stories, and ways of old that are still in existence today, inform my contemporary art practice.

The Maid

 I made this apron as a meditation on the role of the maid- a helper both looked down upon and fantasized about. I did not use a pattern, rather imagining and measuring using my body. 

I saw the painting that is featured in the cyanotype at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England in June of 2023. I was immediately stuck by her coyness and sass, a painting born of fantasy. Who is watching her? And what do they want with her? And what exactly is she washing? What was her (or any 'servants') level of consent in this? Did she welcome or hate it? Or both? A true lady's maids hands would never be that pristine..Right.. a lot of thoughts. As someone who works in a professional role of service as a public librarian, I’ve felt like a maid. People in turn concoct their own fantasy about you, while others treat you like a servant. 

A Lady’s Maid Soaping Linen by Henry Robert Moreland. C. 1765-82.

Though I saw this painting at the Holburne, the image I used to make the cyanotype is one in the collection of the Tate, featured above. 

The cyanotype hands were made using paper cutouts of my own, the idea being that they are trying to “grab at” the maid. Greedy hands versus helping ones. The two in the center are actually pockets. I had hoped that the apron would come out rather sexy. On the flip, within my personal life I  find the maid trope incredibly sexy. Seduced by falling into the role of the helper or one playing into a fantasy. It is interesting to think of the piece as a muddling between 'professional' and 'personal' life. Consent and boundaries being paramount. 

The apron is made from a simple muslin and sari ribbon around the neck. 

"She enters, as though once and for all, circumspectly deposits her vital paraphernalia beside the door, then crosses the room to fling open (humbly yet authoritatively) the curtains and the garden doors: there is such a song of birds all about! Excited by that, and by the sweet breath of late afternoon, her own eagerness to serve, and faith in the perfectibility of her tasks, she turns with a glad heart and tosses back the bedcovers: "Oh! I beg your pardon, sir!" - p. 94-95, Spanking the Maid by Robert Coover 

Integration

 Marie Howe♥️ another from her collection of poems “Magdalene”

I Pine, I Weep, I Mourn

 

On Men, Their Bodies

 

LÙNASTAL

Or Lughnasadh as it is more commonly known (lunastal is the name of the festival in Scottish Gaelic) is a Gaelic harvest festival celebrated on August 1, as it is the midway point of the Autumn and Summer Equinox. It usually is close to the new moon. It is one of the four Gaelic holidays, the others being Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane. Children conceived on Lughnasadh would be born on or around Beltane on May 1. The name comes from the god Lugh, a warrior, king, and master craftsmen in Irish mythology. He is a member of and Irish race of supernatural beings the Tuath Dé . A Christian festival called Lammas is celebrated on the same day .

My second block print. A stamp of my braided hair.

Torso painted from silver acorn ink that I foraged for along a path by the Prettyboy Reservoir. 

 

Pennyroyal Tea

 

This year I decided I wanted to grow mint. In my research, I became intrigued with pennyroyal and decided to grow some. Pennyroyal has been used since Ancient Greek and Roman times as an emmenagogue (more specifically an abortifacient) and a way to dispel afterbirth and dead fetuses. Unfortunately, over the years the abortifacient aspect got misinterpreted and amplified, resulting in many deaths. The most recent documented death occurred in 1994 in California. Also, there was a death of a 16 year old girl in Maryland in 1912 who took 36(!) pennyroyal pills to induce abortion. I can only imagine how many more women have died or been permanently injured. There are a lot of feelings and history (and poison!) in these little inconspicuous plants. I planted them on a waning gibbous phase of a cancer moon (I'm a cancer moon, but born under a waning crescent). Apparently, just a tablespoon of pennyroyal oil can cause a person to go into multi organ failure. 

An interesting article on pennyroyal from the Museum of Contraception and Abortion

"Drawing from a 13th-century manuscript of Pseudo-Apuleius's Herbarium, depicting a pregnant woman in repose, while another holds some pennyroyal in one hand and prepares a concoction using a mortar and pestle with the other. Pennyroyal was historically used as an herbal abortifacient.

Source: scanned from Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance by John M. Riddle." - from wikimedia commons

Palomino Willow

 

Dyed some antique linens with willow branches and leaves two weeks ago. Found a tree by a little stream on a back road to harvest from. I got this buttery soft palomino color.

I remember being little and driving past a Rutter's convenience store just over the Mason Dixon Line, and loved seeing this horse in the window. It is now a Palomino from the sun. 

Mugwort Dye

 I watched both sessions of the Baltimore Natural Dye Symposium last weekend, put on in conjunction with the Maryland Institute College of Art Fiber Department. The first was "Indigo Shade Map" https://youtu.be/z-BdjM0PAfA featuring Gasali Adeyemo, Brittany Boles, Wang Sik Kim, and Kenya Miles, moderated by Rosa Sungji Chang. The second, and the one I was very inspired by was "Korean Natural Dyes: Traditions Meet the Contemporary and Beyond"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukw2DwscCQg  featuring Dr. Heo, Buk Gu, Prof. Cho, Mi Sook, Kindigo, and Aimee Lee, moderated by Rosa Sungji Chang. Though indigo was the focus of both sessions, after watching the Korean Natural Dye session, a link left in the chat to a Korean artist, Yang Soon Ja, who dyes with persimmon  http://www.jejucatalyst.com/479-2/ put me on to dyeing with mugwort (Ssuk). I have three bushes growing in my garden-though I think it is a different type of Artemisia (artemisia vulgaris) than is used in Korea. 

I got this light, silvery green sage color, which is quite pretty. I want to use more mugwort next time to get a bit more of a saturated sage color. 

The Turn

 The sun is love. The lover,

a speck circling the sun.

A Spring wind moves to dance

any branch that isn't dead.

*

Something opens our wings. Something

makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us.

We taste only sacredness.

*

Held like this, to draw in milk,

no will, tasting clouds of milk,

never so content.

-The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks

Whirling Dervishs in black walnut ink

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

 

thou wast mild and lovely Appalachian Murder Ballad

Another version a hymnal:

New Bag

 

I just made this bag using a pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's book 'Everyday Style' that I checked out from the library. I've been looking for something to use these canvas remnants I bought a few years ago for. A year or so ago I took some of my mugwort leaves, laid them on the canvas, and sprayed them with bleach. I like the ghostly leaves that remain. I used the "Wilma" pattern. I ended up running out of fabric that fit the pattern pieces, so things got pieced together. I am happy with how it turned out.