A visit with beading friends

I am so excited about a new book that will be coming out this spring called Marcia DeCoster Presents: Interviews with 30 Beaders on Inspiration and Technique, and not just because I'm one of of the 30 beaders in it.

This book has the work of so many people I hold dear in it; owning it will give me the chance to visit vicariously with them whenever I like. I've already cleared a space for it on the table beside the futon in my studio; I've already imagined myself curling up with a cup of tea and dipping into it whenever I want a break from my own beading.

One of the things that this book brings home is how much the Internet has changed the way we socialize. Marcia has included people she met on-line in it, and that's how I first go to know her; later on, I met her in "real life" and am very happy to have her as one of my friends. Also in this book is my very dear friend Nancy Dale, whom I know only via the Internet, but who is as close as can be even though she lives on the other side of the country; Linda Jones, whose incredible courage and joy inspires me every day; and Beki Haley, a generous spirit whom I got to know on-line and recently met. But those are just three of the wonderful people who are profiled in this book; there are ever so many more on-line friends and, hopefully, future in-person friends.

I will be counting the days until this book ships!

Just a quick note to say:

It took me awhile, but I finally got it. 

I appreciate the lesson, even though it was a hard one.

I'm not afraid anymore.

If you remember me

It was an ubiquitous creative writing assignment when I was in High School:

Imagine that you have lived your life, that you are very old now, and write your own epitaph. How will you be remembered? What have you accomplished? 

I don't remember what I wrote then; it doesn't matter. The older I get, the less my accomplishments matter; the only thing I want to be remembered for these days is sharing. Sharing happiness, love, and sorrow; sharing good times and bad. Sharing exploration and discovery; learning, and creating, together.

This means more and more to me every day, and I'm writing about it now because I recently learned that there is a campaign by a few beaders to form a guild for the primary purpose of raising money to take legal action against those whom they believe are copying their work. This makes me sad. Not because I don't think beaders deserve to profit from their creativity; they certainly do. And not because I think that people should be allowed to "steal" other people's work; they shouldn't. It makes me sad because I think that creativity is a synergistic process, and I think that demonizing people for copying and going on witch hunts to expose them is already doing more harm than good. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if lawyers were involved.

It's a rare individual who can create in a vacuum; most creative breakthroughs are built on top of other people's work, on top of other people's creative breakthroughs. We see this in all fields; in science, mathematics, painting, sculpture, music...why should beading be any different? If you've been to the Louvre, you've seen art students with easels set up in front of paintings, copying the Masters' work right out in the open. They're not doing it to steal the Masters' work; they're doing it to learn. They're learning technique, they're learning about color, they're learning about brushwork. They're doing their apprenticeship, and yes - they sell those paintings in order to continue their studies, in order to perfect their own skills and in order to put in the time required to develop their own styles and launch their own creative endeavors. Or not. Some of them may end up doing nothing more than making competent reproductions. But that really doesn't matter, the point I want to make is that copying is not an evil act of a depraved individual; it's how we learn. Artists have always stood on the shoulders of the previous generations; even when they turn art on its head and break all the rules, they are still building on what others have already done.

Because I started beading long ago, before the Internet existed, I had only my grandmothers to learn from. But learn I did - and I learned by copying exactly what they did. They showed me stitches, bead by bead. They taught me thread paths, and they showed me all of the things they had learned, and all the things they had created. Over the years I discovered books and other beaders, and I learned more. I am thankful that I was born before the copyright police went viral, in a time where beading stitches, styles and methods were happily passed from person to person. Yes, we bought books. Artists were paid. Teachers were paid. But we shared our knowledge, and we shared our love of beads.

I want to end this as I began. If you remember me, please remember that I shared.

Same day, different generation

Daniel and Ellen McFadden
in front of their farmhouse 

Summer is my busy time in the garden and in the kitchen. We grow a lot of fruit and vegetables, and we spend a lot of time harvesting and preserving them; I am a dehydrating maniac for three or four months of every year. Yesterday, I found myself getting a bit overwhelmed with all that I had to do, so I spent a few minutes comparing my day to my great-grandmother's day. I realized that many of our tasks were the same, but we didn't always do them the same way.

The first thing I did yesterday was laundry. She would have been doing laundry, too; but she would have had to pump the water, heat it on the stove, wash the clothes in a tub, wring them out with a wringer, hang them on the line, and then fold them. She had thirteen children to enlist in the process, and I know from my grandmother that she did delegate. Still, all things considered, my load was considerably less work. I put the clothes in my washing machine, transferred them to the dryer when the washer beeped, and took them out of the dryer and folded them when the dryer beeped.

Daniel and Ellen McFadden Family, 1907

Next up, transferring yesterday's frozen dried apricots into bags, and putting today's onto trays to freeze. (I like to freeze them individually before I bag them; otherwise they turn into a brick of apricots. And I freeze them because we like them best when they're not quite all the way dry; when they're still a bit soft and gooey, they are just incredibly yummy.)

Great-grandmother didn't have an electric dehydrator; she canned everything. Over a wood-burning stove. In the middle of the summer in Minnesota. No electricity, no air-conditioning, no deep freeze in the garage in which to put them.

You see where this is going?

I washed out the dehydrator trays (I have running water! Heated running water!), prepared a big batch of kale chips and plugged in the dehydrator. I gave it a little wave and left it to do its thing for the next couple of hours. I weeded the garden, picked blackberries, squash, and peppers. I checked on the peaches, plums, pluots, plumcots and nectarines; they're all getting close, but done of them are quite ripe yet. I have a couple of days respite from preserving fruit.

Yes, most of my time in the summer revolves around preserving our harvest, just as hers did; and even though she had a lot of help from her children, she had to preserve a lot more than I do in order to feed them over the winter. I am grateful for her legacy, and I am extremely grateful for my modern conveniences.

Chiles Rellenos

I'm about two and a half years into my healthy eating program, and it's still a challenge some days. Not today, though; today I had gorgeous Poblano peppers and lots of beautiful little scalloped squash in my garden, and some queso fresco in my refrigerator.

So...Chiles Rellenos for lunch!

Here's my easy recipe:

Roast the peppers and and steam them while you prepare the filling. I roast mine over the gas flame on my stove, turning them as they blister, and drop them into a bag when they're blistered all over. They sit in the bag and steam while I make the filling, and then I use the sides of the bag to rub off the skin before filling them.

Dice the squash into about 1/4 inch pieces, and put into a microwave safe bowl with a little bit of olive oil. Stir to coat, cover, and microwave on high for 2 minutes, or until just tender. Stir in a little bit of crumbled queso fresco, or any other cheese you like. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cut a slit in the top of each chile, and spoon in the filling.

Eat!