Studio Ruthe

Monday, going no where

Woke up feeling awful this morning. Something I ate yesterday is trying to kill me, but I think I'm winning. At least I've opened my eyes, dressed, and have enough energy to sit at the computer.

Continuing my story of last week, I met Rose at the Jewish Museum on Thursday. Knowing we would never be able to look at an exhibit until after we spent time talking, we went down to the cafe, bought coffee and sat for more than an hour, catching up. Then we went upstairs to a marvelous exhibit: They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust. You can see lots of it online. We spent an equally long time looking at the exhibit, then finally went back downstairs for lunch.

I met Rose when I was working on my MA at Fairleigh Dickinson U. We had several classes together and being the older people in the program even though she's considerably younger than me, became friends. She's a young grandmother and very involved with her family. She is also an Orthodox Jew, which sometimes makes it difficult for both of us. In spite of everything we remain fond of each other and enjoy spending time together.

Thursday evening I went to Phyllis's for dinner. She still cooks lovely things and enjoys it, not like me.

Friday morning I walked over to the Guggenheim to see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit. Nice show. In the evening I met Ann and Evy for dinner then went to the American Folk Art Museum, primarily to see a quilt show by Paula Nadelstern

Saturday I met C, the daughter of one of my dearest college friends. We had lunch then spent the afternoon walking through Central Park.

Sunday I went down to Chinatown, actually to go to a fabric store where I bought some netting, then had the lunch that probably did me in. Back to the Stitch and Bitch in the evening.

I have now seen all of my New York friends, except three. I'm meeting Mary B for dinner tonight, even if I don't eat, and I imagine I'll get to one of the others, also.

Continuing New York

Monday I went shopping. When Renee was in Pittsburgh she kept telling me my clothes were too big for me. I decided I'd get something new before she came back next week. It's not easy for me to get anything. I've lost weight everywhere but my waistline, making pants very difficult to find. I took a long walk and managed to get a new smaller pair of pants (elastic waist), 2 shirts and a jacket. Jackets are my favorite thing. I have a closetful, mostly too big at this point that I'll try to alter. Still tired from Sunday, I spent the rest of the day at the apartment.

Tuesday I met my friend Phyllis at the Metropolitan Museum. We spent most of our time at a great show of treasures from Afghanistan, had lunch and looked at another couple of exhibits. I especially liked this one on the roof of the museum, a gigantic tree root by Roxy Paine.



In the evening I met Julia and we went to an off-Broadway play about addiction, Dance of the Seven-headed Monkey. It was interesting, but, as with many off-Broadway efforts, needed work. Here are some photos from Times Square.



The indoor ferris wheel at Toys R Us.



Wednesday, after I finished that last post, I met Sybille in Central Park for a walking tour of part of the park neither of us had ever seen. The tour was called Central Park Adirondack. It began near the Harlem Meer and went to 100th St. and Central Park West. Then Sybille and I spent the rest of the afternoon talking, something we do best.


 

Wednesday, and I'm still in NYC

So many things to write and I'm soooo lazy. Going back to Saturday afternoon, Eli had to get to a travel agent and the bank before 3 pm. Nothing like leaving everything to the last minute, but we made it. After the business was finished we met one of his friends from childhood and taxied to the apartment where we finally left the luggage. We both needed some exercise so we walked down to 75th Street looking for an early dinner, and where I've been to two good Turkish restaurants. Friend of Eli is a vegetarian; the Turkish restaurants didn't do it for him. In between those two was a Persian restaurant, Persepolis. It turned out to be a great find--I'm hoping to get back there once more before I leave. Needless to say, having dinner with two good looking young men was very special.

Sunday was busy. Eli went back to JFK for another plane trip. We got on the subway together until we got to the E train. Then he went east and I went south. It's hard saying goodbye. He's been all over the world alone, but I can't help but worry about him.

I went to Brooklyn to look for Julia at a flea market in Dumbo. It's an interesting neighborhood to walk in--mostly old warehouses, some with extensive renovations, many interesting shops, even for me, the non-shopper. The flea market was in a huge, empty lot under the Brooklyn Bridge, next to the Fulton Ferry Park and the river. Here is Julia and customers under Brooklyn Bridge.

Most of the vendors were selling vintage clothing, stuff I gave away long ago. The only thing I found of interest was a sewing chatelaine for $170. Too much money, not enough interest.

 

More flea market.

 

Empire State Building from under Manhattan Bridge

 

Decorated fence in Dumbo

 

Brooklyn Bridge I never walked across last year, from Fulton Ferry Park. When I couldn't walk across the bridge last year I knew I was really sick and got the pacemaker.

Having had enough of the flea market I walked back toward the subway and had another one of those amazing New York experiences. Housed within a small storefront area was Jane's Carousel, a restored 1922 carousel that will be placed in a pavillion in the park. Read about it and see pictures here.

Next to the carousel was Jacques Torres ice cream, obviously perfectly placed for me.

After a short rest back at the apartment I went to Chelsea to meet up with my photographer friend, Jacqueline Hassink and another of her friends. She had been in Japan again and had new photos to show me. She told me she will return to Japan in April to photograph cherry blossoms. She is trying to tempt me to join her. It is very tempting. I am not finished with Japan.

To complete this busy day I went to Teaneck, New Jersey, to meet with my stitch and bitch group I haven't seen for two years. That was a great delight. Much has happened in the two years and it was fun catching up.

Travel time again

Yesterday Eli and I flew to New York. He will go on to Israel today; I will remain in Renee's empty apartment for another 10 days, then visit with Renee for a couple of days after she returns. We flew into JFK and took Airtrain and the subway into the city, which worked well. Unfortunately, I could never do it alone. There are just too many stairs. I would have a terrible time wrestling my bag up and down, even though it's quite small. Unlike Japan, where there is almost always a clearly marked escalator or elevator, the MTA believes all of its passengers need exercise.

I brought my photo transfers with me, particularly to work on during my train ride home, you know, the nine and a half hour Toonerville trolley ride. I thought I had something I liked, but now I'm thinking this will only be practice and I'll start all over again when I get home. It's a good thing the obi is 18 feet long, so I have lots of fabric to practice on.

I made the second transfer on paper using Liquitex Matte Medium. With this technique you let everything dry thoroughly then wet the back of the paper and carefully rub it off. I began the process Thursday night and didn't like it at all. Too much of the ink comes off with the paper, leaving only a faint image. I had trouble spreading the medium and felt that was the problem, so I went to an art supply store to see what else I might use. I was going to buy some kind of gel medium. The sales clerk and another woman in the store advised me that the best way to make the transfer was to get photo transfer paper.

I didn't want white showing in the photo background so I Photoshopped the photo with a gray background almost matching the obi fabric and trimmed the white border before ironing the transfer to adhere it. I seemed to have burned one spot on the background, didn't have a good technique for pulling the paper off, getting some funny marks, and tried to iron it from the back, accidentally removing a couple of bits of transfer. The thing that really bothers me is the burn mark. Also I hate the way it feels. I'll see how the stitching goes; maybe I can figure out some way to disguise the burn mark. There's always more obi fabric.

More photo transfer stuff

When I transferred the photo for the China book I wasn't terribly concerned about getting the entire photo or exactly how it would look: the transfer fabric was a dark color and somewhat grimy. This time I am more interested in a good transfer. Initially, I didn't think much about doing a test, but I made a mistake with my first printout. I forgot to reverse the image; I want the tree to point to the book opening. I decided to test the mistaken image.

One of the transfer instructions recommended Elmer's Caulk, a not easy to find medium. I got some in San Francisco. This morning I finally set up the test: a piece of white muslin taped to some cardboard. I spread the caulk with my fingers, carefully put down the transparency and rubbed it a long time with the back of a spoon. I am not happy, but I am very happy that this was only a test.

First, the stuff is shiny; back to the Liquitex Matte Medium. Second, the colors are wrong. Mostly the blues transferred, leaving yellow and red on the transparency. I got more of it to transfer than with the China book, probably by rubbing more. Reds didn't transfer on the China book either, which is why I stitched into them. The last mistake was that the muslin stuck to the cardboard as it dried. Really dumb on my part.

Silk and stitches

It was a beautiful day here in Pittsburgh today, filled with sunshine that now, as evening approaches has given way to clouds and wind. I'm sitting on my front porch using my toy computer. Carol complained I haven't been writing; I'm trying to do better.

I've begun working on my Japan book. I spent too much time on the China book; Japan seems very far away. I'm trying to work on the cover at the same time I layout the contents. I plan to use photo transfer and stitchery again, putting it all on a piece of the beautiful gray obi. I'll be going to NYC soon and I can take the cover with me. 

This is the picture I will probably use, stitching the tree, the bits of grass lower right and a bit of the red leaves in the background. I am also considering the following two pictures.

 

BTW, I wasn't sure what the obi fabric was. My stitchery teacher pronounced it silk without a moments hesitation, but having  paid only ten dollars for it, I was not so certain. I took a small sample with me when I went to San Francisco and asked one of the sales people in Britex what she thought. She first guessed cotton, but then did a flame test on it and proclaimed it silk. I read about flame tests but don't think I would have determined anything if I had done it.

I'm reading a book about a woman traveling alone in Japan in 1878: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bird. It actually tells more about British prejudices of the time than it does about Japan. Of course, she didn't travel alone: she had a young Japanese man as her companion. That's obviously what I need if I go again.

Catching up

We took the red-eye back from San Francisco on Friday night, and I've done nothing but sleep or think about sleeping since then. I guess that's not entirely true, but it's Tuesday morning and I'm still not functioning properly. I'd like to go back to bed.

SF was fun. Unfortunately we seemed to be between new exhibits at the Asian Art Museum and the DeYoung. The best thing I saw was at the public library: an exhibit of drawings by Paul Madonna that appeared as All Over Coffee, in the SF Chronicle, over the past five years.

The library doesn't open until noon on Friday. Here are people pouring in as soon as the doors opened.

In a kind of nostalgia trip, on Thursday I took the Caltrain down to Palo Alto and Stanford. (Never thought of taking the train while we lived there.) We lived in Sunnyvale for two years, and Robin was born in the hospital on the Stanford campus. I did not go down to Sunnyvale, but I could see from the train some of the same type of houses we lived in were still in existence. These were built for returning GIs after WWII and sold for $10,000. I think you could get one for a thousand dollars down and a hundred a month for the mortgage. We rented; I don't remember how much we paid.

I went to see Asian art and the New Guinea Sculpture Garden at the Cantor Art Center. Robin arranged for the mother of a friend to meet me at the train so I had a companion for the afternoon. She was lovely.

I was most impressed with the sculpture garden. Ten artists were brought from Papua New Guinea to create sculpture in the garden. Some of the pieces resemble things I brought home when I visited Robin and Steve during the year he was doing field work there. I'll put up a PNG slide show soon.

On the road again

Actually, I'm in a hotel in San Francisco, sightseeing and keeping Robin company while she attends her yearly Java conference. I've spent the entire day walking around and now I'm back in the hotel too wiped out to do much of anything but watch TV and write this post. I began the day at the Andersen Bakery, Crocker Galleria, for breakfast. The bakery is actually from Japan, but not quite as good here. Across the street there is a sign: YARN--Art Fiber. I was looking forward to going there, but found it was gone, possibly another victim of our current economic problems.

I walked over to the tourist office on Market Street to pick up maps and current info then spent time in Nordstroms. I'm not a big shopper, but I have picked up some choice things there. Not today, though. Sometimes I find the fashion offerings dismaying.

Last year, on the last day of my visit here, I was walking through that same shopping mall killing time while waiting for Robin to get finished at her conference, and I was given a taste of grilled beef from Buckhorn Grill. It was delicious, but we were scheduled to go out for dinner to Greens, so I did not indulge. I've been thinking about that meat all year. Actually, I thought I'd never get back here. Robin didn't think she would come back to the conference, and I certainly wasn't coming back here alone. Needless to say, I headed right back there  for lunch.

There are things in the world one ought to appreciate without trying to expand on them. Lunch was good, but not nearly as good as that one tiny piece of meat. I had heartburn all afternoon and probably ruined my cholesterol.I eat very little meat. I thought it was on principle, but maybe I don't digest it very well. 

The new Jewish Museum is just down Mission Street. The had an interesting exhibit of Passover Seder Plates and an excellent exhibit about Marc Chagall and the Russian Jewish Theater.The building that now houses the museum was originally a power station, one of the first buildings to be restored after the 1906 earthquake, now repurposed by Daniel Liebeskind, the architect who designed the New York 9/11 memorial.

I needed to sit down so I got on a bus and went to Japan town to the Kinokuniya bookstore. The website says it's just like visiting Japan, an amazing exaggeration. Lots more walking then back on the bus to the Embarcadero to the Acme Bakery. I recalled getting walnut whole wheat bread there last year and was able to get it again--without doubt one of my favorite things to eat and very hard to find.

China Book is finished

I finally did it! I'm not entirely satisfied, but I've decided to accept it as is and try to do better with the Japan book.

I had to remove all of the pockets from the front of the bag; it was just too large. I had hoped to put the small one, upper right, back at the lower right and decided it wouldn't work.

I did a photo transfer on the now empty front section of the bag. I consulted several books and the internet and my friend SandyB, who is wonderfully creative, gave me some excellent advice. I printed this photo backwards, with China 2008 added to it, on an inkjet transparency.

 
After I brushed acrylic medium on the fabric I placed it ink side down and rubbed the front of the transparency. This kind of transfer is usually done with paper, rubbing removing the paper from a film created by covering the ink with the medium, and involving lots of careful brushing and waiting for the medium to dry. Using a transparency bypasses all of that but results leave something to desire.

I embroidered the letters and the red banner, which hardly showed up at all in the transfer. Then I added the beads, bone soaked in black coffee, at the bottom, and the pieces of silk fabric at the top. The back of the bag had a large pocket that I retained. I write all of the files for the book on a DVD and put it in the pocket, just in case I want to do it again.



Binding boards get cut to size (9x11.5) then a half inch gets cut off the binding side and glued a quarter inch from the larger board. This enables the cover to open properly. After the fabric was glued to the boards, keeping everything clamped together, I drilled five tiny holes within that quarter inch space, then sewed the entire thing together using linen carpet thread from Ireland. Directions for sewing can be found here.

Medical update

Last week when the dr's office told me to return the monitor, that he had enough data and I had extra heartbeats, I was certain he wanted to talk to me about some invasive tests, or worse. It was a long weekend. I didn't really worry; they would have put me in the hospital if it had been really bad, but I'm supposed to go to San Francisco next week with Robin. I didn't want to ruin the trip. So, what was it all about?

He explained how the heart works, what the read-out showed, etc. He thought I was feeling those extra beats when there were none. Although the monitor technicians always asked me what I had been feeling, and I always told them the monitor was doing this all by itself, evidently that was not conveyed to the dr. I felt something only 4 times in the 2 weeks and those were the extra beats. Everything else was normal. I don't know what that damn monitor, which went off every day but one, was doing. The dr asked if I felt good: I do. He told me that was what was important and sent me on my way.

Remember my earlier question about when you tell things to the dr, and the long discussion we had about it? Well, this time I should have kept my mouth shut. True confession cost me two weeks of aggravation and $50 in co-pays. I think I'm going back to my earlier stance of not talking to drs unless I am desparate.