our earthship in Taos

View the flickr slideshow of the earthship project. E and I built a house in the desert outside Taos. We hired a crew for the shell, and built all the walls, ceilings and floors ourselves. We worked almost every day for three years. With the electrical systems, the interior gardens and solar pumps, this project was like creating an interactive sculpture the size of a whale. Dwelling in it was more like living in a ship on the ocean than in a house, because of the weather's immediate influence on our comfort. Rain, sun, snow, wind and clouds become intimate partners when you live in a solar-powered, rainwater-catching home.

Artemis

When artist and writer Nancy Blair was writing Goddesses for Every Season, she invited me to contribute three illustrations. The book came out in 1995, published by Element Books in Rockport, Maine. I was experimenting with a carving medium called Quick Cut, and the goddesses were all created in the space of a few days.

papier-mache mermaid

E and I created this little ocean-girl together while waiting for the permit to begin building our earthship. You can tell, because we each made one of her arms and they're different from each other. She stands about three feet tall and is mostly papier-mache, finished with metal paints. She's got a PVC core filled halfway up with cement, to lend her ballast on the open sea. The rock was shaped out of wire and stuffed with newspaper, then layered with paper.

crocheted flower skirt

Yes, you do have to wear a slip with it! I had problems finding a slip to go under this skirt when I wore it to a dear friend's wedding. I did eventually find one in a vintage store, but even Victoria's Secret wasn't carrying slips at the time.

Crochet and knitting go well with writing, but 'tis pity you can't do them at the same time. I made this skirt while writing a book about a small business start-up. I would bribe myself with promises of picking up the skirt, which sat in a pile at my side, where I had to keep defending it from the cats. I'd finish a paragraph, do a row, write another paragraph, do another row, and so forth.

pears downstairs

While E and our friend Jonathan were recording tracks upstairs in the earthship, I was overcome with appreciation for these curvaceous beauties sitting on the kitchen counter, just minding their own beeswax. Are pears a reason to believe in a higher power? I think so.

We'Moon calendar

This poem of mine appeared in the 1994 calendar published by Mother Tongue Ink.

Kundalini rising

Another experiment in printmaking. This was featured in Women's Way magazine, a regional publication by Dakini Lynn Marlowe in Boulder. Drawing the woman's figure, I was thinking about kundalini energy rising up like a serpent, from where it lies coiled and latent, at the base of the spine. When this print was complete, I recognized that it had an ambiguous posture. You can view the woman as sheltering herself from some source of light above her head, or she can be perceived as rising up and breaking out of imprisonment. During that block-printing period, these ubiquitous birds appeared on everything I made. They represent freedom, movement, thought and imagination.

Tree Shrine

Softer than wood and way easier to carve, this medium served me well for this series of goddesses. I didn't think of it at the time, but looking at this now, the Tree Shrine seems to present a portrait of innate, natural feminine awareness. Trees are patient beings, from a human perspective. From the viewpoint of a rock, trees may only be passing by.

Alchemy

Day and night. The bird can be seen as connecting twilight to the dawn, a constant companion of change.

Disaster envy

I moved away from Northridge, California, 14 months before it the Big One hit in 1994. I was already jumbled and at odds with my new life, and now my old life had been shaken to the core. Buildings on the Cal State University campus where I had spent many years studying and teaching were destroyed. I lived in Boulder at the time, and none of my new acquaintances could care less about what, to them, was just another California quake.

I suffered from disaster envy, wanting to share in the spontaneous community rebuilding efforts. Friends from back home assured me I was nuts, and that being caught in a major quake was not something to envy. The editor of Sage Woman magazine was familiar with my prints and requested an illustration to go with this essay. I dived into the assignment. Digesting the experience helped make it slightly less abstract, but I've never been good at illustrating fierceness. I was trained in animation drawing by Kenneth Walker, a key Disney animator. As you can see, even my portrait of the dark and terrifying Mother is suffering from terminal cuteness.

The Dreaming Priestess

One of three block prints included in Goddesses For Every Season, by Nancy Blair. This goddess from ancient Malta is depicted lying in a dish, but as I took on the assignment of expressing her, it became clear that she wanted to float in a boat. Who am I to resist the force of the Dreaming Priestess? Immediately a school of fish and a flock of birds appeared to join her for the ride.

we find wood good

My friend Marilyn picked out this gorgeous wooden button. She's one of those people with an innate flair for detail, and spotted this button while we were shopping at the Ball + Skein knitting shop one afternoon. When I was living in San Luis Obispo this was my favorite getaway spot, right across from the amazingly scrumptious Robin's restaurant, in the seaside town of Cambria. This simple, really fast little sweater pattern came from the book Hollywood Knits.

best-laid plans

This purse started out in life as a hat, but changed its mind halfway through. Lucky for me, the soft linen-colored cotton makes a nice bag, all single crochet. The granny squares are leftover from the first rendition of the flower skirt, which happened to match as well as fit perfectly around the top of the bag. I love it when a plan comes together in spite of me.

flower hemline

Detail of the second version of the hemline on the crocheted skirt. The first version was certainly fancier, but the pattern turned out to be too dense in contrast with the lacy skirt above it. Later, I found a way to use the fancier crocheted hemline flowers on another project.

artemis walks on the wild side

Here's Artemis and her bear-pal Ursula, from Goddesses for Every Season. A series of block prints I created while living in Boulder in the mid-90s were published in several different magazines. Three were included in this lovely little book, from Element Book Co in the UK.

purls of perfection

Baby hats are so small, you can practically start one after dinner and be done before its time to brush your teeth. Unless you are obsessed with making the perfect, complicated, flawless hat, in which case it may take you twelve days of knitting, ripping out and starting over ceaselessly. Once again I am reminded about the relation between time, total immersion in a creative project, and the foolhardy notion of perfection.

a bird on the head

I was dreaming of making an art car out of my gold 1984 Mercedes Benz. But I wanted to practice first, on something a bit more bite-size. My boyfriend had been riding without a helmet for weeks, successfully ignoring my plea that he get one soon. He's an Aries, which rules the head, and as is typical for his sign he can be stubborn, but also smart and inventive. So he came home one day and set a plain white helmet down in front of me. I'll wear it if you paint it, he said. White is boring. Now he wears it all them time, and I think he likes it. Girls have leaned out of their cars to shout compliments, Nice helmet!