Tenganan Weavers and the east coast

Kondri holding dyed threads for double ikat Grinsing cloth. The design in front of him includes four scorpions. This symbolizes harmony and cooperation in a group. He pointed out that the scorpion does no harm unless it is touched. This becomes a reminder to respect one another and to give each other space.

Threads of Life took us on a day trip to the ancient Bali Aga village, Tenganan, to visit 1 Wayan Kondri, weaver of unique Grinsing cloth. He explained the precise way of dyeing cotton thread with natural dyes, including indigo and morinda, the way they are tied and then untied as they go into subsequent dye baths, and then the weaving of the double ikat designs on a backstrap loom.

Kondri has been all over the world demonstrating and exhibiting this wonderful Grinsing technique, and many dignitaries including Prince William have visited his studio.

We also took time to shop for textiles in the local market and to visit with other crafts people in the village.

The tour ended with a relaxing picnic by the ocean. Thanks so much to Weti, our gracious guide, and to Rudi, our intrepid driver.

Pura Bratan and the mountains

Today we had a day trip up into the mountains to visit the beautiful temple on Lake Bratan. A must- see! Thanks to our driver Gusti, who navigated the winding roads through picturesque villages and verdant terrace rice paddies! We lunched at a cafe in the middle of the rice paddies, with a cool breeze and mist blowing over the mountains... Pictures to come later.

Indigo, tjaps, and tjantings

A lovely table linen made by the Tjok Agung Batik workshop.

Our hostess was late picking us up this morning for our day in the Tjok Agung batik workshop in Pejeng. No matter... We sat at the foot of the Campuan steps as motor scooters, taxis (large Toyota vans, mostly) and assorted other vehicles raced by in death-defying maneuvers. It is amazing what can be carried on a scooter, but that is another post.

The most amazing thing was meeting two tiny women who were going up and down the 93 stone steps with loads of what appeared to be dry cement mix balanced on their heads. Each time they went by we exchanged pleasantries, as one of our number is conversant in Bahasa Indonesian.

They made 4 or 5 round trips as we sat at the taxi stand. Finally, our driver, Ibu Agung, wife of the workshop owner, arrived and whisked us off to Pejeng. The workshop was full of the familiar smells of fermenting indigo and smoking wax, and we soon were choosing fabric and tjaps (wooden or metal wax stamps) for our projects.

A young man demonstrated the finer points of stamping, and we all managed to wax a scarf or two and a table runner. Then we watched the first of several dips in the indigo.

The pieces were pale green as they emerged from the dye bath, then turned light blue after exposure to the oxygen in the air. Several dips are required for a medium blue.

After a quick lunch and some shopping in the Tjok Agung showrooms, we each waxed a third bit of cloth and were ready to head home.

When we were finally dropped at the foot of the Campuan steps we were pretty exhausted and ready for an early supper at the Ibu Putra Warung at the top. As we sat sipping our fresh lemon juice, our friends with the baskets of cement mix passed by and waved through the hedge.

While we were sitting quietly waxing our cloth, these two women had spent the entire day carrying heavy loads up and down the 93 steps! They were still at it when we finished our meal.

Agung Rai Museum of Art

Sketching at ARMA, photo by Kiranada

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This morning we sat in on a sketch class at ARMA in Ubud. Our model was a young man who somehow managed to stay still despite the army of ants and legions of gnats who delighted in our presence. The green moss, the rice paddies, the tree-sized bougainvillea, and the thick humidity and heat made this plein air experience memorable! Here are a few of my sketches.

But the real highlight was watching the children as they practiced their traditional Balinese cultural dances and music. The girls danced in their group, alternating with the boys' group, and all were accompanied by the youth gamelan orchestra!

We explored the galleries there... Both contemporary and traditional art is featured.

We finished with a late traditional lunch at the warung (cafe) by the entrance. My treat was a not-so traditional strawberry milkshake... Very refreshing!

Threads of Life

Yesterday we were treated to three hours with William Ingram, founder of Threads of Life Indonesian Textile Arts Center in Ubud. He used textiles to tell the story of the peopling and cultural development of the archipelago that is now Indonesia. It was fascinating to see how the local Balinese were affected by the spice trade, which brought the Indians, the Chinese, and finally Europeans, along with their religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity), as well as political pressures and conflicts. Photos to follow... I was glad later not to have my camera, as we were caught in several tropical deluges. We waded along the streets, made it to the market, and after being totally drenched, hailed a taxi and retreated back to the peace of Santra Putra guesthouse.

Wayan Karja

We are staying at the Santra Putra Guesthouse, a compound which includes the home, studio, and gallery of internationally known artist Wayan Karja. Yesterday he shared his journey and his beautiful painting with us.

Kiranada and Marjorie listen as Karja explains the Balinese world view
and the colors integral to it.

Karja showed us his beautiful abstract paintings, most of which were done with acrylic paint and water sprayed, splashed, and manipulated across the surface of the stretched canvasses on the floor. All evoke a feeling of the natural world, even of the Impressionists and Rothko,  which were an early influence on Karja. 

There are several videos on YouTube showing his work in progress.

A quote from the morning visit:
"I trust water. Water is a better painter than me."

Arrival and first day

Arrived yesterday in a village near Ubud, where we will be for the next 10 days. So hot and humid... Hard to get used to, when I left home in several inches of snow. Great to reconnect with Kiranada, who organized this all, and lovely to be here with other batik artists.
Awakened in the middle of the night by a loud squawk at the end of my bed. Assume it was a gecko, since the chickens were quietly roosting. However it was definitely a chorus of roosters who woke me this morning at sunrise!
A leisurely stroll around the neighborhood this morning, and a lovely lunch at a small Japanese bistro.

Wonder if that mystery squawker will return tonight?

Bali Blog

For the next few weeks I'll be joining fiber artist friends in Bali to experience batik in a culture that has brought this ancient craft to a high level of artistic expression.

I'll try to post pictures and notes from the places we visit and the people we meet. Check back in every so often after February 27 to see how it's going.

Acequia in Drought

ACEQUIA IN DROUGHT, JULY 2012

Rozome on kimono silk
Beeswax and soy wax resist
Framed 28 x 22"

Snowpack melted off early, recharging the springs. A meager runoff trickled down the arroyos, stopping short of full course, never reaching the Río.

Ditch cleaning occurred, as usual, in early March. The mayordomo warned that there would be less water; the irrigation season would be short.

People planted a bit, or nothing, this year. When the waters began to flow, the thirsty trees along the ditches absorbed every drop possible.

Despite late frosts, the apricots bloomed heavily. Painted lady butterflies blanketed the trees. Exquisite green and purple racemes showered down, the refuse of desperate pollination by male mountain cottonwoods.

In time, the apricots bore profusely—mealy bright orange fruit about the size of shooter marbles covered the ground. Some fell into the acequia, and there they stayed as there was not enough flow to flush them through.

Though small, they made good jam.

A Tale Of Bantams And Bobcats

The recent trapping of a bobcat in our neighborhood took me back to a childhood experience in Virginia. We lived on two acres in a part of Roanoke which had built up following World War II. There were still some wooded areas, a few old farmhouses, and some blocks built up more densely with small GI Bill houses, where people took care of their lawns and gardens.

About the age of ten, I decided to earn my Girl Scout poultry badge. My father built a sturdy chicken coop in the back yard, and I acquired a pair of bantams. They became pets, and were allowed to range around the yard. Soon we d

iscovered a nest fashioned from a straw bale in the garage, and in time Queenie hatched out a brood of eight adorable little chicks.

Queenie, Prince and their chicks (all named, of course) ranged further and further, but retired to the safety of the pen at night. My mother began to get a few calls… “Do you have chickens? There are chickens scratching up my flowers, eating the seeds I just planted in my garden!” She would go and shoo them back home.

One day, a chicken hawk swooped down and snatched “Astrid” from the front yard. My dad was angry—“We ought to shoot that old hawk.” (He’d raised bantams and homing pigeons as a kid.)

I was sad, but somehow, even at ten, I understood that the hawk was wild, that it flew over my neighbors’ yards as well, and that it was just doing what a hawk does. It kept down rodents and was part of the grand balance. Nobody had to tell me that, I just knew. And of course, dad didn’t shoot it.

Eventually, the chicks grew big enough to fly and they began roosting at night in the neighbor’s tall Doug firs. Of the seven chicks, five were roosters, so early every morning their crowing echoed for blocks.

Finally, my long-suffering mother had enough of the neighbors’ polite complaints, and she called the county agent, who knew of a 4H kid out in the country who needed a project. When I came home from school, the bantams were gone.

Fast-forward half a century to present-day Placitas.

When we moved here in 1975 we planted a native landscape intended to attract wild birds. A stray cat showed up, but the day I caught it with a quail chick in its mouth we let it indoors and adopted it. Pepper lived to be 21. We’ve had other cats too, but all indoor cats. You see, our garden benefits from the lizards and birds. A well-fed domestic cat kills those, but is usually indoors at night when mice and packrats are about. Our dogs have always been medium-sized, and fenced, so not much help with rabbits.

As the years passed, we had more of a problem with trespassing cats (cf. my bantams) and the nesting birds and lizards decreased while packrats, mice, and rabbits increased. Coyotes didn’t seem to keep them down, either. I pretty much gave up on a garden.

Then, about five years ago, things changed. Suddenly there were fewer rabbits, and we began seeing bobcats. One day I watched a mother with two kittens cavort in our side yard for nearly an hour. The next morning there was a freshly killed jackrabbit in the yard, which “mom” soon retrieved for the kittens’ breakfast. A few weeks later, we heard a great horned owl, and then found one of the kittens dead. It appeared to have the kind of damage an owl would cause, though the mother probably protected the mortally injured kitten from being eaten by the owl. Predator became prey, in this case.

In short, with the bobcats came a better balance between prey and predator. To those who see them as a threat to small pets left unattended outdoors, I would suggest:

1) keep small pets indoors unless you can be outside with them

2) if they must stay outdoors while you are away, then build them a safe pen or run with top and sides (as we did with our poultry here in Placitas)

3) please keep them on your property, lest neighbors consider them pests (like my bantams became)

4) should they become victims of natural predators, like my little bantam chick, don’t blame them for acting out their part in the ecosystem.

We all need to consider the consequences of our actions. If I leave poison outside to “get rid of” rodents, I then poison their predators. If I kill every snake out of fear, I can expect more rodents. If I trap coyotes and bobcats, I remove predators from the system and have to deal with too many rabbits and rodents.
And so do my neighbors.

For those who wish to live in a very controlled, sterile neighborhood, there are plenty of urban areas nearby. But since we choose to live in an area with hawks, owls, rabbits, lizards, snakes, bobcats, coyotes, vinegaroons, and yes, tarantulas, please let’s work together to live in harmony and balance as part of the natural environment of this beautiful community.

Let’s learn about the native plants and animals and the web of creation. We are all part of it.
Reprinted with permission from the Sandoval Signpost.

Epiphany 2012

Today is the 100th birthday of New Mexico statehood; I arrived just after their fiftieth. About 1982 I met a woman who traveled east from the Territory of New Mexico in September 1911 to enroll at my alma mater in Virginia. She said it took five days by train.

This afternoon, we chipped much of the only native piñon that had grown on our property. It probably was well over sixty years old when it died in the drought of 2005. Having weathered for the past six years, it offered little resistance to the blades.

Now it will mulch those plants still surviving the continuing drought.

New Mexico is a tough place for trees. We lost much of the ponderosa forest to epic wildfires in the Jemez last summer. Before that, it was the piñon—ironically, our state tree.

So we celebrate our statehood centennial in exceptional drought, having lost most of our piñon forest. Our state flower, the yucca, didn't even bloom last summer.

We do have a state fossil: the coelophysis. It is doing well, as extinct animals require no water.

NOAA warns that La Niña will set us up for a dry spring. At this moment, at least, the snow pack is good, so perhaps April will bring some wildflower blooms.

O, fair New Mexico, we love, we love you so...

But it is heartbreaking to see these changes.

Winter Solstice 2011

Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, 2011. It is time to look back on a year which, for us and our family, at least, has been good. We’ve stayed healthy, been blessed with more than enough, and have been able to spend time with many beloved friends and with our family.

In March, we took our grandsons to visit Bandelier National Monument in the nearby Jemez Mountains. We hiked through magnificent ponderosas, cottonwoods, and elders along tiny Rito de los Frijoles. They climbed wooden ladders to explore caves carved from the volcanic tufa, ceilings blackened by ancient hearth fires and walls populated by petroglyphs and pictographs. The boys took careful notes, and we watched as they proudly received their Junior Ranger badges in the newly refurbished visitor center.

By May there had been no rain since December. The dusty brown spring produced almost no wildflowers, but plenty of strong wind, and our skies were filled with acrid smoke from the burning forests in southern Arizona, over 250 miles away.

In early June we escaped the smoke to the Colorado high country, where ample snowpack had resulted in heavy runoff. The drift next to the cabin provided us with ice for the cooler, and we were glad for the crackling aspen fire in the old blue woodstove. This time, fire was good, under control.

But two days after we returned home, a giant plume of smoke suddenly blew up over the Jemez: thus began the worst forest fire in recorded New Mexico history. In the first 24 hours 44,000 acres were torched, and we watched in horror from our house in Placitas as flames blazed along Cochiti Mesa and up the canyons into the ponderosa forest. At night we watched as the fire crowned across the ridges; during day we wiped a heavy layer of ash from the outdoor studio tables.

The Las Conchas fire burned for over a month, eventually incinerating over 156,000 acres. Then, when the August monsoons came, floods scoured the denuded canyons and the Rio Grande ran black with ash.

Now, in December, we are blessed with moisture in a more gentle form… “snow on snow on snow.” This mid-winter may seem bleak as memories of the wildfires cast a pall, but the snows promise some sort of recovery for the burned mountains.

Looking over to the Jemez today, I see that their snow patterns have changed. They will never look the same during my lifetime, probably never ever.

Tonight we celebrate the longest night of the year by listening as poets read by the light of a single candle. Their theme: Fire, Ashes, Snow.

Fire can be destructive, cleansing, warming, nourishing, and/or illuminating.

Friday, the daylight will be imperceptibly longer, and Saturday evening, Christmas Eve luminarias will mark the birth of Jesus, God’s Light for us.

May our holidays be warmed by the joy of sharing with family, friends, and especially with some we may not know. And may the next year bring promise and light to each of us and to all of creation.

Faith

Yesterday I spent an hour or so creating a spiral meditation path on a vacant lot across the road. Though it is late spring, there are no wildflowers or native grasses. The native junipers have been trimmed up so that they can no longer shelter their roots from the sun and wind, and the rocky ground is dusty after months without rain.

From a high point I look across the Rio Grande Valley, sixty miles west to Mount Taylor and back five miles east to the Sandias, thinking that surely there is no place around here where someone has not walked, hunted, cut firewood, or grazed sheep… all impacting the land over the past ten thousand years. But right here, for the past three decades, this spot has endured its most intense human occupation.

Our neighbors spent thirty-seven years in this place. With their own hands they built a house, kennels, and several out-buildings, poured a foundation for an unfinished addition, buried half-burned trash, old car parts, broken sports equipment, beloved pets, and other stuff as yet undiscovered. When it was time for them to move on, we bought their land.

Since the house was unlivable, we began the cleanup by stripping the wiring and recycling or giving away anything usable before demolition. Parts of the kennel went to a local animal shelter, a shed to a neighbor, metal roofing to a Pueblo farm family. Weathered wood board and batten went to a local builder to become a ceiling in a new adobe home.

The entire two acres was littered with nails, barbed wire, shards of glass, broken toys, and the miscellany of modern life. We did a lot of digging, filled a dumpster, and hauled home anything we thought might be of some value to us.

Now, three years later, it is time to acknowledge the past and look toward the future.

Starting at the center I rake a widdershin path out in a dynamic spiral, gathering bits of wire, screws, glass, plastic, and native rocks. An intact concrete patio block emerges to become the center post. Every piece of trash caught by the tines of the rake is tossed to the center, testament to the way in which our transitory existence can have lasting impact on this earth.

Finally the spiral has grown to fill its space, so that now, entering from the left, one may proceed clockwise to the center.

As I head back home, I spot some pale purple and gold iris blooming in an old flower bed. Not being desert natives, they won’t long survive unless someone waters them. But for this moment they are beautiful. And now I know that something wonderful can exist here again.

Crooked fish and Straight Thinking

“I have some guppies that have deformed spines… why don’t you try to figure out if that could be hereditary? I’ll give them to you if you want.”

Soon I was sharing my bedroom with a dozen or so one-gallon pickle jars full of generations of guppies, keeping meticulous records of their procreation and health. (I still have nightmares about scrubbing algae from the jars and counting tiny fish.)

Taking my friend’s suggestion turned out to be a defining moment in my life. Two years later I was walking up to the podium at the Western Virginia Regional Science Fair. Turned out the first place award in biology came with an all-expense-paid trip to the International Science Fair in Albuquerque NM. (I thought, “Where?”)

That was in May 1963. I fell in love with New Mexico—from the new Western Skies motel on east Central one could look up to the east mesa at sunset, where tall grass reflected the golden skies to the west. We rented horses and rode down the arroyo below Four Hills. We toured Old Town, and munched sopaipillas dripping with honey. There was a tour to Los Alamos, where we lunched at Philomena’s (the old guard station), and a day trip to Acoma Pueblo, the Sky City.

But mostly it was the light, the ultramarine fading to azure green at twilight peppered with stars, that caused me to affirm to my teacher, “I’m coming back here to live.” “Yes dear,” she humored me.

That was nearly fifty years ago. What if I hadn’t taken my friend up on his offer? For sure, I wouldn’t be sitting out here in the desert, listening to coyotes celebrate as the full moon rises over the Sandias.

Bondo: A Good Old Dog

This epitaph is meticulously chiseled in blackened letters into a gray granite headstone within an old picket fence, leaning askew with peeling white paint. The grave is covered with an old blanket, disintegrating now. It is capped with carefully chosen black lava rock from the banks of lower Dorsey Creek in Poncha Pass.

Bondo was probably a good-sized dog from the size of the grave, and he was obviously worth the effort put into this interment. Maybe he ran these sagebrush hills through aspen and fir, following cattle with his owner.

I'd like to know more about him.

Wild and isolated Poncha Pass overlooks the expansive San Luis Valley to the south and is traversed today by US 285. Dorsey Creek is a Forest Service access road just south of the pass.

Epiphany invited

This twelfth day of Christmas, Kings Day, Epiphany is bright and clear in the high desert. Although snow still lingers on the shaded ground, the greenhouse is eighty degrees, with Christmas cactus in full bloom and Meyer lemons ripe for harvest.

This morning a flock of mountain bluebirds feasted on juniper berries on nearby Forest Service land. How apt the phrase, "bluebird of happiness"... what possible survival benefit could such magnificent azure afford? More senseless beauty.

Now a white winged dove peers down at me from a locust, still fluffed against the cold. Our feeder has hosted the winter regulars: juncos, towhees, one lovely brown thrasher, and many others. A quick check in the summerhouse fails to provide a sighting of the Western screech owl who has been in residence since August. He was here at least until mid December... perhaps he has scored a warmer roost these days.

So I poke around, searching for some insight, some spark, some enlightenment. Bring it on — I'm ready!

Honeybees, Rosemary and Art

Here in the high desert, rosemary grows well in our dry alkaline soil. Sunny warm days have kept this tough little herb in full bloom, and hundreds of honeybees are taking full advantage today.

I wonder if their honey will have a hint of turpentine?
Will it be dark or light?

A conversation with a beekeeper last weekend reminded me how amazing these creatures are. As a batik artist, I have used many pounds of beeswax over the past thirty years. It is interesting to contemplate whether or not someone is harvesting the honey from bees in my garden, and whether I might be buying beeswax created from my own rosemary.

Cranes, golden cottonwoods and fairies

The sharp cobalt sky is filled with the churble of sandhill cranes, heading down to the Bosque del Apache as the high country peaks are showing white.

Our best season lazes on: frost clips the late blossoms, while afternoons warm south walls. The house is downright toasty, thanks to the sun. Furnace still not needed.

A western screech owl has been roosting in the summer house for several weeks, and the resulting owl pellets have been of interest to me and my five-year old grandson. Mouse bones are so tiny.

We recently spent a magical afternoon as he built a house for the fairies, tearing tiny placemats and a tablecloth from rags and carefully hanging mistletoe from the roof.

He assures me fairies like mistletoe.

Tiny stone seats were placed with care around a rock table. Periwinkle petals provided exquisite decor, and a good sheet metal roof supported a rag flag, on which he had drawn a flower and bumblebee.

We're certain the fairies approved.

Spotted Towhees and Robins

This morning the season officially changed with the arrival of several spotted towhees at the feeder. One of the most colorful winter residents, these little orange, black and white sparrows are never so plentiful as to be a problem (as the robins can be) so they are always welcome.

During a dry winter, flocks of robins crowd our small pond and befoul it, endangering the goldfish. One February we arrived home after leaving our house with a sitter for ten days. The pond water was purple, and two dozen dead fish floated like fall aspen leaves. The robins were so thick that it was hard to think of them as symbols of spring cheer!

As a kid I raised a robin fledgling that had been caught by our cat. I will always recognize the call. Named Cheep-cheep by my little brother, she grew quickly and learned to fly, but always had one wing feather that went at an odd angle due to the cat's claws. She would swoop down and land on my head, then poop. When she was grown we took her with us on a week-long vacation to a nearby state park. Every day we would let her out, then let her into the cabin at night if she would come to us. By the time we left she had taken up with some other robins.

That was in the misty Blue Ridge mountains; this is the Southwest high desert. A very different life for a robin, where life depends on finding water. And since I choose to provide it, guess I can't blame them for showing up in excess.

Kinda like our own species: always able to recognize a good thing, then overusing it to the point of destruction.

Death of a young bobcat

Sad to find one of the bobcat kittens dead down the hill this morning. Probably dead a day or two; wounds on its back point to a possible owl attack.

Could also have been a coyote or male bobcat. We don't have stray dogs in the neighborhood, so probably a wild predator.

It was larger than a big house cat, but not grown, maybe twenty pounds.

We haven't seen the mother again either. Buried it under the juniper where it died.