Athens, Ga

I love New Year’s almost as much as I love birthdays. That’s A LOT - if you know me, you know what I’m talking about! For the month of January I’ll have a number of New Year’s related blog posts, and for this one I wanted to share these words from my favorite editor-about-town, Pete McCommons. His weekly newspaper, the Flagpole, is my go-to for anything Athens related. As we began 2012, I was struck by his eloquence in describing how I feel about Athens and why I am so happy to live here. Here is what Pete has to say; I hope you enjoy it, too.

Happy New Year!

We’ve got a really good state university; we’ve got a really good public school system; we’ve got special assets like our extensive and well known music scene; we’ve got attractive architecture and liveable, walkable, bikable, drivable neighborhoods; we’ve got an affordable cost of living; we’ve got a beautiful natural environment nestled among hills and rivers with a moderate climate (okay–not in August); we have an interesting downtown; our suburbs are within easy reach; in addition to the music, we have lots of activity in the arts: theater, painting, writing, cinema, pottery; we’ve got a good bus system; we’ve got sports; we’re a short drive to the mountains and a not-as-short drive to the ocean; we can fly out of Atlanta but don’t have to live there.

Athens is not perfect, but we’ve got a lot going for us. Let’s make this new year the time when we really focus on understanding how to bring in the kinds of businesses that want to live in our kind of town and that will contribute to strengthening Athens without messing it up. Let’s also take a good, close look at how we can enhance what we have. We can insist that our economic development people understand what we have here and learn how to add to it, instead of chasing phantom industries that aren’t coming and wouldn’t fit.

Even if we can’t control what the university pays its custodial workers and graduate assistants, we can document what kind of impact those wage scales have here. We can also take a look at our local government and make sure it is not a part of the poorly paid job problem.

Let’s make this the year that we devise even better coordination and knowledge among the projects and agencies that are trying to ameliorate our endemic poverty. Let’s be sure our local government, our university and our state government are drawn even more closely into a focused examination of poverty here. There are many reasons for poverty in Athens, and the big one is that our county presently and historically offers jobs not available in the surrounding counties and also public housing and other forms of assistance not available in the outlying areas.

This is our big challenge in the new year: to find ways to extend our quality of life to those who are left out, while enhancing our community to realize that we all gain from lifting up our lowest members. We have had setbacks recently and in the past, but we must persevere, because we are all in this community together, and we are interdependent, whether we realize it or not. Let’s resolve to give special, local meaning to the salutation, “Happy New Year!”

Pete McCommons

editor@flagpole.com

                                                 ”College Ave. & Clayton St., Downtown Athens, Ga”

                                                   painting on silk by Rene Shoemaker

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Happy end-of-the-year holidays, y’all! 

It’s been an exciting and art-filled year since I posted my first blog post last January 1st. At that time I invited you all to share my explorations and discoveries with me. It’s been fun, and I find that you inspire me, challenge me, encourage me and reward me - greatly. Thanks!

For all of you who helped me work through the preparations for the holiday Athens Artist Market at Hotel Indigo in Athens, it was a grand success, and a fabulous learning opportunity. Once again, I faced what I hesitated to take on - and succeeded! 

Best wishes to you and yours for a happy and creative New Year!!

Waking Up

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

I’m curious - really - to know what gets you out of bed in the morning. Write and tell me.  

For me, it’s:

        a) deadlines,

        b) anticipation on starting the day, and

        c) getting up to see the morning sky.

These are the types of thoughts that are running through my head while I am waking up. Ready to start the day!

For example, right now, because I am working towards this deadline of having beautiful silk items for sale by Dec 11 for the Athens Artist Market, I go to bed at night reviewing what I need to accomplish the next day, and I make a mental list of what should be done first, second, third - and then anything accomplished beyond that is gravy. That way I’m not stressed out from not being sure of what needs to be done when I go out to the studio. I get out of bed and can go straight to work (after walking the dog, of course) ironing a silk, or waxing a design that I drew the day before, or mixing colors for the next pillow.

Then it is very satisfying to take a mid-morning break: a cup of coffee while I survey the projects spread out around me. The studio is small but I am finding creative way of storing and drying my pieces… while not stepping on them! As I look at the white silks, the wooden frames, and the pots of dye, I can imagine the project complete, and I can see all the beautiful finished pillows lined up on the couch at the Indigo Hotel, the cards on a table, and the scarves all hanging neatly in a row ready for people to come in and try them on and fall in love with them. 

Here is a photo of the dyeing-in-progress from earlier today:

And in the photo below, you can see the texture and sheen and beautiful colors of one of the new shibori scarves I am working on, in the ice blue that I wrote about in my post last month. They are layered in colors of blue - dipping each one multiple times so that I can get layers of color that tell intriguing stories unique to each piece. They tell stories of landscapes and sky and roads that travel to unknown destinations.

And that is my happiest wish for you - that you can think about your mornings before you have to jump out of bed - and that you take the time to travel to unknown destinations just to discover what might be there.

Creativity

Creativity is a fascinating subject and always worth a long conversation. Can you imagine how many books have been written on it, and how many classes have been taught and how many hours have been spent by creative people trying to be - creative?

I personally find the subject an endless source of discussion. Last weekend I drove up to Waynesville, NC and visited my textile-artist friend Suzanne (whom I met at a creative event) and discussed creativity, and the art of, with her and her fine-woodworking husband, John. 

                  

                                    Inspirational western North Carolina landscapes

This weekend, I am spending time with my daughter Kate discussing creativity - she is on her iPhone right now participating in a “tweet chat” (a conference via twitter) with hundreds of other creative people. On Saturday, Kate taught a class on block printing (and I was the class assistant!) at the Loft Art Supply in Athens, Ga. - so I got to play at creativity all day! 

Here are some photos from the Loft workshop. Kate will be posting more photos on Love & Reason this coming week - so keep your eyes open for it if you’d like to join us the next time she teaches a creativity class!

                                      Kelli cutting a corn cob for the pigeon she drew!

                                                      Rene inking geometric shapes.

    My sources of inspiration for the day, from upper left to right : R.Shoemaker Wren, C.Flight Speed, H.Matisse Le Retenu, R.Shoemaker N. Pope Street, and H.N.Werkman Compositie.