Restingmotion

I am attending a Masters Workshop with Emily Magli where I am making this dress:

Both photos are taken from Emily Magli’s website. (here)

The dress is made of four “squares” hung on the bias. It is both very simple and completely intriguing..

The first day I made a muslin and cut my fabric. I am making the dress out of a fine green cotton voile. I took my time squaring-up the fabric, laying out the muslin pattern and cutting. By the time that was all finished, the day wasn’t over but I was done.

As you can see from the picture below. the squares aren’t really squares, although I couldn’t really get enough distance to photograph the entire pattern piece.

I also spent a good deal of time pinning both the front and the back pieces to their respective pattern muslin, using tons of pins to make sure nothing shifted around. Although I did cut the pieces double (two fronts, two backs) I could only cut one piece at a time, using shared cutting tables, so the pieces had to be moved before cutting another piece or marking. So I pinned. perhaps excessively so, as Emily commented that I didn’t really need to mark the hemlines. (All pieces have narrow-hemmed edges). I replied that I was simply anchoring the pieces together. You can see my rows of pins along the edges in the picture you below. I am also known for using generous quantities of tape when sealing packages.
After all, one can never be too careful.

The second day was spent marking those seam lines in the middle of each piece. I spent some of my down time obsessing over the whole thing. because the fabric is sheer, and I didn’t want anything showing in the final garment. I decided that I would use different colors of basting thread so that I could tell the pieces apart. Yellow was for side seams. Pink or Red for either center front or center back.

Today was day three, or narrow hem day. I spent the morning making practice hems. the biggest issue was the corners and I made several versions before I was ready to take on the pieces of the actual dress. In the end I didn’t finish even one of the four dress pieces, but the day ended just as I was about to tackle the most complex edge, one containing a sharp angle. Waiting until I was fresh in the morning seemed to be the wisest choice. Nonetheless, I was very happy with what I had accomplished thus far.

Liana and I ended the day with dinner and a cocktail.

Liana had an amaretto sour and I had a specialty cocktail called the Nocturne #2, which consisted of Chopin Vodka, Peach Amaro, Bay Leaf Liquor, and Lemon Bitters.

More later.

Over the course of the last two weeks the Knoxville Symphony has held four concerts; I have attended all of them. The fifth concert is tonight, the opener for the pops series, and I will be there as well. It has been a very strong opening, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every concert, and, unusually for me, my niggling little critical voice, although not absent, has been relatively quiet. I thought I should catch you up on the two concerts I have not yet mentioned.

I will begin with the most recent concert, the Concert Master Series at the Knoxville Museum of Art, which I attended on Wednesday night. The program was titled “Spanish Vices” and it was absolutely lovely, although really only the first half of the program was Spanish, in terms of either theme or composer.

The first half of the program consisted of four works for violin and piano, four pieces that explored themes of sensuality and romance. The concert opened with John Williams arrangement of Tango for Una Cabeza from the film, Scent of a Woman. It was a great opener, lush and familiar and certainly set the mood for the music to follow.

The next work, Pablo de Sarasate’s “Introduction and Tarantella” led the audience deeper into the realms of romance. The first part of the work, “Introduction” is just that, an introduction. It feels both lush and almost courtly, yet filled with promise. I imagine a first meeting in a beautiful garden, constrained perhaps by convention, by the gentle art of first impressions and introductions, but a meeting that is the beginning of a mad romance. This is, of course, followed up by the wildly passionate, and complex Tarantella, an intricate weaving of sensuality and no small measure of intrigue. As one of the hairs on Shaun’s bow came loose and was floating about in wild gyrations, he artfully plucked it from the air and flicked it away, as if brushing of an errant whisp from a spider’s web, only enhancing the sense of passion and pursuit.

The Sarasate was followed by two additional pieces, Manuel de Falla’s Spanish Dance from “La Vida Breve”, and Chiquinha Gonzaga’s Corta Jaca, engaging the audience in a further exploration of the vagaries of love, seduction, and art.

In the second half of the concert Devan Jaquez joined Shaub and Class for two trios: Bohuslav Martinu’s Sonata for Flute, Violin and Piano and Nino Rota’s Trio for Flute, Violin and Piano.

I adored the Martinú, not surprisingly as I am a big fan of Martinu’s music, despite relatively rarely hearing it in performance. On Wednesday evening I felt that Shaun and Jaquez captured the precise balance I find in Martinú between lyricism and a precisely delineated underlying tensions. Martinu artfully balances distinct rhythmic passages with notes of jazz and dance or folk music in a way that is both infectiously joyful while yet at the same time acknowledging underlying rhythmic discordancies. During the first movement I was almost dancing out of my seat. The second movement, a pastoral Adagio in 3/4 time had me wishing to curl up with a blanket, simply washed with the music. That cheeky blend of lyricism with competing tensions of jazz and folk influences returned for the third movement. The fourth movement is more difficult. In one sense it seems to be a pastiche of several smaller movements, none with any real bearing on what has come before or after. There is a discordant piano solo, some lilting passages here and there, several virtuosic moments, and an apparent lack of obvious connection. George always thought this movement was an add on that could have been dispensed with completely, but it always reminds me of alternate possibilities, of the road not taken, and in that sense enhances the entire experience. Is there a correct answer? I doubt it.

The final piece was by Nino Rota, and it was lovely. I probably did not pay enough attention. I find Rota enjoyable but not fully engaging and at the end of the concert, following the fabulous Martinu, I didn’t have the will to tune in with greater intellectual vigor. I felt the flute had a delightful role in the piece, nicely explored by Jaquez, but I also felt the piano was perhaps a bit too heavy. Regardless, it was a lovely evening.

Which brings me to concert number 3, the previous Wednesday. This was the noon performance by the Principal String Quartet and the Principal Woodwind Quintet. This was the unusual, for me, concert where I knew absolutely nothing about any of the works performed, nor for the most part, the composers. I had heard of Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, although I could not put my finger on any works that I may have hard. We heard the first string quartet. The other two composers, Eurico Carrapatoso, and Karl Pilss, were completely unfamiliar. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the music and think I will need to make an effort and further listening. This is one of the things I love about this series, the musicians pick music they love and/or want to play, and the joy of each performance is contagious.

All in all this has been a spectacular kick-off to the Knoxville Symphony’s 90th season. I am sure I wlll love tonight’s concert, “Soft Rock of the 70s and 80s” but I probably won’t write about it further. I am looking forward to what promises to be an exciting year.

The season opener for Knoxville Symphony’s Chamber Orchestra series, a program titled Mozart & More, was Sunday, and it continued what has so far been a fabulous start to this, the Knoxville Symphony’s 90th season. It has been a long time since I’ve written about music, but I am going to give it a go.

For this listener the Mozart was not the draw here, although it was fabulous (more on that later), but rather the Horn Concerto No 1. in E-flat major, Opus 11 by Richard Strauss. I love this Horn Concerto, written by a young Strauss, and I was looking forward to this concert with a mixture of glee and trepidation. Glee, because when well performed this work makes me want to leap up and dance, and well, when not so well performed, it can become almost stolid. Principal Horn Jeffrey Whaley pulled off the performance brilliantly however and the interaction between soloist and orchestra was just entrancing. I was dancing in my seat, barely containing myself to stay calmly within its confines. Not only did Whaley display his mastery of the technical side of the music but he also showed that he is a master of playing the horn with warmth of feeling. I have not always heard this horn concerto played with such a combination of emotional resonance and technical harmony. It was indeed the highlight of the afternoon, and a performance that still echoes through my thoughts days later.

The Mozart, Symphony #40 in G Minor, was also fabulous and surprised me with the depth and beauty of the performance. I’ve written before about how it took me years to look beyond the surface of Mozart, the familiar melodies we all know, and explore the depths, and I always find there is a particular tension in this symphony, a tension that Demirjian and the orchestra gently teased out well while still maintaining a balance that only hinted at the depths lurking beneath the surface brightness. I was also amazed at the sense of intimacy the conductor and the musicians managed in the second movement, taking the music in and making this listener feel like she was in the midst of a very personal moment, walking a fine line between searching for some elusive element while still holding on to that thread of joy. Another fabulous performance.

The only downside of the concert for me was the first piece, Florence Price’s Octet for Brass and Piano, scored for scored for piano, two trumpets, two horns, two trombones, and tuba. The work was pleasing and a little mischievous, displaying an experimental nature I don’t remember noting in Price’s symphonic works. The piano particularly seemed to have a lilting playfulness that was, unfortunately overwhelmed by the brass. The brass portion was, intentionally I assume, more compact, and I assumed the piano was to dance around them. But at times the brass overwhelmed the piano, and felt a bit slow. I felt the music wanted to dance but was being leashed. The piece was lovely but I felt it could have been more. I would like the opportunity to hear the work again, and perhaps refine my opinion.

A friend took this photo of me at a party Thursday evening.

It has thrilled me to no end because I am standing straight. This feels like some kind of combination of a miracle and a profound achievement.

Six months ago. I was not standing straight. I probably hadn’t been standing straight for a long time, but by that point, late April and early May, it had reached a point where even I could not ignore my own disability. I could not stand for more than 5 minutes, often no more than 2 or 3 minutes. I often had trouble walking. I knew I leaned forward, but I could no longer force myself to stand straight.

I went to PT, beginning in early May, and I have been going ever since. It has been an ongoing challenge, and probably will be for some time. I learned that my right leg and hip muscles were so tight that I effectively had what I think of as a peg-leg dragging me around, doing it what it had to do. MY left side was very weak, as it had been hauled around, captive, for some time. All this developed over years, secondary to my completely fused back (T1 to L3-4 with a steel rod, L4-5 and L5-6 self fused). The body does what it has to do, until it needs help. And I can be a master of self-deception.

As we loosened tight muscles and started to strengthen weak ones, my body felt like a battle ground, a mini-revolution in my own muscle, the stiff muscles did not want to relinquish control, the weak ones clamored to be heard. Sometimes I tilted less forward, sometimes I tilted left, or right, or some odd combination of the two. I began to realize that I was not as “normal” as I always assumed I was, and I was engaged not only in that physical battle on a muscular level, but in my own cognitive and emotional battle beset by ever-new reminders of how I did not move or appear to move in normal ways. The tree that has been buffeted and twisted by winds does not know that it is not straight like the other trees, it only perseveres, convinced of its own survival. In my heart I had always been a straight tree, and here I was learning I was anything but.

Today, I still have a long way to go. My muscles are still tight. I am still learning to walk normally. But the photo above serves as a reminder, a talisman almost, of my progress. At Aunt Lillian’s funeral I stood for over an hour talking to people. At the above party I had already stood for well over an hour, when that photo was taken, and I was still straight. I stood another hour before I had to sit down. Slowly, I am walking more easily. Slowly, I can do more. Slowly I have less pain. I had always assumed that pain was a constant fact of life. Now it appears I can question that belief.

Today, I am filled with hope. I CAN do this.

The autumn equinox occurred while I was playing bridge. I didn’t particularly notice any change although “officially” it was still summer when I left my house at mid day, and it was autumn when I returned.

It has felt like autumn in my yard for some time now. These things don’t happen automatically after all, like the flipping of a switch.

The light has been changing slowly, as it does, and I noticed a shift in the quality of the light, the angle, perhaps the wavelength, in August. Again this is normal, the light tends to lean more toward what I think of as Autumnal light before the pivot point, what we call the equinox, actually occurs. It has been different in each place I have lived, but here I can reliably expect that change in late August.

As the light shifts the early morning birdsong changes as well. Then the scent in the air changes and a subtle note of earth, of humus, of decay begins to emerge. The garden smells different.

There are still flowers of course. The autumnal blossoms like the sedum above make me smile. The summer annuals are still in bloom. I didn’t plant annuals this year, but they surround me on my walks, and as long as the temperatures remain warm they will continue to blossom. I know they too will fade soon enough.

I love autumn. I love walking on autumn mornings. I love the sense of slowness, of waiting, that autumn brings. I love the promise of rest, of dormancy, of letting go. Yes, I even love the reminder of death. It seems that in our culture we try to deny the presence of death, to deny the need to rest, perhaps even to hibernate. But it is from death that life comes forth, and I love the cycle. Even though spring is filled with promise, I always feel that autumn is filled with repose and with hope.

What is about moving my blog address and hosting that makes me want to write? I realize it is not just that, as I have been wanting to resuscitate this blog for over a month, but life somehow intervened and I just couldn’t get past the objections I raised within my own head.

Then, of course, Typepad said it was shutting down. And I was not in a place where I could deal with that, at least not emotionally or intellectually. I spend the beginning of September in San Antonio, where my aunt was dying. She was my father’s brother’s wife, but both my father and his brother have long since left this earth. I was happy to spend her last few days sitting with her, holding her hand, my hand on her shoulder, or knitting by the side of the bed. I was happy to be there for that time and for the funeral, but I was emotionally overwhelmed place. I couldn’t think about blogs, or in fact the embroidery I had taken with me due to an impending deadline.

When I returned home the deadline loomed and it felt like I spent all my time either in meetings where I serve on boards or otherwise volunteer, or in my studio working on embroidery. There was no time for processing, and no mental bandwidth for taking on anything new.

After the baptismal towels were done I crashed but it was not enough. September was already the busiest month and I think I am still not so much ruled by coherent thinking but by my stress response.

But not all has been stress. My cookbook club met and I was rejuvenated by an hour of wonderful conversation about food. The Collector’s Circle group for the Knoxville Museum of Art held their seasonal kick-off party and I was soothed by wonderful conversations with people I had not seen in some time.

Last night I attended the symphony’s seasonal opening which included a lovely new work by Jennifer Higdon, a work I do not remember clearly enough but I remember enjoying. I acknowledge that my brain is currently at dangerous overflow levels but I know that I will remember this performance much more clearly when I have an opportunity to hear that work again — this is simply how my brain works.

Last night the orchestra and the choral society also performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is always an uplifting and happy work. Part of me didn’t want to go downtown; I was too tired. But I knew it would soothe and uplift me, and so it did. I was bouncing in my seat with the music lost as much in memory as the music itself. For once my critical faculties did not kick in, although I do actually look forward to Beethoven now. (Our previous music director’s renditions of Beethoven were an offense to my sensibilities) I was simply carried away by the music, by memories of a life filled with the music of Beethoven. With the soloists I heard my father singing to the Beethoven as he listened to it in my childhood home, I heard George joining in. At some point I may have sung parts of the alto line to myself. It was joyous.

And here I am again this morning, reviewing, and archiving, old blog posts looking for lost photos. I’ve been able to find most of the missing pieces. So far there are two photos that appear to be gone forever, but I’ve gone through what, 400 out of 1700 posts. This task alone may take me the rest of the month. Yes, I wondered if someone could do all the work for me, but they couldn’t find that which was lost, and my budget at the moment is unfortunately very tight.

Actually the process is stressful because I am afraid I won’t finish and that things will be lost. I am afraid that, even if I get the typepad file, I won’t be able to automatically update the picture storage and will have to do it manually, which will take a long time. And why am I stressed? Long ago I decided that things were only things, that words were only words, and that I am but a spec. Posterity does not care. Why should I? And yet at this moment I do care.

But the process is also joyous. One thing I am rediscovering about those early posts, when I knew nothing about the internet or blogging and did not feel self-conscious about what I wrote, was how I just threw words out there, much like I am doing now. It may be silly, foolish, out of touch with the times. But that is the voice I wish to resurrect, a voice that is very much like my own interior voice.

Today I found a post from 2006, where I wrote about a silly internet “test” I took. That one seems to have been something like “what math text would you be if your were a math text”. (As if anyone would care) The test determined that I would be a text on Algebraic Topology, which is odd because I am not a mathematician but I love Topology. Topology, like organic chemistry, is a subject that has always just made sense to me.

This is what I wrote at that time (April 23, 2006)

“what intrigues me about this one is that I love Topology.  I am not a mathematician, I was an English Major in college, although I later went on to work with computers and get an engineering degree.  However one of my college roommates was a math major and she had a lot of trouble with Topology.  One of the math tutors would come over to help her, we later became friends, and he always thought I should have become a mathematician, and once when she was having trouble with something that he couldn’t get across I just explained it to her.  I would listen to these talks and it all seemed so obvious to me.  In retrospect I see that this was probably maddening to my roommate, that the English major could figure out Topology and she couldn’t, but I didn’t mean it that way.  Topology, like Organic Chemistry (which I did take) was just one of the subjects that clicked with me right away and changed the way I looked at the world.”

This resonates with me today because once again I am connected to the chain of memories — of my youth, yes, but also more recent memories. When I was in San Antonio I had a conversation with my brother the physicist who was telling me that he had been stymied by a conversation with a high school senior who wanted to know what real life uses there were for Calculus II. I couldn’t come up with an answer then because it was late, my aunt had just died, and I was exhausted. But I woke up with that question on my mind. I wondered if calculating the amount of fiberglass needed to cover a free-form roughly circular pool surface would be calc II. We did that once, George did it in his head although he claimed he was “bad at math”. He was right and the contractor was wrong. I’m not sure if that is calc II though. I also thought it was useful in calculating how much garden edging one would need to create a randomly undulating bed around a yard. I’m sure most people just guess and either buy too much or too little, but I do like to know exactly what I need before heading to the store. I have done those calculations.

Later, on the plane home, I also wondered if calc II was useful in calculating present and future value of investments. And perhaps population spread in disease. But I suppose one could argue that none of these are “real life” for the average person. Although I think I’m pretty normal and I have made some of those calculations. I could also just be crazy.

Anyway, these thoughts are all running around in my head this morning. I’m also not convinced I like the layout I chose for this blog, but that is something I can amend in the future. At least for now, I have a place to contain my random word dumps.

Have a nice Saturday.

After twenty-five years at Typepad, my blog has a new home, and a new address, at WordPress.  This probably should have happened years ago.  But now it must as Typepad has thrown in the towel or is in the process of doing so.

All blogs, including the prior ones have been Imported under name — restingmotion.com.  At the moment that only extends to text files but I have asked Typepad for the other media, and hopefully it will arrive in time and I will get it all uploaded.  That consists of thousands of files to be added to roughly 1700 blog posts.  I do however already know that there are photos that are not currently accessible through typepad, and some originals that I too seem to have misplaced.  At the moment I am painstakingly sorting through all posts to insure that I have copies of all photos in house so that, should they not get uploaded automatically anything that falls through the cracks (and I hope they are small cracks) will eventually find its way to my new home.  I have already managed to find a dozen missing links and files.

Needless to say everything is very rough and crude at the moment.  I don’t really know how to use WordPress yet, and there is much to be done.  September and October were already overscheduled before I received the news of Typepad’s impending demise so progress may be slow.  Nonetheless, I will move forward.  

Apologies for the disruptions and many thanks to any who stick with me through the upheaval.