"What's Up?"

What a Summer!

2011-09-06T11:57:00.001-07:00

I can't remember when I had such a full summer. Which is great - except I need some serious processing time now.
To start, few shots of the "Contemplation Chair" that my daughter Paige Reid and I collaborated on in June. It's been in Moscow's ArtWalk all summer. This coming Saturday, our chair, alongside a couple dozen one-of-a-kind others, will be auctioned off at the Community Adirondack Chair Art Project. (Online bidding has begun.) All proceeds to benefit the Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute and their many wonderful programs.
PS: Enjoy the rare shot of Mr Jimi grinning!

Labor Day was yesterday, and so I will include one teaser photo from the beginning of my summer... a shot out the window of the Cessna I flew to Elim Alaska in. This was near the Bering Straits, where I got to teach for two weeks at Aniguiin School... Yes! and ride in the cockpit next to pilot (and writer) Ross Nixon. Click to enlarge.

Now I promise to get back here soon and add a few other photos... to help me process...

More Beads! @ Pendleton Woolen Mills

2011-07-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

If you are ever anywhere near Pendleton Oregon, and you have any interest in wool... blankets... sheep... weaving... warmth... fibers... history... or whatever, Pendleton Woolen Mills is a Must Stop. Take the tour of the mill! Buy something in the outlet store. (I finally bought a shirt this week to replace the vintage one I inherited from my mom and proceeded to wear for more than a decade during and after college.)
There is a great little historical display at the mill too, which includes fine photographs and western gear, Native American bead work, Pendleton Round-Up history and more...
Here is a picture of C.M.'Mort' Bishop Jr receiving a Pipe Tomahawk as a Friendship Award from the Confederated Tribes only a few years ago. Click on the picture to check out that bead work a little closer!

Stumbling Onto Fabulous Plateau Indian Beadwork

2011-07-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

James and I spent last night at the Marcus Whitman Hotel in Walla Walla. (Sweet choice, James, especially since they were overbooked and upgraded us to a suite!)
Today is already lucky too, as we got to see this wonderful exhibit at the Walla Walla Museum: Patriotic Beadwork of the Plateau People. I didn't know it was here. Here's a short review from their sister museum, Tamastslikt Cultural Center, where I am headed this afternoon. (My 3rd time there; always worth it. (James is hitting the links instead; I gave him the afternoon off.) Tamastslikt is a gem out here ten or so miles from Pendleton. And a nice biking distance from the Wild Horse Casino, where we are staying tonight in a very quiet (?!) room.
Would our luck will hold? Should we play Keno or Blackjack or ..?.. tonight? Or just eat a great meal at the Plateau Restaurant and think on it...
PS Muchas Gracias Vicky and Brian, for taking care of the house and dog for us. (Hope it's not too noisy there.)

Today at the Prichard Gallery

2011-07-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

Spent the morning and part of afternoon at the Prichard Art Gallery, doing block printing and then beaded appliqué. Not a huge class, but tons of fun.

Here is Brigid with her print and favorite carved block. Upon pick-up by her mom she was overheard asking, “Can we do this with my friends all afternoon?”

Hey, I did it! I managed to post something every day for 6 days in a row (which qualifies as a week in my book.) And it's getting easier!

Incarnations for Old Projects

2011-07-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

In my final year at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, one of the things I made for my senior show was a bentwood 3-panel frame. I batiked these three pieces of rayon and made everything into a room divider / screen. The fabric has held up well, but the frame had become something to stumble over in my mom's down-sized apartment.
When I visited her in Anchorage recently, she consented to let me re-purpose that "gift". So I took it apart and am in the process of making three separate shawls.
In the first picture, we're in the Far North Yarn Co (way cool store!) where the the owner-daughter team helped us pick out the perfect fringe yarn. (If you click it larger, look at my mom's split loom necklace. She first wove those glass beads into a belt when she was a Campfire girl. A few decades later I reworked it into the necklace.)
In the second picture, at my friend Linda Rasmussen's recent Art Walk opening at the One World Cafe in Moscow, I'm wearing the first shawl (with the warmest colors.)
Today I was just working on the fringe for the second shawl (cooler colors) which I'll give my mom. I'm planning to finish the 3rd one for my daughter, who is right now the age I was when I batiked the original fabric. (She doesn't know about this yet.) I hope she doesn't think it's hopelessly out of vogue. If she does I'll just wait a year or two. (She's acquiring excellent taste.)

Arrival of New Neighbors / Goings On Next Door

2011-07-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

Well, big excitement today was watching the crew pour the foundation. Of the house in which our newly arrived studio guests will be living in a few (short?) months. Brian and Vicky, rear ends deadened from their 2,900 mile road trip, got here just in time to watch the workers get that cement into those nifty forms. Then it was time to share a first nosh on the deck.

Block Print Synergy

2011-07-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the finished collaborative block print my students and I created at Arts Powered Schools recently (College of Idaho campus in Caldwell - great place, wonderful FOOD!)

Since the students all made their own cards and samples, I took the liberty of keeping this group print (we made two of them). I shared the other with my friend and fellow teaching artist Linda Wolfe who assisted me. It was a blast.

I just may frame it, like this print I made with 3rd graders at Troy Elementary in the spring of 2010.

Art Collaborations / Goings On Next Door

2011-07-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here is Jacob, from my summer school group in Elim Alaska, making a block print. And, more recently, one of my students from the Arts Powered Schools Institute, putting a finishing touch on the collaborative print we made in my workshop.
This "linoleum" block-printing is fun!
Want to try it yourself ? I'f you'rein the neighborhood, I'm giving a workshop this Saturday at the Prichard Art Gallery in downtown Moscow. To find out more go here or to preregister call the gallery at 208-885-3586.

Today Next Door:
My brother and his wife are doing us one better. They were inspired by the shrinking aquifer in this part of the Palouse to invest in a rain catchment cistern. They will 'harvest' rainwater off their soon-to-be-roof.

So while we installed a 550 gal. above ground tank several years ago for watering the veggies, they are burying a 2,000(?) gal. vault. Whoa! That'll do a BIG garden! Here is was, arriving this morning.

Mixing Personal and Professional (Goals and Projects)

2011-07-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here I am surrounded by the wonderful teachers from across Idaho who were my students in the class I just had the privilege of teaching for Meredith Essex, at Idaho's Arts Powered Schools Teachers Institute in Caldwell recently. It was jointly sponsored by the Idaho Commission on the Arts and our State Department of Education. We all worked on collage/assemblage boxes using (in Meredith's words) "a compelling personal story of transformation." Each of my students completed a wonderful art piece (their fearless leader isn't quite done...) and I am so proud of them all.
Now I am making public #1 a personal challenge, #2 a professional/personal goal (we artists tend to wrap them all up together) and #3 a specific project goal that is a key to my future:
Challenge #1 is to post something in here each day for one week. I figure even 6 days' practice should help get a habit started, and I really want to get better at this.
The personal/professional goal is to get 30 people subscribing to my little blog here. I'm not sure how long that will take, but I'm sure it'll be more than a week. Why 30? Maybe it's because my hubby and I are celebrating our 30th anniversary. (See what I mean about the personal and professional getting all sloshed together?)
My #3 project is to complete the commission I am doing for my wonderful web designer Susan Weaver who has been waiting so patiently for it for TOO long! (The reason this project is so important is that I need her help big-time again. I have places to go and stuff I wanna do with this website... and I am too embarrassed to ask her for any more help till I get this done!)

So there you have it: Jeanne's Monday-in-a-Nutshell. Oh did I mention that life is about to change around here? My brother and his wife are building a house next door, and will be living upstairs in my studio for a few months in the meantime. As I write this they are on their way down the highway from Alaska after 35+ years in Fairbanks. The guy in the foreground with the shovel is our son Sol, who's on the construction crew!

Testing...Testing...

2011-06-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Ah HA! I'm back, after a little hiatus. Is this working? If YOU can guess what this is, I have a prize for you. So email me and let me know.
Hint: I've been in Elim, Alaska. On Norton Sound, near the Bering Strait.
Another hint: It's NOT plastic!

Spanish 301 - Again!

2010-12-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a privilege to take (for the 2nd time) a Spanish 301 class at the University of Idaho. La profesora, Irina Kappler-Crookston (center, brown sweater) is wonderful, and the other students are bright, funny, and I gotta tell ya, a lot quicker than me at mastering the subjunctive mood and all those verb tenses.
I won't be taking the final this week (out teaching a few too many weeks myself this semester) but I'll be back for another stab at it. Third time will be a charm?
In the meantime, this morning I called "my" guesthouse in the little town in Mexico where I'll be heading again next month, and found out that ¡Sí! they have room for me. We chatted a full 5 minutes - all in Spanish. Yeah!
I'm a few baby steps closer to realizing my mission: To use my art form to help build bridges instead of walls between our cultures.

Countdown / Cutting Up

2010-12-08T19:13:00.001-08:00

Here I am in the process of finishing the prep for about 250 more looms. That's all 100% POST-consumer cardboard, too.
Just got a new account for my kits: University of Idaho Bookstore. (Vandal golds and silvers of course.) Have a couple more events this month, such as Buy Local Moscow but my main energy now is going into the draft of my manual... something about How to Help Weave a Million Beads and Make Friends Around the World at the same time...
Title needs a little work. Suggestions welcome...

A closer look at student work

2010-05-11T09:46:00.001-07:00

Here's a closer look at Shailie's glass beadwoven bracelets. Also one of the tin tops that each student wove.

McLoughlin High School

2010-05-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

I just had a wonderful week teaching at McLoughlin High School in Eastern Oregon. Many thanks to art teacher Blue Leitch, for setting this up and letting me move in and take over. And also to the Humanities for Youth Program in Milton-Freewater, the Milton-Freewater Art Club, and ArtsEast / Eastern Oregon Regional Arts Council for their continued support of arts programming. The kids, staff, my homestay - even the salad bar in the cafeteria - were all great! As were the swell projects the kids made.
!Muchas gracias!
Jeanne

2010-04-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Help! I am surrounded by "Interculturalists!"
SIETAR-USA: Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, is full of fascinating folks using their hearts and brains to help build bridges instead of walls between our cultures. Most of them use a lot more technology than I do as well.
But I am going to surprise them tomorrow, with a bit of Right-Brain-Hands-On-Community-Building ART.
Now, off to a session....
Jeanne

2010-03-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

That's me... back behind my trusty Ott light...

Taking a pizza break with Conny and Abigail and family at their "Canadian Club."

How my neighborhood internet cafe in Tomatlán, Mexico got that name I'm not exactly sure, but I'll report back later on it...

and the book I was working on...

and my buddy by the pool at the Hotel San Miguel, where they let me swim...
and more of the folks there...

I'm now back home in Moscow, prepping for my spring residencies, and planning my next INTERNATIONAL beading project - which anyone - including YOU! - will be able to take part in!

Back soon...

¡Hasta luego!

Jeanne

Pinta and Sol's magic trick

2009-12-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

[from Pinta's Journal]
This is my big brother Solomon. He just graduated from the UI this past weekend. He has a degree in Spanish now. Even though he thinks it's no big deal everyone is real proud of him.

Check out these two pictures...

Yep That's ME and him in both of them! Aren't we cute?

-Pinta

"Reflections" by the Kids...

2009-11-06T15:05:00.001-08:00

I guess this is part of why I like... teaching...

I'm missing those little guys and their energy... and their teachers... What a fine batch... at Sorensen Arts & Humanities Magnet School.

Introducing...

2009-11-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

My mom promised me that she would let me do a blog. She had Susan (her web designer) help her figure out how to post (again!) Now she's real happy. She thinks that if you teach something to someone else, you learn it even better... so today is my lucky day! Here is a picture of me and my new pal "Eddy" and his owner, Carly. Eddy's a Jack Russell terrier. He's lots of fun. When he was over to play recently, he got himself stuck under the deck. We had to dig him out!

Bye for now

- Pinta

Sorensen Magnet School residency

2009-11-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

I recently returned from a great residency at Sorensen Elementary, an arts

and humanities "magnet" school in Coeur

d'Alene, Idaho. I was able to visit the school a week ahead and do a preparatory workshop just for the teachers, and what a difference that made. They were able to try out the processes themselves, create sample projects...

And then they spent time during the following week preparing their classes for the residency through designing, researching and thinking about how beads are used in different cultures around the world...

All 350 or so of the kids created a swell project in beads and most were left wanting more!

Bead Packing & Prepping

2009-08-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

That ping pong table has been working very hard recently. Here I am with my ace assistant (and daughter) Paige. We're prepping beads for upcoming classes and residencies, and also for my loom kits. I feel doubly lucky because not only is my assistant graciously fitting this in during her last week before she heads off across the country for a college exchange year in North Carolina. ... but I am usually not this well organized this far ahead!

2009-07-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

OK! I am back at the computer and just renewed acquaintances with all the files in that black box in front. I'm actually better organized than I remembered... from when I left off awhile ago on this Million Bead Project book... It's my personal memory thing - ADHD? - when I'm working on one project I forget all about anything else I might have done.

Anyway, the real push has begun. I have my outline (table of contents) and that blue notebook is full of specifics for each chapter. I will go through the pictures next (I took way way more than necessary, but I didn't know that at the time!) and then I'll put the general story line together... After that it's a matter of sitting down at that computer and...

Heck! I'm just going to estimate... 200 hours from now I'll have a first draft!

I need another thing to keep track of - Yes!!

No, this is going to be fun!

Cheers!

2009-07-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here is Susan, my web designer, in her office. We're working on some of those many many many final details....

Yea! It's nearly ready to launch.

It has been great working with the principal of susanweaver.net!

PS. I hear she likes chocolate. I'm gonna do something about that!

Shipwreck Beads - A trip!

2009-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

Normally I do not like to shop, but I make an exception for beads, and especially when I get a chance to visit Shipwreck Beads in Lacey WA. It's home of "The World's Largest Selection of Beads". Here I am ready to check out (both those carts are mine) with 30+ kilos of glass size 6/0 seed beads, the size we used in the first Million Bead Project. I'm a little nervous (the kind of nervous you get when you're about to spend a large chunk of money) but I have been buying beads from this company for many years. They have THE broadest selection of high quality beads, in one place, that I have found anywhere. I'm pretty sure that only the factories in Czechoslovakia would have more!

The visit was even more fun after

I got a chance finally to meet the owner, Glenn Vincent, his very capable store manager and HR person (as well as beader extraordinaire and teacher) Carol Bauer, and others such as Pat, who helped me from the warehouse, and Angela up front at the check out.

The whole staff at Shipwreck, a family owned business for 40 years, has always been friendly and helpful over the phone. But now it's even more fun to do business when I can picture some more faces.

Among the 16.5 billion beads in the store right now (Glenn's figure) can you see me hiding in the warehouse?

2009-07-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Wonderful morning. I'm looking out at the pie cherry tree, whose fruits are turning deliciously red... Just another few days and they'll be ready to pick....

Meanwhile, Susan has been chugging away at my website... and I am so happy! I love collaborating. When the other party is loaded with talent and we're on the same wavelength, and I have no idea what they're doing (and I know I couldn't / don't want to do it) but I am thrilled with the results! Ahhh. Life is good.

Check out more of Susan's graphic and web design work at: www.susanweaver.net

I am also really ticked to have met with my book designers, father-son team Robert and Erik Jacobson at: www.longfeatherbookdesign.com

So...My next assignment... Million Bead Project BOOK. Keep cranking, girl..!

But maybe I'll sneak out on a break and snap a picture of those ripening cherries...

2009-06-27T15:37:00.000-07:00

Just 3 weeks ago I traveled to the Spokane Indian Reservation, in Washington State, and taught a bead looming residency for "Culture Week" at the Wellpinit School. It was a wonderful experience! I knew that the kids would be talented, as so many of their elders are already fine bead artists, and they surely were. They "ate up" the beads, and probably used more per student than any group I've taught.
In the picture above, I am demonstrating how to bead across a really wide piece, which a few of them are ready for now!
I was honored to be invited to join in the "gathering" and social dancing at the start of each day, and to attend a special Culture Week pow wow and feast on the last morning. Elders had specially prepared buffalo, salmon, jerky, camas root, moss delicacies (including soup!) and even a frosty 'ice cream' made out of a special plant. It was amazing. Everything was tasty - and I'll bet pretty darn healthy too.
Thanks to everyone I met there: teachers, staff, elders, my hostess, the sponsors, and especially all the great kids!

2009-04-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

¡Hola! My name is Pinta, and I am here to help my person, Jeanne to do my website - OOPS it's Jeanne's website I guess. Oh well, I'm the star anyway. At least everyone notices me, and that's a good thing!

Welcome to my new web site!

2009-02-02T14:52:00.001-08:00

Thank you for visiting my new web site. This will be my "blog" where I can post information about my current projects.

There is still much material to be added to the site, so please check back.