Heading off into the hinterlands

I’m leaving today for Covelo, a small town in the middle of rural Northern California, to spend three days studying katazome, the Japanese art of stenciled paste-resist dyeing, with John Marshall. I’m really looking forward to it! But Internet access and cell phone reception are spotty at best, so I may be out of touch for a few days.

I’ve now completed my first round of interviews – thirteen artisans in all. I’ve decided to break from interviewing for ten days, so I can finish my detailed book outline and also write the fifth chapter, which is about ways of starting a project and what to do if you’re stuck for ideas. There is substantial interview content in that chapter, which will show me more about ways to integrate commentary from other artists with the overall text. I’m very glad I decided to do a bunch of interviews before writing this chapter – it’s greatly expanded the breadth of the chapter, since it now covers a broad range of styles, not just my own.

I’ve also revised my book schedule, on advice from a writing coach I worked with on the proposal. I’m going to try to get the first draft done by late January, leaving six months for revisions, not three. Since the bulk of the time on a book is spent on revisions, that makes more sense, schedule-wise. To accomplish this, I’ll likely wind up taking 1-2 weeks in late December/early January, and go somewhere where I can focus completely on writing the first draft. Antarctica sounds like it would be perfect. 🙂 (More prosaically, several friends have offered to let me stay with them while finishing, and there’s always the option of a cabin somewhere in Mendocino.)

And the weaving? I finished re-sleying, laced on, and threw the first few shots earlier this week – what beauty! Here are some photos:

It’s only the first few shots, so the warp ends are still all muddled and the shed is not clean – so I will do some debugging when I get back from my katazome class. I’m looking forward to weaving this warp!

And I’m looking forward to seeing the cats again when I get back, too. Or maybe I’ll bring them with me. Tigress in particular has volunteered to be packed:

She has a total fascination with luggage. Exotic smells! A new box to sit in! Surely, adventure awaits.