Happy New Year!
I had a nice two week break over the holidays. I did a lot of cooking, reading, watching programs and reflecting on my studio practice. I’ve been feeling burned out and a little out of focus. During our break, I looked at a list that I had made in a sketchbook of things that I wanted to do. I picked one and started to work. For years I’ve added weave with my handspun to this list. I pulled out a wheel and set to work spinning up some wool to use with some tapestry experiments that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It seems my inclination is to slow my process down even more and to spend even more time engaged with the work and idea. Since we are still hip deep in the pandemic, it isn’t like I don’t have the time to go deeper. I need to finish up some bobbins of a wool, silk and mohair blend that has been lingering a long time. I’m working at plying them up and clearing some bobbins for tapestry spinning.
One of the few things I miss during the pandemic is traveling and going to hear live music. I’m not the only one as many musicians turned to various platforms to share livestreams performances.
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn began to host Banjo House Lockdowns in March on Facebook and continued to present a live performance each Friday. The performances were low tech, intimate, charming, and often featured their two children. My family would wrap up work, make dinner and then sit down in front of the TV to attend the concert. The episodes are now available on Béla’s Youtube channel in a Banjo House Lockdown playlist
I highly recommend it. We had the pleasure to see Béla and Abigail live in 2017. It remains one of my favorite concerts of all time.
Before the Thanksgiving holiday, I wondered to my husband why he wasn’t playing music more. Sometimes you get busy and the thing you love seems to be the first thing to go in the race to keep up with the grind. He began to play more after that, and it has brought us both a lot of pleasure. We spend some time each day watching so music related content on Youtube. We stumbled into guitarist Rhett Shull’s channel
and have been enjoying his Backstage Live concerts. There are five past livestreams available currently and the next on is scheduled January 30th. We watched our first one in November and it honestly felt like we had gone out for live music. The band does covers, original music, jams with guest performers and it is just what I needed. I hope when the pandemic ends, we can see the band live.
Another Youtube channel recommendation is Baumgartner Restoration. Julian Baumgartner is a fine art restore based in Chicago. He shares his studio and his work through videos on Youtube. You can watch to see paintings get brough back to life under Julian’s careful hands and it is a bit of magic. The highlight for me – when he makes his custom swabs out of sticks and cotton and removes old discolored varnish and the painting’s true colors are first revealed. It is oddly soothing. There is something about watching someone highly skilled in their craft that just makes my heart happy. The process of conservation and restoration is a behind the scenes activity. Julian shows just how much labor and training go into making it happen successfully. Don’t miss his studio tour that was just released in early December. I love seeing an organized workspace!