With a Bounty Like This...

With a bounty like this you may wonder why I feel so bad for myself. And I do. I missed a time machine of sorts and it made my heart beat funny. Walter Søren Silas and I went to the fleas this morning. There was a mysteriously wonderful amount of olde store stock. All over the market. So I axed. There was a general store in Fleetwood PA that closed years ago. Living next to it were the owners. They died and there was an auction, or 3 (last one, yesterday). The treasures and the building are disbursed. Hither and thither. So it isn't so much that I missed the stuff (though I would have loved the stuff). I missed it together, as it has been for who knows how long. All gone. Time wandering off...

(bits, preserved.)


Fuck.
Yeah, though I am trying to curb my 'fucks', this hear deserves the biggy. Fuck.

Aside from that, I shall show you our treasures. And my new journal! And also the fact that somehow we do not have our wretched fleet of mosquitoes this year. So actually, life is really rather superb.

And next weekend is Renegade! And Art for the Cash Poor. We signed up for both accidentally. Oops.

This is my third year as a gardener. (the nerve!) I mean, as a sower of seeds and though I am new at this and far from having natural abilities, we did have some delicious meals last year including something minty and eggplanty, loads of cold cucumber soup (mint again) and delicious salads with blueberries, strawberries, snap peas, lemon cucumbers and loads of cilantro. Our tomatoes failed, withered wonders, some, and others grew into a mysterious green crop, began as winter approached.

Each year I find myself more and more involved and also, (I am much better at sowing and growing these seeds so far) with more little hands to help turn the soil, plant the seeds and pluck our crop. This year I have ordered loads of deliciously rainbow looking possibilities from Cubits. The shoppe is so wonderfully tempting (and promising). The photographs (2 above) are gorgeous throughout - worth the trip to Cubit's for a peek.

To finish our tiny haven in the back, in addition to the garden, Walter will finish building the studio out of reclaimed wood and coziness, and we also hope to be able to find some good little chickens which busy interfered with last year for fresh eggs and kinship. We plan to build our coop early this year in preparation and intend to expand our 'gardening' section of Peg and Awl as well. As all things Peg and Awl, we must need before the making.

a garden treasury on Etsy made by me! A Garden in the City

Victoria Magazine

If only life were as calm and as beautiful (if just for a day) as it appears to be in Victoria Magazine. How is it that yesterday, a day I spent cleaning, was filled with dreams of doing something great yet to-day, a day I am spending on another Anthropologie order, I wish to throw myself over a bridge? I am considering starting a cleaning company.

Schedules don't suck

I have recently learned that schedules do not suck. And are maybe even necessary when there are more people involved. In our case, there are four. Wow. Four people. I have been one person for so long it is so hard to believe that i am one of four.

So Walter and I have created a schedule that enables us to work and watch the boys. I will spare you the boring details, but this means that we are working/playing from 7:30 to 9:30 by schedule, but really, we work until about 2:30 am (at least for the past 5 months or so).

I must confess: It is more difficult on the 'boys' time than the 'work' time. And I am a hard worker... so all of you out there who think stay at home moms have an easy life, I will tell you they don't.

Knowing that something is looming makes it difficult to do something that always is. So, work looms and children always are (somehow) but when there is time set aside for both, even MORE gets done. I am holding Silas in my lap right now while Søren lifts an antique wooden one-pound juggling barbell looking thing over his head calling, "look mama, look!" It is my time with the boys. Søren and I have taken to reading and writing more, visiting bookstores more often (his favourite thing) and of course, experimenting. We have been collecting seeds from foods that we eat and we have planted them. We have learned some things, like replanting apple seeds from apples results in bitter apple trees more suitable for cider and other tiny details, so our planting of our seeds is merely experimental. We watched (again) a BBC show about Darwin. I tear up every time I see him and his 4 children examining critters and seeds because I want nothing more than to teach my fellows so closely. We have begun.

First we collected the seeds in baby food jars and then we wrote the labels - we have been teaching Søren to write by writing lightly first and having him trace the letters. Then we planted them in an egg carton. I hope to post our progress!

Walter surprised us for Valentine's Day with a trip to The Franklin Institute and dinner at Fig and I never thought I'd think this a relief, but alas! it sure was, a day off!

Søren whispered the secret to me as "Ben Franklin's House" I was pretty excited about that. Funny that he mixed the two up, but I read him a story about Ben and told Søren that Ben was from Philadelphia. Clearly he remembered this.

Nothing like a photo booth photograph to say where you've been.

Yummy Book, A gift for an olde friend.

I made this book for my dear friend Neil who is in the incredible band British Sea Power. They are coming back to Phila. Yay. Along with Pete Seeger and Jim White, BSP was one of the first shows that Søren went to (out of my belly). He was a month or so in this world. It was a quietish show.

This was made from turn-of-the-century cowboy chaps. The raised bubble was where a metal piece rested for 100 years. Crazy. And then I took it off. I put a chromolithograph of foliage from an antique medical book beneath it. The day after Neil and I met we were scrounging about for foliage (which we turned into a back pack of said foliage!) for his show in DC the next day.

A year or so later his pa accidentally threw away my blanket (my baby blanket, yes.) in the community dumpster. They went fishing for it (and found it!). I was thankful for their being vegetarian for my blanket smelled only of the banana skins that it was thrown away with. (He thought it was a rag.)

The Positive Effects of the Tub Caddy by Peg and Awl a drawing by Søren Scout and a journal entry.

click twice on the journal page if yer wanting to read!

2011

A new number. New things. I am going to make an effort to be better at this.

Me and a few friends have started a book club. More reading generally leads to more writing.

The first book:
Lost Horizon by James Hilton.

I have had a lot to say about this book but I will only write this: I loved it.
And ask this: Did you?

And this from it:

People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.
-James Hilton

and this:

Certum est, quia impossibile - It is certain because it is impossible
-Tertullian

post script: Happy New Year. When I awoke this morning I dreamt of eating gobs of Gruyere and a sticky bun in bed. I do not actually like eating in bed, but I did fish my wish otherwise.

Cabinet, Art in the Age Part II

Peg and Awl Apothecary Cabinet Part II from Art In The Age on Vimeo.

oh,

Søren awoke from a nap singing a Weaver's song that was playing. He has never heard The Weaver's before as far as I know so he was absorbing it in his sleep!

Next, The Carter Family, it is just that kind of day.

Russia

Silas Anselm and Art in the Age.

I am pretty sleepy as I attempt this post. I am trying to catch up somewhere or everywhere but really catching up nowhere. Sprinkling bits and pieces of story here and there. We had our show at Art in the Age on Friday 1 October. It was loads of fun and super packed. Our best show ever. On the way there I thought I was going into labour which was fine as there was a table and some antique forceps at our show.

The next day was Crafty Bastards in DC. Walter made me stay home to 'rest'. I cannot believe I listened and stayed home. I didn't rest though.

Sunday was our friends Joey and Alina's wedding in NYC. I was having contractions the entire way there but didn't tell W. He'd have said lets go home. We stayed for the entire wedding which was wonderful, as was the location: The Explorer's Club. Amazing. By the time the contractions were 3 minutes apart, we left.

It took us 3 hours to get home. W was getting nervous and my jokes about him delivering the baby did not ease his mind. Just before crossing the bridge into Philadelphia my water broke so we went straight to the Birth Centre! Silas Anselm was born the morning of the next day. He was funny looking and W and I laughed until the bed shook. He turned beautiful really fast.

Walter building a cabinet, by AITA part 1

Cabinet Building with Walter Kent of Peg and Awl pt. 1 from Art In The Age on Vimeo.

Pieces Too Small To Save

W. and I returned from the Baltimore Book Festival late last night.

Whilst there we met a peculiar fellow - a cabinet maker - who told us the story of an olde farm he visited long ago. Someone invited him there because the olde man had died and they were breaking it apart to sell the bits inside and then the building itself. He was so animated in the telling. When he went into the attic, he found a cigar box (and louder) with "pieces too small to save!" Pencils whose eraser and wood was worn to the metal, small nubs of wood from various projects. There were pieces of molding tied up in newspaper from 1910!

The guy of course went on and on, but after 'pieces too small to save' I started thinking of my own project and what a wonderful title that would be.

I am still receiving envelopes and cannot wait to get further into this project. I am going choose the best pieces for variety and collage, so not all envelopes will be included. (So send your best pieces!) Some of the things that I am receiving are bigger than the pages of my book (5x2.5) and I hesitate to cut them down to fit (relinquishing the your scraps nature, and turning them into my scraps)

This morning I received a package from Amsterdam and tore into it!!! Though I am grateful for the American envelopes, I must confess, there is something super special about receiving packages from other lands!

Keep sending! I plan to eventually take some of the pages to The Printer and make prints (each artist whose scraps I use will receive an 8x10 print of their page!) and perhaps, eventually reproduce the book and make it available to all! (or some - depending upon whether it is handmade and limited, or created through Blurb or something akin)

Scrapplings project

I have received so many great envelopes of scraps for my new little book project. This will take longer than I suspected. I will likely include the beginning in the upcoming show at Art in the Age. Depending upon the results, I would like to print each page out in limited print editions. Each artist will eventually receive a print of their scrapplings!

Thank you to all who have sent packages and to everyone else, please send envelopes and repost my request! I will be working on this for a while yet...

I know I am being scattered about this, but as I receive packages I realise that what is in my head hasn't necessarily come out.

The size of the book is 2 1/2 x 5 inches. So it is small. Please send small scraps that will fit on the page, but also, I would like the actual scraps as opposed to leftovers. The negative of what you are making. I do not want to cut or alter the size and shapes of the bits or the remains will become something else. I want the pieces to represent the artist and the artwork. The collage part will be me!

So, when you are looking for scraps find, get on your knees, dig in corners, scraps. Scraps too small to otherwise use scraps. Teeny tiny bits of what was scraps.

Bjorn, the not forgotten

Bjorny, my first little treasure next to Søren's easel watching all that is going on outside...

More thorough explanation of The Leavings

So I looked at the faded pencil and my wish was to call it The Leavings.

I am including a photograph of the page in my journal that brought me to this. The point of these pages is that the bits and pieces from the floor are to represent the artist and what is being worked on. Through colour and material one should begin to understand what the person on each page is working on...

For size reference the pages will be 2 1/2 x 5.

Request for Artist Droppings

I have had this idea running through my head for many years - I have even gone as far as scrambling around the floor s of friends studios picking up the teeny tiny scraps of what they do and I made this book to house the bits.

Walter and I have a show coming up that is to be installed on the 28th of September. Close. But now I know that I would like to put this together as a book for the show.

If you have the desire to be a part of this, please send an envelope with tiny scraps that represent what you do... colours and texture. Be it fabric or crunchy paint, bits of olde paper cut out paper, glitter. Animal hair human hair or flowers. Send send! And please put your name on it. I will be writing each artists name on the opposing page of the collage of droppings.

I am going to be selective.

Please pass this on and send them quickly! It is absurd of me to figure this out now but I have. And I want it.

Margaux Kent
1116 East Palmer Street
Philadelphia Penna
19125

Write SCRAPPLINGS on the envelope!

Extremely Bursting Happy

I don't know what does it. How my brain twists and turns and decides for all of me how the day will be. But to-day I am extremely bursting happy. The night before last I was extremely bursting sad. I cleaned a path for to pee at night by throwing things this way and that. Piles, mounds, mountains of things filled every space that wasn't my path. Søren woke up, sat up, big brown eyes looking at me. I went into the bedroom (he was in our bed) and laid down next to him. "Crying, mama? It's okay. Messy, Mama." " Yes, Søren." We went on to talk about how we would clean up toys. "I'm sorry Mama." I told him that it was an accumulation of things, not his toys, not my need for a path. He looked up, out of our window and complimented the tree. Then, "I love the tree, Mama. I love you, Mama. I love you." So many times then he said this. My face was streaked with tears. "Still crying, Mama? It's fine. Let's go to sleep." And with that he was asleep. I kissed his cheek as many times as he said I love you that night.

Walter and I must finish our masks and take photographs. Here is how I begin most of my photographs. A drawing.

Obsession

Had me dig out my dusty guitar and give it a go.