Paulus's Cairn

   These two weeks I am teaching The Storyteller's Muse at Penland School of Crafts with the amazing Mary Ann Zotto. Our students are so amazing and talented and generous in following our wonky lead to tell their stories and paint their dreams. I cannot say how awed I am by them. However, this post is about a beautiful place I visited the day before my class started.. a place that feels like its own book. It all begins with my the first book teacher, Paulus Berenshon... 

   In 2002 I took my first formal book making class with Paulus Berensohn (May 13, 1933- June 15, 2017) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/design/paulus-berensohn-a-dancer-who-pivoted-to-pottery-dies-at-84.html.  A longtime resident of the Penland community in the mountains of North Carolina... just beside the incredible craft school, Paulus led many artists to find their own way... with both clay and books.. but especially in life. The Penland craft school honored him a few years ago by cutting a walking trail in his honor through their beautiful mountain woods. All along the way walkers have left their own version of books gone to nature... as Paulus wished we all would do.

Let your own life be filled with books of some kind, stay close to the earth.. however you can, and never fail to tell your stories.

Winter

It's been too long since the last post, I know. The monthly posts were in hibernation I suppose.. and perhaps still are. Here is a poem for the past winter. I'm sure it will go into a book at some point...

Winter
The garden plot
goes fallow,
sprigs of weeds
and twigs
and leaves blown in
and last year's crop
now detritus and decay.

Yet,
the dark soil underneath
is using this time
to replenish,
to awaken
with the Spring.

Hello, I'm back. Sorry for the white-out... Books have been made during the winter... but all blank. so no need to photo for the blog. A trip to Japan over Christmas and New Years was it's own book.. below are a couple of photos of books in the round.

Tunnel book of Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine, Kyoto, Japan

Paper cranes on the Philospher's Path, Kyoto, Japan

In case you've missed some blog reading, check out Rachel V. Mills' blog; Rachel's House. This is the link: http://rachels-house.blogspot.com.