California – Page 66 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Weathering the Season

These past weeks here in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties have seen odd weather – not seasonally odd – but overall odd. Thunder and lightning seldom occur here – but they did, in abundance. Cold weather, and a week of rain. Now, up into the 70s and 80s, the east winds are blowing dust and pollen everywhere. Everyone is congested and feeling as if hayfever has descended like a plague. The winds are drying up people and plants. Tomorrow, we can expect more rain.

Despite my whining, it has been really lovely to get a week or so of rain. The problem is the sudden shift from high humidity to low, and the winds just add to the mix by drying everything up more so than just higher temperatures might. The skies have been beautifully clear and blue, and the clouds are more than usual – the usual is no clouds around here!

After work, a friend and I took our cameras and headed out to a local park in Thousand Oaks, Wildwood Park, which is part of the land dedicated to open space around the city. This park has meadows and scrub, rocky paths, vistas. In the early evening, with a week of rain behind us, the winter vegetation is beginning to green up. Underfoot, the earth gives a little, which feels strange when one is used to a dry, dusty crunch.

The cacti are rather fat and full of water. The prickly pear have ripening fruit.

Sagebrush flowers are dried, hollow shells, but the leaves erupt in an acrid spiciness when crushed. While the hills still look burnt from the dryness of the summer, a hint of green may be seen.

The sunset was bright and clear, with a majestic descent of the sun into the western mountains, turning clouds pink and the valley gold, orange, purple, and gone.

Sparkles

I am a magpie at heart – I love shiny objects. As a kid, I used to drive my mother nuts because I liked rhinestone buttons on my dresses and gaudy costume jewelry. These days, I am more conservative, or at least demonstrate better taste, than I did when I was five years old as far as clothing. But, I am still irresistibly drawn to sparkles – splashes in water – spider webs in the morning light – flickery sun in dark shadow.

Today, I returned to the local botanical gardens. Autumn is settling in. The sky has a different quality of blue, the light is cool and intense. The scent of pine needles rises up with the heat of the day. With me came my Lumix ZS5, and the Canon QL17 GIII. I took a few pictures with the Canon, and oodles with the Lumix. This is the luxury of digital – 60 pictures without the cost for processing.

The path I took this morning was one I haven’t taken before. I always head uphill for some reason, but today I deliberately went downhill. Here, the garden is more of a woodland, with large California oaks mixed in with other native plants. The colors are more brown and green in the woodland area of the garden than up the hill, but there are little bright spots here and there of sunshine and shadow, along with lingering flowers and autumnal berries.

What I looked for today, very deliberately, was the contrast of light and dark, of sun and shadow. I stopped the camera down to -1/3 EV, to keep the camera from making all the light areas washed out. In the shadows, this creates a bit of drama with contrast. Compositional elements were a bit more studiously considered as well, such as movement of a tree branch across the picture, a pathway, a stairway. Some shots I framed with foliage, others I attempted to focus on a specific part, such as a tree leaf, and open the f/stop as much as possible with this camera (which is not more than f/3.3 manual), to blur out the background.

The set on Flickr for today contains images as they came from the camera. Most of them need some help, I think, but a few of the ones of the oaks are interesting and successful as they stand, I think. The one below has been cropped.

I am always in conflict about post-processing images, yet it has been done since the early days of photography. Images have been manipulated by time and f/stop, airbrushing out of unwanted characters who have lost political importance, handpainting. Processing of film images also influences the final product.

Why should digital images be any different?

A Walk in the Garden

The weather this spring is so incredible this year. There are breezes in off the ocean, the skies are blue, we have cool weather. And we have had rain. The result is that flowers are in bloom everywhere, and a few miles down the road, we are blessed with 33 acres of an ever-changing and evolving botanical garden, the Conejo Valley Botanic Garden. I believe all the plants are native to California, and most are drought tolerant – perfect for the xeriscape garden – and incredibly beautiful.

One of the Many Varieties in the Salvia Garden

Waiting

In California, we wait for the March axe to fall. Teachers and budgets are not always the best of friends. By law, all termination notices must be out by March 15th. RIFs.

I teach adults, and who knows if my program will continue into next year. Adult schools’ funding is at the mercy of the K-12 district administrators. Unfortunately. Community colleges, colleges and universities are somehow considered more important within the educational system than adult schools. Even the name “adult school” conjures up images of places for stupid people to go, people who have failed. In truth, this is very far from reality.

Programs at adult schools provide training at many levels. Not everyone wants to go to college and take general education courses while training for a career or trade. Not everyone wants the pleasure of learning about art history or botany, but would rather get down to business and do what they want to learn. Where I work, we offer medical programs, some which are connected with colleges as their accrediting agencies mandate an A.S. degree as requisite to the practice. We also have welding, machine shop, parent education, and on and on. And ESL, and GED. Many of our students use our programs to begin a career, to change self-perceptions of skills and ability to succeed in school. Adult schools are a vital part of the community they serve, but overlooked at local and state levels as far as importance. Why? Because we are not labeled “college”!

Colleges of all flavors are preferred over the adult school for funding, and adult schools are closing. We may too. Because the funding for adult schools has changed at the state level, money is very tight. Fees need to be raised to break even. Administrators of adult schools need to change their approaches to funding, and one way is to get federal financial aid as part of their program, whether in house, or through third-party administrators. Yes, it will cost money, but that needs to be explored. Long-term thinking, not short-term immediacy. Getting this is critical. Yet, the ostriches in administration keep their heads in the sand when it comes to the business of financing education.

The result will be that private schools, with fees triple or quadruple those of adult education, will get students because they know that without financial aid they cannot survive. And people desperate for training will take on debt disproportionate to the amount they will make when training is completed. Some private “career colleges” are not even recognized by licensing boards! But the fact is, these private schools have better business savvy than those who administer adult education.

John Marshall: Works in Fabric, ii

My first contact with John Marshall came about when I discovered his book Make Your Own Japanese Clothes.

For anyone interested in traditional Japanese fabrics and clothing, this book is an incredible resource of information. You learn how to construct Japanese clothing using traditional fabrics (which measure 13-14 inches wide), and how to sew them using traditional hand-sewing techniques. Of course, you can also sew them by machine, but that just isn’t the same!

Garment construction is given for kimono, haori, hanten, various tops, vests, pants, obi, and tabi. Not only do you learn how to make these, you also learn about the construction of sleeves, hems, collars, and the use of lining and padding. All of these, combined with illustrations and photographs, give window to both traditional clothing, and a window into creating your own clothing with a modern cast.

I made the hanten, hand-stitched using traditional kasuri, and totally enjoyed the process.