Ich Habe Genug

Check out this awesome thing!



That is an enormous roll of heavy gold foil paper from Kelly First's paper stash! It's totally cool.

Thanks, Kelly!

I dived right into it and just started playing, cutting out shapes, folding it, bending it, embossing it.



Here are some scraps from that process. I love this stuff. The roll seems endless and working with it made me think about how important it is to have a feeling of there being enough before you can really feel like you can let go and experiment. It's important to feel as though you have enough material, certainly, but also enough time. Or enough confidence. Or enough selfishness. Enough.

That feeling of there being enough or never being enough is tied very firmly to my childhood, being raised in relative poverty, with grandparents who survived the Great Depression and who were forevermore careful with every material thing and some things not material, too.

This washi paper also came from Kelly First's paper stash:



The photo doesn't do it justice, neither the gold paper nor the purple.



I was telling Kelly about how dirt cheap the washi paper was in Japan. To buy a large sheet of that paper here in the U.S. would run between $15 and $25, but in Japan, it runs around $4 to $6. I used to go to a paper store in Asakusa (or maybe in Omotesando) because they sold this amazing paper cheap cheap cheap. I just used to go and marvel at the paper. Because I didn't have to space or tools to work with it, I'd just buy some postcards and other little bits and pieces of stuff. And, my god, I forgot to tell Kelly First about Itoya's enormous six story stationery store in Ginza! Six stories of all things paper. Gorgeous things! I used to go there on my break from work and just climb climb climb the stairs and look at everything.

This is my work table, my idea of heaven.



Have you read any Virginia Woolf? Remember when she wrote about how all a woman needs is a little bit of money and a room of one's own?

"[A] woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved." --Virginia Woolf, from "A Room of One's Own"

That is how I feel about arts and crafts--and about writing fiction--and nonfiction for that matter. A little space and a little time (and a beautifully chaotic working space) is all I need.

To make what?



Little matchbook-style books out of old photographs, origami and construction paper, and little Catrina de las Calaveras prints.



Earrings from paper and wooden beads and little metal findings.



Earrings from paper beads and little green stone beads.



Forests of paper beads from old science fiction paperback books.

What does it take to live a creative life?