Economies

I find pleasure in routine, and have lately been noticing the refinements that come with repetition. When you do things enough times, the process often reveals glitches that interrupt the smoothness and make for inefficiency and even failure. It's gratifying to notice how economical some movements get to be when you make them enough times. Skilled people have all kinds of methods for cutting out the wasted effort and doing more with less.

I get surprising bursts of insight, such as the idea that I could load my trailer first and then hook it to the bike, so the instability of the bike, resting on its kickstand, wouldn't be such a problem. I'm still wavering on that improvement, because the full trailer is heavy and harder to hook to the bike, so I'm lifting too much weight when I do that. But I try it each way for awhile until I get to the best solution, which will likely be hooking it up somewhere in the middle of the process. Unloading works much better without the bike, I find, because I can move the trailer around to unload in the proper sequence. I don't want to lift things twice or put them in temporary spots and move them again. At some point I get to the perfect sequence, and then I usually change the load and disrupt it, but that's just part of the challenge.

Putting the big trailer in the shed is a similar puzzle, as it is taller than the door, and I don't want to lift it either. I discovered that it is built to a human size, and if I get it placed just right, I can get inside the frame, rest it on my shoulder, and move it into the shed with little effort.

Almost all of my Market operations are like this. I have a certain way to do it that works best. I've noticed all of my neighbors on the blocks doing this too, to some degree. Seldom do the loading and unloading times involve empty-handed trips to the vehicle or dithering about what to do next. Partners develop their roles to suit their bodies and styles, one packing and the other pre-packing, or one carrying and the other arranging the load. I know way back when I did have a partner, we had our process down and stuck to it. This is often why we refuse "help" at the end of the day from friends or visitors. The organization for the next load-in is part of the process too. This is one thing the OCF needs to address with their idea of gatoring craftspeople in. Our loads are often highly organized so that the sequences can be followed, and it isn't simply a matter of enthusiastic young backs to help or lots of empty gator train units. What looks like a pile or a full truckload to you might be a masterpiece of organization to me.

I know this is why a lot of people at Market put up their booths before unloading their vehicle, which is technically against the rules. Making a pile and then putting the booth up over it is not always the best way to do it, particularly when it is raining. When you are working as hard as we do in that 12-hour period, you're always working against exhaustion. Just that hour early yesterday put me under last night, even though I had planned to get down to the Celebration for a little while. I suppose I could have taken less stuff, since I knew there would be more people but fewer sales, but it's really not efficient to repack my load on Friday, even though I did take out the tank tops and put in the longsleeves. Not that it mattered.

I sell downtown on Tuesdays too, but I don't take the same things. I cut the hats down to two bags fewer and take different fixtures and shirts. Some things go to both days, but most don't. When I pack and unload I make sure not to bury the things that need to be on top, and keep the things I can't forget in view. I sort the grid hangers separately so I'll have the right ones. I have to pay attention during the process, and keep on track, but I'm getting more efficient all the time. I'm also able to lift a bit more now than I could last year, so can use more tubs and don't have to pack as many tote bags. The tote bags have served well to break up the big tub loads into manageable weight packages. Of course when the rains start I have new adaptions to make.

There are lots of repetitive motion problems with my screenprinting work, and with many things I do. Have you noticed that you generally use a shovel with the same foot, and have similar body habits for most actions? My aging body is showing the effects of such actions, so I'm trying to switch sides for many of them. Not too easy, but I did manage to learn to use a mouse with my left hand, and stand differently at my press. It's not easy to change unconscious aspects of our lives, but it helps to try. I see a lot of bent people and I don't want to be one of them, not that I can really avoid it. I still have one shoulder lower from carrying my books in high school.

Unconscious mental and emotional habits are the same. I like the challenge of identifying them and pushing them a bit one way or another. It's never too late to start. I hope I push them toward improvement, and not just toward comfort. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

My sister is somewhat of an expert at lean manufacturing and writes a blog on it, called Lean Reflections . She was here a couple of years back and tried to look at my process and make some suggestions, which she wisely cut short due to my habitual defensiveness as the younger sister. I still think about what she suggested, though, and try to find ways to cut out the frustrating wastes of time and effort which I can't afford. I see the value of the objective view, but at the same time, there are so many nuanced behaviors that began as adaptive ones and have continued because they work on some level, even if they don't appear to be efficient. I did learn the value of continuing to look, though, at all the processes and all the steps. You have to go back and examine all the underlying assumptions that began the process. It uncovers resistance and negative thinking, because anytime you say "I can't" you have to ask "Why not?".

So the work is never finished and never all the way boring. We can improve and change, say *always* and *never* a bit less, and open to a little more adaptation. There's comfort in that too, and it keeps us from that sense of cranky loss when things seem to be slipping from our control. Because this is the t-shirt that seems to get the most notice in my booth these days:

Neighbors

I'm living in the same place I've owned for 20-some years, a house I remodeled from under the ground up, next to a house my ex- remodeled that I now use for my shop. Someday I will probably remodel it again and rent it out, which is my actual retirement plan, since the Jell-O Art Museum might not pay the bills. My house payment is very low, and although my place is small, it has expanded a bit beyond its borders.

On the south side there used to be kind of an unpaved 7-foot wide alley, an easement for EWEB, but over the years the renters on that side have let the bushes and blackberries grow and it is effectively closed off and gardened over. Long ago the previous owners let me build beds on their side of the easement, where I now have artichokes and raspberrries. It's hard to imagine that cars used to drive through what is now a 3-foot path between gardens. As soon as I get some more stepping stones I will eliminate the grass there too. Plants grow so cooperatively.

Berries reclaim everything I don't weed; my backyard was total blackberries when I first moved in. They still survive across the back fence, and I don't mind, because of this:

We're about to get new neighbors in that house, renters with kids, and I hope they fix up the cob house, or at least take that tarp off the roof so I can look at its cuteness again. That cob house was built in a month the summer I was putting in my foundation over on my side, back before there was a fence. My son was five and he and his friend completely covered themselves with mud from the pit the cob was being made from. The crew making the curvy walls and setting in the windows was finished by midsummer. My project took 12 years...but my roof doesn't leak, either. Yet. My days of tarpage are over on this side...no, wait, I still have the plastic-covered piles of stuff needed to finish the various projects left over. That's probably a permanent state.

Everytime I get new neighbors on the south side I make sure to explain that I have gardened their yard for 20 years, and so far it hasn't been a problem. One landlord proposed a fence over there but luckily I convinced them not to build it. I need the open space, and it has forced good neighbor behavior for us to share the berries and the other backyard joys. Little kids live there now and I really love seeing them naked in the strawberry patch or toddling past a raspberry vine and latching onto a ripe one that tears off just in time, and gets smeared around a little mouth. I have no problem at all adjusting to picking only the higher ones for myself and thinking about the concept of "easy pickings" as I rummage through the strawberry leaves farthest from the stepping stones for the elusive ripe ones. I even shared my blackcap raspberries without a lot of grumbling. It has given me a teeny taste of grandchildren since I am still working on the empty nest feelings left behind by my 20-year-old. There are actually plenty of kids to go around if I get lonely for some. I live right near Seven Stars Childcare and I can always go down there to be delighted and amazed, and regularly do. I get some of my greatest ideas from Deb, Chris, and the kids.

My most troublesome neighbor this week is the Lane County Fair. When the people up the street had their garage sales, I got a wonderful chair and a cool pedestal thing that is perfect for Jell-O, but the County Fair brings me trash and picked flowers and pears and people staring at me when I am out in the yard or by an open window or door. Fairgoers seem oblivious to the fact that people live here. They park in front of our driveways, they make a ton of noise, and they tromp on our gardens. They are here and gone in five days though (not counting the ones who camp at the Fairgrounds for two weeks) and I do get the wonderful benefit of hearing cows in the morning. I can only water in the morning and the windows have to stay closed in the evenings because of the motorcycle stunts and metal bands. I do get free tickets if I want to see the quilts and old cars and I do usually go. It's a mixed bag. I get a lot of benefits from the open space at the Fairgrounds most of the year, a good place to skate and teach teenagers to drive, and just watch clouds come in from the west. One of my favorite bittersweet memories is right after 9-11 when no planes were flying, and lots of people were wandering the fields behind the Fairgrounds, looking for solace. The sky was wide and blue, with no contrails, and a huge thunderstorm brewed up bringing everyone out of their houses to re-evaluate life itself. There was agreement that it is precious.

I'm a farmer at heart, from Nebraska homesteader stock on my Mom's side. I have always been a plant worshipper from my earliest childhood. I'm a birder too, a naturalist I guess. Anyway, the natural world holds me together. I'm not averse to modifying it for my needs, though I crave to be where nature is not modified by man at all. Hard to get there, particularly without a car.

I'm suffering from loss this week, I realized. Not only from the empty nest and the human deaths I've recently been touched by (Farewell, Christy Parker, original Radar and amazing grace), but by the approach of autumn (more death), by the near-death-sentence of my old car (a money infusion may give it a few more years), and in general by the fears of change that crop up periodically.

I counseled myself that the only inevitability is change itself. There will always be loss. It is a struggle but grace always follows when we relax and surrender our resistance. I've hit some lows in the past few weeks but found comfort and have always been able to return to my natural state of joy and curiousity for the next thing. I feel strong and resilient, and am pretty sure there will be summer again, with luck, and anyway, there's a bit more of this one yet. There might even be ripe tomatoes, and the grapes are looking good. Recent upheavals in one area of my life are balanced by big-hearted events across the street (I am being photographed for the Beautiful Booth of the Month tomorrow, so excited) and it all marches on in its messy, complicated way. I'm still marching.

Heading out to pick a quart of raspberries for my lunch tomorrow, finishing up a pile of stuff for my friend to give away at Burning Man, savoring the opportunities and love that I do have. Sun's out, Jell-O is sparkling, and Gabriel and the Second Line are ready for that long walk to the cemetary and that short dance back to the hall where the potluck awaits. Eat, everyone! Get a piece of that pie before it's all just crumbs on the table.

And you thought it was only for April Fools

Some incredible Jell-O Art showed up on my front porch the other day, courtesy of prominent Jell-O artist Celeste LeBlanc. She donated it to my Jell-O Art Museum, which is my plan for when I am a tiny little old lady. I will have a basket out for your dollar donation and will be glad to tell you what I remember of the many decades of Jell-O art here in Eugene.

I will make little cramped signs in spidery handwriting telling details of the recipes and techniques used to make the pieces, which will vary in size from these lifesize torsos to tiny shrunken rosebuds. You'll get a lot for your dollar, if you are fascinated by dusty, slightly moldy pieces of old gelatin in faded jewel colors.

One of Celeste's great skills, besides her mastery of the Jell-O garment, is her ability to jettison, re-group, tear apart and re-assemble art and artifact. I am a saver, and getting rid of still-useable objects is not something I can easily do. I fill the corners of my two little houses with all manner of abandoned possessions and natural finds. My museum will be the natural outgrowth of my art-making. I could probably easily fill it with my own leftover pieces, all documented with as much detail as I can remember. Celeste has a great memory and between her and the other Angels, I have enough wild stories to fill many walls, but I will try to stick to the Jell-O side of the stories and leave the Angel stuff to some other venue.

Or perhaps I will have another room filled with the Radar Angel memorabilia I could collect. I could get those flying Angels from the airport mural. There would be no shortage of costume items, decorated cat-eye glasses and scarves, veils, ruffles and boas. Don't forget the aprons and vintage dresses, and the set of bras made from coconut shells, Jell-O molds, funnels and plastic bowls. I could have a little lending service for costumes and accessories, because I know many women who have more than enough of these, yet will still want them a few times a year for the Jell-O Show, Country Fair, and Slug Queen competitions. Men too. I'd need a whole closet for those ugly polyester shirts and shiny pants, and the puffy-sleeved tunics and tights. Shoes would line the walls.

It's silly, but it's a plan for the future that makes me smile, and well balances the grimmer plans for dump runs and yard sales and piles of medical equipment that will come with the indignities of "retirement" to use a euphemism for the phase of life no one wants to discuss much. I like having a wacky plan a lot.

And speaking of wacky plans, today on the Park Blocks, Celeste and her partner Eric Daws are among the other prominent and not so well-known re-use artists at the Re-use Art Fair run by Next Step. Go see how she deals with her propensities to collect and destroy. Be inspired as I am.

And on Friday, in the same location, the annual Slug Queen Coronation takes place, starting at 6:30. No two alike! Guaranteed guffaws. Several Radar Angels are among the Old Queens, old courts, and lame jokes. It's the perfect drop-in for a summer evening and you will be amazed by something, no question. Go ahead, dress up. You know you want to.

And if you find any Jell-O in your closet, I don't charge to take donations for the museum.

A Life Well Made

Maybe death has been on my mind because it is in my life, in all of our lives, even though we pretend hard that it is not. Our Market lost two people in the last two days, Carole Bauman, and Michael Caffrey.

With such a large family, this is not so unusual, but each loss has its unique impact and each person is so special to their neighbors, our history, and our family. I had the great honor of visiting Michael in his home yesterday, just hours before his body stopped working. He tried so hard to speak to us and we are sure he was listening as closely as he could to our voices even though he was already far down his trail.

He posted a small handwritten note on his door telling his friends where he wanted his ashes to be scattered, near Paisley in the woods and rocks he loved. I will always picture him as a rockhound; I know he spent countless hours hiking, photographing, and picking up rocks out there. His old truck is parked now but I hope his spirit is free to roam.

I didn't know he had such a beautiful body of work, stacks of evocative paintings and the exquisitely jewel-like mobiles he made with his hand tools on his handmade workbench. He wasn't finished with his work. I got the sense that he and I were much the same, that our work was our focus and joy and what we spent most of our time on earth pursuing. I can't speak for him, and we weren't that close, but it was obvious from his art that it expressed his essence and he shared a lot of it for a very long time. He was 74.

In my new space at the Holiday Market, we were next door neighbors for the first time last season. I had been thinking of ways to help him this year, to try to make it easier and to allow him one last time to really be seen among the things he had created. He won't be there now, but I will help, if I can, to see that his work is viewed and treasured and that his life is celebrated with the dignity and privacy he deserves.

Craftspeople are such a fascinating group of similar individuals, working alone for the most part, keeping the passion under control and expressing it slowly over a lifetime. Most of us don't shout about ourselves, we just keep our hands busy and our minds on the task of doing the work the way we think it should be done. Michael was a serious and exacting craftsman, and his simple and elegant work was always out of my price range, but now of course, it seems priceless. His sister told me that a few days ago they hung all his mobiles on the wire he used to make them, and it was easy to picture him crafting them, getting that balance, pushing it to it's fulcrum and past it a little, planning the flow and beauty and making and hanging all the finely crafted pieces, way up near the ceiling, since he was so tall. She said he made her take off all the price tags.

It was good to know you, Michael. I'm looking forward to hearing more stories of your life and hope I never forget the images that burned into my mind yesterday, bright spots of color on black backgrounds, ghostly white portraits, sketches of ravens and crows, handmade arrows and napped points. I'm so touched that we connected.

Take care of yourselves, all you living people. Be kind to each other, pay attention, and notice things. There will come the day when we won't be here, and our work will lie unfinished. May we feel the grace of the moments.