Janine Vangool publishes Uppercase Magazine and an increasingly long list of books that have specific art, craft, and design themes. Vangool’s books in her ‘Encyclopedia of Inspiration’ series are collections of profiles + portfolios showing recent work on a given theme. These types of surveys of a creative space are a huge effort to solicit, judge, layout, edit, and proofread! This gorgeous, hefty volume provides nearly 500 pages of full-color, beautifully printed, elegantly designed profiles of artists, designers, manufacturers, and suppliers working with fibers and fiber-like materials.
Vangool and her team included an impressive range of profiles, from flax farmers to wool processors, knitters to fine art portrait embroiders and macrame artists; from people who make natural dyes to those who machine knit; from people shredding used plastic bags to responsibly reuse them for a more durable purpose, to people shredding paper to turn into delicate, nearly lacy fabrics.
I appreciate the effort that went into this compilation and survey, and especially the impressive resulting range of work. Many of us only have a chance to see fiber arts if we happen to be in a region where they are being shown, or have a chance to watch fabrics being made at a textile museum. (I went to an experimental public elementary school, which means I’ve carded and spun wool, but that is a rare experience in a city!) This is a great way to showcase excellent work to a broader audience than most of these creators could otherwise reach, and to give more people a chance to see some great materials and works.
Vangool not only does a great job with the book, but also creates an embedded video for each of her publications on the Uppercase website, so you can view a video of the entire publication before you buy. That takes confidence! You can click on this Vimeo link, or on the book title just below the cover above ,to preview this book.
Summary: this is a high quality publication of some fantastic fiber art manufacturers, suppliers, designers, and fine artists. I recommend it highly if you enjoy well-designed books, textile arts, skeins of freshly dyed yarn (artfully arranged), or understanding how threads and fabrics are made.
Tlingit/Athabascan artist Rico Worl designed a GREAT stamp.
Mine just arrived, and they are GORGEOUS! I hadn’t realized that the stars and discs in the design are rendered in metallic gold.
News release here. USPS product link here (while available). I’m also providing an embedded visual link to Wikipedia’s entry on Formline Art, which I find very graphically satisfying!
Not just steaming bowls of fresh, hand-pulled noodles, served in loud, dark, crowded restaurants in bowls the size of my head, where I slurp my special vegan broth with joy while making delighted faces at my friends, who I can’t hear over the din. No, I also miss the cheap instant stuff I ate as a kid, with a toasted cheese sandwich beside it. Or the fancy-yet-still cheap instant ramen with brand names like Szechuan Chef or MAMA, which not only had the powdered broth packet, but also a chili paste or powder packet AND an oil packet, often with sesame oil in it.
Those instant soups were SO TASTY! The deep fried wheat noodles were just amazing in those spicy soup bases. I would dress those up with chopped scallions and bell peppers, or when I was feeling especially fancy, with a frozen veggie medley of snow peas, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and sprouts, which cooked along with the noodles. It was ready so quickly! It was so warming! It was so SATISFYING!
Packages of instant noodles are ubiquitous, but they are no longer for me: I have a medical condition that means wheat… doesn’t work for me anymore. Not just digestively (although that is terrible), but also immune system wise.
I am learning to let go, while also looking back at wheat fondly.
*
I hadn’t thought of myself as a big wheat-eater, since I love Asian and Mexican cuisines, which are rice and corn centered. Yet wheat was always somewhere in my kitchen: as the light, flaky crusts of my homemade apple pies; as the most sauce-absorbent tortillas of my homemade zucchini enchiladas; as the layers of pasta in my homemade artichoke-flavored lasagnas, as the linguini beneath my homemade mushroom-tomato sauces, or the crust of delicious veg local pizzas. Not one but TWO local beer halls that a friend liked to meet at had wheat-based vegan sausages on their menu, which they grilled on a veg-only grill and served on organic wheat buns.
Wheat was EASY.
Also, wheat can be beautiful: my cousin STILL sends me lovely photos of restaurant tabletops covered in hand-pulled pizza crusts, or delicious pastries he is enjoying with coffee. The crusts are beautifully browned; the pastries are streaked with spices or filled with air pockets from a slow, yeasty rise. They called to his camera for good reasons!
Wheat was important to me on special occasions. I can name at least three local bread bakeries whose loaves back in the early 2000s would absolutely make my day. While enjoying them, I felt I was living my best possible California life. (Acme (swoon), Grace Baking (I read they closed down), and Semifreddi’s, if you were wondering; but there is also great local sourdough…) Olive oil, some tapenade, some fresh, local herbed chèvre if I was dining with non-vegans, heirloom tomatoes, fizzy water, a glass of wine, and a fresh loaf of olive bread…
*deep sigh* So, wheat was not a daily food for me (unlike rice!), but it had a PLACE, and if I included it, I included a REALLY GOOD manifestation of it.
But then there was a medical incident. My digestion became impaired, and when it failed to resolve on its own (as a doctor suggested it would), a gastroenterologist had me try an elimination diet. Fructans (type of plant structure found in very firm/crunchy/tall plants, including wheat) turned out to be a villain in my new story. Once wheat in particular was off my menu, my bloodwork for my other doctors improved dramatically…
Which means there is no going back.
Not that I didn’t try: my bloodwork was so good that my doctor expressed doubt I’d ever had an issue, so I recently did an immersive personal-wheat-festival to confirm it, and… Things went south on about day 10, remained bad for WEEKS, and weren’t right for MONTHS. So, my wheat issue really is a thing.
*
You may wonder how I was able to work in Europe when I was there for business without being able to tolerate wheat. Or lactose, for that matter.
It was… difficult.
Here at home, I can make my own choices, but when relying entirely on office cafeterias, hotels, and business restaurants in Europe, things get dicey. I chose hotels that offered hot foods, rather than pastry-toast-cheese-coffee breakfasts. Eating in company cafeterias was possible thanks to salad bars, grilled veggie side dishes, and random vegetarian specials were were NOT wheat-based; catered lunches were a disaster, as my hosts would kindly accommodate my vegetarianism with a wheat pasta dishes or cheese sandwiches. Team dinners were usually at places with limited menus, and I would have to accept whatever the vegetarian option was, and ritually nibble on it if it was wheat-based.
Left to my own devices in the larger cities for business or pleasure, I manage(d) exceptionally well. Thai red veggie curries in Budapest (with local beer!); Japanese veg sushi lunch and Thai dinner in Switzerland; Vietnamese in Berlin; Thai or Indonesian or Vietnamese or Ethiopian or Persian or hybrid cuisines in London; Indian and pan-Asian pan fried rice noodles topped with veggies and sauces of my choice in Copenhagen; Nepali foods, Breton buckwheat savory crepes, felafel salads, or any number of fancy French vegan restaurant meals in Paris; beautifully arranged rice noodle plates with fresh beans and colorful veggies in Amsterdam; risotto in the Hague; Korean stone pot, Indian curry-poutine, and savory Chinese mushroom dishes in Toronto…
(Yes, I have tried eating Mexican food in Europe, and… it is not. I appreciate the effort, and conceptually I can see how it happened, but the interpretations are… novel.)
But: this worked when I was alone, or when I was with a fellow veg-gf friend who helped me research our options. When ordering airplane meals for my 10+ hour flights or if going out for a compulsory business meal, the odds were not in my favor. There are rules, and no one is supposed to have more than one restriction. Even now, when I order groceries, I can choose vegetarian OR I can choose “gluten-free.” Not both! Airline meals have the same issue. I always choose vegan (or vegetarian if that is the only veg option, as it is on some airlines), but can’t ALSO ensure my vegan dish it isn’t pasta in tomato sauce or a grilled veggie sandwich. This is not EASY.
*
So: I will periodically have a nostalgic outburst here about some food I miss, or I will bemoan wheat being added to something unnecessarily. (People who “bread” their fried potatoes with a wheat batter: I’m looking at you!)
*
Yes, I have tried rice-ramen; yes, it is healthier because it isn’t fried; no, it is not THE SAME. More importantly, non-wheat ramen (which is technically some other noodle, I’m sure) is only available in certain (amazing) restaurants. I can’t just walk into any old ramen place now, even if they have a vegetarian special broth.
So, my world is a little smaller, and has fewer steaming bowls and fewer merrily-slurping crowds in it.
Watching the fog roll in just over sailboat height yesterday
Life in San Francisco: July was a very foggy month in my San Francisco neighborhood’s microclimate, and I’ve had to make field trips to other parts of town to see beyond the edges of our gray blanket. It still amazes me that a blue sky can be just a streetcar ride away!
Last weekend, I spent 6+ hours walking in the sun with another fog refugee on the east side of town. It was a delightful, relaxing, restorative day. I watched a bike rally and its DJ on the back of a flatbed truck; I had an excellent (yet overpriced) espresso drink; I advised my friend not to interact with a gathering of furries; we squirmed through a cheerful crowd of baseball fans; we enjoyed a delicious vegan Indonesian lunch at a picnic table; we explored a neighborhood she’d never visited; we had delicious frozen vegan desserts… [Drifting into a saffron-flavored reverie…]
I kept saying aloud: we are so LUCKY to live here. After sunset, we walked back to catch streetcars to return to our still-foggy homes. *sigh*
It was restorative not only because we enjoyed bright, mild weather, but also becauseit felt like the Before Times. The many traumas of the past year weren’t on the surface, and it was barely noteworthy to wear masks on transit or while ordering food.
We are so very lucky.
*
Life in a Global Pandemic: It has been discouraging to read the news on the dominance of the Delta COVID variant, and to see the local cases rise from low double digits up into the hundreds.
It is especially discouraging knowing that this scenario was preventable. That future similar (or worse) outcomes are preventable. But too many people are choosing not to contribute to prevention.
I now have my first, close/personal, vaccinated friend with a ‘breakthrough’ case. She is an organized person with natural curiosity, so she formally polled her social circles, and has come up with 14 breakthrough cases within her network. (Yes, she is in the greater Los Angeles area, which has been an infection hotspot this entire time, likely due to right wing anti-prevention sentiment.) This alarming information helps me reset some of my own planning about indoor activities as a vaccinated person, which I am less likely to expand now.
I’ve ordered some more fabric face masks in nice patterns, and in black. Including more that have a pocket for an anti-particulate-smoke filter.
*
Life in a Climate Crisis: Speaking of smoke masks, the climate crisis is in the news daily, for all the wrong reasons. Rather than great news about countries meeting their climate goals, there have been a long series of disasters relating to increasing, localized extremes. There were so many flood stories last month (Japan, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the US (New York City)) and so many fire stories (we have more area burned here in California than even last year gave us; Siberia is on fire; tourists are being evacuated from fast moving fires in the Mediterranean by boat!) that any disaster image that appeared on my phone’s screen from the news could be from ANYWHERE.
Because: the climate disaster is striking everywhere.
There were some unflattering quotes from survivors of the German floods saying that they had not believed this sort of thing could happen TO THEM, in THEIR country. (One of them named places where they WOULD expect this to happen, as if such events reflect a personal flaw of the citizens of those regions.)(*facepalm*) It suggested that they hadn’t had sympathy with flood-hit regions they had seen on the news. They hadn’t found it relevant when people in low-lying Pacific islands went to the UN, or when Greenlnd’s high northern communities were suffering, but NOW it is real to them.
Perhaps this is what it takes. Wealthy, developed countries watching flood waters destroy their own cities and towns. Perhaps that is what makes it real enough for urgent action.
*
The news is filled with stories of Americans who are hospitalized with COVID complications, who want the vaccine too late to save their lives. I desperately want us to be smarter than that – not just about COVID, but about our environment. Perhaps we are already in the climate-crisis-hospital stage, and I’m just not accepting it.
Book:The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson audiobook read by Nicole Lewis published by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group 2020
Here’s a great premise for a sci-fi story: rather than developing time or interstellar travel, scientists find a way to travel between a limited number of parallel universes with parallel earths, and then use information from those earths to adjust our earth for success. Though not for EVERYONE’S success…
This conceit has a catch, and it is a brilliant one: the only people who can travel to parallel earths can’t be alive there. Those with a living equivalent die a horrific death in transit due to [mysterious law of physics]. So, the most valuable potential multiverse spies alive on earth zero are those who live in dire circumstances. This means interworld travel is NOT safe for members of the ruling elite – only the marginalized, living marginal lives, who have the odds stacked against them in a way that killed them off in other universes.
Cara, our heroine, had a rough upbringing that was fatal to her on most earths, so she can go to more earths than anyone else. She is recruited to the small force of traversers, and finds herself working for the predominantly white elite, living in their fancy walled city, and manifesting on other earths where everyone looks so familiar, but where the other versions of herself are dead. Her position on Earth 0 feels tenuous, her crush is cold toward her, and she experiences racist and classist snubs as a black woman from the desert. A forthcoming scientific breakthrough OR being too ethical about what she sees (and what her bosses collect) could end her job and her chance at a safe life with clean water and fresh food.
When something goes terribly wrong on another earth, she has a chance to shake things up, though she may not survive it, and has no way of knowing what the result will mean…
This book didn’t go where I thought it would go; it wasn’t over when I thought it was over; and it was filled with thrills and surprises in all the best, ultimately epic ways. Cara is a savvy, smart, opportunistic, determined heroine. (I only yelled at her for saying something dangerous when she was delirious/medicated, and it couldn’t be helped. Note: yelling at an audiobook is best done when you are home alone, so as not to startle others.) She isn’t some perfect superhero – she gets hurt, she carries scars, she’s loved/hated terrible people, she’s survived horrific abuse, she wallows in self-doubt and self-blame, she put ethics aside in favor of survival – but her determination and ethical evolution as she makes a place for herself in the world(s) is a solid, stimulating heroic journey.
This audiobook (libro.fm) is performed by the remarkably talented Nicole Lewis, who reads beautifully, acts brilliantly, represents the many characters by voice clearly, and makes a fantastic Cara. The author, Johnson, provided excellent dialog in the unabridged version, and Lewis made it come to life. (I discovered this audiobook on Libro.fm’s Playlist, “Black Narrators You Should Be Listening To” from June 2021. Nicole Lewis is fantastic. She sounds like black women I know, and hearing her perform these characters so brilliantly was a delight. I would have appreciated this list even if I wasn’t half black myself, the same way I research and enjoy great books by Asian writers without being Asian.)
This book is impressive sci-fi, I loved it, I zealously recommend it, and I’m hoping for more brilliant work like this from Micaiah Johnson.
The hard-to-find hardcover compilation of the comics
William Gibson’s Archangel by William Gibson, Michael St. John Smith, Butch Guice, and others published by Idea and Design Works LLC (aka IDW) 2017
This World War II spy thriller incorporates William Gibson’s recent theme of branching alternative futures in an action-packed, dark comic book.
A brief synopsis: a despotic American leader on a toxic earth goes back to 1945 to create a new branch reality in which he has even more power. A small resistance force plans to interfere…
The story is fast-paced, and the action is dense. The compositions are dynamic, with lots of diagonals, fists, kicks, and planes flying at steep angles. The panels are sepia-tinted and dark, with deep colors and deeper shadows. The characters have a lot of texture, shading, wrinkles, coarse fabrics, and the sort of surface definition that comes with harsh lighting. (Or orthochromatic film, which played such a big part in the noir look of movies of past eras.) The faces are expressive and stern. (Characters’ faces sometimes look unfamiliar, which is a minor distraction in a solid series like this). The drawings set a really remarkable mood, and I’m especially impressed that I’m even THINKING about the coarse look of fabrics!
The individual issue cover art by Tula Lotay (tulalotay.com) is more vivid, with a different palette (remarkable greens and purples), and slightly different interpretations of the characters. These look fantastic.
This is a well produced, action packed, very William-Gibson story, but with WWII noir and timeline-splinters that started far back in time, which distinguish it from his other works. There are additional cover art panels and sketches of each of the characters the appendix, to round out your appreciation of the effort that went into this great book. I’m so glad I found the compilation!
Unexpectedly, IDW has very little promotional content on their website about this comic, but did produce a lightly animated preview!
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor published by Saga Press (Simon & Schuster), NewYork 2014
This ‘first contact’ sci-fi story by Nnedi Okorafor immediately delighted me, because the first earth being the aliens communicated with was not human. Hooray for other species getting their moment to shine!
This is a story of aliens turning up off the coast of Nigeria, and the chaos that erupts when they announce themselves and walk among the residents of bustling, cosmopolitan Lagos, Nigeria.
The aliens are good at making friends, and so three humans find themselves taken by a wave into the sea for deep (heehee) conversations, and then tasked with assisting an alien representative in meeting the public and authorities. The humans have their own messy lives and drama, and get abundant additional drama served up to them by their relatives and neighbors. I hope I would be as smart, curious, and enthusiastic as the marine biologist of the group if aliens dragged ME into the ocean!
It’s a fun ride! Lagos is depicted as lively, corrupt, dangerous, bustling, and nearly addictive; the humans of Lagos are curious, food-obsessed, friendly, opportunistic, self-aggrandizing, helpful, loyal, violent, religious, superstitious, music-loving… It’s a great setting, and the dramatic reactions the public has to the news seem entirely fitting. (Especially now, years later, during this global pandemic, it is even more convincing!)
I enjoyed this VERY much, and having already enjoyed Binti, I’ll now need to find some additional Okorafor (nnedi.com) books to dive into.
Cover of Tokyo at Night, art book by Mateusz Urbanowicz
Tokyo at Night (translated Japanese title: Tokyo Night Train Works) by Mateusz Urbanowicz published by MdN Corp, Tokyo, Japan 2019
This is a beautiful book of NIGHT TIME contemporary, urban watercolors by a professional artist/illustrator for Japanese animation films. If you have ever wondered what animation artists do in their spare time, the answer is: they create MORE ART!
You may find this book review inevitable, between my fuss over ordering books from Kinokuniya Books in San Francisco, my background in architecture, and my appreciation of the background illustrations in Japanese anime I caught up on during the pandemic. Kinokuniya featured Urbanowicz’ other work, Tokyo Storefronts, prominently in its windows, and those are great, but night time watercolors are definitely within my special area of interest!
“Tokyo at Night”「東京夜行 作品集 ②」 · Mateusz Urbanowicz
Home website of Mateusz Urbanowicz; artist, creator working in Japan.
There is a lot to appreciate here.
First, Urbanowicz has some conflicted feelings about contemporary urban surfaces in Tokyo. There are a plenty of hyper-modern concrete facades, overhead wires, metal roll-up doors, overpasses, and other functional urban shapes, all of which are both a great visual challenge for an artist AND a sort of painful visual blight for someone who appreciates historic/traditional Japanese design more generally. I like that Urbanowicz embraces this hypermodern chaos, accepting it for what it offers visually, and sharing some of his feelings about it.
On a related note, Urbanowicz isn’t choosing beloved landmarks that would already have a warm place in your heart: he is choosing ordinary urban scenes that you wouldn’t ordinarily go out of your way to glorify. As so many people favor conventionally pretty, “popular” scenes to benefit from existing affection for a subject, I’m all the more impressed for his originality and effort to make remarkable work about ordinary locations.
As a professional illustrator, Urbanowicz takes a very practical approach to these works. He uses waterproof ink where that benefits the work; he uses opaque white paint when that creates an effect he wants; he uses masking fluid; he uses an airbrush when he wants to soften something. He uses watercolor for its strengths, and uses other tools when they contribute. He also revises compositions when the real life arrangement wouldn’t make a great image. He offers and illustrated guide near the end of the book to share his techniques, so we’ll appreciate the human effort that went into doing all this work by hand. It’s quite refreshing that he is so skilled with many tools, and isn’t unduly strict about single tool purity.
I’m especially impressed that he created all of this work on light paper. That required laying down a LOT of pigment, and he chose his materials and approach carefully, so that his washes remained clear and smooth. (My own washes get very grainy in unfortunate ways when I try to work this this kind of saturation, so I really appreciate his fantastic washes – I appreciate just knowing that this kind of saturation is possible!) Many painters render night scenes in opaque paints, especially oils, so seeing this work done in watercolor expands my idea of what is possible in watercolor.
This is an impressive and enjoyable book of great watercolors for fans of watercolor painting, hard-edged urban details, night scenes, Tokyo, Japanese urban environments, and any of Urbanowicz’ other work.
One of countless storefronts that have been tastefully decorated while we wait to emerge from pandemic hibernation. This mural on Market Street is by Ryan Montgomery of Geary and Hyde Design. Such great stenciling!
There was a brief time period today when objects in my neighborhood had shadows. It was gradual: the fog became very bright, and suddenly, everything had a defined edge!
It didn’t last, and that’s okay.
Yesterday, I escaped the fog bank by heading across town northeast, and managed to shoot film for one of my projects in bright sunlight. I was nice to experience that direct warmth, to see how colors pop and objects shine. (*fond sigh*) (You can see phone images from these field trips at the July 2021 section of mobilelene.blogspot.com.)It was also delightful to sit near the waterfront, hear seagulls, listen to water moving, and watch hundreds of people wearing Pikachu visors wander around, staring at their phones while playing some game.
I love this town.
I love so much about San Francisco, even while I’m able to see its flaws.
When my pen pals ask what it is ‘like’ to live in a famous tourist city, I tell them about the diverse local restaurant culture, farmers markets with farmers from around the region (including produce varieties you can’t find in stores), large parks and widely accessible outdoors, local coffee roasters, bookstores, museums, universities, hospitals, mild climate year-round, a robust economy, a strong sense of community and volunteerism, and a welcoming, come-as-you-are cultural history.
The City’s flaws are also present, though the pandemic has confused when/where they are most visible, with life disrupted for so many people in so many ways. These are the sorts of flaws that come to mind when you have sheltered visitors from out of town visit, where you try to figure out how to warn them away from dodgy areas and give them tips on how to cope with visibly unhinged people. Not all these flaws are of local origin: we have housing shortages in urban areas throughout the west coast, and a lack of mental health services throughout the country. We do try to manage them locally, and the pandemic has disrupted our solutions for those things, too!
I’m making time to get reacquainted and see what has changed.
Surface designed by the Master in Dr. Strange (not really)
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.
The City’s structure is visually stimulating, and the combination of old and new buildings, spaces, and parks gives me a lot to see and think about. Buildings I photographed in the past have been wholly replaced; shipyards have been turned into parks; brick industrial buildings have been gutted and turned into luxury housing… there is always something new, something old has a new neighbor that provides an interesting new contrast to, or old things age in interesting ways.
ASIDE: This sort of renewal is healthy, though it often feels like it risks pushing key activities out of the county – it should be possible for light industrial to operate without being priced out, to have foods and tools and clothes and messenger bags made here, to roast coffee and sell used books, to NOT require every shop to sell something with an luxury brand logo on it.
We should have some economic diversity – you shouldn’t need to be a brain surgeon to live here! If you think of wealthy communities down the Peninsula that are filled with brain surgeons, you realize that they have nothing to recommend them to visitors.
I missed having daily experiences of the City while I was a frequent business traveler at a prior job (especially from late 2013 through late 2018); I hoped to refresh my relationship with my hometown, yet missed it while working long hours in the first year of my current job (2019); I then couldn’t access anything beyond my neighborhood during our stringent local COVID ‘stay home’ year (all of 2020 until May of this year), which was somewhat beside the point, because many of the indoor things I’d want to access were closed for our safety. So, as I go out now, seeing some favorite places still boarded up while others are back and lively, I feel that I need to refresh ALL of my local knowledge. Which is a good excuse to wander!
I was cheered earlier this year during videos from the French crew of the solar-sailing-hydrogen ship Energy Observer, which is sailing around the world to publicize solutions to the climate crisis.
I got a little misty when they arrived here in San Francisco earlier this year, and spoke with such optimism of the technology and solutions that our region offers.
I recommend the Energy Observer YouTube Channel, which is filled with short, manageable clips on diverse projects, which include interviews with innovators solving specific environmental problems, including locals who are responsibly improving the natural environment in their areas (normal people, not JUST VC-backed inventors!). You can turn on English subtitles for the videos, and hear members of the crew speak about a range of topics during their adventures.
Their well planned media approach shows there are MANY solutions to our current environmental challenges available, each fit for its local purpose, and that we’ll need many of them to solve the climate crisis.
You can also visit them for a detailed look at their own ship’s tech at the Energy Observer website (energy-observer.org).
