JcSparks.com

Normally weekend updates would be an opportunity for me speak about the artwork that I was able to do over the weekend. This past weekend, however, there was no artwork done. Sad as that sounds, there is a adequate and even jovial reason for it. My brother Shaun was in town for the weekend. So Julie and I were able to spend the bulk of the weekend hanging out with him.

Julie and I haven’t seen Shaun since 2004, before I left for school in NYC. It’s unfortunate that his family lives so far away in Alaska. We do miss seeing our beautiful nephews and nieces ever so much.

It was a pleasant visit and much excellent food was consumed. We even made a visit to the Salem hot-spot, J. James (provided you are willing to accept the premise that Salem indeed has hot-spots). We had three different fish entrees at J. James, and all were superb, even if the pre-meal potato-rosemary soup was bland and lumpy. Julie also got to flex her cooking muscles. She made a wonderful dinner featuring radicchio and chard rib tortelloni with homemade ricotta in a parmesan cream fonduta, fresh buttermilk bread, and a baby-greens salad with balsamic vinaigrette, crumbled Gorgonzola, candied pecans and sliced Asian pears.

We also put Shaun to work. I’m not sure how it all happened, but we ended up at Lowes attempting to find a new barrier to separate the living room from the kitchen (an unfortunate necessity with the ferrets). We’d been using a 2′ x 4′ sheet of MDF or particle board to do the job since moving into the house. However, it met with an unfortunate accident a few weeks ago (don’t ask), and the foamcore we put up as an alternate barrier was too tall for Julie to step over, and too light to keep Ajax from just pushing it aside without an elaborate system of weights to hold it place. Not a pleasant situation, for us or for the fuzzies, who kept making breaks for the kitchen only to have their hopes dashes when too-tempting crinkly bags kept giving away their off-sides position.

Anyway, what we really wanted was to have a half-door on spring hinges (the kind that swing both directions). Shaun is very early in the process of building his own home, so I think he had the building bug. He suggested we look into actually making what we wanted. So we did… A few hours and three trips to Lowes later, we had exactly what we really wanted in place. I’ll post some pictures in the near future.

Many, many thanks to Shaun, who, even after helping me turn a full-sized door into a half-door and hang it, was good enough to sit for some photos. Really makes me feel bad for all the times I was mean to him growing up…

It turns out that Shaun is really quite handy. I can’t wait to see the progress on their new home. Julie and I are going to have to make some time to go visit them in the next year.

- Jeremy

Well, I did get into paints last weekend. However, to my chagrin, I learned that it is too cold out in my studio for paint to dry in a timely manner. I started two wipe-outs, which should have dried rather quickly since the paint was cut with thinner. However, by mid-week they were still wet to the touch. So I started a new drawing of one of the images that I was hoping to work up as an oil study.

It’s a pencil drawing of Crystal on Strathmor 500 series Bristol paper. Crystal and her lovely husband Casey were nice enough to come sit for me last week. I was hoping to do oil studies of both of them this week and start a real painting next week. We’ll see how it goes. Fortunately, the wipe-outs are dry now so I should be able to work on at least one of them this weekend.

- Jeremy

I feel like I’ve done a lot of self portraits, so I wasn’t too keen on the idea of doing another one. However, Julie was pressing me to do a new one and I really needed to have one that was up to the same level of the work that I’ve been doing lately. Here’s a new self portrait; which I have, somewhat arrogantly, entitled Melancholia. As always, any feedback would be graciously appreciated.

It’s 26″ x 20″ pencil on Rives BFK Paper, which was a real pleasure to work with. It has been really nice to be able to finish drawings like this lately, but I feel that I really need to get back into the paint. So I’m planning on starting a new painting this week.

- Jeremy

Actually, even if you aren’t in academia or don’t hang around with academics then go read this essay.

It’s by Orson Scott Card, the author of many excellent books including Ender’s Game.

Essay: Groupthink and the Intellectual Elite

He has many excellent essays on his website, but this one touches on what is really wrong with the country. Card is a Mormon, a registered Democrat and supports George W. Bush. And if any of those statements made you think twice about clicking on the link then you owe it to yourself to go read the essay. Better do it now.

– Jeremy

I’ve finally registered a new domain and setup a new website that will be more of a professional web presence for my artwork. You’ll notice there is a new link to that site as well in the Links section of this website.

Please visit: JeremyCSparks.com

If you do get a chance to take a look at the site, please let me know what you think.

– Jeremy

I had hoped to post this sometime this past weekend. Unfortunately I didn’t get quite as much studio time last week as I would have liked.

Anyhow, here’s an image of my excellent good friend, Paul, holding a Greek Kylix. This one is a little more oblique, but after spending the last two weeks drawing what amounts to a young woman holding a living teddy bear and a portrait of Shirley Temple’s little sister I though this would be a good counter-point.

As usual, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I’m not sure what my next project will be. I may start another drawing of Paul, something a little more traditional. Or perhaps I’ll get over the gear-intensive hump and break out the oil paints.

– Jeremy

You probably think this post is going to be about the fall TV schedule, especially since we now have Dish and can record two shows at once. Of the new shows, Heroes seems promising, Jericho sounded like a neat idea but the premiere wasn’t so great, and we’re watching Studio 60 and Kidnapped for the time being also.

But that’s not what this post is really about: more knitting content!

I got a surprise phone call from one of my aunts a few weekends ago, inviting me to come along with her and my cousin to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby. Of course I was delighted to accept, no less because I hadn’t seen either of them for several years (they have just moved back to Portland from John Day, which is way out in eastern Oregon—quite a long drive). Also there was the little matter of the Blue Moon booth I knew would be at the festival….

It was a lot of fun. I’d never been to it before, due to Jeremy’s fiber and knitting aversions. I got to spin a few feet of yarn on a drop spindle for the first time: it all went so quickly, and I was really horrible at it. Still, I could have been tempted to purchase a kit if it weren’t for that Blue Moon booth just waiting somewhere to take all my money. Not to mention the fact that Jeremy would have about keeled over if I started making yarn in addition to buying and stashing it. So we moved on to the barn, and petted all the adorable little alpacas and pygora goats and llamas and sheep and angora bunnies. I had a male albino English angora rabbit named Baron Von Fluff when I was in high school, and the angora bunnies really made me miss him. We got him for his sweet and gentle personality, not for his incredibly soft fur, and carried him around on his back like a baby. Guess I know where to go now if I ever have an irresistible urge to get a rabbit…

I think we touched practically everything in all the booths, and I restrained myself admirably from making any purchases. After several hours of wandering around, I started to get a little nervous about finding the Blue Moon booth, but of course it was in exactly the last spot we visited, and it was packed. I had been hoping to get a rock-themed colorway of STR to make another pair of socks for my father the geologist, but nothing was exactly appropriate. I am tempted to try to order the Petrified Wood colorway, because, from photos, I think that would be perfect. That small disappointment didn’t stop me from filling up my arms with sock yarn, though, as witness:

From left: STR Lightweight in Rooster Rock (the one I couldn’t resist winding instantly), Covelite, and Downpour (Dad, is that close enough to “Wet Mud” for you?), and Sock Candy in Madder and Borage (in front).

I got one skein each of the STR Lightweight, and two each of the Sock Candy, though there was only one left in Borage by the time we found their booth; they kindly offered to send me a second skein free of shipping, so I happily took them up on it. Jeremy approved the color, so that will be a pair of socks for him, I think.

Other than the surprise excitement of the festival, I’ve finally gotten back around to sweater knitting. I ordered enough yarn last month to knit up two cardigans to wear at work this winter, and am already a good way into the first project, the Tweedy Aran Cardigan from Norah Gaughan in the Winter 2001/02 issue of Interweave Knits. I didn’t have that issue when I fell in love with the sweater’s photo, but I was able to track down a copy. I’m using Kathmandu Aran Tweed in the color Twig, a caramelly tan that I think will go really well with the vast majority of my wardrobe, but which Jeremy claims looks like burlap when knit up. I don’t quite see that, and the yarn is soft and warm, so I’m rather pleased with it.

The pattern is an interesting one, but a bit hard on the hands, thanks to the volume of twisted stitches. I have finished the back, and am currently working on the fronts, both at the same time. So far, so good. (And photos when I get the chance…)

I am planning on making the other cardigan from Cashmerino Aran in a natural white color, and at this point I am considering the Sienna Cardigan from this fall’s IK. I think the gauge is different, though, so the jury is still out on that one.

So keep it tuned right here all fall for more rockin’ socks and cuddly cardigans. Over and out. Hm, that’s more 50’s radio than TV. Let’s try that again… Well, I can’t think of a good sign-off; maybe I should hold a contest like Katie Couric did?

Here comes the long anticipated knitting post. Since Fall has officially started, here are the finished summer sock projects to show you at long last. It was a busy summer (actually I’m not sure where it went), and I really don’t have much knitting to show for it. But here’s the tally: I knit three pairs of socks. They are show below being modeled on my etching press, mostly just because the back room where the press is has the most daylight in the afternoon, and the colors came out pretty accurately on these images.

The first pair was for Jeremy, though because of the warm weather, he hasn’t had the opportunity to wear them yet. They are made with Trekking #102, my first randomly variegated Trekking, in lovely shades of gray. The pattern is the Gentleman’s Fancy Socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, knit on #0 needles.

The second pair is for my aunt, who is so busy that I’m betting she doesn’t read this blog, and can therefore show you this photo. They are the Estonian Socks from Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks (another great sock-knitting book—Nancy Bush is the best), knit with natural white Lang Jawoll for the main color, and Trekking #67 for the Fair Isle cuff. The Trekking was absolutely perfect for this: colorwork is not my favorite type of knitting, and the color changes in the Trekking emulated a more complicated Fair isle color pattern with less work for me. Excellent! I was really pleased with how these came out, despite how tiny they look in the photo, they really should fit my aunt, who has the same size tiny feet as me–see?

I used #1 needles, cut the Fair Isle pattern down from 3 repeats to 2, and made the socks a bit shorter to make up for that smaller circumference.

The third pair of socks is for my Grandma Ford. These are Jaywalkers done in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Vera colorway on #1 needles. Because of some of the issues with tightness, and the tendency of grandmas to have somewhat swollen ankles, I decided to start out with the larger size (84 sts) and decrease back down to 76 after several inches for a bit of calf shaping. I also ended up having to do a really extensive gusset to get the foot circumference down to the right size. If anything, these socks might be a bit loose, but Grandma should not have trouble getting them over her heels. I hope. I have enough yarn left over from this pair to make myself another short pair of socks, or maybe some fingerless mittens. Hmmm….