in transition
This seems to be a month of transitions.
A major one is the sudden decision to switch this blog over to another platform. I’ve been working with Movable Type for almost 10 years but they have recently announced that they have now removed the free licenses and will have only a commercial offering. My son-in-law/tech support moved quickly to switch this to WordPress – he takes good care of the family blogs! I am always slow in adapting to technical changes though I’ve had lots of help from designer daughter Erika (thank you!). I’m finally ready to go live at WordPress, though there are still some tweaks to be done. So welcome back, dear readers, I have missed you! I hope there will be no commenting or other problems but do let me know if there are.
Other distractions, transitions in themselves, that have slowed me down are a granddaughter’s 13th birthday yesterday with all our family here for the weekend. Yes, that explains the card above and it is a special and happy event for us all.
Fall is of course a transitional season and October has been the most glorious month, with only a couple of stormy rainy days early on. The colours are exceptionally brilliant, the weather warm. We have admittedly had about a week of overnight fog which usually burns away in the morning but sometimes lingers all day. I rather like the effects. Fall gardening means we have planted a new garden area where our hedge had to be removed next to the new neighbour’s new home construction and dividing wall. We have brought indoors some tender plants including red bell peppers, we’re pruning, pulling out ivy and weeds, mulching, planting bulbs… still more to do as time, weather, sore backs and knees allow.
Finally, my art making, always quiet anyway over summer, is still in transition this fall for I am very sad that the print studio where I worked for many years has been shut down. It’s a major adjustment for me to work alone in my small home studio. I will be writing more about this later.
October 27, 2013 in Being an Artist, Blogging, Home by Marja-Leena
Hello and welcome back, my friend! The pictures are spectacular as usual.
It appears your newly transitioned site is working fine for me with the only exception being that the new post hadn’t appeared on my blog list. That may change now that I’m reconnecting.
Many congratulations to your granddaughter on her birthday. May the years to come be sweet and kind to all of you.
I’m very sorry to hear you’ve lost the studio where you’ve produced such wonderful prints over the years. I can well imagine the worst part for you is that you’ll be missing the companionship, challenge and mutual inspiration provided by your colleagues and students. Hopefully, all that can be renewed in some future place.
Thanks, Susan! I’m so glad to have you back, and as always, the first loyal commenter here.
Just said goodbye to the last of the family heading home. Now my thoughts return here and to thinking about my art practice for these coming months, for I do miss the others.
Oh, that is so sad about your print studio–are you thinking about replacing it with another–is there another such place? Of course, I live in the hinterland, but one of my artist friends goes a good ways to use an encaustics studio . . . She seems to really throw herself into things when she gets there, as she has few days and a lot to do. But I expect where you are offers more opportunities. Have the others gone somewhere else?
Happy birthday to Miss Barely Teen! One thing I like about living in a place–at last–for a good many years is seeing children grow up. Lovely and often touching to see…
Now I am going to try and see if your new site will let me do what the old wouldn’t–post more than once at a time…
Hi Marly! Two comments from you and they worked! Interesting that I get no email notifications so must visit my own pages more often. There are a couple of print studios on Granville Island but they are always full, busy and parking is limited, and about a 40 minute drive away.
That is sad about losing the studio. All things,good or bad,come to an end, but still it’s hard.
I love that card! I wonder how I’ll feel when my oldest granddaughter turns 13!
Hattie, yes it’s hard to say goodbye to a place that was second home to me for some 30 years!
Glad you like the card. I cut up some collagraph proofs for it. Not exactly pretty-girlish but she likes it.
The new, only subtly different, design is lovely. I’ve missed being able to comment since recent increasing problems with so on Moveable Type.
While I couldn’t do so, I linked to your Sointula post on Facebook and my Finnish friend here in London seized on it delightedly and started discussing it with friends back in Finland. She says they knew about utopian communities of Finnish immigrants in Brazil – where some of her family had visited a very well-known one – but not that one in British Columbia. I think as our own societies plunge deeper into crisis all the experiments there have been with alternatives take on a new interest and importance.
Jean, I’m so happy that this move solved that problem for us both! And I’m delighted that my Sointula post has interested other Finns for it really is an unusual story. I didn’t know about the one in Brazil.
Marja-Leena
This is a good thing, WordPress. Only problem is that can’t see the pic’s any bigger. Blogspot gives that chance to some extent. Luckily you have a good camera and the details of those twisted trees show well.
I also know gardeners all over the place. It goes for people who have their own houses. I used to grow veggies in our summer cabin (super-shack, as we call it), but then came European Union and the prizes of store veggies went down and 100 000 family farmers lost their jobs. Somehow the economy seems to be directed for people losing their jobs, which isn’t really nice.
Jean, there was also a Finnish Utopian society in Argentina, some remains of it left, I believe. I just read a book about it some decades ago. The book was written in Spanish and then translated into Finnish. Happened about the same time as Sointula. Some ind a movement.
Ripsa, except for a very few early attempts long ago, I have not set my photos to click/view larger because there were problems with it. Over the years, I’ve been allowed to post larger images. After posting this first one in WordPress I was very pleased to learn that I can put up even larger photos… as you can see in the next posts. Let me know if you are having any problems seeing them. My current concern is for those who view my blog on smaller devices like tablets – but that requires a whole other set of codes – which someone else would have to write for me.
Ach, let’s not talk about the economy. I really think globalization has not helped the lower and middle classes, only the corporations.
After Jean mentioned another Finnish Utopian society in the comments here, I searched and found a list of Finnish Utopian communes around the world – fascinating. The Argentinian one is on that list too. Sointula seems to have had the largest population other than Karelia.
Ripsa, more about seeing the images larger…. If you are on Mac, you can click on the AA buttons on your top menu bar to make the text and images larger or smaller. I use it all the time because sites vary a lot. I don’t know if there is something similar on a PC.