Extraordinary, as always! Calamine is a fav, called camomine by my sister and me for ages. I wish summer wasn’t dissolving. It seems to be slipping away so quickly.
I’m recently back from Guyana which surprised and delighted me by reminding me so much of South Africa. Bumpy roads, sunsets at 7pm with beautiful low-lying clouds and cardboard-cut out tree silhouettes.
Such vibrant colour in the houses, the clothing, the taxis. Loved the walls that looked like they’d been peeling for a thousand years.
And the people! Everybody greeting one another, hugging, no regard for careful Canadian correctness - it was such a relief and a reprieve to hug, to joke, to make a noise. It’s quite tiring, having to be so careful here, all the time. (I know - we have lots of good stuff but a dash of natural chaos does wonders for the soul).
As always, your writing takes me to another place. This time it made me remember the feeling of my childish sunburnt shoulders and the wonderful cooling feel of Calamine lotion, rubbed in to sooth them by my mother. And the smell of Calamine. Just recently I painted our hallway in Farrow and Ball's Calamine, after buying numerous test pots to find just the right tone of pinkness. Thank you for your words - they bring me joy every time I read them.
Here I am camping in Ontario, up from Virginia, rambling down back dusty roads, past swamps, and all the Queen Anne’s Lace and Chicory and others that line the road mile after mile and then I read your latest post! A day or two later I am talking to a guy from Toronto who is bicycling and camping and I ask him if he knows you and he doesn’t but we talk about inking and colour and how Queen Anne’s Lace can make a neon yellow dye. Thanks Jason for bringing it all together.
Learning about calamine in our NYBG Continuing Education workshop this morning, and then seeing your calamine post a few hours later in The Color / Newsletter / Lab / Community seems to me a great illustration of how you live life. How everything in your daily life builds upon itself, opens out onto the next thing. So no, you are in no way late, and perhaps you need to extend your appreciation of time as a dimension in ink-making to yourself, because look at everything you do in a day! You are like a drop of soot ink ready to encounter a pool of drying calamine, then move along to illustrate a card for a long-lost friend or maybe one of your kids! Thank you for everything you do and for everything you bring to the world. I am so happy to have taken your mini-workshop and will be joining the discussion often in the next 30 days, I think.--Jan. P.S. I'll send another invitation to friends to join The Colour Lab soon!
I remember iodine-stained skin - perhaps the extent of my childhood medicine cabinet. Oh, and honey. I cannot believe that you like that the mosquitoes are still here! I’d be happy to wake up to news that they are extinct, though I wonder what the butterfly effect would be. The part with you all inside the tent playing games and the dark dark world outside is incredible. Thank you for the adventure Jason.
Extraordinary, as always! Calamine is a fav, called camomine by my sister and me for ages. I wish summer wasn’t dissolving. It seems to be slipping away so quickly.
I’m recently back from Guyana which surprised and delighted me by reminding me so much of South Africa. Bumpy roads, sunsets at 7pm with beautiful low-lying clouds and cardboard-cut out tree silhouettes.
Such vibrant colour in the houses, the clothing, the taxis. Loved the walls that looked like they’d been peeling for a thousand years.
And the people! Everybody greeting one another, hugging, no regard for careful Canadian correctness - it was such a relief and a reprieve to hug, to joke, to make a noise. It’s quite tiring, having to be so careful here, all the time. (I know - we have lots of good stuff but a dash of natural chaos does wonders for the soul).
Loved this
As always, your writing takes me to another place. This time it made me remember the feeling of my childish sunburnt shoulders and the wonderful cooling feel of Calamine lotion, rubbed in to sooth them by my mother. And the smell of Calamine. Just recently I painted our hallway in Farrow and Ball's Calamine, after buying numerous test pots to find just the right tone of pinkness. Thank you for your words - they bring me joy every time I read them.
Here I am camping in Ontario, up from Virginia, rambling down back dusty roads, past swamps, and all the Queen Anne’s Lace and Chicory and others that line the road mile after mile and then I read your latest post! A day or two later I am talking to a guy from Toronto who is bicycling and camping and I ask him if he knows you and he doesn’t but we talk about inking and colour and how Queen Anne’s Lace can make a neon yellow dye. Thanks Jason for bringing it all together.
another trip down memory lane... so many childhood sensations and perceptions awakened ! Will think who else I might entreat to subscribe.
Iodine—the smell! Thank you for this memory, plus many camping ones.
Learning about calamine in our NYBG Continuing Education workshop this morning, and then seeing your calamine post a few hours later in The Color / Newsletter / Lab / Community seems to me a great illustration of how you live life. How everything in your daily life builds upon itself, opens out onto the next thing. So no, you are in no way late, and perhaps you need to extend your appreciation of time as a dimension in ink-making to yourself, because look at everything you do in a day! You are like a drop of soot ink ready to encounter a pool of drying calamine, then move along to illustrate a card for a long-lost friend or maybe one of your kids! Thank you for everything you do and for everything you bring to the world. I am so happy to have taken your mini-workshop and will be joining the discussion often in the next 30 days, I think.--Jan. P.S. I'll send another invitation to friends to join The Colour Lab soon!
I remember iodine-stained skin - perhaps the extent of my childhood medicine cabinet. Oh, and honey. I cannot believe that you like that the mosquitoes are still here! I’d be happy to wake up to news that they are extinct, though I wonder what the butterfly effect would be. The part with you all inside the tent playing games and the dark dark world outside is incredible. Thank you for the adventure Jason.