SHIRA KATANIA

Busy as a Bee

2011-01-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Living Homes by Thomas J. Elpel is becoming our favorite literary resource on our current favorite subject: independant, efficient living.

Sam and I have been browsing the Ashland Public Library on thursdays, permitting Sam gets the day off work on our date day, and we enjoy shaking off the cold with a cup and an hour to circulate through the shelves together. We check out old and new movies,(Vertigo and Jezebel...I love that young Better Davis...also, Pricilla, Queen of the Desert... :D ), Sam likes the Spanish section; my spanish improves.

We are getting on fine here at 270 Dead Indian (the "Dead" on the sign has been vandalized). Sam works on preparing the garden for growing, prunes the trees, mulches, cuts the damned bamboo!
I help a bit in and out of the house, plan for improvements and reorganization, plus I've taken on the frightening, the daunting dedication to straighten out that BARN!
The beautiful winter birds sound great as an alarm as we wake up inside the mock-coffin that is called bed in the smaller motorhome.
Sam and my relationship is improved with this move back in with the folks. Sam and dad are developing that great relationship that everyone has developed with dad. Mom admires Sam for his work ethic and for his good manners.
We are trying to get good recycling ethics going round here, as well as a goal for future on site recycling of rainwater and perhaps, in the future, waste and all scrap and most garbage. What a goal!
Sophia's life seems improved too. She's a self-motivated learner, so I am thrilled about kindergarden. We spend more time together as a family. We are preparing meals with Dad. We are learning to be humble.
I just love some of the books we've found on various topics parallel our lifestyle goals...
I'll share a few:

Living Homes by Thomas J. Elpel (well thopught and covers layers of aspects-he really went 100% tide and true by using total ethically green means of publishing)

Green from the Ground Up by David Johnston & Scott Gibson

Independant Builder by Sam Clark

we have found that our quest for living autonomously be

reflecting on change

2010-11-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

This year has brought relief and good change. I passed my Math class and graduated with a bachelors in studio art from Southern Oregon; Sam got his residency (aka, green card) which meant no more lawyer bills! neutralization of debt and a lot less stress on our plates; Sophia started kindergarten at Bellview; we all moved into a nice duplex tucked away on an Ashland alley with our two friends and their Sophie's-age son; Sam and I shared our first year anniversary; Sophia turned 5 on the 5th; I turned 25...

Pretty soon our roommate, Gwyn who was recently accepted to graduate studies @ Ohio State, will be leaving which means a move for us too.

Graciously, my parents have agreed to the idea of my little family bunking down in the 40-foot (wish it were the Beaver) Holiday rambler...if we can get it to function. This is sort of a dream for me (despite complications of living near the folks) because Mom and Dad's land has so much potential and much to offer. Sam has steady work and with the utilization of the great wisdom betwixt Diana's frugility-smarts and Dennis's autonomous living-smarts we hope to build the type of lifestyle we long for and dream of; living off the land, using less, making more, learning more and depending much, oh much less. I am, at this very point of time, figuring out how to use a sewing machine, working on an idea for a children's book of Shakespeare, and exploring the ideas of becoming a "progressive pioneer"... a great term I recently was introduced to.

Oh, sweet Ashland IS a good place to be such with the ever-growing support of farmer's markets and food co-ops and overall the growing possibility of leading a much more independent lifestyle here.

Ok. I also having been influenced, have been reading and almost finished with, by the Little House on the Prairie books. Sam and I crave the IDEA of a separation from the all encompassing monetary system, but for the moment all we can take is baby steps; to try to be less dependent and to be a more autonomous unit. Gardens; homemade and recycled cloth, paper and products; biking and walking whenever possible; buying and using only what we NEED, and locally and handmade at that...these are just some of the simple and sensible ideas we have (not to sound redundant or overly idyllic).

My aim is to eventually work out of my home in a practical, progressive and sustainable manner. These days everyone around me seems to be spouting the overflowing word "sustainable" but this word is the very essence of what could turn our position as humans living off the earth, around.

Anyway, dang-it, I was so blessed to have parents who taught me these ideas from an early age...wisdom I never took advantage of.

Now I'm kicking myself for not learning to sew from my mother, or how to master gardening from my father.

My goal is to learn from those who practice my ideals.

I am open to any feedback and advice! I would love to talk about these issues as they are my favorite topic to date. Sam and I have found some really nice blogs and documentaries on these topics that I will try to be posting and discussing when I can.

So far I love these two blogs a lot:

http://placetobloom.blogspot.com
www.progressivepioneer.com

2009-08-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

2009-08-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

2009-08-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

Recent Activities

2009-08-17T20:07:00.001-07:00

my place

2009-01-23T20:01:00.001-08:00

the holidays at hargadine st

2009-01-23T20:00:00.001-08:00

the holidays at hargadine

2009-01-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

last photos from the show

2009-01-23T19:51:00.000-08:00

Wild Times @ Fort Cluff

2008-11-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

Wild Times at Fort Cluff

2008-11-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

270 Dead Indian Road

2008-11-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

270 Dead Indian Road

2008-11-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

gallery space displays the 3-D of one of the pieces for my thesis show "spacescapes"

2008-11-18T20:07:00.000-08:00

Deep Space Seascapes

2008-11-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

2008-11-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

life on the wild side

2008-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sophia

2008-09-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Life in Ashland

2008-08-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

Final Ashland Oregon Hillside Paintings

2008-08-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Final Hillside Paintings

2008-07-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Barn Clothes

2008-06-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

2008-06-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

Barn Clothes

surfacing

2008-05-13T02:18:00.000-07:00

I am coming out of it, I can feel the air now, I am coming out of the depths.
I am painting only one thing for the rest of this month- the hill.
I shall post the products soon.
I love landscapes, I am drawn to the majesty of Ashland's own particular scape, and inside it I escape through brilliant colors and exagggerated form.
I always default back to landscapes when I feel lost or overwhelmed or scattered.
I am totally scattered right now. I need ground.
Thus The Hill.
Coming soon.

Inside

2008-05-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

When one is tired enough, moving outdoors seems a tremendous strain. To pull oneself from the ease and musk of darkened corridors, or a flesh-worn couch, is like the rush of standing up too fast. It’s so easy to become accustomed to being enclosed, to habitually avoid the unreliability of an outside world and favor the familiarity of small rooms. It’s inside that one drowns in a tired loneliness, devastatingly mistaken for comfort and familiarity.
Inside I am free, I bustle, I clean; I follow routines. It’s easy here, where I paint, brew tea, sit for stretching hours in front of windows, laze about. I absorb myself within myself, and tired thoughts escape me, shaped like fantastical dreams. I use daydreaming to escape into a distortion of the void that I avoid. Envisioning acts within scenes, I construct fantasies that could only be completed outside of my comfortable tiredness. Dreams are the substitute for the missing component to my life indoors, and I long for a distorted reality in the most longingly way: fantasy.
Loneliness is not a burden once you have acclimated to it. It is a quiet stomach after prolonged starvation; hunger subsided. Ultimately, it becomes something not far from satisfying and one is tempted to wallow in it like a pig’s face in a trough. And though the art of being lonely is perfected after time, there is one constant flaw, the flaw that lures you into a state of curiosity and perhaps even action, in some cases. It is that uncontrollable temptation to drift into fantasy.
I would often lie heavily on my loose bed sheets in the morning, after I’d waken. Still and quiet near an open window, I drowned in a pool of sounds: birds, buzzing insects, the loudness of mowers and the repetitive sound of lawn sprinklers. This was routine, obsessively so. My mind would quiet and focus, my concentration heightened. I was aware of what was happening, but drowned in that awareness until what was real became my fancy. A soft focus, a fuzz, came over my eyes and though open I couldn’t see. I would dive into a buffered realm of fantastical deviance, of fantastical social superiority and sensation. This would last briefly, just until I began to thaw back into the obvious solitude that surrounded me. The grind and hum of the mowers came into me first and lifted me up to the cackle of the sprinklers followed by a rush of all sounds, like blood, theatrically to my head until I became tired again raised my feet heavily off the mattress and to the calling floor.
Loneliness only provokes longing. Solitude provokes desire. In loneliness one can be content, peaceful, thoughtful and creative. One can experience heightened awareness, or a deeper self-awareness, but these states are always distorted. The absence of sociality stunts one’s person and reverses the process in which one became a social being to begin with. But loneliness is comfortable, and poses no immediate threat. It is not intimidating and does not hurt right away. And so to fall into it, like and insomniac eventually falls into slumber, is almost like a trap: a comfortable, familiar, bear-trap.

Postmodernism

2008-05-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

In the present search for harmony, perhaps awkwardly at times, postmodern art strives for what is pure, yet raw and humanly relatable, what can serve a functional purpose and be readily accessible, and that which is self-critical and autonomous.

Alabama

2008-05-08T22:38:00.000-07:00

During the time I spent in Opelika, Alabama, there is no easy way to describe the ease I felt. Moist and warm, the time there was like returning to a womb; a safe and a calm. I remember everything so vividly, it scares me because I don't remember anything so clear as I do that time. Melanie and I became kindred spirits. We practiced yoga, baked whole-wheat pitas, took trips to the gulf of Mexico together. We talked and talked and talked more, and took her kids to the library where I rummaged through the shelves, the music and movie selections. We rented Dark Crystal at least seventeen times over. I took runs in the rain, and learned to crochet. It was there that I first heard Radiohead's album "Amnesiac", one dark, still night on a couch. I was unable to sleep. It was thrilling and I couldn't close my eyes to the haunting sound in my ears or the blanketing darkness around me. It was also there where I first read the George Orwell masterpiece, 1984, and a condensed book of Shakespeare, which Daisha had given me years before, that I grew to adore . I remember writing poetry and reading poetic anthologies, tanning in the backyard amoung cedars and near a pasture, getting horribly bitten by the array of various insects that infest the south. I remember so many things from then that made me terribly happy, and make me terrible melancholy to think of now. I listened to Steely Dan, Diana Krall and Chris Issac. It was a time of peace and for peace; of mind, body, spirit. I can't think of more a release than when I let go in Alabama. I grew up in Alabama. I think of the time there as a century of thought, of brilliance, beauty, growth, humility, learning, love, and peace. I think of the weather there and I am happy. I think of the green and I am happy. I think of the stretching highways below brilliant thunderstormy sky, and I am happy.
I grew up there, and in that I am content.

Hair-Performance

2008-05-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

I know who isn't going to like these... My hair-performance art-

2008-05-08T17:14:00.001-07:00

Paint Smear

2008-05-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Recent Life-Like Activity

2008-05-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

More, as of May, 7, 2008

2008-05-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

Paintings

2008-05-06T21:41:00.001-07:00

Here are some recent paintings, not my newest, or freshest, but these are some of the last developing stages to what I am doing now. I will post the fresh stuff soon.

2008-05-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

2008-05-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

2008-04-09T10:57:00.001-07:00

2008-03-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

March Paintings

2008-03-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

Ruth No.1

2008-02-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

this is me

2008-02-12T23:22:00.000-08:00