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Another project completed
Jul. 10th, 2025 11:16 amIt turns out that the balcony is also a good place to dry things in the open air. This is the quilt that I made for the child who is not my great-niece.
The Balcony Is Done!
Jul. 9th, 2025 02:36 pmFor the past few weeks, when anyone asks me what I've been up to, I tell them I have been doing a project involving the balcony of my condo. I have struggled to put into words exactly what I am doing. So here is a photo essay that will, I hope, do a better job.
Although my decorating style in general tends to be on the minimalist and utilitarian side, the balcony is an exception to this. I conceived it as a sumptuous, magical space with lots of unnecessary details. I guess this small space seemed like a safe place to indulge in sensory stimulation without getting overwhelmed.
Here is the balcony in its original state. Note how dirty it is, especially the glass panels! The first thing I did was to hire a business called "Balcony Cleaners." They did a great job. The glass door was so clean that I walked into it, thinking it was open. Really! Note also the bit of wall under the glass panels. This is what will eventually be covered by my "tile wall."
The transformation begins by installing a rug and three fake trees (real plants are too high maintenance). If you look closely, you can see that one of them has little fairy lights on it. Nothing was spared!
And some furniture: a loveseat and two ottomans.
Next comes the construction of a two-foot-high wall that will cover the area below the glass panels. It is made of plywood, with 2x2s glued on to the top that are supposed to fit between the uprights between the panels. Unfortunately, I glued one of them on in the wrong place! But I was able to figure out a way to make it work. My therapist says that I shouldn't worry about getting lost because I always find myself again. I guess this is that same sort of thing.
The final step was to cover the plywood with stick-on tiles. Well, that was supposed to be the final step. Actually, in order to compensate for the gluing error, I had to cut a column of tiles off the left side of one of the boards, and attach it to the right side. I did this by backing the join with a piece of 1/8 inch fibreboard, which I bought by mistake before I realized that it was too flimsy for the purpose. So that mistake worked out, too. The final final step was to finish the top with a small wooden shelf.
And here it is: the entire balcony as seen from the bedroom.
And here is the view from the living room. I forgot to mention the pillows I made for the couch, and the bright yellow blanket!
In addition to what you see in the picture, there are wind chimes. And I am planning to add a small table with a mosaic top. Oh, and some of those little metal bird silhouettes. This is a side of myself that I didn't know I had. Good to know, but I'm glad it is confined to this one liminal space, away from the part of the apartment that I actually live in.
Although my decorating style in general tends to be on the minimalist and utilitarian side, the balcony is an exception to this. I conceived it as a sumptuous, magical space with lots of unnecessary details. I guess this small space seemed like a safe place to indulge in sensory stimulation without getting overwhelmed.
Here is the balcony in its original state. Note how dirty it is, especially the glass panels! The first thing I did was to hire a business called "Balcony Cleaners." They did a great job. The glass door was so clean that I walked into it, thinking it was open. Really! Note also the bit of wall under the glass panels. This is what will eventually be covered by my "tile wall."
The transformation begins by installing a rug and three fake trees (real plants are too high maintenance). If you look closely, you can see that one of them has little fairy lights on it. Nothing was spared!
And some furniture: a loveseat and two ottomans.
Next comes the construction of a two-foot-high wall that will cover the area below the glass panels. It is made of plywood, with 2x2s glued on to the top that are supposed to fit between the uprights between the panels. Unfortunately, I glued one of them on in the wrong place! But I was able to figure out a way to make it work. My therapist says that I shouldn't worry about getting lost because I always find myself again. I guess this is that same sort of thing.
The final step was to cover the plywood with stick-on tiles. Well, that was supposed to be the final step. Actually, in order to compensate for the gluing error, I had to cut a column of tiles off the left side of one of the boards, and attach it to the right side. I did this by backing the join with a piece of 1/8 inch fibreboard, which I bought by mistake before I realized that it was too flimsy for the purpose. So that mistake worked out, too. The final final step was to finish the top with a small wooden shelf.
And here it is: the entire balcony as seen from the bedroom.
And here is the view from the living room. I forgot to mention the pillows I made for the couch, and the bright yellow blanket!
In addition to what you see in the picture, there are wind chimes. And I am planning to add a small table with a mosaic top. Oh, and some of those little metal bird silhouettes. This is a side of myself that I didn't know I had. Good to know, but I'm glad it is confined to this one liminal space, away from the part of the apartment that I actually live in.
Et tu, Toronto?
Mar. 8th, 2017 10:09 pmI suppose it was too much to hope that our city would be exempt from the rising tide of antisemitism, intolerance, and xenophobia that seems to be sweeping the world. But I did hope. And so I was shocked, saddened, and disappointed to hear that yesterday there was a bomb threat at a Jewish school and JCC in downtown Toronto. There was no bomb, but of course the authorities had to take the threat seriously. Buildings were evacuated, schools on lockdown, traffic rerouted. There was no bomb, but the threat itself is an attack - a violation of what should be safe space.
This week, after a hiatus of several months, I've been working on the Torah project. I volunteered to use my Photoshop skills to fix imperfections in the scanned images of the needlepoint panels. I volunteered to do it because, as I've explained elsewhere, I enjoy working with Photoshop and I have a fondness for projects that are audacious, ambitious, and somewhat daft. But in these times, suddenly, even Photoshop feels like an act of defiance.
This week, after a hiatus of several months, I've been working on the Torah project. I volunteered to use my Photoshop skills to fix imperfections in the scanned images of the needlepoint panels. I volunteered to do it because, as I've explained elsewhere, I enjoy working with Photoshop and I have a fondness for projects that are audacious, ambitious, and somewhat daft. But in these times, suddenly, even Photoshop feels like an act of defiance.
The Torah Project - Again
Feb. 7th, 2017 11:14 pmAbout a year ago I wrote about participating in "Torah Stitch By Stitch," an international project to create a giant needlepoint Torah scroll. I see that I included a progress report showing an early stage in the development of my panel on Leviticus 27:32-34. But I never followed up with a post about the finished product. So here is an update.
I finished the Leviticus panel in June. I was really pleased with the way it came out. There were the sheep under the enormous tree, inspired by a photograph I took on our trip to England in 1993. The panel is surrounded by a border in which every tenth square is red, a graphic reminder that one out of every ten animals is holy to the Lord (i.e. to be sacrificed). I really enjoyed making this panel. The fact that it was only 3 verses instead of the usual 4 left lots of room for a complicated illustration, and I enjoyed solving the various technical and artistic problems that it posed.
Making this panel was such a good experience that I immediately signed up to make another one. When I got my assigned verses, my heart sank. Why hadn't I left well enough alone? This passage, Deuteronomy 20:16-19, is one of those ugly ones that give the Bible a bad name:
But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God.
When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?
As if the content were not bad enough, the passage had the added disadvantage of being one of the longest in the whole project, taking up almost the entire panel and leaving little room for artistic embellishment. I wasn't sure I even wanted to do it. But - the stated purpose of the project was to "engage with the words of Torah." I decided to see what would emerge if I engaged with these words.
Here is the finished panel:
And here is the commentary I wrote to accompany it:
An ugly passage, and a very difficult assignment for a pacifist like me. I considered asking for a different passage, but in the end I decided to accept the challenge to engage with these verses.
In developing the design for this panel I have taken my cue from the image at the end of the passage: a ruined city with only the trees left standing. It brought to my mind the poem “Grass” by Carl Sandburg.
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
There are various ways to interpret this, but I have always read it as a commentary on the resilience of nature and a call for humankind to be humble, even about its capacity for destructiveness. The epic battles that loom so large in human history may devastate the landscape, but it does not take long for nature to reclaim its own. In this panel I have tried to depict the passage, as it were, from the point of view of the trees. The winners and the losers, the attackers and the defenders, have all passed away, but the grass and the trees endure.
I finished the Leviticus panel in June. I was really pleased with the way it came out. There were the sheep under the enormous tree, inspired by a photograph I took on our trip to England in 1993. The panel is surrounded by a border in which every tenth square is red, a graphic reminder that one out of every ten animals is holy to the Lord (i.e. to be sacrificed). I really enjoyed making this panel. The fact that it was only 3 verses instead of the usual 4 left lots of room for a complicated illustration, and I enjoyed solving the various technical and artistic problems that it posed.
Making this panel was such a good experience that I immediately signed up to make another one. When I got my assigned verses, my heart sank. Why hadn't I left well enough alone? This passage, Deuteronomy 20:16-19, is one of those ugly ones that give the Bible a bad name:
But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God.
When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?
As if the content were not bad enough, the passage had the added disadvantage of being one of the longest in the whole project, taking up almost the entire panel and leaving little room for artistic embellishment. I wasn't sure I even wanted to do it. But - the stated purpose of the project was to "engage with the words of Torah." I decided to see what would emerge if I engaged with these words.
Here is the finished panel:
And here is the commentary I wrote to accompany it:
An ugly passage, and a very difficult assignment for a pacifist like me. I considered asking for a different passage, but in the end I decided to accept the challenge to engage with these verses.
In developing the design for this panel I have taken my cue from the image at the end of the passage: a ruined city with only the trees left standing. It brought to my mind the poem “Grass” by Carl Sandburg.
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
There are various ways to interpret this, but I have always read it as a commentary on the resilience of nature and a call for humankind to be humble, even about its capacity for destructiveness. The epic battles that loom so large in human history may devastate the landscape, but it does not take long for nature to reclaim its own. In this panel I have tried to depict the passage, as it were, from the point of view of the trees. The winners and the losers, the attackers and the defenders, have all passed away, but the grass and the trees endure.
The Torah Project - Progress Report
Mar. 20th, 2016 11:23 pmA few weeks ago I wrote about participating in a project to create a giant cross-stich Torah scroll. So I thought it was time to post a progress report.
Here is what my panel looks like now:
As you recall, my verses are about how one out of every ten animals in your flocks and herds is to be sacrificed to the Lord. So I drew a flock of 20 sheep, of which two are marked for sacrifice. They are the two that are behind the symbolic red poppies. You can see more clearly in this close-up:
The close-up also shows that my sheep unfortunately don't actually look very much like sheep. Well, maybe one or two do. But I see a sheep that looks like an armadillo, one that looks like a buffalo, and others that look like a bear, a panda, a rat, a dachshund, a couple of cows, and some that look like no animal on earth. I might have to hide some of them behind some strategically placed vegetation. Or else re-do them, but I don't want to re-work it too much for fear of losing that naive folk-arty quality. As Robert Browning would say, I fear I never could re-capture that first fine careless rapture.
The next step is to put a gigantic tree into the big white space between the sheep and the calligraphy. I don't know how appropriate that is to the Holy Land, but I have a fixed idea that sheep graze under huge trees, because that is what I saw them doing when we were in England.
Here is what my panel looks like now:
As you recall, my verses are about how one out of every ten animals in your flocks and herds is to be sacrificed to the Lord. So I drew a flock of 20 sheep, of which two are marked for sacrifice. They are the two that are behind the symbolic red poppies. You can see more clearly in this close-up:
The close-up also shows that my sheep unfortunately don't actually look very much like sheep. Well, maybe one or two do. But I see a sheep that looks like an armadillo, one that looks like a buffalo, and others that look like a bear, a panda, a rat, a dachshund, a couple of cows, and some that look like no animal on earth. I might have to hide some of them behind some strategically placed vegetation. Or else re-do them, but I don't want to re-work it too much for fear of losing that naive folk-arty quality. As Robert Browning would say, I fear I never could re-capture that first fine careless rapture.
The next step is to put a gigantic tree into the big white space between the sheep and the calligraphy. I don't know how appropriate that is to the Holy Land, but I have a fixed idea that sheep graze under huge trees, because that is what I saw them doing when we were in England.
