Split Needles

There is willful cruelty in the world, but there is also wonder.

I'm working on getting this poster framed:

You can't so much see the detail, but I picked up a copy when I was working the Waterloo Arts Fest about a month back. It was hiding in a stack by the door. Part of what makes it so great is that on my copy you can see places where the ink didn't take to the page, and someone worked back into the lines with graphite. The whole things just so human, and I love that.

I'm holding a Stitch and Bitch this coming Sunday at Arts Collinwood, where I work. Free beer, snacks, and fiber fun! I would love to have anyone and everyone come visit. There's a really great show in our gallery right now too, called "Latest Additions". It features the work of a group of recent CIA grads that work in different craft areas. Of everything, I am particularly found of Beth Whalley's drawings (http://www.bethwhalley.com). So it will be a really great opportunity to chill in the gallery and check out the show!

We're located at:

15605 Waterloo Rd

Cleveland, OH 44110

I left Medina for Cleveland a few nights back. Dusk was falling and the sun just barely started sinking after I hit 71 North. For the duration of my drive into the city I watched the colour spread like wildfire, twisting as it bled out into the saturated grey of the clouds. Only moments after it ducked bellow the horizon I dropped onto the East Bound bridge and swapped the setting sun for city lights.

I think I needed a reminder of beauty in change, and the worth of all things - no matter how faulty fleeting.

Porch Deprivation

While spending a little time in my home town, keeping an eye on one very ornery siamese cat I spotted this video on TV. It's simple and stunning, one of the best visual adaptations of a song that I have come across in quite sometime. I was thrilled to learn it was fan made, and that Death Cab picked it up as the official video for little bribes. This makes me really want to send them the books I made...haha

I've been dwelling on 2054 E.115th a lot these days. Sometimes I wake up in my bed in my new apartment, and before my eyes can snap open I'm convinced I'm back behind the paper thin walls that held me for just under two years. The house itself was fouler than foul, falling apart in more ways than one. I honestly felt like I would never escape, and that I lived in some sort of waking purgatory. I counted down the days until I would be free from its filth forever, and believe me I am grateful to finally be out. What I do admit to longing after is the most fabulous front porch I've ever owned or experienced. I have yet to find one that matches it or even comes close. All I have here is a shared picnic table in a grassy side yard attached to my apartment complex. My heart aches for all the old houses across the way, and for dawn breaking over the hospital just beyond them. A lot of things happened in that house. Good things grew from mostly bad, and no matter how much I am glad to be rid of it I am also just the slightest bit sad to have seen it pass out from under me. I was a very different person when I unpacked my things and moved into that space at the end of August '07 than I was when I filled the bed of a truck with everything I own and took it all elsewhere only a little over a month ago. Part of me will always be on the porch of that house watching the sun set, or the snow fall to a backdrop of trains slowing to a halt and passing through the city where I live.

(an excerpt from my moleskin.

Copic marker, Le pen, and graphite

(c) Sandi Petrie)

Midsummer

I've been putting off starting things here until I had some charming little work of art to replace the dry, computer generated banner-template..but since that has yet to happen I've decided to dive right in, and apologize up front for the delay and lack of creative energy.

The past couple months have been unlike any I have ever experienced. They've been full of highs and lows, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of my time away from school or my experiences in the "working world". It's ll very strange and surreal. I can admit that I have certainly enjoyed the dimly-lit back office of this tiny gallery on the far East side of Cleveland, but part of me wants to be young and free forever. There's only so much gratification that I feel working for a paycheck (no matter how much you love what you do to get there) can really bring you. Money has made me lose sight of a lot recently, so I'm trying to occupy my mind with other things.

Things I have really been enjoying lately:

-Now We Can See (the new Thermals Album)

-Following Tokyo Police Club's blog space

-Lady GaGa's theatrical/visually stunning music videos

-Great Lakes Grass Roots Ale

-The unusually cool July weather

-My new Kitten, Faye. (she is quite lovely)

Things I am anticipating in the upcoming months:

-Tokyo Police Clubs new album (dear autumn, this means I really encourage you to come quickly)

-Tegan and Sara's next installment

-Knitting needles 

-a studio space

- dedicating myself to making work full time

-cat sitting Leo for a little over a week.

 I would really like to share the following song lyrics with you. It's going to feel like a full-blown Thermals overload here for a while, but I am genuinely in love. So please be patient. Maybe even find a little inspiration in them yourself (which is certainly what I am hoping for here.)

passing the corners we kissed in the rain
passing these old rusted warning signs
what did they say?
I think they said, "run!"

passing the roofs of excuses we made
passing these open windows
what made me turn away?
how did I fight the flat days and the static nights?

-Excerpt from "Saint Rosa and the Swallows" - The Thermals

 I've seen a ceiling of screens

Shaped like clouds in the sky
I saw a wall, it was all between me
And where I'll lie
I laid on a bed with my head
Spinning zero and one into two
Dreaming of you
And how we fade

I laid in a shower of color and numbers
And numbers and words
I opened my eyes and my ears and my eyes
And I saw and I heard
I opened my mouth, nothing came out
Nothing at all I could do
Dreaming of you
And how we fade

I dug a hole
It was only as deep
As the ground I had known
I fell asleep
Just so I wouldn't be left to die all alone
I opened my mouth, hoping to shout
Hoping the words were true

Dreaming of you
Dreaming of you
And how we fade 

-"How We Fade" - The Thermals

The air isn't thin
The air isn't thick
The air isn't anything
It doesn't exist
It's not what we need
At the bottom of the sea

The light is gray
The light is rare
It barely touches us
It's barely there for me
At the bottom of the sea

And I'm barely there for you

I will never come up
I will never compare
Wind to the sand
Water to air
It's not what I want
It's what I need

The love is near
I hear it speak
It's in my sight
But just out of reach
It slips from my hand
Just like it did on the land

And I'm barely there for you

For the air
For the light
For the love
Is barely there for me
At the bottom of the sea
It's not what I want
It's what I need

-"At the Bottom of the Sea" - The Thermals