bellywater

welcome, little bird!

with great joy we announce the birth of HERON SELAH GARRELS!

heron was born just over a week ago--thursday, may 29, at 12:43 a.m. in muncie, indiana.  she weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces & measured 20.25 inches long.  she was born after 7 fast but intense hours labor.  we praise the Lord for a beautiful & healthy baby girl, for a safe & natural delivery, for a wonderful midwife and attending nurse, and for michelle's amazing birth partner/coach, josh!

many have asked us where her name came from, so here is the story of HAIR-uhn SAY-la:

when josh & i first discovered i was pregnant we began to think of names that meant or symbolized healing to us.  soon we began to ponder bird names, for birds & wings have always symbolized healing to us because of the imagery in scripture (malachi 4:2 and matthew 9:20-22 in particular).  in the passage from matthew, the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years touches the hem of Christ's garment or prayer shawl, which is also called "wings".  this passage became important to us about seven years ago, soon after josh & i met but before we were married, & the Lord spoke through this passage that He would heal me of a similar condition & enable me to carry life.  for years i've had endometriosis, an affliction in which every doctor i'd seen over a period of 10 or so years had told me could very likely cause infertility, or, at the very least i would have a very difficult time conceiving.  but the Lord promised healing to us then, seven years ago, & He has done it!

 

so why a heron?  when josh & i moved to eaton, indiana for this season of recording (josh's album), we began to stalk the great blue heron along the banks of the mississinewa river.  she always seemed to show up at the most important moments, one of which was on our way to the clinic for a pregnancy test.  as we left the house we drove past the heron, stopped the car & watched her take off in flight.  in that moment i knew in my heart that i was pregnant, that we were having a girl, & the name "selah blue" came into my head.  but soon "heron" became the true name of our baby girl, & we were pretty certain about it for the majority of the pregnancy.

 

so this is heron selah, our healing little bird, our symbol of christ's healing & comfort & care for us.  & she has already brought us such comfort through the recent death of my father (6 weeks ago).  we praise the Lord for her!  she is the sweetest creature we've ever known, & we delight in spending our days with her.

the death of a friend

i have been absent from this site for so long due to the unexpected death of my dear father. it was just about a month ago that he passed away after a brief & mysterious battle at the hospital. we are doing well, i think, but still in shock.

: here is a favorite picture of my dad, taken last summer :

i haven't written about it here because this land of tears seems so sacred. & many of you probably read our family blog anyway, where i have written more about this (though i still save most of the processing for my journal, & one-on-one conversations with friends). i really don't know who else checks in on this bellywater blog, but for anyone who does & has wondered where i've been... this is what's been happening in the life of our family.

in addition, i am 37 weeks pregnant. this is such a joyful time, full of anticipation & wonder. yet so strange to be holding out an equal hand to sorrow & joy. two paths we straddle, & try to make them one. i do feel like i've been living under such mercy these days, by some invisible hand. these times are sad, but the Lord is near to us & our broken, mixed-up hearts. & we are grateful to have such imminent joy at our fingertips, the birth of our daughter...

words remain

on st. patrick's day josh & i had a fun lunch guest--neal taflinger from the indianapolis star. he drove up to interview josh + record a video of josh performing a new song called "words remain". this is one of my favorites; it always makes me cry. josh's voice + the charango (an instrument from my home country) is one of the most haunting concoctions in the world. so here's a little preview of some material on the new album.

and here's neal's full written interview on indy.com

i usually keep my home + work life with josh a little separate from bellywater handmade (& therefore this site). but increasingly i have been partnering with him in his work, & so the lines are blurry! on this latest project i have joined up with him in critique, some lyric-writing, harmonies, & art (album cover, promotion, website--all of which will have to be kept secret until the summer release of his album). we love this collaboration more & more, and, i think, are getting better at not hurting each other's feelings in the process!

puerto de pucallpa

creation is a letting go. i've never thought that all of my art is personal, or even representative of any sort of process i'm going through. for a long time i've simply said that i like to make "pretty things," that there is seldom any working out of emotions or thoughts in what i make. but now i think this is too simple, & untrue. on the most basic level, even if i am not conscious at the time of what i am trying to say, i am at the very least encountering some sort of healing through creation. or, at times i may not be conscious of what i am saying or trying to say through a piece as i create it, but later it will come to me. that recently happened with the following piece, puerto de pucallpa, which i initially posted on january 9.

i felt a real loss when i discovered that this piece in particular, along with the two others i submitted to the auction, sold. silly i know. but i have rarely sold any larger art pieces (aside from my wearable, textile-based bellywater handmade art, which tends to be less symbolic & personal), so the letting go was new for me. i had been unable to make it to the auction, so the thought of selling a piece to a complete stranger felt so foreign to me. i didn't realize until just after i'd submitted it that it had become very personal to me. healing, even. the other two pieces did not feel so intimate or symbolic, but this one was different. i didn't know until after it sold what the meaning of it was, & what story it represented. i have just discovered that my dear friend joseph is the one who purchased the piece, & the other night while he & his girlfriend were over for dinner i was able to share the story of it with him. & then i absolutely LOVED the fact that he was the "stranger" who had purchased it.

: this is the original picture i had planned to use in the piece :

: this is the one i ended up choosing, & now i know why :

the story i was trying to convey, that i realized after submitting the piece, was one of providence & hope. this story came back to my memory in november of this past year, when my body was doing strange & painful things, & i was very concerned about miscarriage. i was exactly at the 12-week mark, & a friend had just miscarried the day before. my own pregnancy felt so precarious, but i had this amazing dream, & woke up remembering this story. as i remembered the story, peace washed over me, & i knew that everything was going to be okay. that my baby was going to hold on til the end. (i didn't tell joseph this back story, only the story i'm about to tell you)

i was living out in the jungle, in a shipibo tribe, doing sustainable development work, mainly with women + artisans in an indigenous community of about 300 people along the amazon river. i lived there with sometimes one co-worker, other times a team of agricultural workers & nurses, for three weeks at a time, with no electricity or running water, venturing downriver to the city for a week at a time to stock up on supplies, communicate with family, & file reports.

one particular time my work partner, cory, & i, had to return to our home city of pucallpa early, unexpectedly. the trip was eight hours by boat, & we could look forward to a long, loud, meandering ride shared with chickens, pigs, & literally tons of bananas, via public transportation. we waited from early morning for a boat to pass. nothing. nothing came by all day, until 7 o'clock at night. we'd enjoy a few magical minutes of fireflies escorting our boat dowriver, but then the mosquitoes would descend & destroy. a long night of sleepless travel, when finally we arrived at the port at 3 in the morning.

the port of pucallpa is a dangerous place. a place of thieves & violence. it would be safe neither to stay on the boat, nor to leave the boat to head home via mototaxi. we were trapped. suddenly, without explanation, cory climbed on top of the tin-roofed boat, and, at the top of her lungs yelled, "EHMER! EHMER!" this, i soon discovered, was her brother's name. within 5 minutes her brother came paddling across the river in his dugout canoe, & began unloading our bags. we climbed into his tiny homemade ship, & he ferried us across to the safety of his houseboat. we arrived to the precarious safety of his floating home (similar to the houseboat pictured), a shack with a tin roof lashed to floating oil drums, where "great is thy faithfulness" was bellowing in spanish on the radio. he fed us instant coffee & bread, & we floated peacefully to sleep.

great is thy faithfulness indeed. & goodness. that's a picture of provision & hope to me. & that's the safety i now feel in my womb.

onesies & baby legs

two dear college friends of mine, molly & amy, are both having babies within a week from me. molly's due date is one week after mine; amy's is one week after molly's. molly & i are even seeing the same midwife! i don't know about this yet, but everyone tells me that babies mostly wear onesies when they're tiny, so i thought baby fox & baby j. could use some onesies. & i, for one, am incredibly excited about baby legs for my own child, so...

: little deer : (for molly's baby)

: big star : (for amy's baby)

i don't expect that amy's baby girl will be wearing much pink, so i went with more of a punk rock theme.

bird tote

: a gift for cris :

it's been a swirlingly busy week of hosting, helping my husband with his album project, & making gifts! we've been waking up early lately, but instead of ending our work days earlier, we end up working until the middle of the evening. we have so much energy on the days we rise with the sun! & we enjoy our work so much that it's easy to lose track of the hours. i'd love to post a picture of the work i did for josh's project this week, but it's a secret until the full album is released--this summer! his album cover art will be my main work in the coming weeks. so far, a really fun (and challenging) collaboration!

skill sharing

my friends erin, megan, & i have started a weekly skill-sharing day. we make a meal together, drink tea, & teach a skill to the others. this week erin taught me & megan to knit.

(this one is actually from the week before, erin crocheting)

last week they brightened my day by bringing fresh sunflowers, oranges & dark chocolate (my favorite!), making a meal, & even cleaning out the cat litter! it's been so valuable to me in this time of pregnancy & relative solitude (living in the country, working from home) to have times & connections with other women!

next week i will teach them xerox & packing tape transfers. i love these times!

screenprint tutorial, part ii

: here is a picture to clarify what i mean by "curtain fabric" :

the kind i bought was in the home decor section of the fabric store, on a large roll, 9 1/2 feet wide (so i purchased 1/4 yard). it is sheer, shouldn't have much give (so you can stretch it tightly in the hoop), & is probably a synthetic polyester blend. also, if given an option, choose the fabric with the tightest weave.

screenprint tutorial

meg has asked for an embroidery hoop screenprinting tutorial. here is a good tutorial i've found online, but here are a few extra tips from my experience:

as recommended in the tutorial, you can use mod podge to block out the screen. but if you want to be able to print with a little more detail, you can also purchase speedball brand screen drawing fluid + screen filler from an art supply store. this costs a little more than mod podge, but for some projects i've needed these supplies for more accuracy. you can apply the screen drawing fluid with a tiny paint brush, let it dry, & then apply the screen filler (to block the parts you don't want to print) across the entire screen. let that dry, & then rinse out the drawing fluid. your paint will now print through the areas where the drawing fluid was once painted.

the tutorial also says you can use old nylons for your screen, but i would recommend cheap sheer curtain fabric (pictured below). or, even better, buy silkscreen by the yard at an art supply store. i don't always have this on hand, but i do ultimately prefer it. this will also allow you to print more accurately than curtain fabric, because the thread count is much higher. curtain fabric is a bit cheaper, but you'll use such a small piece that it won't ultimately be a big price difference. but... it depends on what you are printing!

i do actually own a "real" screen which is why i have all the supplies. & i've been taught the real method, but generally my projects are small, & i prefer the easier, less messy method! i do have some actual screenprinting ink, but since i haven't needed waterproof paint for my projects, i have generally chosen to use cheap acrylic paints, available at hobby lobby. there is an infinite color selection in these paints (delta creative's "ceramcoat" is a favorite, around $2 a bottle), compared to the limited primary colors available in screenprinting fabric ink.

try mod podge + curtain fabric + cheap acrylic paints first (since most of you probably own these already, except the curtain fabric?), & if you're satisfied with the results, stick with it! keep it cheap & simple! i only tried the the screen filler + drawing fluid + silkscreen fabric because i had them on hand. it's just a matter of what suits you, your available materials, your particular project, & your budget!

happy printing!

experimental

i don't officially know how to screenprint. my variety of screenprinting involves curtain fabric (or, on rare occasions, actual silkscreen fabric) + an embroidery hoop + acrylic paints + a cardboard box fashioned as a squeegee. not too professional or exact, but it seems to suit my needs! it's done in my own little way, & i like to think of it as cottage industry or appropriate technology! it fits my skill level, my materials, & my budget. oh, to take a real screenprinting class one day! but i also sincerely love making do with what i have.

one new commissioned project i'm working on will involve learning a new skill set (in order to create what i envision). i love it when projects encourage or force me to learn new mediums (sometimes i still need "assignments" to motivate me to learn)! my friend dee is going to teach me spinning, & erin is going to teach me some more printmaking techniques. both of these women are good improvisers, too, & will teach me these crafts with simple or found materials. dee swears that you can spin absolutely anything, & that you can even use a potato + a pencil as the method (drop spinning). erin makes beautiful prints, though i don't believe she's ever taken a class. she also uses found objects for her craft, & will teach me to do so as well. i love that these new mediums, & the way they'll be taught to me, will translate easily to a developing world setting where resources & technologies are limited. so this is good practice for me, & will enable me to teach other women one day in an innovative, technologically appropriate way.