I took my laptop with me to Seagrove to visit the Artgirl, but never even got it out of my backpack. So here's a photo dump from yesterday, when we toured potteries and art studios in Seagrove, Star, Ether, WhyNot, and other communities in this little constellation of wide places in the road in central North Carolina.
The mural at the top is the side of the Ray Pottery building in Ether. The following were all taken at Starworks, a big multimedia studio and residency center (glass, metal, pottery), in Star.
Gigantic plexiglass sculpture/experience thing out front:
Inside were sculptures from their annual FireFest, made to be revealed as they fire, with fire pouring out of them (there were photos, and I didn't think to photograph them myself, but all these things were pretty apocalyptic-looking):
Friday night we went into Asheboro, the nearest town of any size, for dinner in a brew pub (Four Saints: very good!) with a street-taco food truck. Then we drove around the countryside, and the Artgirl directed us to a historic covered bridge she'd discovered in her own driving around. The little foot trail that circles around from one side of the creek to the other was quite pleasant in the summer evening.
Yesterday we toured potteries --- five galleries were hosting a "Pottery Tea," where you could go, look at wares, and sample local herbal iced teas, quite refreshing on a very hot, humid day. Other galleries were open and doing a brisk business as well, since the tea event was attracting people to the area. The Artgirl had to work all day in her gallery --- she sold one of her own mugs! --- but went to dinner with us afterward (another pub, this time in Seagrove itself, and another food truck, Thai this time). We met her landlord, who is probably the best-known of the generational potters in that area (potters who have inherited and continued their grandfathers' or great-grandfathers' craft), and many other interesting ceramic artists. I also did most of my Christmas shopping, an absolute first for me. It's all on the dining-room table now, and I'll have to find a place to a) stash it, and b) not forget that I bought it, and c) for whom. That'll be the real challenge.
Sadly we came away. The Artgirl will be home Tuesday, I think, and fly out again to meet a friend in San Diego on Thursday, to drive back to Dallas together. And that will be the end, for the time being, of having a child within relatively easy reach. How fast the time goes. Now I've got to work out when I'm going to visit the Texas outpost.
Here is the Artgirl in her gallery, holding one of the pots she made this summer. I don't habitually post photos of my children online, but this one is on the gallery's Facebook and Instagram pages, so it's out there already:
And now we're back, same old same old. Off to Mass in another 90 minutes. I'm feeling a bit depleted and not in the mood to plan a whole week's wardrobe right now, though maybe later I will. It does help me to have that menu to choose from --- but how helpful it is depends on my taking stock of the closet and what I didn't wear the week before. In the dog days of summer, when it's hot-hot-hot and so heavy, I almost don't feel like bothering. It's easy to wear the same handful of light, cool things over and over. And I think that's fair, to be honest. In the middle of winter, I do the same thing with warm layers. So I'm going to cut myself some slack in the area of creativity, and give myself permission simply to wear what feels good on hot days.
In fact, what I wore yesterday was this:
And I was glad. This secondhand NPL Smock dress hangs away from the body and breathes. Step into a pair of Birks, and you're dressed and done. I had washed my hair, but didn't feel like doing anything with it, so I braided it wet and put it up in a claw clip, like so:
The day was not cool, and tramping around outside and through people's studios and galleries, I was not cool. But I was as cool as it was possible to be, given those circumstances. And actually, it was fine. I felt good. I felt good simply because I was wearing a dress (most other women were not, and for every conceivable reason I was glad that I was), but not a fussy dress. This was simple, natural, comfortable, just right. Truly, since I bought this dress on Poshmark last December, not a day has gone by that I haven't been glad to own it.
Ditto, really, the linen dress I wore Friday. I didn't think I was going to love that brown, but it's been so perfect for so many occasions. It makes what could read as rather a fussy, dressed-up dress read instead as low-key and casual. You can dress it up. But it's also so good just to throw on for schlepping around . . . oh, I don't know . . . pottery studios, for example.
Washed my hair again this morning, to try to wear it down today. I just bought some more of my favorite Head&Shoulders Bare low-ingredient shampoo --- but all I could find was the "Soothing Hydration" formula, which is almost too hydrating. I like it and am going to use it, but I don't think I'll be able to go as many days between washes. We'll see. Anyway, my scalp felt this morning as though it wanted a wash, so that's what I did. Going to go dry it and get dressed for the day. More to come!
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (S/M) in Cinnamon Rose, bought December 2023, last worn on Thursday night. No time right now to count up the total wears this year, but a quick glance at my Google Photo album for the year tells me that, except for our two weeks in Norway, where I didn't take any linen dresses, I've worn this dress pretty regularly.
*VERY old Jones New York rayon cardigan, bought in 2005-2006, worn more or less continuously in all that time.
*Secondhand Alegria floral Mary Janes, bought last week, last worn Thursday.
*Target bag, bought April 2023 as an emergency measure at an arts conference, when the bag I had brought with me broke. I bought it totally on the fly, but I've liked how the olive green works with my wardrobe. Here, I think both the pale blue and the blushy pink love it.
Feeling pretty bloaty after the weekend, but the flared skirt of this dress is good camouflage.
And we're off. Outfit plan to come, maybe.
AFERNOON UPDATE:
Been to Mass, and it was very nice. Chatted long with Br. Chrysostom about hymns and chants he's translating from Latin into English.
Pulled my hair back out of my face before I left home, too. I think it was an improvement:
Natural-light color check in the car:
This is, again, a really chameleonic pink that I think would look good with a wide range of color types. I think it would be too muted for someone with really high-contrast dark-hair/blue-white-skin coloring. but it's rose enough to play nice with my pink tone and with colors I like to wear, such as this pale blue. MEANT TO ADD: But I also think it has enough peach/orange to work for women with more yellow/apricot undertones to their skin. Women who don't wear really pinky pinks very well (many redheads, for example) could, I believe, wear this color really successfully.
Came home, ate eggs in a tortilla wrap, talked to my mother and the Texasgirl on the phone, and then went out and got devoured by mosquitoes while pruning back some overgrown stuff along the garden walk. That's the thing about summer: I don't mind the heat so much, but I loathe and despise and hate the mosquitoes and flies. They can all die yesterday.
Anyway, taking a break now to scratch my mosquito bites and think about the week. Not much out of the ordinary on, though Thursday is the Solemnity of the Assumption, a Holy Day of Obligation. And because it's a Marian feast, I'll want to wear blue.
So here's a tentative clothing menu plan:
For Thursday: Flax navy tunic, vintage April Cornell rayon floral maxi skirt, Birks or Crocs. This outfit, basically, with one of two long cardigans. I liked the champagne-colored one the last time I wore it, so probably that again.
Otherwise:
*Wool& Audrey with a button shirt (not sure which one, but maybe purple linen) and Birks
*Wool& Beetroot Brooklyn with Birks. POSSIBLY with purple Flax linen skirt, because I kind of liked that combo the last time I wore it.
*Green Garnet Hill maxi skirt with pink Eileen Fisher merino tank OR pink linen top --- I like both of these tops with this skirt. Maybe the linen top, since I haven't worn it in a while. Birks, always easy. And then . . .
*Pink linen trousers with Eileen Fisher merino tank and button shirt
*Wool& Aegean Teal Maggie, maybe with my red linen-blend maxi skirt, because I haven't worn that combo in a while. Birkenstocks, again, are easy with everything. Might as well wear them a lot, because I'm going to miss them once the weather turns cold.
*Sunday Mass: Wool& Marine Blue Maggie with Trades of Hope kimono and Papillio wedges
*maybe one more just-in-case outfit . . . pondering what I haven't worn in a while. It'll have been about ten days since I last worn my floral linen pinafore, and I always love that, maybe with my Devold tee this time. If I don't wear it this week, I'll roll it over to next week.
Now I'd better consider what's for dinner . . . It's been nice just to belly up to bars and food trucks all weekend, but I had better get my real-life act back together.