I trimmed and glued the feed-sack forest painting into the lid of Baba Yaga's suitcase. What to do for the box itself? I thought of forest debris, but the Grandmother carries that with her as a matter of course and does not need to deliberately glue it into her luggage. I rummaged around amongst the canvases that I don't think will sell, and found this nude, of a mother and dancer. I don't remember why I painted moths on her but seeing them now, it became clear that Baba Yaga, with her skulls and iron teeth and now the wool robe I knit her would obviously have moths. Obviously.

Yesterday I poked around online looking for origami moths to fold. I ended up with a design by Michael Fosse, and kept folding and folding all evening. The paper was from a rather distasteful book that I got from the free shelf at the Post Office.  It will do better remade into moths than read.

This morning I used Damar varnish, which is a tree-based resin that yellows with age, to metamorphose the moths into a more permanent part of Baba Yaga's entourage. After painting the wings I sprinkled fish-scale pigment onto them. I am not sure what the next step is, but I do know that I have to keep moving the moths as they dry so they don't stick to the paper underneath. 

Taxes loom. My friend and accountant Jill visited in the middle of this and I persuaded her to model Baba Yaga's robe. 

In the next few weeks before the show, I think I need to stop having new ideas about this project and simply consolidate and polish what exists. 

If I happen to have an idea from now on it, it will have to go into one of the other moldy rescue suitcases. Mother Holle, the German weather witch, might  get her own luggage, or Daskiya, the Northwest Indian basket ogre. 

Knitting the beargrass into the ceremonial robe was an excellent idea! The robe took a very long time to knit, and it looks fantastic, and then you find yourself offended by the bits of grass sticking out of it, and then you re-calibrate and think, well, vegetation belongs on a ceremonial robe. 

There was some beargrass left, dry and crackly. I soaked it for a few hours and cut up the cat food bag into strips. Today in the afternoon, as snow fell outside in hard little pellets, I made a short shimenawa. These straw ropes denote a sacred space. Will it be a problem for Grandmother Yaga that they ward off evil spirits? Is she an evil spirit? Depends on how you look at her. Nature has always had an edginess to it. 

Nowadays we might look at a forest in terms of board-feet, or the soybean fields that could be there if it weren't for the dang trees, or, if we are an environmentalist, as a sacred space that needs protection. Gone, for the most part, is the ancient terror that we once felt. Forests had wolves, they had bandits and you could get lost forever. You could meet Baba Yaga.

Perhaps I feel, somehow, that we meet as an equal. We could ruin each other. The balance of power has shifted, mostly, to me. For one thing, I own a chainsaw and I know how to use it. On the other hand, some day I will die and the forest will eat me. Time for a rapprochement.

I have run out of most of the little balls of yarn that I've been using for Baba Yaga's robe (though the moth-eaten sweater is still going strong). I remembered that I had an unwelcome delivery last summer, of a boxful of wool hats that didn't sell. I sold about half of them at various craft fairs, but the remainder's been in that box, until now. 

They are partially felted, but with some judicious yanking the yarn mostly unravels. So, the ceremonial robe is growing as those poor old hats are being cannibalized. You can see a heathery-turquoise cable knit thing at the top of the picture, which is re-forming on the needle.

Plus, after a week indoors, the beargrass is getting brittle. I tried soaking hanks of it and they soften right up, so yay, the robe continues to get its share of plant matter.

Obviously, Baba Yaga is not going to use paper cards when there are dead animals lying around for making hide cards with. I cut some of the rotting hides into four-inch squares. They dried in various shapes, since I didn't use stretchers and since each section of the hide is a different thickness.

As preparation for making her card deck, I visited online divination sites and asked, "How can I become a better artist?" My relation to the occult is as a skeptic. Despite not "believing" that the divination methods are speaking personally to me, and further, despite not believing that the universe aligns in a way that speaks to me, I DO believe, quite strongly, that my brain is a pattern-making device. It will find patterns in just about anything. As soon as divination results are given to me, I will begin storytelling. Since the raw materials of storytelling in my mind are unique to me, I will tell a story that is meaningful to me. Here is a demonstration of that:

Using the i Ching, the answer was 60, or "One who is all over the map is no less lost than one without a map."

Using the Tarot, the answer was Past: Six of Swords (I was a protector and made a tactical retreat) / Present: The Emperor (to gain control, I must take responsibility and use logic to review and plan a strategy) / Future: Four of Swords (Another retreat is in order, but since the Six of Swords was also drawn, there might be an actual journey that will bring peace of mind). 

Using rune sticks, the answer was Present: Laguz-fertility / Azsuz-spiritual connection to the universe, reason / Strengths: Sowilo-power and strength / Past: Uruz-discord and dissociation from power / Future: Isa-stagnation / Final Outcome: Jera-positive cycles, harvest.

Using geomancy, the answer was: judge: Coniunctio-fertility / Witness #1-Cauda draconis-bad luck / Witness #2-Laetitia-joy  Since I have a good judge and one bad and one good witness, the outcome depends on how I work the situation, instead of being certainly good or certainly bad.

All right. The story I now tell myself about these four diviniations is that I was obstructed from being a good artist in the past, but at present I am artistically fertile (though perhaps TOO fertile, being all over the map). This is best taken advantage of by crafting a logical plan that includes my strengths. I should listen to my connection with the universe. I should expect a period of bad luck and stagnation, but in the end, there will be joy and harvest.

Now, my question is, how would I form a set of divination devices that might work for Baba Yaga? They should be based on plants and animals, and they should include both birth and death. Since she is an old lady (a very old one!), wisdom, maturity, and decay should be emphasized over friskiness, charm, or physical power.

I decided on groupings of four, since there are four seasons in a year. The first one includes 1. Crow Eggs, 2. Standing Crow, 3. Flying Crow, 4. Crow Skull. Perhaps in the future I'll work out a set of meanings for these, but for now, the cards themselves will be the meaning.

The second grouping of four is 1. Tent Caterpillar larvae, 2 Tent caterpillar moth, 3. Tachinid Pupa, and 4. Tachinid Fly. The tent caterpillars come in swarms, and are predated on by tachinids, which lay eggs on the caterpillars' heads. I'm pretty sure they hatch inside the pupas, where they eat their hosts, and then the pupa is formed inside the host pupa.

Baba Yaga is an archetype that fascinates me, she and her sisters Mother Holle and that Northwest Indian Cannibal Basket Woman. They are forest forces, who eat badly behaved children and reward the good ones. 

Our definitions of "good" and "bad" have changed a little bit. Obedience is not as greatly valued as it used to be, but kindness and a willingness to work hard still sound pretty good. 

In my imagination, though, these ladies take on the role of Nature goddesses. Like nature, they are deadly and implacable. They eat you. And like nature, they have their charming side.

I'm working on a set of pieces for a recycled art show in Bellingham. Since I live on an island I'm forced to think about my waste stream, and so I have far less trash to work with than my mainland peers, who can probably find everything they need in a single afternoon of dumpster diving.

Instead, I looked at the trash that's available to me here in this rural area. Firstly, there is offal. My neighbor slaughtered 16 lambs, as he does every year before the lean months of winter. I have some meat in my freezer. On one of my beach walks, I found where he had dumped the hides and offal for the eagles. In an act of kleptoparasitism, I took some of the hides home, shedding sand, rotting fat, and fleece as I went. I had this idea that I'd prepare the hides to make vellum. It's a labor intensive, stinky job that I spent a few afternoons on but then somehow never got back to. Some of the hides rotted past use, none of them lost all their fur, and in the cold of winter I finally steeled myself to return to the project. 

I ran some hides through the washing machine and picked off as much of the fat as I could stand to work on, thinking about what the Baba Yaga project was going to include.

In the mean time, I had a pile of trash that was created in the last freeze, including some plastic restaurant buckets that were under the gutter drain and buckled as the water froze. Perfect. I'll make a drum for the lady using an undamaged part of a bucket.

The biggest piece of the hide I chose for the drum  still had a bit of hair on it, and some holes where the skin was starting to rot. Baba Yaga's symbols include the chicken-footed house, and her mortar and pestle that she travels with, and the bones that her fence is made of. Those didn't seem right for the painting on the drum. Then I noticed a raven sitting in my garden, staring at one of the lamb heads that is rotting there. Okay then. Ravens. 

I like the idea of mandalas, especially when dealing with nature goddesses, who embody the cycle of the year. The design of this drum includes the nest with eggs for the beginning, and a raven skull for the ending, and then two ravens looking either protective or menacing, depending on whether you are a good or a bad person.