Rafter Bazaar
Where Rafters share and celebrate their making
Welcome to the Rafter Bazaar!
Here you can browse beautiful creative works (or projects-in-progress) by folks in our awesome Raft community!
What counts as “creative”?
Almost anything! Writing, cooking, quilting, painting, gardening, raising a family, rearing animals, taking photographs, making music . . . you name it.
Here’s how to respond to another Rafter’s work or share your own . . .
First, make sure you’re a Rafter. Only Rafters can comment in the Bazaar. If you try to comment and haven’t yet joined The Raft mailing list (as either a free or paid subscriber), you’ll be asked to do so.
To respond to someone else’s work:
Click “Reply” (or the 💬 icon) in the comment section beneath the work you wish to respond to.
Enter your response in the box that pops up (e.g., type text, upload an image, share a link).
When you finish your response, click the “Post” button beneath the box.
To share your own work:
Either click the “Leave a Comment” button below or scroll down to the comment box at the top of the comment section. (Note: If you’re sharing your work “in conversation” with somebody else’s creation, you might wish to follow the instructions in #2 above.)
Enter your material (e.g., upload an image of your work or your process, share a link, type/paste text). (Posting here does not constitute publication.)
When you finish your comment, click the “Post” button beneath the box.
Don’t be shy! Feel free to add marketing links to things you have for sale. This is a bazaar, after all!
I'll get the ball rolling with "Mother Tree," a poem I wrote earlier this year. I'm currently experimenting with how to put the poem on a piece of birch bark. Then I'll mat and frame it. I'll try to take photos of that process to share. The poem's line breaks are changing as I play with the bark, so don't hold me to them!
MOTHER TREE
Phyllis Cole-Dai
Move inward from my
bark to my heartwood.
Count my rings as you
go, the record of my years,
chronicle of my seasons:
sunshine and shade, heat
and cold, drought and rain,
fire that scarred me, lightning
that split me open, insects
that stripped me bare.
The bending to stay upright.
The sickness and ache.
And the bouncing back.
The impossible revival.
Bands of light and dark.
Some thin, some thick,
some right, some wrong.
Loved, it all belongs.
The rings you find in me
you will find in other mothers.
We root our feet in the same land,
lift our arms toward the same sky.
Don’t think us separate
because we stand apart.
And don’t think our rings reveal
all that we are. We never stop
growing, even after we fall.
I'm currently working on a project that I started years ago and then had "material issues" in that I couldn't find a good way to print the words in my artist book. I recently found a way to learn Letterpress printmaking and am resuscitating this poem of sorts for this new artist book. I am in the process of setting the type for the "wordy" part.
Winter Mantra
The smell of freshly cut apples,
the crackle of a beginning fire
and the warmth from the stove.
Footprints, tracks and snow angels in the snow,
And just snow!
Falling, driving, dancing in the wind.
Bright red berries, heavy quilts
and cardinals at the feeder,
the glow of beeswax candles
lighting our corner of the dark solstice.