Inspire :: following a thought born from emotion

Many times over the last months I've wondered why I haven't

been able to bring myself back to this blog. In truth, I've missed it sorely.

This spot used to be like a favorite room in my house,

fairly comfy (without the dust) where I gladly resided with a warm cuppa

(or a wee dram) and a contented dog companion glued to my feet.

But gradually, I grew uncomfortable with spending

time here and rather than push the issue for the sake of continuity,

I simply left the room altogether.  Not unlike relationships in life, I suppose,

where the best move can be to offer distance and reprieve.

Finally, today, I've sorted the reason 'why' I left, after months of not knowing.

I simply got sick & tired of talking about myself.

I do a bit of it still, if I'm honest, over on Instagram, but in much smaller doses
where the emphasis always feels like it's more about the pictures -
for some reason that feels more palatable for now.

I remember when I first started blogging, how difficult it was to express

thoughts and emotions to some invisible audience "out there." A most uncomfortable

position for an introvert to be in, while at the same time a  most perfect

outlet for an introvert (if that makes any sense at all).

Over time - years, in fact - that uncomfortableness waned ... until it didn't anymore

and I found myself full circle, poised in front of the keyboard

absolutely tongue-tied.

So what this all comes down to is that I'd like to reshape a way to be around.

One of my most valued pastimes is perusing artwork produced by those who strike
some sort of chord ... work wherein I find inspiration and/or solace
and which can often produce a launchpad for new creative ideas.

Although any genre has the spirit to pull, my particular love & focus is on textiles
and remains an abiding constant. Gosh, truly, there is SO MUCH amazing work 

happening with cloth; from massive installations, to incredible books, to even
the tiniest bits of recycled scrap embedded in collage. Often this work is made
by names I barely recognize or have never heard of altogether.

I'd like to post some of that work here.

To no set schedule.

To no particular timetable.

I'll call the album, 'Inspire'
and maybe it will do so for some of you, too.
And maybe then we can get back to some jolly good conversations again,
like the ole days.
I've missed that.

More soon.

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The window as a metaphor

Following the thread of a thought brought on

by this morning's post to Instagram, I made a curious discovery;

I discovered that since my very first post on IG in 2014

I've posted a total of 14 images related to  the window.

Just what is it about them I find so intriguing?

~ view into the woods right after dawn, posted August 2017 ~

A quick hop to googleland took me on a merry journey exploring symbolism.

There was this article in particular, 'Windows: Exploring the History of a Metaphor' by

H. J. Krysmanski

“The ‘window’ metaphor has a long career in the history of art and, in fact, in the evolvement of the human perspective in general.” 

It's long, but comprehensive, with a thought-provoking list of subtitles to choose from:

The Evolution of the Window

The Evolution of the Window Metaphor

Source of Eternal Light: the Gothic Cathedral

Renaissance: the Appearance of the Screen

Light on Privacy: the Windows of Jan Vermeer

Window Dressing: Staging the Theatrical Stage

Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Reality in Victorian England

Space and Time: the Epistemology of Screening and Framing

The Eye: Mirror and Window of the Soul

The Window Metaphor in Islamic Culture

The Window Metaphor in Buddhism and Confucianism

Walls of Glass: the Essence of Architecture

Modern Painting: in Defense of the Classical Screen

‘Peep Show’ and ‘Fensterln’: Folklore of the Windows Experience

Window Shopping: the Commodification of Desire

The Window Metaphor in Modern Science

Journeys through Space: the Cinema Screen

Surveillance: Monitoring the Radar Screen

Archaeology of the Computer Screen

How ‘Windows’ Chanced To Become A Registered Trade Mark

~ bedroom window overlooking the wild Atlantic :: Isle of Harris, Scotland, posted August 2017 ~

So what if I just compile all my windows here, as a group? ... ALL of them

in the order they were posted starting with this morning's, working back thru time.

I'd like to see what their collective voice may have to say.

~ better than the movies, posted February 2017 ~

~ sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, west Cork, Ireland, posted October 2016 ~

~ first crack, posted September 2016 ~

 "It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need

to change you.  If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand ..."

~ from 'Self Portrait' by David Whyte, posted June 2016 ~

~ after a big swim, posted December 2015 ~

~ sometimes it takes darkness, posted April 2015 ~

~ threshold :: St. Conan's Kirk, Scotland, posted November 2014 ~

~ seasonal changes afoot :: watching rainclouds mass, posted September 2014 ~

~ 9:05 a.m. on 9/05/2014, posted September 2014 ~

~ first evening in Edinburgh :: view at twilight, posted August 2014 ~

~ my friend's house :: needs a wee bit of housekeeping, Newburgh, Scotland, posted July 2014 ~

~ self :: riding the wind, posted April 2014 ~

:::

straight photography,

app-ed photography;

the real, the imagined, the wished for

... the simple 'what was there.'

“Above all, though, windows have permitted man to experience the essence of light, from Chartres Cathedral to the paintings of Vermeer, and to this day even their most mundane use implies some sort of interaction with the unknown and with infinity.”

I don't mind keeping the question open for now.

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Go.

I posted this over on Instagram yesterday,

but I'm thinking it needs a spot over here.

Like a sticky note on the mirror ...

No such thing as spare time,

no such thing as free time,

no such thing as down time,

all you got is life time.

Go.

~ Henry Rollins

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The most important voice

~ Dream Boat, River Tay, Scotland ~

START CLOSE IN

Start close in,
don't take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people's questions,
don't let them
smother something
simple.

To find
another's voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don't follow
someone else's
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don't mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don't take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.

~ David Whyte, from "River Flow: New & Selected Poems"

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bead sketches : month one

When I wrote the following on Dear Flora last month,

"Something new for what is feeling like a glorious new year on the horizon.

Thought it might be time to embark on a yearlong adventure ... 52 weeks

of 3-inch squares and the discovery of all the tiny worlds I can create

within them. I have no idea where this is going,

but go I must ... "

what I didn't mention was that I was going on this journey mainly to

play with beads again.  We'd taken a break, my bead family and I.  You know how it is

when you have to step away for a while in order to come back with fresh eyes,

a renewed heart?

I'd been away for so long that many new bead varieties had hit the markets without me

and I'd been growing steadily more curious about how to integrate them

into bead embroidery work.  Compound this with all the hand dyed

cloth I'd been amassing, explorations with paper, metals and all sorts

of sundry textiles and what was building felt nothing short of a crisis of making ...

I needed to dive.

I needed to stop dreaming and start doing.

For the last year or so I've noticed myself being attracted to the projects

of others who'd committed themselves to creating something/anything on a steady schedule.

Committed.  Key word.

Schedule.  Key word.

Be they daily poems or sketches, weekly paintings or mixed media collages, 

even a gorgeous pair of knitted socks per month, folks were dedicating themselves to

show up ... do the work.  Best of it was, they were gaining much from 

this kind of discipline.  They talked about it - they were having breakthroughs.

Their new creative "habit" was renewing confidence &

providing fertile ground for inspiration.

This, to my mind, was a healthy choice of how to invest ones time.

So I had a good long think about what I could stomach doing for the long haul.

Having really blown it in the past was actually helpful for not setting goals

to outrageously out there ... 20/20 hindsight & all that.

Size was going to be critical.  Beads are [mostly] tiny little pretties

and the last thing I wanted was a demanding blank space shouting, "Fill me up!"

So learning from a previous 6-inch disaster I first cut the size in half.

Another extremely important aspect of setting parameters was allowing

for the element of  play  ... I did not want to produce a *finished* square each week.

Instead, how freeing to simply play with ideas & materials

and just see where that took me.

Hence the name, bead sketches - not particularly clever, but to the point.

Without the pressure of having to finish something each week I found

month one an extremely enjoyable enterprise.  As each new week rolled around I

picked up whatever caught my fancy in the moment & started from there.

I wondered what would happen if I paired this with that,

then tried it.  I experimented with edge treatments & extending beyond

the exact space while allowing the materials to dictate the direction.

There were mess-ups - like joining methods, thread issues, fabric limitations -

which sent the beads all wonky-doodle ...

but I sure know a lot more now then if I'd never started.

Little templates to explore some ideas every week.

Slow and steady ... just show up.

Play relentlessly.

I'm really liking how this feels.

:::

It would be immensely enjoyable to hear about your experiences.

If you are someone who's ever [or currently] embarked on a daily, weekly,

even monthly practice, your comments about the process are most welcome here.

If you'd like to share a link where we can come and see what you made during the process,

please do.  I think the sharing could be very advantageous indeed.

Thank you for stopping by.

"I have no idea where this is going, but go I must ..."

: : :

To view all of the  52 Weeks : Bead Sketches  posts, starting with the most recent,

CLICK HERE

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This moment in between

Winter Solstice

Thinking only makes the heart sore.
I Ching
when you startle awake in the dark morning
heart pounding breathing fast
sitting bolt upright staring into
dark whirlpool black hole
feeling its suction
get out of bed
knock at the door of your nearest friend
ask to lie down ask to be held
listen while whispered words
turn the hole into deep night sky
stars close together
winter moon rising over white fields
nearby wren rustling dry leaves
distant owl echoing
two people walking up the road laughing
let your soul laugh
let your heart sigh out
that long held breath so hollow in your stomach
so swollen in your throat
already light is returning pairs of wings
lift softly off your eyelids one by one
each feathered edge clearer between you
and the pearl veil of day
you have nothing to do but live 


~ Anonymous  by Jody Aliesan, from "Grief Sweat" (Broken Moon Press, 1991)

: : :

Update on solstice morn:  overnight, a friend sent a sweet note.

She wondered if perhaps the "anonymous" poem above had been written by me ...

Although I'd like nothing better then to claim that gem as my own, it troubled

me that such fine words had no author.  So I went back to Google where I'd initially

found it and kept searching, but this time using the first line of the poem and not

the key words  winter solstice  for the search terms. 

And there it was - reprinted in the book section of 

the Los Angeles Times newspaper in the summer of 1991.

I also discovered that the first two lines of the original poem

had been dropped from all the copies circulating the internet;

I have added them back.

In addition, the original contained no capital letters in the body 

and no line spaces - I've revised those as well.

So .... here is the poem in its original, true form.

Thank You to my friend for raising the question that sent me on

a quest for ownership.  Ms. Aliesan deserves this credit and now I can give it.

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Closure :: metaphors in cloth

~ details on silk lace blouse, made by Vernon, 1915-1917 courtesy of Digitalt Museum ~

~ dress by Mariano Fortuny, ca. 1939 via The Costume Institute of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art ~

~ silk stomacher ca. 1720, The Metropolitan Museum of Art ~

~ boro & mending, from the book 'Boro - Rags and Tatters From the Far North of Japan' ~

~ garment design by Isabel Toledo, from the exhibit/book

 'Fashion From the Inside Out' ~

~ Paul, 1999, by Jackie Nickerson from the 'Farm' series ~

~ Peony Dress, Hand, San Francisco, 1997 by Linda Elvira Piedra

from 'The Story of My Love' ~

~ 'Savage Beauty' ensemble by Alexander McQueen, spring/summer collection 2001 ~

~ pattern on dress form, photographer unknown, France ~

~ photo by Lin & Jirsa ~

~ interior seam of boro jacket, sashiko stitched, from Sri Threads ~

~ pieced dress by Gibbous Fashions ~

~ detail from silk evening coat by Paul Poiret, ca 1912, The Metropolitan Museum of Art ~

~ photo by Emmanuelle Brisson, from the series 'L'air frissonne des choses qui

s'enfuient' (The Air Shivers of Things Fleeing) ~

Closure

clo・sure

noun

1.  the act or process of closing, or the state of being closed.

2.  an end or conclusion

2.  a sense of resolution or finality at the end of an artistic work.

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Seeing thru paper

When the Lopez Island natural dyers gathered for this season's planning meeting

[ however wine-laden or deliciously food-laden the "meeting" may have been ]

there was a unanimous & resounding desire to next delve into experimentation

with paper.

We meet tomorrow for what we are calling

our 'Paper Dyeing Extravaganza'

I've got loads of prepping to do but as I sat at the computer this morning

looking over my past - and very few - experiences with this material,

I came across a bunch of Diana Photo app composites I'd made a while back.

They provided a bit of inspiration.

Admittedly, I feel awkward & hesitant with paper ...

while cloth feels familiar & welcoming, with paper I'm standoff-ish.

I love its qualities but I don't know or  understand  its workings yet.

Well, we all know the only way to get over that.

Dive.

Then keep swimming 

& let nature work her very particular magic.

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What do you do for love?

nourish, tend & care

keep watch & protect

bless the ground whereon I walk

make & give away what is in my heart

play, with wild abandon & great joy

nurture optimism with an eye on many fine tomorrows

This is what I do.

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Thievery ... a reflection

Don't worry.  This post is not about what you might think.

But it is about theft.  Of a kind.

It all started when I headed out to the driveway for some pothole repairs.  Minutes before,

while finishing a strong cup of sweet milky tea, I'd been re-reading some inspirational quotes. 

Collected over the years I revisit them periodically - a kind of mental balm.

As I shoveled gravel, loaded buckets into the cart, hauled them down the drive,

one quote in particular

kept going round & round in my head.

Manual labor does this to me.  Always has.  And I suppose if I really examine the subject

I'd have to say that one of the aspects of hard physical work I enjoy the most

is that there's precious little room for mental distraction - it taxes my body 

while something akin to stream-of-consciousness thinking always sets in.

Perhaps it's to do with endorphins, I don't know. 

My 10" X 10" cast iron tamper weighs about 16 pounds and aside from a shovel

- and my own muscle power, such as it is -

it's the only tool necessary for the tedious job of compacting as much gravel as possible

into every size imaginable sodden pothole.

Old-timers would advise me to do this patch job in the dry season

but I've found that after baling a bit of the standing water, those mushy spots are perfect for

accepting a new [repaired] stoney base.

And when they do dry, they're tough as cement.

So I'm out there, working away .... tamping, tamping, tamping,

emptying one gravel bucket, two gravel buckets, leveling, tamping, tamping, tamping,

and my mind wanders off with the quote

and it wanders over to recent thoughts I've had in relation to artist friends who

somehow feel like their creative work isn't good enough; then over to my pal, a fellow dog owner,

whose goal to compete in Agility is being stymied by not feeling good enough; then

to a very sweet gal I know who wouldn't come join in on volunteer wreath-making this season

because she was certain she couldn't make them as pretty as the rest.

Even though she was sorely desirous of camaraderie, she wouldn't come.

My neighbor is embarrassed about her beat up car.

One of my dear ones is so sure she won't measure up she's decided she won't even risk

applying for the job she so desperately wants - no words of encouragement can budge her.

One friend is so jealous of another she's stopped speaking to her altogether,

such is her perception of the other's success & good fortune in life. 

The list went on

and eventually the wondering came around to myself

so I asked self a few tough questions about how I hold my own self back.

Why  DO   so many of us rob ourselves of joy?

Because that's what we're doing when we constantly compare ourselves to others.

I lock my doors when I'm away from home for any amount of time.  I lock my car when I'm

in town and take precautions with online banking.

My doggy is secured in a safe enclosure where harm can't come to her and I

watch my back when I'm in a strange place, walking.

All these are safeguards against theft of one kind or another.

But what of the intangibles ... 

is joy of any less value?

The lowly pothole can be a splendid mirror.

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