Traffic and Alvin Ailey

Last post was too much.  Off it went into private land.

So here are two drawings, only. Messed with in Photoshop Elements a little.

on the way in to Boston

audience at Alvin Ailey

the fertile cyberspace

“Dreaming is the psyche itself doing soul-work.”  J. Hillman

Although it shouldn’t be, it is amazing to me how much the thoughts and images of other bloggers become part of my inner life. Here is a tiny window into how that happened yesterday.

Michelle’s recent post reminded me of how much I have drawn from psychologist/author James Hillman…

Which prompted me to pull down my ragged and yellowed copy of Hillman’s “The Dream and The Underworld”:

… if we think back on any dream that has been important to us, as time passes and the more we reflect on it, the more we discover in it, and the more varied the directions that lead out of it.

As the dream is guardian of sleep, so our dream-work, yours and mine, is protective of those depths from which dreams rise, the ancestral, the mythical, the imaginal, and all the hiding invisibilities that govern our lives.

Dreams are… watchmen of that coming night, and our attitude toward them may be modeled upon Hades, receiving, hospitable, yet relentlessly deepening, attuned to the nocturne, dusky, and with a fearful cold intelligence that gives permanent shelter in his house to the incurable condition of human being.

“relentlessly deepening” and “fearful cold intelligence” — these are words that an introvert with Pluto on the ascendant (who has kept notes on dreams since she was a girl) can hold on to and embrace!

I went to sleep last night knowing I’d quote some Hillman today, thinking if I remembered a dream, I’d share it, in part because I was inspired (am always inspired) by Grace’s recent post in which she shares a dream about the Dalai Lama. (I forget mine).

And yesterday, Joe, through a series of facebook posts, re-connected me back to this amazing blues singer, Chastity Brown, whom I tried to draw and kept JUST missing freezing the YouTube frame where I wanted it, but drew away anyway, listening to that amazing song, over and over.

And, right now my collar itches, because after months of thinking about it, I cut my hair this morning.  This was inspired in no small part by Saskia whose work, storytelling, abode, and spirit are the primary drivers of my interest in her, but she happens to also have a great HAIRCUT!

All of this weaving and intersection of thought and effort and words and art and music creates a fertile jumble. It crosses media, politics, gender, and geography.

What better cauldron for noticing and using synchronicity?!!

And let me end with this flourish. Mid afternoon yesterday, I picked up a little applique crow I’ve started, with a determination to finish it, when the ca-ring of an incoming comment jingled my nearby phone. It was Mo Crow!!! Can you stand it? All the way around the world in Australia, Mo, who keeps monastic hours in an opposite season, was chiming in.  The evening found me ripping out the incorrectly aligned crow’s legs in part because I want the thing to be good enough to share with an artist (and I mean Mo, of course) whose body of work revolves around and celebrates crows.

“Steal Like An Artist”

select subject and materials

The book “Steal Like an Artist” is a great and inspiring volume. You can read it in an hour and a half, and should, many times.

Here are a few of artist/author Austin Kleon’s liberating and clarifying concepts:

1. “Nobody is born with a style or a voice… We learn by copying.”
2. Copy your heroes.
3. Copy from more than one source.
4. “You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”

In that vein, today I celebrate a cloth face put together in preparation for an upcoming children’s quilting workshop that I’ll be teaching at the Boston Center for the Arts.*  This exercise served two purposes. One, it acquainted me with the project on the tactile level – obviously important when teaching. Two, it gave me a chance to express something, so there is less chance I will insert myself into my students’ work – always a peril for teachers, particularly of young people.

tacking ear down

So, from whom do I steal here? At least three artists.

One, Jude Hill. Jude is a master quilter whose techniques and philosophy I have been studying (and copying) for quite some time now. Her teaching style is completely geared to Number 4, above — in other words, she isn’t trying to show her students how to make work like hers. Rather, she is openly and consciously trying to get her students to SEE like she does. Philosophy and process instead of recipes. (her blog: Spirit Cloth on sidebar)

How is her influence present? This time, primarily in technique and a quality of attention:

1. The attention to the materials themselves (selecting fabrics with a nice hand, easily penetrable by a needle).
2. The use of invisible basting to adhere the layers.
3. Managing the layers by carefully inserting batting under face only.
4. Hand sewing some components together prior to basting the entire piece – eliminating need for numerous pins or glue.

assembling eye BEFORE all-over basting

Who else?  Susan Carlson – the wonderfully talented pictorial quilter from Maine, whose collage-style technique I learned in 2001.  Her influence:

1. An illustration approach to rendering the subject.
2. Building layers from the bottom up.
3. A liberal combination of patterns.

couching a single strand of satin cord

The third and perhaps most important artist:  the sculptor of the mask. Unknown. Gbi artist, Liberia, early twentieth century.

side by side – eyes not finished

I would like to try this again, because I missed on the proportions – that lovely length to the face and the broad, regal forehead got a little squashed in my version. I needle-sculpted the cheeks a little, but next time I would want to use color to add light around the nose and on one-half of the forehead.

Apropos of ‘missing’ (I don’t really like the final product all that much, in fact) – I’d like to add how critical being able to screw up and try again is for creative endeavor. My most favorite spokesman on this is Ken Robinson, the English education specialist. Clearly other people find him worth listening to as well — the last time I posted this link, it had been viewed 7MM times. It is up to 16MM views now!

All layers together, with some embellishment

*  I will be teaching “Patchwork Faces” – a workshop for children, on May 18, 2013 from 10:30 to 12:00. You can register here:

http://bcaonline.org/public-programs/families-connect.html

Then, on June 1, from 10:30 until 1:00, I will teach a class for adults called, “Sew What? Improv Quilting”

http://www.bcaonline.org/visualarts/mills-gallery/now-showing.html

Both class are offered through the Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
617-426-5000

Generosity and Pauses

Sometimes I am blown away by other people’s generosity.

First, there was my brother, taking my sister and me out to lunch, then proceeding to buy her a cartload of soil and annuals and herbs (she is still smiling!). Next, there was the consummate professional at Lady Grace who, with kindness and resourcefulness and humor, fit my sister for a bra.

[If you are a large-breasted woman -- (and have been taunted by boys and men, stared at by all manner of strangers, tortured by mammogram machines, mothers, and ill-fitting garments, never mind the weight of the anatomy itself) -- you know just how significant an event this was. Generosity turned a seemingly pedestrian retail moment into a near-religious experience.

I have learned that right next to Gallows Humor resides Big-Breast Humor. At the register, my sister gushed, "I think I'll call you Boobie Wan Kanobi" and without missing a beat, the retailer intoned, "May the support be with you!"]

Next came a shoebox full of NY Times crossword puzzles that my sister had clipped and saved for me (month and months of them!!) I dip into them, now, like a box full of chocolates.

     

Then there was the box of fabric that arrived from Sandy Meegan… someone I have never met who spent money to send a load of fabric to me, not once, but twice! Not just ANY fabric, mind you, but  an unbelievable assortment of to-die-for (and PRESSED!) scraps in a delicious array of colors and fibers! How great is that?

Then, there was my brother treating again, this time taking the boys out to lunch, sharing I’m sure, his contagious optimism and inviting both of them to Los Angeles for a piece of the summer. They returned with a delicious salad for me.

And sometimes, I am snowed under by other peoples’ needs.

It’s been that kind of span here. Five medical appointments in the last six business days, only two of them mine. The return of Son #1 (think: Charlie Chan, not Marathon Bombers) who is a slob and completely unmotivated to win either my approval or silence by complying with my requests (‘requests’ being a rather nice word for ‘nags’). You would think his having been in this very house for 19 years would make his return also a return to the status quo, but it doesn’t work that way. A new status quo had time to emerge, and it features a neater house (not a TON neater, but noticeably neater).  Son # 2 was sick for a couple of days. Husband for longer. (Both have recovered).

Roughly five days ago I sat down to post, with the intention of saying something along the lines that the one of the few things I could really rely on was being interrupted, when Jack threw up.  Somehow that  — combined with the ongoing challenges associated with our upgrades (again, please notice I am not ranting, even though I want to scream!) — derailed me again.

So! Until a rhythm is re-established and pathways to creation re-set, I may have only words to offer. I will make a point of keeping at least half positive. [later - NOW pictures upload... why NOW and NOT earlier?!]

Simple pleasure / simple need

Today I offer a quote by Wendell Berry from his 1987 book, “Home Economics” –

“Once we grant the possibility of a proper human scale, we see that we have made a radical change of assumptions and values. We realize that we are less interested in technological ‘breakthroughs’ than in technological elegance. Of a new tool or method we will no longer ask: Is it fast? Is it powerful? … We will ask instead: Can we (and our children) afford it? Is it fitting to our real needs? Is it becoming to us?”

Even though in this post-internet age, speed and innovation seem to matter to us more than ever, these strike me as worthwhile questions.

And yes, I am still working with white, though this morning I pressed a mound of brilliant green and indigo blue squares. I nearly swooned after so much tan, beige, linen, oyster and ecru.

progress in white

Slowly getting the hang of our updates. There definitely are improvements in the offing.  For now, I am just moments shy of a good, long walk in the spring air, then it will be time to walk to the periodontist for the insertion of an implant (yes, sympathy is welcome!)

In other words, this post will be quick. A report in pictures. WH = “White House”, the very original name for this piece.

WH – scraps laid out

WH – seamed, with some embroidery

WH – pre-whitening close up

WH – same area, both whitened and layered (the silk had color and pattern)

WH – sheers pinned over whitening white running stitch (grey splotchy roof does not stay)

WH – sheers pinned on the other side of the roof

WH – more whitening with the addition of white running stitches (grey roof is gone)

WH – celebrating the shredding orange silk by tacking it down; one sheer had embroidered loops on it, seen here

WH – getting there

WH – hanging

‘found’ house

‘found’ house, a photo by dee at clothcompany on Flickr.

A little pieced whimsy, made over the winter, then whitened in the exploration begun over at Spirit Cloth… there was no house, and then there was. Once I saw it, I couldn’t NOT see it.

There were two letters for a while, too : “ve”. The central white square had been a presser cloth for some transfers. The “v” fell off. Now there is only the “e”.

If I ever figure out PSE11, I’ll share before and afters. Keep getting a black screen. Ach.