Schedule C dance

Say those seemingly innocuous syllables — “Schedule C” — to a self-employed American artist, and I can nearly guarantee a shudder or a groan in response.  At least a heavy sigh.  You might also hear some well-meaning but completely unbelievable assertions of a schedule.  To be stuck to.  Until it’s finished.

I was so deep into my resistance to tax preparation earlier this week, that a whole flurry of activity erupted – activity that might at any other time be laudable.   I made a SoulCollage card about it — called (surprise, surprise!):  Procrastination.  How often does the subject one hopes to depict get expressed in the very act of creating it?

“Procrastination”

As I cut and paste these images, it became oh-so-clear how procrastination verges into denial and feeds on addiction.  Think of those Venn diagrams they taught us like it was ever-so-critical in third grade and then never mentioned again.

Three equal-sized circles overlapping with their neighbors on the side, and with all three, in the middle.  Ah – there’s the rampant TV-watching, butting up to the refusal to look at the calendar, intersecting with the activity that is NOT preparing Schedule C. 

You see, when the time starts to get critical – which it is not yet, but will be soon — any activity that is NOT PREPARING SCHEDULE C, is procrastination — no matter how wonderful that activity otherwise would be.  In my college years, I became famous for rearranging the furniture the moment it became crunch-time for a lengthy paper  – and not just my bedroom, but the entire apartment (unlike overeating or watching endless hours of bad TV, at least rearranging furniture has the side-benefit of stress relief… if you saw me, you would know why this is especially true for me, standing at 5′ 1″ — and, honestly, outside of pianos, I’ve never met a piece of furniture I couldn’t shove to a new position all by myself).

This year, this week,  I’ve been cleaning out drawers.  Not just a puttering straightening of a few objects — but rather a ruthless re-sorting that invariably involves the entire house (and LOTS OF TIME).  It’s almost felt virtuous.  But we know better.  Procrastination possesses all manner of craft.

Cleaning up in the overwhelming mess of basement-studio, this little scene got arranged.  How bad can that be?

Piecing up some scraps from “Ghost House” with remnants from the barn quilts, getting halfway toward a delightful crib blanket.  Again, can this so bad?  I even worked on the massive Global Warming quilt, completing one lower quadrant — good, right?!

No, no and no!!  Until the expenses are logged into excel and the receipts tidied and all the bank statements ordered and gone through, I will not legitimately be working on ANYTHING.  It will all be procrastination in disguise!

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where the water goes

Today’s On Point radio program (with Tom Ashbrook) focused on how the lowered volume of the Mississippi River is forcing businesses to find alternatives to river travel…how the federal government can’t sufficiently address the problem even on the micro-level of funding a study… how water might become the precious commodity that oil currently is (on this point, one caller queried, “why else would Ted Turner be buying up 1,000′s upon 1,000′s of river front properties!!?”).

This quilt is called “Long Island Blues” because it was pieced while waiting to hear how friends and family on Long Island fared in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Because the quilt is more about rising water levels than about the destructive winds and tides of these increasingly common giant storms,  the composition has a quietness to it.  There is nothing quiet about what is happening, of course.  We should, as a nation, be acting like those poor orcas trapped in the Hudson Bay, breathing out of a ridiculously small area of open water — arching, leaping, arching, leaping for air in pure panic.  Instead, we are still trying to fend off those who say climate change isn’t real?!  And still making excuses for the failure to SPEAK OF THE PROBLEM, because it is political poison?!

I can hardly think of a situation that could be more pervasively or profoundly demoralizing (oh yeah, which reminds me, I’ve committed to being more CHEERFUL in 2013).

My younger son had to write an essay about the ‘American Dream’ last week – what it is, how his relatives may have lived it, how he views the idea as it relates to him.

“… the American Dream is an illusion,” he started out.  “It may have existed at one time, but it doesn’t anymore.”

Remember when scientists (I’m talking pre-Rachel Carson, or her contemporaries) thought that technology and innovation could solve anything?   The generation of kids approaching adulthood are not afforded that optimism.

“Long Island Blues” before stitching

Perhaps it is setting myself up for failure to ask that I become more cheerful.

Perhaps it would be more realistic to figure out how to bring my heart and soul to the problem of global warming in a whole new way this year (and mightn’t that make me feel better? maybe not more cheerful, but more engaged, more useful…)

… posting lamentations online hardly counts as anything;  making quilts of grief hardly counts as anything.

Have you made any commitments toward being less of a consumer this year?  If so, what?

P.S. “Long Island Blues” features antique linens that were gifted to me, linen and silk that I was allowed to take from the scrap pile of an upholsterer (some of which I dunked in my indigo bucket this summer), a skirt that I bought at the warehouse that receives goods after they don’t sell at Salvation Army, a repurposed piece of a Tibetan Prayer flag, a shirt from Supersavers that also went into the indigo vat, three small chunks of quilting cotton bought at a fabric store, and lastly one piece of blue and white linen bought in the Fashion District of NYC about eight years ago (I still have a little more left!!)

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New Art Center drop off

Dropping this quilt off at The New Art Center today. They have spruced up the facility over the summer, and are hanging faculty work. Locals, look for it just inside the main entrance.

It comes from my Global Warming series, is about 4′ wide, and was made in 2008.

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River is Wide, River is Deep

“The River is Wide. The River is Deep”.  That’s the name that I came up with for this little composition after adding the blue streaky batik along the bottom edge.  It was a lot simpler a couple of weeks ago.  Then a friend decided to buy it as a wedding gift.  We brainstormed about improvements, and then I spent a couple of weeks with it in my rotation of hand sewing.  I really like the idea of a deep and wide river as an emblem for a couple starting out.

I also like the way the little button adds a sense of friendliness to the structure.  New eaves of red were added at the last, for interest.  Moon went from a sliver to a sliver embracing a full outline.

The couple will be married in the Redwoods, so the twig seemed an appropriate means for hanging.
The front orange fabric hadn’t been tacked down yet, so I could tuck the front of the tabs under.  For the back side, I stitched a strip of cotton to hide the tab ends.
I didn’t see a place for a stitched signature, and the felt would not take ink, so I signed on the tab-cover.

I am almost finished with a piece I am calling “Storm”, as well.

More pictures of that quilt soon!

A light heart lives long.
William Shakespeare

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weekend

Hosta grow by the hour.  Peony and ligularia conspire toward heaven with their burgundy-hued leaves – both ruffled disks and palmated clusters.

The maple trees lining our neighborhood streets unfurl their leaves seemingly overnight, transforming the city.  Everywhere, inhabitants go, “Ahhhhhhhhh.”  Evidence of nature’s resilience and capacity for growth is on display and provokes the idiotic but grateful query, “Does this happen every year?! Really?”

Joe Pye weed keeps up with the hosta, and little scilla clumps spring up and out of spiky leaves all over the south side of the house… goat’s weed and white nancy busily filling in everywhere else.  It’s just the beginning.

I potted up my basil and tomatoes, and divided some perennials for my sister.

With Newton Open Studios less than a month away, I am in ‘full mess mode’.  Sachets, purses, dolls are in progress all over the first floor, and after the initial freedom of taking over the family room, it suddenly feels like too much. I plan to start the week folding and tidying.

Too much to report on lately is the feeling.

I finished hand-quilting a Global Warming Quilt a couple of days ago and am calling it ‘Joplin’.

While stitching this large central spiral, my husband and I were watching Nova.  The program showcased the science of tornadoes — their destructive power and unpredictability — while detailing the intensely active year of 2011.  It was weird — remember? — to watch the morning news last summer and watch one awful scene of destruction after another.  Joplin was one of the hardest hit towns.

This is pre-binding.

And, last but not least, here is first finished bag.  It’s a very unstructured linen tote, with silk handles and lining.

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