Designing vulnerability

a white ‘seam’ couched as an inner wall

As I look at this composition, I begin to think about vulnerability… what is transparency, after all, if not the quality of letting oneself be known? (IRS, take note!)  I have been looking at other works-in-progress back lit in this manner for many months, so it’s not clear why THIS one speaks of transparency and the others did not. Perhaps it is due to vigorous conversations (with Grace and others) about boundaries, about where to draw the line (a red line, perhaps?) to maintain the necessary sanctuary to create, care giving and its demands, and the desire to be seen.

rectangle with 2 folds = house

scraps from former quilt – many patches are fabric that I bleached in order to whiten

It began with ‘Ghost House’ leftover scraps, and was a conscious attempt to marry two recently made houses – both of which left me dissatisfied (The Red House quilt and The White House quilt) [links to follow - I don't have much time this morning]. I laid the scraps on white, continuing the exploration of WHITE for my online class with Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth, side bar).

part of the roof is white, with stitch and couching, only, to define

There is white on the base, too, which I might build up all around – picking up on Jude’s idea of moving from white as a ‘background’ to white as a field of interest, with texture, and something to say besides, ‘look at what is on me’. I actually seamed some white fabrics together, to use as building struts in the frame… only one made it into the house – that long vertical to the right of the blue window (and yes, I know the tower has the appearance of a goofy face, a fact I’m going to correct with another window or two).

hanky scrap from Sandy Meegan pinned, center

The red thread is ‘Meditation Thread’ hand-dyed in India. I like the idea of red, with its vigor and visibility standing in as a symbol of a well-maintained boundary (Imagine that! A sanctuary bounded with quiet intent and silent, purposeful endeavor!! Not angry protestations and complaint). I wonder what each compartment holds.

what if the Nine Patch will only be implied and transient?

I see the nine patch and wonder if I have the energy and where with all to enlarge this quilt in order to make the nine patch more than an ephemeral creation of morning sun and muntin shadow. I don’t need to decide to continue.

Many more works on the table, pinned to the wall, up against the western glass doors, and laid out on the dining room table for design-viewing.

same thread around White House, unsuccessful, but a spur to new Tower

Have a great couple of days!

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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

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where does the color go?

Here are three exposures of a small quilt pinned to a curtain covering an eastern window.  Early morning light.  Not summer sun, but not winter sun either.  Opening the aperture gives the impression that the color is fading into white*.  But it’s more than that.  Back lighting the piece lets what resides in back to shine through.  I like both these ideas — fading into white and the hidden-coming-forward.

What is happening when ‘what is behind’ shows up? Could it parallel the Jungian process of owning the shadow?  Claiming a long-fended-off weakness or strength?  Could it be a metaphor for hearing from ‘the other side’?

I ask the otherworldly question because of that wool challis.  Well, that and because of need.  Sometimes in life, we just need our mothers.  It’s so simple a thing.  And so complicated.  And it’s true whether she’s around or not.

That maroon floral challis comes from a scarf which in its original, drapey, and fringed incarnation, belonged to my mother.  I wore it for a while after she died.  It was moth eaten on the edges and eventually I felted it and let it take its lovely place in my scrap bin.  Clearly, it means something more than ‘fuzzy’ and ‘maroon’ to me.  Placing a moon of my mother’s fiber above what to me is a mysterious door is no accident.  I have been thinking about her a lot lately.

Years ago when I showed my mother this tiny Gap vest (below), purchased while D. was in utero (middle boy in photo), she said, “Oh!  You’ve found his palette.”  That was signature Mom — pointing out the centrality of color to life and perhaps specifically to Mallon-life;  assuming we all have palettes;  recognizing that a mother might intuit her child’s colorways, even before he was born.  It was one of many moments in her last weeks that juxtaposed new life with dying in an excruciating way.

I’d give almost anything to hear one of her honest and shrewd observations right now – no matter how brutal.  She had a knack for that.  Making pithy observations that knocked you over.  In the moment, I might hate her…  insist she was wrong… loudly argue back or scoff at her sources.  But many times out of ten (I refuse to quantify), I’d have to at some later point admit that she was right — even when the source was Cosmopolitan Magazine (Damn You, Mom!!).

Sometimes the judgment was something I could run with.  It all depended.

So, yeah (as my nineteen year old might say), I have been wishing for my mother’s ‘take’ on things — specifically, on this messy business of parenting teenagers.  Once we got over what would undoubtedly be her smug satisfaction at my getting a little of what I dished out, I’m sure she’d have valuable and specific insights to offer. She’d say things I haven’t thought of yet.  She’d offer reality-based optimism that would make me feel better and would make me feel better about my kids and their futures.  She’d call me a worry wart and laugh.  Pearls of wisdom would be dispensed like sticks of gum (no big deal).  She’d casually address every single thing that is ‘up’ right now — resilience (or its absence), stubbornness, fear, and the unpredictable paths of talent — without having to ask a single question.

February 13th marked the 17th anniversary of my mother’s death.  I only know the number of years off the top of my head because she died five weeks before D. was born.  Right now, I always know how old my boys are.  Seventeen.  Nineteen.  I suppose that could change, like everything else does.  I hope not for a long time, though.

This hung on the west window of my bedroom last week.  Here, red threads were stitched in prayer (as has been talked about here and there on blogs that matter to me (links later)).  This thread was dyed in India, purchased in Colorado about this time last year, and stitched onto white, then covered with a grey/white silk.  You don’t really see the red lines when the cloth comes off the curtain.  They’re still there, of course.

That says something on this topic of mothering, doesn’t it?  Something about the strands of love that connect us, whether we see them or not, whether they’re live or remembered.  These red threads could also represent the strands of genetic code that determine, in part, who we are… representing that strange, perplexing and miraculous way that some aspects of person get tugged through the generations… binding one group to the next (and the next) whether willing or aware, or not.

And then again, it is a series of red threads.

* Like yesterday’s post, “Meditation on White”, I am inspired here in large measure by the online class over at Spirit Cloth

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sun and shells

Sun!

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to cheer up.  A good night’s sleep.  A sunny day.  A walk into town for a quiet meal out.  Last night K & I tromped through the slush for a nice plate of Mexican food in the Center.  Today, the sun was warm and emphatic.  “Yes siree,” it seemed to say, “spring is on the way no matter how much snow is piled up out back.”

A quick and early grocery shop, followed by calls, and then time to stitch.  And — talk about little things that can matter a great deal — an unexpected, hand-delivered gift:

gift

Then, time to work on ‘Batik Moon’ and a pieced rectangle I’ve decided belongs in my ‘sanctuary series’.  I tacked down the last moon ring on the quilt below (the small one on the left).  Added the green zig-zags along the bottom yesterday.  I could keep going and going on this one, but I think I won’t.

two feet and a leg

red stitches around the house – which is NOT centered

I am also quilting the piece below, and 100% refusing to let even one minute of the process be stressful.  This was a ‘sidebar’ quilt – made in stolen intervals while working through the difficult, challenging construction of the barns.  I used stuff that was around, easy to grab, and that pleased me (and that coincidentally would not have met the commission specifications).  That mottled green batik is trying to screw me up on the intention to keep it easy and fun – it is so damn tough (do they use petroleum AND wax for modern batiks?  WHAT makes them so hard?).  But, I have a strategy — and that is to be sure and quilt those rectangles early in a session, before my hands (particularly the thumbs) have a chance to get tired.

‘sanctuary quilt’ – not one step of quilting will I let be difficult

in this landscape, the house is the place of rest

I may simply invisibly baste this one.  Let the play of patterns be the design.  Except the house.  That may get something extra.  We’ll see.

Spurred on, in part, by the warm and thoughtful comments to yesterday’s post, I grabbed a book off my shelf and opened to this:

“Prajna is the unfiltered expression of the open ear, open eye, open mind that is found in every living being.  It’s a fluid process, not something definite and concrete… It is not particularly regarded as a peaceful state of mind nor as a disturbed one.  It is a state of basic intelligence that is open, questioning, and unbiased. “

Pema Chodron from ‘Comfortable with Uncertainty’

I like that – a state of mind that is ‘open, questioning and unbiased’.  That is worth striving for, I think.  Was it Carlos Castaneda who had his Don Juan character say that the warrior does not take sides with reality?!  And that to do so is a profound waste of energy?!  And yet, I do it 100x an hour, and bruise myself in the process.

Time to let the story drop a little.  Or maybe a lot. If for no other reason than it’s boring me.

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trued, aligned, pressed

Technical jargon offers specificity.  Like any vocabulary, it often resonates with multiple meanings, meanings that don’t have much to do with the task at hand.  Every time I ‘true’ a quilt top, for instance, the other senses of that word ‘true’ are present.

Aligning a design’s intended sight lines brings deep satisfaction – perhaps satisfaction that is very tied to the processes of  ‘aligning’ and ‘righting’.  Maybe the more we recognize how much of life is beyond our control, the more satisfaction these miniscule attempts at order are (enough said! enough said!).

The final six or seven seams of a mid-sized or large pieced quilt top require more precision than comes naturally to me.  Since I know what the pay off is here (for pinning, for cutting straight lines, for re-working the crooked), I settle into a slightly different rhythm and mindset.  In other words, I don’t mind.

‘Re-working the crooked’.  There it is again! Language that describes both the inner and the outer.   If I had to describe one inner crooked line that could use some re-working?  That strange belief that holds one person can change or fix another.

Barn II.  The final six seams of the quilt top were machine-stitched and the seams pressed, on Monday.  I won’t go into what yesterday entailed.  On to quilting!!!

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