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Ellen Anne Eddy
Author of Thread Magic: The Enchanted World of Ellen Anne Eddy Fiber artist, author and teacher
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Musing: Art Outside the Box: Who are you?

9:39 AM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Emily Dickinson
Caterpillar: Who Are YOU?
Alice: This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. I--I hardly know sir, just at present--at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then
Alice in Wonderland

Gloria Hansen, quite truly one of the quilting goddesses and a winner of many quilting contests and shows, recently posted on Quilt Art Digest a curious interlude she had at the Walmart. She met some women there who were collecting quilting fabric and told them she was going to be selling some of her fabric off and would they like some. They told her they only quilted with Quality Fabric. Essentially they said:"Who are YOU?" The sadly funny thing is if they'd known, they might have crawled  after her down the isle for her scraps. I don't use anyone's fabric but my own, but I'd spit nickels just to look through her stash by way of a cultural artistic experience. She's a brilliant quilter, who's made her amazing fabric and quilts for decades.
The quilt world is an odd and lovely place. We honor our best quilters, but to the main, famous quilters live very quiet lives outside the quilt world. Their neighbors don't know or don't understand. Their kids may not too.It's a world populated by moms and grandmothers and has a civility to it I believe unfound anywhere else.Privacy is honored as well as honesty and fairness. And, to the main, it's a place where strangers are greeted as angels unawares.
I love quilt conferences. It's one of the few places I know where you can simply sit down with strangers and they'll greet you as friends. In a way, I take it for granted. It's only when I walk outside the gentler quilt world, I get reminded of the rougher edges.
Recently I've had a small town cultural experience with my neighbors. Basically, a garden war. And in effort prove I'm not the crazy lady they've claimed I am, I've come out of my quilting closet, and shown myself.
They say it's impossible to prove a negative. It's true. I can't prove I'm not a crazy lady. All I can do is prove I'm a famous crazy lady.   Admittedly I planted my whole yard in so I wouldn't ever have to mow. My neighbors are past offended and somehow think plants bring mosquitoes and rats. I didn't start by demanding my neighbors cut everything in their yard down. But they have mine. It has been entertaining watching just how crazy my neighbors look while they're making their case. Sort of like a very sad comedy. 


Of course, the difference between comedy and tragedy is largely where the story ends.  But it's very about how we treat something other than ourselves. For them I am the stranger. And I have no idea what to do if they get stranger. So far, I've had to check the yard for rat poison and odd drugs (yes, we found those) and I find things like my car dome light on in the middle of the night (something I never do). I'm not that wise. I have no idea how to make either them or me less strange. As Alice said, "I hardly know."
My friend Rebecca Dorian Brown reminded me yesterday that all the great religions pretty much hold the same line on good and bad behavior. It's not good or bad behavior because of some rule book. It really does create the difference between heaven and hell in our lives. Almost every culture has a story about the angel or fairy out of no where who looks like a beggar, or the old woman who, if you help her, leaves you with diamonds, and if you hurt her, leaves you spitting out toads. 
The truth is the either human life is valuable in itself, or it's not. Everyone has moments of fame and moments of quiet existence. Are they different people at those moments? We start as a squalling infant. Who knows who that child will be? The kindness we give to strangers creates the kind of world that is kind. We really give it, not to strangers but to angels unawares. And in the end, it's what we give ourselves.
You'll find Gloria's amazing work at gloriahansen.com She's one of the quilting goddesses and amazing expert in the internet and digital imagery. 
You'll find my wise and lovely Rebecca's work at her site
rebeccadorianbrown.com.She's an inventive and brilliant artist with a wisdom well earned.










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Friday, July 2, 2010

Musings:Art Outside the Box: Fantasy Land vs The Real Thing

2:32 PM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post

 "Wouldn't it be rather a pull sometimes to have--a--to haven?" He hung fire; he wanted me to help him by phrasing what he meant. But I couldn't--I didn't know. So he brought it out awkwardly: "The REAL thing;"....
She was always a lady certainly, and into the bargain was always the same lady. She was the real thing, but always the same thing.
Henry James, The Real Thing




I often find myself caught on the accuracy issue. If your work is based in some kind of reality, you really do need to figure out how much reality you want in it. Some of this is constitutional. Some of it is artist's license. Most of it is a statement louder than words.
Realism is always impressive. It bespeaks of excellent drawing skills and a keen eye. It's more impressive when we see it outside the standard art forms. It's great to draw a frog in pencil, or charcoal or paint. It's a whole other thing to do it in thread.It's also worth saying there really are blue frogs.
But realism always falls a bit flat for me. I know it's a brown frog. Couldn't it be red instead? But couldn't it have purple shadows? Green highlights? A bit of orange around the eyes?All of a sudden that frog has a rainbow quality that is definitely not realism.
I could say it was strictly a color issue but that's not true either. What makes this frog definately not the real thing is those lovely red lips. Frogs don't have lips. So the lips themselves become a statement on how human our frog is.
And there are those moments when reality simply isn't as much fun.
Patti Culea is my favorite doll artist. She's also  a kindred spirit. When she asked me if I could do a quilt for her book Creative Cloth Explorations: Adventures in Fairy-Inspired Fiber Art, I wanted to. I just was a bit unsure about creating fairies. So I asked her, " Do your fairies have a quality ride?" All fairies are royalty. It's part of their job. So they can't be going shank's mare or rickshaw. They needed the best fairy frog I could do.


Well, by the time you've put wings on it, reality has pretty much flown out the window. But the fun hasn't.

Don't be caught by the trap of reality. Like fire, it's a good servant and a poor master. Use it while it serves you and leave it whenever it just doesn't have enough luster to lighten things up. 


You'll find A Noble Steed in Patti's book on Amazon.com. Her web page is at  PMC Designs.
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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Musings: Art outside the Box:History, Herstory

5:56 PM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post
Copyright 2008
Dancing in the Light 
Ellen Anne Eddy
My quilt, Dancing in the Light, is being acquired by the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY. I'm still looking behind me to see if there's another Ellen Anne Eddy somewhere they were talking to, and how I might have gotten confused.Words fail me.
It's not the first time I've had a quilt in a museum. It's not even the first quilt I've had in a permanent collection in a museum. But it's the National Quilt Museum and it's an honor past comprehension. It's a bit like being put in the Rock Music Hall of Fame, or in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 


Why?
Because of all I want for my work, your work everyone's work, I want us to be remembered.
Almost all of the innovations come from the margins. We tend to forget that. When you see Degas and Monet on coffee cups and umbrellas, you could forget how very marginal they were. You could forget that they weren't allowed show their art with other legitimate artists. They were mocked and scorned. And yet what came out of their art was the beginning of modernism. They created work the world had never seen before. Somehow, someone fell in love, bought and protected those odd paintings. Someone put their collections into museums. We would not know them now if that hadn't happened. Many Van Goghs were cut up to make shoes. But not the one's his brother Theo saved. Art is dependent on preservation.


The Art Quilt movement, to my knowledge, is unique. But it too is marginal. It began as a grass roots movement of women who simply wanted to express themselves in fabrics and quilts. And not just any women. These were almost all women past their menopause. The captions on art quilt shows have read" Not your grandmother's quilts" long enough that actually they could be your grandmother's quilts. But it's been a place where women have had their say.Not just your models and your actresses. Not just beautiful women. Not wives of powerful men. Women who've hit the strength and power of their middle lives.Women who's children have grown and gone and who have worlds of things to say. And who have found a million ways to say it in their art.
How rare is that in history? The women artists lionized in art history books are almost all exceptions. They were brave enough to play with the boys club. They were many of them marginalized out of existence only to be rediscovered in history waves of reminiscence.
I don't think I'm being melodramatic when I say that history has often forgotten her story. For every historic woman, you'll see a list of ten men. We often see their histories written as historic romance, since we don't know for sure, and that's what women do, right? I can't help but wonder how much of that is male wishful thinking. Or our own.


The National Quilt Museum, and other museums that protect, defend, define, and display women's art belie that concept. That they've chosen to include me, pleases me, honors me, and makes me feel I truly said something. But past all that, it comforts me with the voices of other women heard. We hear each other in our art. Our whispers, our moans, our cheers, our screams. In the silence of history, we're given a voice.
They tell me my quilt will probably be shown with a group of 20 quilts they've acquired to celebrate 20 years of their existence, sometime next year. You'll find it at The National Quilt Museum
215 Jefferson Street

Paducah, KY 42001-0714

(270) 442-8856
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Musings: Art out of the Box: The Mentor Waltz

10:07 AM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post
Years ago I learned to contra dance. My friends, Donna and Roy Hinman dragged me out to play guitar for their band. It was loving-hands-at-home music. They insisted that all dancing should be to live music and they didn't care exactly how live the musicians were. They took everyone who was willing to practice, even me.


I was an unlikely candidate. My high school years were a cycle that ran between hide and seek and Lord of the Flies. Ugly things happened at dance class. I'm pretty good at taking a pratt fall, but I missed the humor. I'd learned to never go near a dance. Some humiliations are enough.


But Donna and Roy were relentless. Kind, but relentless. Not only would I play waltzes and reels, I would dance. Donna would take away my guitar I was hiding behind and Roy would take my hand, keep me safe, and sweep me into the movement and the music.


For those of you who have never done contra, it's the antithesis of couple dancing. It's really a lovely version of ring-around-the-rosie for adults. And everyone is included. Couples dance with everyone, sometimes holding their babes. Everyone is part of it. 


But there is a skill set. You need to know which is your right hand. It really does help.


Now, what do they do if you don't know which is which? Someone kindly grabs your right hand and says"The other right hand." I love contra dancers.


Time passed and I finally began to learn. Before my knees gave out, I could stand on a floor, swing, hand out my hand, and find myself beaming like a pumpkin. It's genuinely fun.


It strikes me that this is exactly like mentoring. It's not a formal thing usually. It's just someone in front of you, a little unsure, a bit confused.The answers are simple enough. It's just like contra dancing. You grab the right right hand and give them  gentle push in the right direction.


I've had wonderful mentors over the years. As a child, my neighbor Mary Annis taught me to sew, quilt, be late and not answer the telephone, all things my mother knew nothing about. She got me art lessons, cats, and confidence, but not in that order. She's a marvel.


Caryl Bryer Fallert was perhaps the kindest quilt mentor I had. I'd had a long worship session with the porcelain goddess before my first FACET meeting. It was Caryl who greeted me, talked about a quilt of mine she'd juried into a show, and then, over the years opened doors, answered questions, and purchased The Problem with Princes when I was trying to pay for medical bills. Caryl is the best quilter in America. No one has more talent and works harder. And no one is more gracious. Her work is legend in the quilt community. Study with her if you get the chance.She's an astonishment.


Over the years I've passed it on as best I could. I've mentored people, mostly not in a formal sense. Just in the sense that you grabbed the right right hand and put them on their way. Classroom is built for it. The end of class is never the end of anything. I hear from students years after as they go on to create amazing things. Often I see them later across from me at a teacher's table in a conference. I'm always proud for them.


But independent studio time is a more intense way to set up that. People come to my studio when they want, stay with me, sew as long as they want on what they want. And we focus on the direction they want to take. Lately I've had the privilege of having Genny Frazer from Australia. Her energy,sense of fun, and enthusiasm was contagious.


Lauren Strach is one of my favorite mentes. She came originally to the studio around 4-5 years ago, and continues to visit as a friend and fellow dyer. Her work is fearless and brilliant. She's shown nationally at Paducah among other venues.


  If you'd like to come to my studio for independent studies, contact Melida to schedule it.


So I hope you get the chance to do both. To be a mente and and mentor. To grab the right right hand, to have gentle direction when needed, and to pass it on in the same gracious light. Come and join the dance!


Donna and Roy now run a Morris Team in Grand Rapids, MI. Morris dancing is a hoot and they are the best teachers you could find. They work both with children and adults.Their group is The Bells of River City, and if you're near you can see them there, or better still, join them in the dance.





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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Musings: Art Outside the Box: Not Quite Princess Diana

9:56 AM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post
"Diana
She might have been a Catholic,A Moslem or a Jew,
Red or black or yellow,Or some other dreadful hue;
But she's Protestant, she's English,And her blood is royal blue
She's a lady, she's perfection, She's Diana
Ya-de-da-de, Ya-de-da-de, Ya-de-daah-de"
(Ian Robb, 1981)

I am somewhat daunted by our attitude towards our public heroes. The fact that someone can sing like a nightingale, throw a football 4000 yards, run like hell, or create good art does not necessarily mean they're a small god or even always a good role model. I'm told Mozart was a drunken sot, although an admittedly very talented drunken sot. We have a news industry made just for exposing the moments when they're in public with they're trousers down, doing something they wish they hadn't. Or that they wish they hadn't been caught doing. It's always a scandal, and I think some people love scandals almost more than they love heroes.

The answer to that of course is to never be caught doing anything in public you wish not to be caught doing. I wish that were completely possible.

I loved Princess Diana. In spite of the fact that she was in a hopeless family situation and  was living with the privacy of a goldfish bowl, she poured out all the love she had, over and over on the people in front of her, whoever and wherever they were. Yet she had her scandals. And I personally would not like to have died being chased by paparazzi while the world speculated about my sex life. 

There's a problem with having heroes. They cannot live up to our every dream and desire. They will, in their humanity, say something or do something in exhaustion, fear, panic or pain that breaks our image of their godlike abilities. They will fail us. Hurt us. Humiliate us. Embarrass us. Say something awful. Then they're left like a cat trying to cover up an indiscretion on linoleum. 

I've often said my job is to be like Princess Diana without the shoes or the clothes. When I go out to teach or lecture, my hope is to pour my care, my love, my dreams and my support onto the people kind enough to hear me speak. The reason for that is not that I have some special talent or ability. It's that I recognize that talent and ability in all of us. It's a delicate thing. It deserves care and kind treatment. The classroom is a gift we give that ability,teacher and student both,a time and space for talent to blossom and ability to grow.My students are my heroes. I am awed by their courage and ability, always. My hope is to celebrate that with them.

Do I fail? I'm so sorry to say, there are days. I make a very bad hero. I arrive exhausted. My blood sugar dips. I suffer from hoof and mouth disease. There are days where my hoof is definitively in my mouth. When that happens, words do fail me. I can't possibly say how sorry I am.

This quilt got me thrown out of an Episcopalian church One woman saw it as an evil thing. It was the Percival legend, with myself looking for the Holy Grail. Of course, I saw myself as a frog. She was so offended. Frogs are evil. Did you know that?

I hadn't got the memo on that myself. She took it as a scandal and ran with it.  There was no way to stay there after she'd discussed it with the whole congregation. It's just as well. I really do see myself as a frog, often, so if she saw that as evil, I needed to be somewhere else. My mistake was to have shown it to her at all. 

I hope you are your best, brightest, most lionized hero. I hope you recognize that the people around you who you admire are not perfect or godlike, but simply good at the thing they do. I hope you can see their humanity when they fail you by what they do or say. I hope you can take the good they've tried to bring you without throwing out everything when they fumble into something inappropriate. And I hope you can find forgiveness for the moments they are awkward frogs instead of princesses.

It's just as well I'm not Princess Diana. I could never wear those shoes.



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Friday, May 14, 2010

Musings: Art out of the Box: Falling and Flying

8:49 AM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post




Spring brings out the birds! I love it. I have wrens nesting in my ivy and a robin couple moved in under my porch pillar.

Yesterday, Mrs. Robin fell. She tried to fly and fell out of the climbing hydrangea. Cara, my mom-greyhound wanted desperately to help her. We discouraged that. I trust Cara, but Mrs. Robin wasn't having that and looked really terrified by a very worried 72 pound dog coming to her rescue.
Mr. Robin acted like most men do. He stood on the roof next door trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually he swooped down and brought her the birdy version of carry out food. As guys go, he was pretty good with the emergency.
My neighbor kids also wanted to pick her up, help her up. I did too. But we went online and checked. They said to let her find her way. Finally I spoke to a rehabber who said to wait until morning and then catch her and take her to the local vet.
It's a hard thing, doing nothing. It feels sometimes like impotence, sometimes like ignorance, sometimes like a lack of empathy. Sometimes it's the only kindness.
I woke up this morning to find her on the other side of the porch. I called the neighbor kids over, got the cat carrier out and watched as she flew delicately into the trees. She waited to let us know. She knew we meant her well. She wanted us to know she was all right.
When I saw that video of the hummingbird it reminded me. Sometimes we need help. Sometimes we just need someone to stand by us while we find our own way. Everyone falls.  The hope is that we find the will to fly. No one can do it for us. But they can stand by, watch, wait, and offer us their strength until we find our own. We find our own wings and our own flight on the love and strength of those who watch for us.
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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Musings: Art Outside the Box:Seedlings and Change

8:06 AM | Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy | | Edit Post
You know you're a pessimist when you find yourself facing changes as loss.  About every five years or so, my world spins in such a way that friendships, work styles, places of worship, folk I've called family, and even my pets shift and change under me. I feel like I'm standing in an earthquake. I'm watching things shake and wondering where they'll all be when the shaking stops. I wonder who I'll be when the shaking stops.


I do know better. I really do. I know that while feelings are just passing bits of chemical change, misery is a choice that I do not have to make. Misery is something that needs petting, feeding, care, attention. It's a lousy house guest and a rude pocket pet. Choosing misery is a selfish power play. It's a child's temper tantrum staged for pity or power.


The nature of our physicality is that things come and go. If they're living, they can't be confined or refined into a shrine where I keep them. That's a tomb, really.

We breathe in. We breathe out. There's no good in holding on to a breath taken twenty minutes ago. We eat. We release. At least we hope we do. There's a whole pharmaceutical market for when that isn't working. It's part of that body we wear.


So why am I surprised or hurt by the changes in family and friends? Because I'm terrified of the moment in that hallway of change where I'm waiting in the void. I do know that the void will fill. That too is natural. But that moment ( some of them much longer than others) where  you wait past the change for where you're life begins after that makes me very nervous.


I could say this is why I don't vacuum. I don't think anyone would believe it, but it sounds like a great psychological excuse. 


It reminds me that joy creeps in. I've never seen joy leap. Or run. Or crash through. It's a seedling that grows, not a tidal wave.I've seen it creep under my garden gate. I've seen it slide out of the drawers of my fabric stash or out of the pages of  a book. It circles around through the lyrics of a song. It's soft and silly. I can let it in. I can ignore it. If I simply let it remain it will grow into something much better than where I am. If I dance with it, tickle it, let it tickle me, then the world is much better.  I do tend to be ticklish.


How is this art? The world I live in, the world you live in, the world we all live in, is created by how we think about it all. Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. My thoughts are as malleable as fabric and thread. My thoughts build the part of the world that is my response, which in turn, builds my world.


I'm going out to the garden. I want to see the seedlings.


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