Showing posts with label life as an artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life as an artist. Show all posts
Saturday, July 31, 2021
Musings: Art Outside the Box: Laughter for Drama Queens
11:14 PM | 
Posted by
Ellen Anne Eddy |
Now Margaret Eddy was the queen of all stories. And a serious fan of silly. She told amazing whoppers, one-liners, true tales spun into gold from straw, hopeless lies and astonishing steaming piles. She loved her drama. She had a somewhat loose relationship to truth. She was a devastating school teacher, because much of that could indeed come out in a teacher conference meeting or a family reunion. But she had a special gift for looking within and without. First she's build you a verbal image of herself as she felt about the story. But then she'd draw you into an outer view, where you could see her spinning in what she knew was a silly situation, build for howling laughter.
It happens to me in my quilts. I'm quilting along and I realize that this silly thing I've drafted is someone I know. Or worse, me. There with all my rather small fears and desires. I'm not overly deep. I'm just noisy. At that point, it seems just to the point to let it be silly. I am. It is. And the world is better for it.
This quilt, The Orchid Olympics, wasn't meant to be funny. It just happened. I'd found a great picture of a frog in an odd pose and worked with it. One afternoon in a class demo, I was placing it into the piece and trying to put a sun over his head. It wouldn't go. It just wouldn't go. Not over. Not to the side.
I looked again at the frog and thought, "If you get into that pose, it has to be for something like the Olympics. No one would willingly bend like that otherwise." The sun fell into her hand like an award and there we were.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all. But I try never to tell a story on myself until I've found the funny part. Perhaps it helps to be short, round and have a pug nose. My gray hair also makes any silliness forgivable.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Bad Raps, and Bad Wraps
I grew up reading the Jungle Books by Kipling, so I've always loved wolves. The wolves take this baby in and raise him as one of their cubs. Like most adoptive processes, there's a bit of cognitive dissonance about the whole thing. He doesn't fit in well.
So this video touched me. It's about perception and reality. For all of her obvious concern when she sees the wolves, they scatter when she says "Git!" The wolves are not evil. They're just wolves.
This last year I've been working on the issue of bullies. I really don't want to go to my grave grieving over things that happened when I was seven. And like all really good emotional issues, the opportunities come back again and again until I can find better solutions. There's two schools of though on this. "Oh no! Not another learning experience!" And, "There you are again!"Bullies function on a wolf perception.Someone has to be perceived either as a wolf to be driven away or a wolf who will probably eat you. Like most binary systems, it has some serious limits.
It occurs to me that two things have to happen to create a wolf perception. We have to give someone a bad rap. We give ourselves reasons why they've done what they've done. Maybe it's true. Often enough, that's a fantasy too. We just convince ourselves of their bad action and intent.
And then we dress them as villains. Give them a bad wrap to wear: a black hat, a swirling evil cloak, an evil glint to their eye.
I've had it happen to me as well. I've had people hand me my black cloak and hat and tell me why I'm a danger.
It's not that I believe there is no evil in the world. It's there. Nor do I believe it my job to change people's choices. I wouldn't take someone's path away from them like that. If we don't walk our path as best we can, we won't learn from it.
But after years of dressing people in bad wraps and giving them bad raps and being dressed in the same, it occurs to me that they might just scatter if I said, "Git!" My perception is power I give or take, all by myself.
You'll find the Jungle Book at Amazon.com. Skip the Disney copies. They're cute but a completely different story.
You'll find people who want to dress up in funny black cloaks and be icky and people who want to dress you too in all kinds of odd places. I hope you can say "Git!" to them too.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thread Magic Garden Is Ready for Pre-order!
Thread Magic Garden will be arriving for shipment around January 20th. You can pre-order your copy today!
You never really know what a project will take until you see it done. Perhaps that's good. A good dream well done should take your whole heart's effort and give you your heart back in return.
When I started this book, I had no idea it would take 2 years to finish. Part of that is that I had to learn so much to do this book. Part of that is the meticulous process C&T puts into every book. I got my premier copy a week ago.I'm still scraping myself off the ceiling. It's past my expectations. I'm hoping you'll feel that way too.
When I started this book, I wanted to continue what I'd accomplished with Thread Magic. I wanted to show folk ways of adding wild free motion to quilts that set things hearts and imaginations on fire. I wanted to set up instructions that would take you through your own process with this. You'll have to let me know how I've done when you read the book.
But for those of you who've known me in class or in print, you know I don't give recipes for cakes that don't rise. I tell you everything I know. I also don't do anything really hard. I just do things that are time consuming and compulsive.
So here is what we have.
- Fifty eye popping new quilts in the gallery
- A patternless approach to design
- Intuitive applique that makes creating flowers easy and fun
- Color theory for flowers
- Corded buttonhole binding
- Angelina Fiber
- 6 Free motion zigzag stitches
- Machine Beading
- Globbing
- Sandwich stabilizing
You can pre-order your copy of Thread Magic Garden at
www.ellenanneeddy.com
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Sprinkles on the Donut
I'm not that good an actress.
I was at church for Christmas day. The choir at this church takes off for Christmas. I could have sat in the choir pews, but I ended up in the general congregation.
I'm not an alto as a show off. It's simply where my range is. I can't sing the high notes reliably. It happens occasionally, but like Tuesday, anything could happen. So I was singing the alto line, against the bulk of the congregation on the melody.
It's different within the choir. You expect to hear the part above and below you. The blend is planned and it's where you belong.
This was much more separate, and more isolating.
At the end of the service it occurred to me that much of my life is that way: a counterpoint to melodies I can not reach. My plans for the holiday collapsed and I ended up more alone than was comfortable.
I was speaking afterwards to the choir director who said, "You know, you'll never be the donut. You're the sprinkles on the donut. And that's why we want the donut anyway.
I don't get to eat donuts either, but I've learned to appreciate allergy foods as a visual experience. And I'm an edible color chart! There are worse fates and worse goals.
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Wizard of Odd
Lately, they've been playing the Wizard of Oz again. It occurred to me just how much of our language comes from that amazing movie.
Most movies are a cultural moment at best. They expand on a moment in time. What is a classic changes with the wind, but I think we can say that it's about how it changes the way people think.
I was going through the number of phrases that the Wizard cemented into my verbal landscape:
- "If I only had a brain."
- "Ding, dong, the witch is dead."
- "Over the rainbow."
- "And your little dog too."
- "I hope my courage holds out. I hope your tail holds out."
- "I'm melting."
- " Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
That being said, I take heart in this. When someone says, "You quilt, right? Can you make me a bed quilt? In beige?"
I remind myself that my glory and my crown, my hope and my consolation is that I be as gloriously odd as I am. And that if I do it well a small part of the world will shift for it.
Those of us doing our art shift the archetypes. Not purposely, or with cause, but simply by bringing our vision to the world. It's not something one picks and chooses. It's simply an act of trust to bring what your heart demands into being. We bring it all to the table and let time sort it out.
Labels:
archetypes,
books,
life as an artist,
lifestyle,
lunatic fringe,
movies,
story telling,
Wizard of Oz
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Silent Night: Waiting for Wonder
I'm convinced this is a reaction to the dark of the year. I can't speak for any one else. It has an addictive edge to it I don't trust. When I try to strip myself down each year to the celebration of Christ's birth and basic kindness to the people in front of me, without the endorphin pump of extra shopping, sugar and alcohol, I find myself facing all kinds of edgy truths about myself. Much of what runs through your mind in the dark.
Not that I'm a stick about sugar and extra spending. They're just not good for me. There's an old saying, "Up like a rocket. Down like a stick.", which pretty much covers my mental health after any Christmas-New Years week. Since I don't have the family obligations, I can and often do choose to opt out of the commercial aspect. And anything that takes extra vacuuming, or must be put away unless it's up next spring. Ick.
I'm an escaped Catholic. I go to an Anglican Church largely because I love the rituals and can think what I like. They don't green the church (translate: put up the tree) until the Sunday before Christmas.
It leaves time for waiting in the darkness. To push back against the darkness, and it's nastier little whispers and say, "The Light is coming." There's a value in saying that before the light arrives. It reminds us that good and bad, broken and whole what we need is there and right for us.
That all said, I think I'm going to put up an origami bird tree. One I don't have to take down after the season. There's nothing wrong with lighting a candle in the dark.
All of the best of the blest for you and yours for the holiday.
Ellen
Monday, December 12, 2011
Lauren Strach: A Botanical Lunatic with a Plan
"My inspiration, like so many other quilters, comes from nature.
As a life-long biologist and Master Gardener, I thought I saw nature, but it wasn’t until I embraced my artful journey that I began to really see. My inspiration is found in the whorls of snail shells, the miniature worlds of mosses and lichens, the rugged nooks and crannies of the bark of the fallen tree, and the intricate shading and nuances in the early spring wildflowers. And, the more I see, the more I see.
The act of translating that vision in line, pattern and color into textile recreations introduces the next level of AHA! It is an ever fascinating challenge to take the experience of seeing with eyes wide open, to shape it into form. From the fantastical realism of exaggerated insects, to the abstracted likeness of the quintessential flower bud, I seek to uncover the universal codes, to bring them to life with fabric and thread. Tactile, textile translations of the mysteries of nature, celebrating the wonders of life, that is where I find my inspiration.
Lauren's work has been showed at both Paducah and Houston. She was a finalist in the $100,000 Quilt Challenge. Where will she show next? It could be anywhere. If she doesn't send it in, it's likely
to fly in on it's own.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Distraction Faction
I live in dread of distraction. So it is with serious fear that I face the holidays. I have a really low attention span, and I multitask unmercifully, but I know I will leave three out of five of those tasks in the dust. So when the holidays come, I know I really ought to find the floor.
This year we had a particular reason why that was vital.
This is Tom and Sarah.
This is Tom and Sarah with munchkin. It's astonishing how something so small can hold your whole heart that tightly.
Keira is at seven months, a bright sunny soul who likes soft boiled eggs, bee bop music, and is working on toy tossing as an Olympic sport. We had visions of what she'd do when she found the dog bones so we at least had to clean that much up. After that it became the search for more suction in vacuum cleaner land.
The weirdest thing has happened to me. It was bad enough at the baby shower. I actually made a baby quilt. Since it's out of all my apron prints, it includes ghosts, tigers, hawks, spiders, and beetles. We thought we ought to start her early on those things.
But I'm knitting...............................!
I was really worried about having been distracted in this way and then it came to me. I won't really have to have someone pry the knitting needles out of my hands. They come in pairs and I'm bound to lose one sooner or later.
Either way, I've been given the ultimate delight of a tiny hand waving wet spoons and toys at me as I sing her bee bop. Pretty good for a maiden fairy godmother.
Keira lives in Austin with my God kids, Tom and Sarah, They better bring her back soon or, God knows what I'll knit.
This year we had a particular reason why that was vital.This is Tom and Sarah.
But I'm knitting...............................!
I was really worried about having been distracted in this way and then it came to me. I won't really have to have someone pry the knitting needles out of my hands. They come in pairs and I'm bound to lose one sooner or later.
Either way, I've been given the ultimate delight of a tiny hand waving wet spoons and toys at me as I sing her bee bop. Pretty good for a maiden fairy godmother.
Keira lives in Austin with my God kids, Tom and Sarah, They better bring her back soon or, God knows what I'll knit.
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Lunatic Fringe Rampant
If you are a former Fringe member you know it never goes away.
If you were in class with me and I gave you your badge, it's good for ever. Like every sign and symbol, we really wear them mostly inside ourselves.
The Lunatic Fringe Badge is
- The Red Badge of Courage
- Your Purple Heart
- A Green Lunatic Fringe
- Do you do your art at odd hours and in odd ways?
- Are people always asking you "What's that for?
- Do you neglect housework, yard work, dinner, and paper work to do your art?
Do you see wonderful inspiration in really strange places and at odd times? - Does your heart hurt if you can't do your art?
- Do you sew, paint, sculpt, write or whatever like a mad person?
- Have you ever been rejected from a show or publisher?
Of course they need a red badge of courage. That kind of art takes guts. Of course they've earned a purple heart. Creative people like that get shot at. Of course it's lunatic. It's lunatic, brilliant, fun, wild,real, healing, scary and personally vital.
This is not just for artists. All life is art and your lunatic fringe may be in how you garden, arrange your life, cook your food, write your stories. The lunatic fringe is about acknowledging the art within your life.
I'm putting up a page on facebook for the Lunatic Fringe to strut their stuff. Your fringe is hanging! SHOW US YOUR FRINGE!
If you would like a guest blog on the Lunatic Fringe, email at ellenanneeddy@gmail.com and tell us how your part of it all.
We'll welcome posts both on facebook and guest blogs. I'm starting a new blog for the Lunatic Fringe for you to show it all off.
Check out the Lunatic Fringe Blog
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Life in the Garden of Time
Lately I've been captured by a
Facebook game, Gardens of Time. My game choices are limited by several easy rules. It must, unlike Jungle Gems, be free. It must, unlike Angry Birds, not make me flinch. It can loop endlessly, like Fluffy, but it must offer achievable goals. As you can see, I've gone through most of them.
They surely are a way of turning off. Endless amounts of time get swallowed. Gardens of Time is a found object game. You win by finding lost and odd objects in unlikely spots. Then you build your own garden with all kinds of odd but necessary artifacts, buildings and decorations. Just like home. But it is, in a way, symbolic of my life.
First off, their housekeeping looks like mine. Yes I do have odd objects everywhere, including the banana peel on the couch. Sorry. I want to say the dogs do that, but some lies just aren't believable.
Secondly, you need to do thing over and over and over again, until you learn them. That's just reality. Everything worth doing is worth doing badly. You will do it badly until you do it well. So you might as well just do it.
Thirdly, you put in every silly thing they tell you to. After having filled in a quilt show entry, I can see how that relates.
Finally there are gifts people give each other.
At first I didn't get that. I think they didn't have it hooked up so you could see what the gift was and who it was from. So I sort of left them sitting around with the rest of the clutter.
Then I realized how much of my life is unclaimed gifts. The real gifts we get given, have no meaning if we don't claim them. I'm not talking about the lovely physical things we give each other over time and space. I'm talking about life gifts. A friend. A talent. A love. An opportunity. A chance. A space.
I can't help but wonder what I might accomplish if I walked away from my computer games an extra two hours a day. But my golden ring for today is that I'm going to find that out.
You'll find Gardens of Time on Facebook.
You'll also find the Ellen Anne Eddy Thread Magic Studio page there. Like it and you'll see what's happening in and out of my studio.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Musings: Art Outside the Box: Hiding in Plain Sight and the Musical Sandbox Squabble
I've recently found myself in an especially stupid squabble with someone at my church. I won't say which one. We are all mostly alike and there's one of every kind in every church on the planet.You can put in the name of any church you've ever been to, and that's the one. It turned into a tug of war over the choir music.
There are two major ways to win a tug of war.With that said, there are a half dozen different dirty tricks. You can pull, let up, tell them to look over there and yank, talk about their mom's hygene. Those are all ways to win at tug of war. But the bottom line is simple. You either tug harder than they do or you let go of the rope.
But like all wars, you have to ask, "What's the prize? And what is the price?"
I'm a very faithful church goer for several reasons. Sheer loneliness is a significant part of it. A hunger for ritual, certainly a chunk. I believe God to be everywhere, but I'm hoping He hasn't left the building. Mostly, I'm hoping to be a better me.
But I didn't miss the fact that I'm in a room with people. Of course they're scary. I'm sure I am too to them. What was I doing in the choir? I was hanging out in plain sight and perfectly hidden as an alto in the first row. So when we got an organist who insisted I sing out of my range or stay silent, I lost my place to hide. He's a world class organist. I'm an alto in the back.He's also world class at other things I won't mention. If we're going to play tug of war, I don't think I have the pull.
Who wins at tug of war? I can't believe the guy with the muddy bottom who pulled hardest really won. His very own muddy bottom? What a prize!
So here I am in my quilt, trying to hide somewhere else.Here I am hunting a church with a choir loft or another place for an odd artist to fit in. Perhaps I can rethink that hiding bit. It's not like I'm good at it. I'm looking at several churches, none of which have a choir at all, and wondering if there's a space under the floor. It's all autobiographical, really.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Musings: Art Outside the Box: The Green Eyed Monster and the Time Machine
Dancing in the Light
National Quilt Museum
Opening night, April 24th
Paducah, KY 2011
I got to go to Paducah to see the unveiling of my quilt. They bought Dancing in the Light, last year for their permanent collection. The opening was its first viewing there.
I wish I could say that I've had so many experiences like that that it felt normal or natural. I felt like Cinderella, thank God without the shoes. I arrived from my flight in Chicago, 15 minutes before the opening. I threw on my dress and ran ( as well as any lady my size with my knees can) to the ball. I met people who loved my quilt. I met people I'd loved forever for their work. I went from throwing- up-scared to simply sitting in a room with fellow artists I love.
I think any artist who's committed themselves to showing and to selling their work hits a point where it matters desperately what other people think.We all say we don't. It's whistling in the dark, as far as I can tell. It has to do with paying your mortgage at some point. But before that, you commit to your art it such a way that it has to pay you back in terms of some response. Those who are supported externally have a leg up on this, but they also lack some of the edge artistically.We're all waiting for the response. We do our artistic best and put it up the flag pole to see who salutes.
When I began doing art quilts in the late 1970's, there was an explosion of excellent people fighting to be seen. That's still ongoing. In fact it's so much harder to be recognized or for that point, remembered. We create, we show, we publish, we teach, and in that river of activity, we wait for the response.
In those early days, I remember the agony of not getting in. This show. That book. This opportunity. That also hasn't changed. There are only so many slots and there are many more pegs. It's a real danger sitting with a friend who's just gotten into Quilt National when you haven't. Your happy for her. Right? Right? Well, yes but. And the but is sour and has a long after-burn.
I realized at a certain point I was using these moments of win or lose, inclusion and exclusion to define who I am. Shallow as that is, it's hard not to. The green eyed monster affects all of us, no matter what color our eyes are.
Of course, outside the quilt world, who cares? The quilt world is a very tiny pond. I can't imagine anyone writing on my tombstone, " She finally got into Quilt National when she was 89." Of course they also won't write, "she had an immaculate house", or "she was always a size 3 jeans". I hope they say I did a good job continuing my art and of loving the people in front of me.
I sent in my IQA offering this week, with the green eyed monster locked safely down by the laundry machines in the basement. I don't always get in. I don't always get anything. But I have had mine. And so may we all.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Musing: Art outside the Box:The Call of the Less Wild than It Was
Of course it's awfully hard to get out of the veggie garden and into the studio. Here is Bedelia Birdy Buttercup, greyhound in charge, trying to herd me out of the garden. She's not having much luck this year.
Blossom in the Moonlight is one of three quilts on special sale on my site at http://www.ellenanneeddy.com/gallery.php. Can you find the other two? They're part of the river of art that goes on, once I get myself out of the art of my life.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Musing: Art outside the Box: The Voice in the Dark
We all have a voice track in our head that never goes away. It's full of all kinds of nonsense: music that plays in endless loops, the thing we could have said at a bad moment if we'd been more quick on our feet, the arguments, never said, with friends long lost and gone. The auditory flotsam and jetsam of our lives, scraped out of an old verbal closet that haunt us.
My worst fear is that I will die saying the same cruel things to myself that were said to me as a child. I am in no way alone. If you teach you get to hear exactly what people were told as a child. Because when their blood sugar drops or they get frightened or threatened, they'll start saying it to themselves. It's an agony to listen to. It never should have been said to anyone in the first place.
"I'm so dumb."
"I'm not an artist."
"I'm not creative."
"I can't draw, see colors, try, find time, find space, do this ............"
The words hardly matter. It's almost always about the tone of cruelty. It's an echo of bullying.
I always shut it down in class. It's like watching someone dig a hole through their heart with a jagged knife. I tell them no one can talk to my students that way. Not even them about themselves.They'll tell it to you in a cold and clinical way at 9:30 in the morning. At 3 PM they're crying about it in the bathroom.
Oddly enough, it's never anything provable or true. Or it's true but utterly harmless. We are all, in our physicality, fat, or skinny, tall or short, and I think it's impossible to be alive and not be funny looking at some point. What gives it weight is not it's accuracy of the statement but the accuracy involved in having chosen that thing to say. No one could have told me I was dumb. It never worked. I knew better. But they told me daily I was the ugliest girl in the school.
There wasn't exactly a contest. It wasn't like someone proved that.But with the unerring aim of all bullies, they knew that had a sting. Having the normal number of hands, feet, arms legs and heads, I do believe as an adult that I look pretty normal and that this was chosen and said simply for the impact they knew it would have. It was nothing but bullying.
So what happens if we choose different words? What happens if like the video, we choose to define ourselves differently?
I do follow religious seasons and this is the season of Lent. For those of us who do, you usually do what is called a Lenten discipline. This used to be regularly fasting. The current view is that you give up something like chocolate or tv.
But it does me more good to do something rather than to stop doing something. This year, I promised myself to remember my meds and do my face care every day. It sounds like vanity, but it's not. There's a little girl in me who has heard too many ugly words and needs to hear actions rather than words. We're almost at the end of Lent and this time I've held on. A really good Lenten discipline is one you want to continue after Lent for the good it did you.
It's my own anti bullying campaign. It's my beautiful frogs. If they are beautiful, perhaps I am too. It's the ability to listen to that dark inner voice and change the channel. It's the ability to change my world with my words.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Musing: Art outside the Box: Un-entitling Entitlement.
I watched an upload on infertility today on Facebook. I will not link to that upload here. The woman's pain was so raw, and so real. She's in her twenties and just hit the fact that she cannot have a child.
I don't think she'd like to hear what I need to say about all of this.I remember her agony. My mother was given hormones during her pregnancy (You're over 40. You're not pregnant, this is menopause.) I was told fairly early that there would be no children. As there was no one to have a child with, and I think that's especially difficult, I simply had to wade it through and wait it out. At 42 I had the inevitable hysterectomy that confirmed it all. I would not make a child. I would never have my baby. Eventually I came to understand that I would never have family in the way others do.
There's this illusion that the world is fair. That we should all get a certain similar plate, decorated and filled with the same things in equal parts. Wouldn't that be nice? Shouldn't we arrange that? It's almost monstrous to argue otherwise.
But it's simply not how it works. Life is massively unfair, much of the time. There are those without money, intelligence, education, opportunities, loves, lovers, connections, health and strength. We can legislate some of these factors to a more even place. But much of it is simply what we have. It's the raw material of our lives.
I don't think we get to change that raw material much. As cruel as it is, there are people who I think should not have a child. I'm one of them. My mother had an alcoholic approach to child rearing that I want to make very sure happens to no child around me. The best way to be sure of that is for me to not be the sole person, raising a child.
Could I have said that at 20? 25? 35 when the clock was ticking hard? I'm not sure I could. My body said it for me. And if we wish to discuss what is fair and unfair, did some child deserve me taking that chance?
Oddly enough, I have children. I just didn't make them. I've gone through batches of neighborhood kids, god children, lost lambs, grown up 3 year olds in big bodies and 40 year old ten year olds. All I had to do was open my door. Because they came and went at will, there was a safety there for them and for myself. The things I feared I might do, did not happen. Instead, I got to love the children in front of me.
Life is not fair. It can be right, but it's never fair. Fair is a measure of average. Who of us is ever that?
I go through whiny places about being alone. I'm not someone who does primary relationships well. By the time I was 40, it was pretty clear I'd never pair up or marry. Recently I shared one with a friend who told me to shut up and count my blessings. This is the answer only a real friend can give you. My world is often very lonely but it is full of imagery, art, creation, space and time for the world of the mind and the imagination. It is not average. It has gifts for me. But the average world of what is fair, does not have space in it for the odd and lovely gifts my loneness hands me and then demands of me. For that is the other edge of it. The gifts life gives us all demand a commitment of time, strength and focus. You can't just hold your child at the photo opportunity. You also need to do that at 3 in the morning when she's crying and scared. You cannot love someone only when they've brought you roses. You need to find your love when they're incomprehensible and terrifying
(and we all are). You aren't just an artist at an opening. You're an artist when it separates you from much of what others do. Life is not fair. It is rich, it is odd and it's mostly our response to the very unaverage person we are.
I love the fairy tales where the fairy give us a cruel and unwanted gift or task that makes us braver, stronger and better. Like the two boys on Christmas,one given everything he wants and the other given a room of manure, it works out differently than we think. There's a pony in there somewhere.
So, to that woman, I want to say, " You can have children, just not in the way you hoped." To myself I need to say, "All your love is here, it's just not in the form you wished." It's cruel to say " Your art is your child." It's not true. Your art is your creation, but it is never a child who puts their arms around you or rejects you when they hit 17. They are very separate things. Both of them excellent. Perhaps if we can put aside the notion of what is fair, we can see the good in what simply is.
Monday, January 10, 2011
In Praise of Pockets!
 |
| Ellen, Birdy and Ivy |
Golum's riddle to Bilbo the Hobbit
I'm from a story telling family. My mother was Irish. She had many shortfalls, but she could embroider a story until it glowed silver and gold. My father, being of English blood almost never spoke at all.But he read constantly. And when I was a child they both read constantly to me.
One of my mother's favorites was Katie No-Pocket.This child's delight is about a kangaroo who has no pockets and a very tired out baby who she can't always hold when she's traveling. She discovers aprons in her travels and has so many pockets she carries all the other neighbor animals as well.
I think the stories we tell are cement that could fix the world. The stories we tell ourselves can change our fears and our expectations of ourselves and of the world. The stories we tell our children meld theirs. We should always tell stories, but I think we need to understand that they are powerful and wildly unexpected forces. Certainly they teach us how to turn our daily woes into wows.
I know there are somewhere, neat little girls who grow up to be neat adults. I never was one. I made mud pies. I still kind of do. So aprons are a huge part of my life. I don't need an apron to cover my waist or my front. Preferably the 360 degree cover all is what's required. I love aprons for that reason.
But best of all, THEY HAVE POCKETS!
I can lose almost anything. I lose things in front of me as a specialty. So anything I need all day goes into my pocket. My phone, my daily do list, my pen, dog cookies, a rotary cutter, a snack, a book, a flash drive, my camera,the TV remote. But it's all there, somewhere. I have my scissors clipped on at my neck. If it's on my body, it's not lost.
Does that sound like a big pocket? Well, yes. And it does clank.
The only downside to this pattern is that it takes 6 yards of bias. I cut mine from a bias tube (in whatever yummy fabric I want) and put it on with a serger with fusible thread in the lower looper.
You'll find instructions for no-hand-stitch bias on a serger in my booklet, Machine Binding Techniques.
You'll find my favorite apron pattern here or at your local pattern store. My Favorite Apron Pattern
You'll find other apron patterns here.
Search Amazon.com for apron patterns for women
You'll also find Katy No-Pocket (Sandpiper)
at Amazon.com. Read it for yourself or share it with your babes. It's a story that changes worlds.Get ready to get messy and not lose anything. How good is that? The book should fit in your pocket.
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