Healing Hands, Healing Heart

Sometimes someone will email me and ask if I will make them a specific pillow or wall hanging or quilt.  I always get a little uneasy at such a request, because I’m not always good as saying no.  Although by now I have enough experience to know that if I’m trying to make something that I don’t want to, I won’t enjoy doing it and I won’t do a good job.

If I don’t know right away if I want to do it or not, I usually don’t answer right immediately .   I give myself time to think about it,  sometimes a whole day.   Then I see how I feel when I do think about it.  If I get an ugh kinda feeling in my stomach when it comes to mind, I know not to do it.  If it’s not an ugh, I do it.  This doesn’t mean that if I say no to a request, that I think it’s an awful idea, it just means I’m not the right person to do it.  I have my line and sometimes I’ve done a balancing act on it, a few times I’ve stepped over it.  I like to believe that I’ve learned from those times.

One that comes to mind has to do with a piece of dog fabric and a potholder.  Someone gave me a bunch of fabric with dogs on it.  Some of it I enthusiastically used and some of it sat on my shelf.  It was just ugly.  I don’t remember how I got to this point, but one day I found myself at my desk piecing together a potholder and using this ugly dog fabric, just because it was dog fabric and I had it.  I remember struggling with it, then finally throwing something together.  I only made one, and put it in a pile of other potholders that were going in a show.  When it sold, I was a bit embarrassed and glad that it was gone.  I told myself that I would never do that again. I still cringe when I think about it.  It’s not so much about the potholder itself, I’m sure whoever bought it, likes it (I hope).  It’s more about me feeling like I wasn’t being honest, I wasn’t being authentic.  My work is a piece of me going out into the world, if I’m not true to my work I’m not being true to me.

Above is a commissioned piece that I didn’t even have to think about.  When I read the email from Anita, I immediately knew I wanted to do it.  I understood and loved everything about it.  It is so close to what I am already doing, I almost could have come up with the idea.  Even with all that, it was still a challenge.  The pillow has more words that images and most of the words aren’t mine.  But I decided to see the words as pictures and fit them all into the design.

It’s a little different for me, and I had my doubts yesterday when I left the studio.  But today I could see that it worked.  And I’m glad to say I think the beautiful words will always  stay with me and happy to share them with you.

“Just for today, I will not be angry
Just for today, I will not worry
Just for today, I will be grateful
Just for today I will do my work honestly
Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing”

Reiki mantra by Mikao Usui