Years ago I watched an animated short of three or four long, thin men on a flat square surface running back and forth, trying to keep it from tipping over into nothingness. The film was only a few minutes long, but that image of trying to keep a balance stayed with me. When Harriet send me an email last month with a photo of her two poodles on a teeter, that animated film flashed in my mind. Harriet asked if I could make her a pillow using two poodle appliques. Today, more than a month later, inspiration for that pillow came to me. It was the teeter, the idea of balance, and those two great poodle appliques with the shiny plastic red eyes that motivated me this morning. I don’t know why today, but I’m learning not to question my creative impulses. Not before I do the work, I can ask why afterwards, but before, why has the potential to destroy a piece before it’s even begun.
So no more questions or wondering, I’ll sew it all together and once it’s a neat little pillow, I can try to figure it all out, or not.
Thank you for your gifts to the world, Maria!
“When most people think of balance, they tend to think of a scale and to assume that a balanced life would not tip. That sort of balance, though, is static. You can attain it only if you never change.”
That’s the first line of an essay I read over 10 years ago that I have to keep reminding myself of – the goal is not to achieve a “balanced” life where everything is comfortable and unchanging, but to learn how to move forward with the changes that come.
A great piece Ardene, I’m so glad you shared it with us. The idea of moving forward to keep the balance makes so much sense to me.