Every Sunday, when I was a kid, on his way to work, my father would drop me, my mother, sister and brother at my grandparent’s house in Queens, NY. And every Sunday we’d walk to Liberty Avenue to shop in the stores with the trains rumbling above us on the El.
We’d always go to the same stores and rarely bought anything.
Sometimes we’d get a slice of pizza and a soda or on special days an Italian ice. Once we got a whole sugar cane from the fruit and vegetable market. My mother broke it into pieces and we sucked on it the whole way home. We’d look at the puppies or kittens in the pet store window and in Woolworths I’d go right to the paper aisle.
There I’d stare at the receipt books, small pads of paper and large stacks of looseleaf, without touching them,no matter how tempting, or ever believing I might be lucky enough to own one. And I knew if I ever did, I’d never use it. I’d be too afraid to ruin it or use it all up.
When I got the small handmade book with the felted cover and smooth blank pages in the mail last week, I had the same feeling. I texted Emily who sent it to me to thank her and wrote, It’s so precious I may be afraid to use it.
Remember, she wrote back, it’s just paper.
My Sunday afternoon video chats with Emily have become a regular part of these coronavirus weeks.
We show each other what we’ve been working on then talk about it. We trade ideas, inspire each other, and are honest about our strengths and weaknesses. We speak the same language.
Today as I was mulling over Emily’s collage making process, which seems the opposite of my creative process, I decided to use the book she sent to me to try it out.
We’re both additive and intuitive artists.
We start with one small piece or shape of paper for her and fabric for me and add on to it without knowing where it will go. But while I am drawn to edges and how they fit and come together she layers her work. Painting over, piling on, scratching and etching.
And as we talked about it, I saw the freedom in her process.
The first layers were almost like a warm-up, I thought. They don’t have to be “right” because soon they’ll be underneath it all, just peeking through. And all that layering naturally creates texture, builds up dimensions until there’s nothing flat about it. Which is very appealing to me.
I felt the same way I did when I first saw pictures of the Gees’ Bend quilts. I thought, that’s something I would like to do.
So in that moment, I decided to use the book Emily made to experiment with her creative process. Now I’m excited to fill up those little precious pages instead of afraid.
Emily has a new coloring page for sale on her website papercakescissors called Eat More Veggies it’s just $3 to download and you can buy it here.
Grass and clover is beginning to grow between the rocks on Red’s grave.
When we placed the rocks on top of the earth where Red is buried, I kept picturing a grave from an old cowboy movie. Rocks piled on dry desert earth. Or a burial on the prairie, a pioneer, making her way to the west coast, leaving a loved one behind, hoping the rocks would keep the wolves away.
I didn’t think of life growing between the rocks, growing taller than the rocks, growing over the rocks.
But of course, that will happen. Every year I chop away at the grass as it creeps over the stone paths in our yard.
We don’t live in the desert, where pottery shards from a thousand years ago can still be found in the ruins of an ancient Native American village. Here, all the Indian mounds have been plowed under long ago. Almost all evidence of life before the Europeans came, is buried beneath layers of soil or pavement.
Wheels over Indian Trials, I still remember seeing these words, stenciled on the overpass on the way to my grandmother’s house, in Queens NY. I was just a kid and didn’t understand their meaning, but they grew with me.
Just because we don’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I would have planted a flower on Red’s grave, but the donkeys and sheep would just eat it. The grass and clover is inspiring me though. Maybe in the spring I’ll throw some pumpkin seeds between the rocks and see if they grow too.
Goddess in the Boat potholder you can buy this in my Etsy Shop fullmoonfiberart.
I’ve been keeping it a secret, (mostly because it made me nervous) but over the past couple of weeks I’ve been creating an Etsy shop called fullmoonfiberart and making potholders to sell there.
Yesterday it went live.
I’ve been ambivalent about selling my work on Etsy. A couple of years after starting my business and blog, I had an Etsy shop, but found I sold more of my work on my blog, and it became a burden rather than making things easier.
So I’ve been resistant to the idea, but with some prodding from Jon (who loves to shop on Etsy) and friends, I decided to give it a try. After all, it’s potentially a whole new audience for my work and my blog. Even I can see that.
I still hadn’t changed my idea about Etsy when I was putting up the shop and making the potholders. Even when it went live, I was still reluctant to write about it on my blog.
But I did share it on facebook, because it was so easy to do.
And it was when I sold two potholders, both to people I know very well and met though my work, that I started to think differently about it.
One concern about going on Etsy is about my relationship with my readers and customers. I make so many connections when someone emails me to buy a piece of my art. We often have lovely conversations which sometimes even lead to online friendships.
I love that part of my work, and don’t want to lose it. It seems Etsy can sometimes be a cold place to just do business, without the interaction that means so much to me.
Another part of my reluctance about Etsy was that I felt, in a way, it was a betrayal to my blog, which has been so good to me and for me.
But it’s also that when I put my work on Etsy, I become anonymous.
My blog is me. Read my blog and you get to know me and my work. You get the whole story. People on my blog know why I’m making a “Goddess Potholder”. And they don’t expect my potholders to all be the same size and shape, they already know why I make them the way I do.
On my blog I’m the ruling queen, in control of my queendom. On Etsy, I’m just another person(out of thousands) making and selling my potholders.
(I didn’t realize this part of it till just now as I wrote it. I didn’t know my ego was so big and tender at the same time. Or that my ego was being over protective. This is just the kind of thing I mean, when I say my blog does so much for me.)
The interesting thing is, Susan and Linda, who made the first two purchases in my Etsy Shop, are both telling me that they liked shopping for my work on Etsy. Linda said it was easier to see what was for sale.
On my blog it’s often confusing, because I can’t monitor it constantly and many times I’ve already sold something that someone else wants and there’s no way for them to know that until I email them.
This is easier for me too, because I don’t have to send lots of emails back an forth letting people know what’s sold and whats still available.
On both ends, the whole process of selling for me and the buyer is easier and more efficient on Etsy.
And Susan said that maybe it’s just the opposite than how I’ve been thinking. That it’s because of my blog that Etsy can work for me now. Not a betrayal, but a benefit to the blog.
So, now I’m beginning to change my mind about Etsy. Sometimes it takes actually doing a thing to make that happen for me. It’s too hard for me to imagine. I need hard evidence.
I’ll still be selling my quilts and wallhangings on my blog. And, I’ll still be writing about my potholders on my blog too. Sharing the process and all that goes into the making. And If people want them before they’re done and they let me know, I’ll still sell them on my blog.
But I hope to always have an inventory of Potholders in my Etsy Shop. For all my blog readers and anyone else who wants them.
So Welcome to the grand opening of my Etsy shop fullmoonfiberart. Click here to take a look around. And thanks for visiting.
(soon I’ll have a link on my blog to my Etsy Shop, so it’s easy to get to).
The Box of Belly Dancing treasures that Kitty gave me.
I stood in naked in front of the full length mirror and placed my hands lovingly on my stomach. I love my belly, I said out loud.
How many years have I been doing this? Two or three at least. It hasn’t completely drowned out the voices and feelings that make me believe my stomach is too big and ugly, even shameful. But now, when I say I love my belly, I believe it.
For the moment anyway.
I can trace the feelings I have about my stomach back to my childhood, when every night my father would call my mother from work and ask her if she did her sit-ups (to keep her stomach flat). But it doesn’t end there, because our societies idea of the “beautiful woman” also has a flat stomach. (How awful is the expression “muffin top” I cringe writing it.) And my ex-husband’s rejection of my body for 21 years only reinforced my feelings.
I don’t place this “stomach” judgement on other people, only myself.
It’s the reason I was feeling fear going to my first Belly Dancing class. I’m embarrassed to show my stomach. I even find myself still trying to hide it from Jon. Jon who loves me so much body and soul. Who has never breathed a word of anything but adoration for my body. And who couldn’t care less how big or small my stomach is.
It’s one of those irrational fears that have nothing to do with me and my life now. An old fear of being rejected, mocked and diminished.
I dressed for my first Belly Dancing class in layers. Leggins and a skirt. A bra (I rarely wear a bra), a tight-fitting tank top (that I usually wear as an undershirt), a loose-fitting no sleeve shirt over that and a sweat shirt on top of it all.
It felt safe, I could leave it all on, or get down to the tank top depending on how I was feeling.
As I turned out of the driveway onto Route 22 I could feel the fear welling up in me. I turned off the news on the radio and took deep breaths, trying to ground myself. As I passed the American Legion I saw the sign for their clam bake that coming weekend, July 15ht. That’s when it dawned on me that it was my ex-husband’s birthday.
“Fuck you, this is my body, my life,” I thought, as defiance surged inside of me. Then, within moments, the fear dropped away.
I was meeting Kitty, who introduced me to Belly Dancing, at her house. Then we would go to the class together. I don’t know Kitty really well, we’re new friends, but she must have sensed my trepidation about the class and offered to go with me to the first one. Kitty’s been Belly Dancing for years. She’s one of the original members of the group and only recently stopped dancing with them.
Even though the fear was gone, I was still nervous about the class. I think a normal kind of nervous about doing something new. Being with Kitty at her house before the class was calming to me. She showed me her gardens and her studio (Kitty and her husband are both artists) and pictures from some of her Belly Dancing performances.
Then she handed me a box filled with clothes and accessories for Belly Dancing.
She assured me that these were extra’s and she wasn’t giving me anything she didn’t want to. I shook the waist sash with the “coins” on them, making them jingle and thought to myself, “I’ll never wear that” as Kitty held up the choli, the bra-like top that dancers wear with their skirts.
A little overwhelmed, I took the cardboard box out to my car. It felt sacred in my arms, like it held the answer to a question I hadn’t yet asked.
The class is held in the Senior Center in Bennington. Nothing exotic, a kitchen on one side of the room the empty wooden dance floor on the other. We left our shoes outside the room and I took off my first layer of clothes.
Inside, we new students filled out a form and waited for the class to being. Most of the women wore cholis, skirts and leggings. Women, who I guessed, were my age and younger. There was a welcoming feeling in the room, without judgement. I took the plunge and removed the loose-fitting shirt I was wearing over my tank top. I felt exposed, vulnerable, but no one noticed. I actually had less of my body showing than most of the people in the class. No one cared but me.
And I only cared for a little while. Because once we started the lesson, I was too busy concentrating on moving my hips and legs and feet and arms and hands to do anything else.
The professional Belly Dancers make it look so easy. That’s how you know when someone’s really good at what they do.
I had no idea if what I was doing was right. I didn’t even know if I was standing right. But I just kept moving. Sometimes getting the right/left thing wrong, and certain that my arms, hips and hands were all separate entities, doing their own thing, unaware of each other.
Julz, our teacher, was reassuring. It takes some people a year before they can get the hand movements down, she said. Most people are good at somethings and not so good at other things.
Then she stood in front of the class and showed us the seemingly simple dance movements we would learn in the six-week class.
“You can dance like this,” she said, and went through the movements which looked perfectly fine. “Or,” she said, “you can dance with attitude.”
Julz made the same movements, but they were entirely different. It was as if the air around her vibrated. She was a Goddess a Queen. Strong and confident and completely present. ” I like to dance with attitude,” she said.
I don’t need to perform, I don’t need to get it all right. I don’t have to be a professional Belly Dancer. But I want to dance with attitude.
I’ve spent hours writing this piece and crying in between. Just by writing about it all the awful feelings about my body have surfaced again. I know they won’t go away easily, but I’m determined to do something about it. And the Belly Dancing is a start. One way to help me feel better about myself and my body.
I feel like this is all weighing on me and by writing about it and putting out into the world, I’ll be releasing some of it.
And maybe I can stop blowing my nose.
I’ve been hiding for so long, running from my shame. And now little by little I’m facing the shame. Being honest about myself through my art, my writing and now through my body.
I’ve heard and read that the way to rid ourselves of shame is to talk about it. To bring it from where it lives in the dark corners of our bodies and minds into the light. A sometimes terrifying thing to do, but much better than accepting it and living with it for the rest of my life.
Statue of Persephone (Cyprus 480BC) holding a pomegranate
I sat in bed struggling through the story of Persephone. It was a thin book but I couldn’t make sense of it, didn’t understand what it had to do with me.
Selma my therapist recommended I read it. But I’ve never been good at interpreting myths, I think I read them too literally, their hidden meaning undecipherable from the imagery of the story floating around in my head.
Short as it was, I never finished reading it. That was almost ten years ago.
Now, with the help of Jean Shinoda Bolen’s book The Goddess in Older Women, I finally get it.
Basically, Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Zeus gave Hades, the god of the underworld, permission to abduct Persephone making her his bride. Demeter didn’t know about the arrangement and when Persephone disappeared she searched for her until she found her and brought her back.
But because Persephone had eaten some pomegranate seeds when she was in the underworld she was destined to spend three months out of the year there for the rest of her life. She is also known as Queen of the Underworld.
Because Persephone was a young carefree maiden when she was abducted, she represents a woman who doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She is easily swayed by stronger personalities and finds herself flailing around in life trying to be what other people want her to be. Like a young Persephone, her “self” has been abducted.
In Bolen’s book she tells and interprets the stories of many different Goddesses. I kept seeing parts of myself in them, but when I read about Persephone, it was like reading the story of most of my life.
Even when I was going to art school or making art, something I did on and off throughout my life, I was never able to stay dedicated to it. I was always pulled by trying to please my ex-husband and being drawn into his world. I couldn’t separate myself from the overbearing traditions and obligations of my birth family enough to form my own identity.
I always knew I wanted something more, that the real me was lurking inside myself, slowly dying as I gave myself over to others again and again. I was never able to take responsibility for what I really wanted from my life.
Bolen writes that some women stay Persephone their whole life. But I started to change when I was in my early forties. I see now that the Goddess Kali – the destructive, protecting and life renewing Goddess – was inside of me, as goddesses are, and had awakened me.
To protect my “self” I had to destroy my old life, leave my husband at the time, break off some unhealthy friendships, and redefine boundaries with my birth family.
I had to begin making my art, doing the work that I believe is my purpose in life, and was always afraid to do.
And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last nine years, recreating my life by finally living it.
Now I’m ready to see what comes next.
Bolen encourages women who identify with Persephone to look to the wisdom of Metis, Hecate, Sophia and Hestia. Metis the goddess of practical wisdom, Hecate, the Goddess of Intuition, the mystical and spiritual Sophia and Hestia who creates a safe and nourishing home.
While I feel like I’ve incorporated a part of all of these Goddess in my life already, I’m curious what will happen if I actively focus on what they represent more consciously.
It feels like an exciting direction, the next step. Who will I be next year? How will my life change? Where will the Goddesses direct and inspire me next?
And what is ahead of me for my growth, understanding and awareness.
We got out of the car and looked up the hillside, the grass starting to turn green. The sun was shining, the sky blue with big billowy clouds. Chloe was grazing, Queenie and Micky were standing next to her.
As we walked towards the gate, first Queenie then Micky then Chloe lazily headed down the hill.
There was a feeling of calm. Of horses used to being together enjoying the warmth of the sun.
As usual, Chloe was more interested in grazing than me and Jon. I walked over to her and asked for a kiss. She lifted her head and I kissed her soft nose. I pulled a piece of carrot out of my pocket. After eating it, Chloe went back to grazing.
Queenie, who the last time I visited wouldn’t let me get near Chloe, wasn’t interested in us at all. She and Micky stood at the bottom of the hill taking in the sun.
I brushed Chloe, and it was as it had been at Bedlam Farm. I felt the same energy between us. She seemed completely at ease, content, at home in her surroundings.
It felt just right.
Then I looked down the hill and saw something else. Jon was scratching and talking to Queenie. They too, looked content and at home. As I was brushing Chloe, Jon had made a connection with Queenie. “She’s a sweetie” he said.
While Chloe continued to graze I brushed Queenie and Micky and gave them each a piece of carrot. And I realized how right this was. The wonderful new home for Chloe and I get to come and do with her what I love to do most. Brush and comb her and spend time with her. Also I get to do the same with Queenie and Micky.
Because even thought I don’t necessarily want to live with a horse, I still like being around them. And this is one of the gifts that Chloe gave me. Being able to experience that beautiful and atavistic connection between people and horses.
We saw Donna, at the hardware store where she works, after visiting the horses. She told me how her granddaughter loves to spend time with Chloe and give her hugs. Donna said Chloe gets tons of cuddles because she’s a snuggle bug.
I don’t think this can get much better than this, for all of us.
Our front porch is really pretty and inviting. We have two wicker benches and one chair all with comfortable cushions. There’s a couple of tables and in the summer I put a few of our house plants on them. There’s bamboo blinds for shade and privacy from Route 22, which runs in front of the house.
But Jon and I rarely sit there. Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll take my book and some tea out there and snuggle in for a few hours of reading. Sometimes I’ll bring my computer and blog from the front porch.
As the back porch has become the domain of Minnie and the hens, the front porch is Flo’s.
Almost anytime of day you’ll find Flo sleeping on the front porch. I feed her there in the morning and in the afternoon. It’s her own little palace and she occupies the space with all the attitude and sense of entitlement that cats possess.
I’ve never seen Minnie on the front porch, (although Flo does use the back porch, Minnie is more generous I think) or the hens. When I do sit on one of those wicker benches to read, Flo always comes and curls up next to me.
Sometimes, when the moon is full, and I get up to go to the bathroom in the night, I can see the front porch glowing blue through the window. It’s hard for me to resist that kind of moonlight. It pulls at me. “Come“, it says, “sit in my cool fire for a moment”.
I’ll sit on the wicker bench, staring at the moon high over the hills across the road. Flo is often there winding herself around my legs. If not, I know she’s out hunting, maybe she can’t resist the moon either.
I didn’t know I could be immersed in light. Just as on a hot day, when I swim in the river, the water holds me and cools me. I feel like the moonlight is including me in something I’ve always been a part of but have forgotten.
There’s no cars on the road that time of night and between the strange light, the quiet and the stillness, it feels like I’ve stepped into another time. A time when humans were closer to the earth. When the rhythms of nature had a greater influence on us. When nature was as important and close to us as the people we lived with. When nature was our family.
Was that really ever true? I don’t know, but that’s what it feel like to me, sitting on the front porch in the moonlight, with Flo doing figure-eights around my legs.
I never thought much about Patti Smith until I read her book Just Kids a couple of years ago. I still carry images from that book in my head. Not from her photos (which are often haunting), but from her writing. Now I’m reading her new book M Train, and each time I sit down to read it I enter a moody world where dreams, the past and the present are interchangeable. Sometimes her words create distinct images in my minds, sometimes they wash over me like poetry, leaving me with a feeling or hint of something just beyond my reach.
Since starting the book I’ve been listening to her music. I’m inspired to use images the way she uses words. Creating fissures in reality that lead to new ways of seeing and thinking. All the time aware of the mundane.
Also since reading M Train I’ve been dreaming a lot. Long continuous dreams that I remember.
In one I was visiting Patti Smith and her husband in a house that was filled with little kids. There were two bathrooms in the house and both toilets were overflowing. I didn’t really know her and was feeling uncomfortable, like I didn’t belong there. Trying to make myself useful and liked, I asked if she wanted me to help mop up the bathroom floors. She was sitting on a kitchen table, her feet touching the floor and she said to me, (like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland) ” Don’t waste my time with such questions”. All my shyness left me. I was roused from my stupor. “Ha! I shouted, what a great answer!”
I understood that she was telling me if I wanted to spend my time mopping up shit I should just go do it, she didn’t care. But she was there for me if I wanted to have a real conversation. I woke up after that. We never got to have the conversation I would have liked to have had about art and living a creative life. But the dream’s message was clear to me. Not to let the crap in life get in the way of my creativity. To use my time and gifts well.
Patti Smith has nine other books I haven’t read. So I can continue the conversation from my dream. Because I’m finding it hard to be a passive reader. Smith’s words prompt me to act, inspire me creatively and help me to believe I’ll always have another idea.
Three of the women from Gee’s Bend Alabama sat at a quilt frame, propped up on folding chairs, in the lobby of the Catherine Dianich Gallery, quilting. Their finished quilts hung inside the gallery, filling the walls with color, shapes and unique and personal patterns. I watched Delia Pettway Thibodeaux’s fingers push the needle through the three layers of fabric and batting then pull the thread up. ” Do you want to try?” she asked me. My head started nodding quickly up and down” Yes” I said, wanting nothing more.
I’ll admit I was a bit star struck. Well, maybe very star struck. I’ve been to Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Spent three days living and working with Quilter, Mary Ann Pettway, slept under her Aunt Queenie’s quilt. But I was still giddy being in the presence of these women. And I know they’re just people like the rest of us, but the Quilts of Gee’s Bend and the women who made them, many who are no longer alive, helped shape my creative life. And my creative life is who I am.
I pushed the needle through the fabric and talked to Delia about her work. I asked her to say hello to Mary Ann for me and wrote down my name on a scrap of paper so she wouldn’t forget it. When I finished my line of stitching I got up to let someone else try, but I really just wanted to stay there, quilting and talking.
Delia Pettway Thibodeaux demonstrating quilting.
Then I introduced myself to China Pettway, who was standing on the other side of the quilt. I had heard her singing gospel songs in so many videos on YouTube that I watched before going to Gee’s Bend. (Mary Ann Pettway is sitting next to China in the video) She has a fierce love of her God which you can hear in her singing and isn’t afraid to talk about. I told China Pettway how I had heard her sing and that it was the Gee’s Bend Quilts that inspired me to start doing my work again after abandoning it for so long. I told her I made quilts, then started to explain that I didn’t actually quilt them, but she cut me off before I could babble on. She told me that it didn’t matter how I made my quilts as long as I made them the way I wanted to. That no one could tell me how to make them, that what ever I did was the right way for me to do it.
I know this, it’s one of the things that got me making my quilts to begin with, but those words coming straight from China Pettway to me was like scripture. And her words vibrated through my body finding their place inside of me.
After that we watched a film on Gee’s Bend and China sang a song for us. Her rough voice was beautiful, filled with wisdom and emotion. It was thrilling for me to hear her sing live and once again that night, I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
I understand why I was so emotional, why seeing the quilts and the women who made them are so important to me. Because for me, the intuitive process that the Gee’s Bend Quilters use to make their quilts goes beyond the quilts. It’s how I have come to live my life.
With each quilt I trusted myself to make and put out into the world, I was strengthening my sense of self. I was actually discovering who I really am. I was freeing my mind and my body from the beliefs I had grown up with and lived with for 40 years. I was leaning who I was and what I wanted and finding the strength, partly though doing my work, to make my life what I wanted it to be. Not what I thought it should be or was taught it should be. And when I was finally able to make those decisions about my life for myself I began to see that what I thought and who I was is important and has value. That I had something to say, something to contribute to the world just by being who I am. And that it’s the same for everyone.
The Gee’s Bend way of quilting became the philosophy of my life. Making my quilts brought me to myself. So it’s no wonder that these women and their art mean so much to me. Even though we grew up in extremely different circumstances and have lived very different lives, we come together in our art. A person can’t make these kinds of quilts without a sense of self worth, they wouldn’t know how to being, couldn’t continue working on it, wouldn’t know when it’s done.
These life truths can come from many different places, but for me, they began when I saw my first photo of a Gee’s Bend Quilt. They are a symbol for me, a threshold to my awakening.
China Pettway showing someone how to quilt, while a reporter from Vermont Public Radio records the event.
Minnie and Flo have taken over. The barn, the porch and now the house. The dogs defer to them and Jon complains he has no place to sit. (They have him charmed and confused. He fusses over them, lacking the confidence he shows with all the other animals).
In the summer they live outside, but this time of year every time you open the door, they magically appear either inside or out. Where ever they weren’t the moment before. Minnie hobbles around the sleeping dogs, making her way to the couch. She’ll snuggle with Lenore, licking her ears and sometimes, Lenore nuzzles her back (you catch more flies with honey). But Flo, the smallest animal on the farm, is Queen (off with their heads). She swats at Minnie and hisses at Lenore. Even Frieda keeps her distance, afraid to get too close.
How is it that these creatures have taken over the house so completely. I can only guess we’ve been bewitched. Cats are known to be familiars to witches, helpers with their magic. But these cats have evolved. They work for no one but themselves. Still we all seem to benefit somehow, just by their presence. By their snuggles and their purrs. How else to explain why we invite them in. Like vampires at the window, we can’t resist.
