Ledelle Moe’s Exhibit “When” At MASS MoCA

There is a gallery space at MASS MoCA that I always look forward to seeing.  The space is so big I can’t help but think about how I would fill it.  It always gets me thinking big.

Sometimes I feel like the art works perfectly in the space.  Other times I feel like the artist is just trying to fill all that empty space.

Ledelle Moe’s exhibit “When”  was made up of massive concrete figures.  I didn’t read about the art, but I felt great empathy for these fallen giants.  One looked to me like a giant Venus of Willendorf, knocked on her back, exposed and diminished.

The empathy I felt for the other figures came from their posture, positions and expressions on their faces.  And the incongruity of how helpless they seemed compared to the power that is inherent in the steel and cement they are made along with their mass and size.

Fear and Money, Not Getting Small

 

 

Detail from my How To Keep Your Husband Quilt.  For sale in my Etsy Shop.

A few weeks ago I wrote about “thinking big“, not in terms of size but as a state of mind.   I wrote about not getting caught up in the things of life  that can make me a “small” person.

When I began making my “How To Keep Your Husband” quilt I was thinking big.  I didn’t think of it that way at the time, I just had an idea that I thought was a really good one and acted on it.  Unlike some of the other “big” pieces of art I’ve made, this one got its hooks in me and wouldn’t let go till it was finished.

Usually I work on a big piece a little at a time, working on smaller pieces in between.  Often these big pieces need the space and I need space in my decision-making.   And that process also works out practically, because while I’m working on the big piece, I’m also making money on the smaller pieces.

Because I dedicated two full weeks to my “How To Keep Your Husband” quilt, and haven’t sold it as quickly as I usually do, my bank account has gotten unusually low.

This is not a plea for money or for someone to buy my quilt.  That’s not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing it  because it’s the truth about a part of my life that I rarely show on my blog.  I’m writing it because it helps me to sort out the truth from my anxiety.   Because doubt, no matter where it occurs in our lives, is universal, something most humans feel from time to time and it’s too easy to lose faith.

Like so many other people, when it comes to income,  I live week to week.  I’m lucky to have a loving and supportive partner, so I don’t  have to worry about being homeless or hungry.  But my income is an important part of the our income.

This is the life I chose.

It’s not one where I get a regular paycheck or benefits.  But I do get to make the choices about how to spend my time and what I create.  That’s part of the trade-off and especially at times like this, when I get anxious about money, it’s that reality that helps keep me going.

This isn’t a lament or complaint, I don’t believe anyone owes me a living and I’m grateful for my life.  The fear is an old one, a fear I’ve always had that I can’t take care of myself.   But It’s actually  my taking responsibility for my life and decisions that gives me the determination I need to keep going.

I believe in my How To Keep Your Husband quilt.   Whether it sell in 3 days, 2 weeks or not at all, I’m  glad I made it.  My art is my voice, expressing what I’m thinking and feeling is not a luxury anymore for me, but a necessity.

And each time I get scared like this, scared about not having enough money, scared that I can’t take care of myself, it’s a chance to pull myself back.  It’s a chance to recommit myself to my art, to my life’s purpose.  I get to remember what’s really important to me and to choose not let my myself get small.

And then I get to go into my studio and make something new.

 

 

 

 

Drawing At The Mansion

Rachel turned her salt shaker into a girl she called Barbara.

“Today we’re going to draw,” I said to the women sitting around the big round wooden table.

“You can draw anything, anytime,” I said, “Just for the enjoyment of it. Draw what’s in front of you.”

Then I read them Pablo Neruda’s poem “Ode To Things”

“…I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite
ly
small…”

In my basket I had some “small” things from home.  A red and gray striped stuffed rabbit, a big white scallop shell, a green glass pony, a salt shaker, a steel donkey, a cup with a heart on a stick sticking out of it, a ceramic frog planter, a felted boy holding a balloon, a paper cat.

I pulled them out one by one and when someone made any kind of positive comment about it, I gave it to them to draw.

Except for Nancy, I brought the colorful ceramic frog just for her.  She has a hard time gripping with her hands, so her drawing would be abstract and about color.

Then I handed out paper and asked what each person wanted to draw with.  Some chose pencil, others marker and Claudia used a crayon.

Nancy and her drawing

I told everyone this wasn’t about drawing the way you’ve seen someone else draw, or about making the object look exactly as it is.  I asked them to focus on one part of the object, to interpret it through their eyes, to feel it.

 

Ellen focused on the stripes of the stuffed bunny.  She  captured the organic feel of its floppy ears, arms and legs.

Mary chose the green pony. But she was having a hard time starting.

So we talked about horses a bit (her father had horses) then I suggested she focus on the curve of the horses neck.  She said the green  horse didn’t have a tail which was true.  I drew some dots on the paper for her to connect thinking it might get her interested.

But Mary just told me that I was doing a good job and that I should draw the horse.

She was right.  I was obviously  more into it than she was.  So I suggested she draw the heart that was sticking out of the cup.  When that didn’t inspire I told her it was fine if she didn’t want to draw she didn’t have to.

Drawing isn’t for everyone.

Betty and her donkey drawing

“It looks like Eeyore.”  I said to Betty when I saw her drawing of the donkey.

Everyone agreed. They could see and  the hang-dog donkey.  Betty wasn’t impressed and told me her son could draw anything in front of him, but she could never draw.  I pulled up an image of Picasso’s Don Quixote and showed it to her.

Her eyes sparkled a little, she though it was lovely.  I think she made the same connection that I did.

Claudia and her cat drawing

All I had to do to get Claudia drawing was to tell her to focus on the head of the cat.  She was working from a three dimensional paper “Zip”-cat that Kathy sent Jon in the mail.

“I love to draw,” Claudia said to me.  “I can do this anytime I want.” She said it as if the idea never occurred to her before.  And I don’t think it had.  It’s not generally what we are taught.  That drawing can be enjoyable, stimulating and fulfilling.

Susan and her drawing of the scallop shell.

Susan shows up to my class sometimes, but she never draws.  She doesn’t do any kind of art.  She claims she doesn’t like to, and isn’t good at it.

But today Susan sat down at the table.  And when I pulled out the big white scallop shell she said “ooh”. So I handed it to her and with a little encouragement she drew it.

When she was done she didn’t think it looked like the shell.  But she sat through the class and worked on her drawing and I think she liked being there.

Even if she wasn’t impressed, I was.

Jane’s drawing

Jane needed no encouragement.

She loves to draw and paint, something she only started doing since she came to live at The Mansion. I put the felted boy with the balloon in front of her. I pointed to the swirly design on his shirt.

That’s all it took.

Jane’s drawings all tell a story.  Her marks are purposeful and confident. She works from a place inside of herself.

Her art makes me wonder, which makes me want to keep looking at them.

 

The Thin Line Between Being Helpful and Co-Dependence

 

It wasn’t our most restful weekend.

Jon wrote about it on his blog.  About how he came to see that the cannabis he was taking for sleep and anxiety was actually making him more anxious not less.  At the same time he was having a bad reaction to the antibiotics he was taking for a tooth implant.

It was one of those times, for me, where the line between helping and co-dependence can waver.

Knowing the limits of how much I can help  Jon and how much he needs to do for himself can be  tricky. Whether it’s emotional or physical help.  But having two people who are aware of the dangers of being co-dependent and don’t want it, makes all the difference.

Jon and I both experienced co-dependence in our first marriages. We’ve never had the problem in ours because we are both aware of it.   And if we do see it creeping in we adjust what we are doing to stop it.

I seem to have a built in mechanism that makes me get only so involved in what Jon may be going through.  He jokes that when he gets sick I’m good for three days of taking care of him, then I get frustrated and irritable.

I couldn’t pin point the exact timing, and it does depend on the severity of the issue.  Obviously, Open Heart Surgery is different than an upset stomach.

But what Jon says is true.  I have my limits.

Yesterday afternoon I didn’t just want to get to my studio and do some work. I needed it.  My art helps keep me sane, helps balance my imbalances.  So I cut a conversation with Jon short and practically ran out of the house.

The good part is Jon understands the importance of this as much as I do.  He says he doesn’t take it personally. And even if he is just saying that to be kind , I’ll take it.

Because it is true.

In the past I would have thought I was being selfish, and felt I was being a bad person.  But now I don’t think of being selfish as just a bad thing.  There are times being selfish can lead to something good.

Like when helping others in a bounded way.  It makes me feel good to teach an Art class at The Mansion once a month.  It’s not the only reason I do it, but I don’t think I would continue doing it if it didn’t make me feel good.

I also know if I did it more than once a month, I would begin to resent it.

When I have a need to do something for myself, like going to my studio, even if it’s not the most opportune time for  Jon, ultimately it will be better for both of us.  I will be less angry and frustrated and better able to be there for Jon when I return.

I have leaned to trust my feelings about co-dependence.

I  know that helping someone has to have boundaries.   In the past I have experienced how helping someone with a problem, can lead to taking it over for them and then wanting to control them.

I’ve been on both sides of that.

Yesterday I did less blogging than I normally would have.  I give myself permission to do what made me feel the best.  And yesterday blogging wasn’t one of those things.

Today both Jon and I have been thinking and talking about what happened over the weekend.  It was big in ways we hadn’t realized.  We listened to each other and trusted each other in a new way, which will be lasting and make our relationship even better.

It turns out it may not have been our most restful weekend, but it was an important one.  And having gotten through it together the way we did, makes my love and trust for Jon even greater.

Backing and Tacking My “Spirit Owl” Quilt

ironing the backing for my Spirit Owl Quilt

First thing I did when I got into my studio this morning was sweep and dust mop my floor.   Once it was clean, I piled up all the fabric that was on the floor and ironing board onto my work table making space to work in  the backing for my Spirit Owl quilt.

Then I cleared my mind and took my focus from my thinking brain to my feeling brain. In this way I moved around my studio looking at the fabric on my selves allowing the backing that I’d use for my quilt to speak to me.

And it did.  When I pulled the yellow ribbed fabric off the top shelf I smiled.  It was just right.

It doesn’t always happen this quickly. Sometime I have to try a few combinations or I get it wrong  a couple of times until I get it right.

I was shy a sliver at the bottom which makes it even more fun.  It was easy to choose a piece of the big leafed fabric that I used on the front of the quilt to fill the gap.

Here is the front of the quilt laying face to face with he back of the quilt.  I trimmed them both to the same size then pinned the batting on and sewed it all together.

After it’s turned right side out, I iron the edges.  Fate as usual, slept though the whole thing, in her little red bed.

I chose a few different colors of yarn to use for tacking and alternated them.  Where the brown year dips is where I moved the knot to avoid tying it though the image of one of the owls.

I got close, but didn’t quite finish tacking my quilt today.  I’ll have it all done tomorrow.

Making Shelves For Our New Bathroom With The Composting Toilet

Our new bathroom

When Jon and I want to let someone local know where we live, we just say its the the house Florence lived in.  Everyone knew Florence and has a story about her.

But we don’t hear a lot about her husband Harold.

However there are still signs of Harold around the farm.  He built the kitchen cabinets, reusing some very old pieces of wood, and grain painted all the doors and moldings in the house.   I still find the plastic mouth pieces from his cigars when I dig in my gardens and his initials HW are painted in big white  letters on the inside of the basement door.

I get the feeling that the basement was Harolds domain.  There’s still a work bench with a vice and metal shoe form. There are draws of nails and screws and things I don’t know how to use.  And there are shelves, mostly empty now.

It was a set of long shallow shelves that I thought of when I decided to put a couple of shelves into our new upstairs bathroom.

Our bathroom kind of looks and behaves a bit like an indoor-outhouse.  There’s a composting toilet in that little closet with the fancy door and no running water, which kept the constructions costs down.

(I found the door in the hay loft and we believe, because of the decorative light leaking holes, it may have once belonged to an outhouse.  Although it reminds me of the door to a confessional too.)

Jon has been writing about the bathroom for some time.  You can follow the evolution, as well as how it works, on his blog.

I suggested the Shiplap  so we didn’t have to bother with sheetrock and thick walls.  I’ve seen plenty of small rooms in old houses made of beadboard.  We just modified it to Shiplap because it’s easier and less expensive to work with.

Dan, who made the room and installed the toilet, did a beautiful job of fixing the door (the wood was rotted on the bottom and he added more to make it tall enough for Jon to walk through without hitting his head) sanding it, staining it and keeping the original feeling.

I’ll paint the outside walls the same color as the walls of the bedroom and inside I’ll paint the wooden walls off white.

But today I was thinking of the shelves.

Harolds shelves in the basement

It’s a small space and I don’t want to clutter it up, so I decided to put a couple of shelves in the space between the wall studs.   I use a hand saw so I try to do as little sawing of wood as possible.  When I thought of the wood we had laying around the farm, my mind went to Harolds  shelves in the basement.

The little shelves were simply laid on top of two small pieces of wood, so all I had to do was clean the wood and cut it down to 18″.  Then I pried the little pieces of wood off their studs and using the same nails that Harold did, nailed them into place in the bathroom.

I did have to trim about an inch off each one, but Harolds vice made that easy.

The shelves from the basement now in the bathroom.  We got the Deco wall sconce at a local Antique dealer for $35.

Besides painting there a a few more things to do to get the bathroom ready, including getting a toilet paper holder, spray bottle with Vinegar and water for cleaning and hand sanitizer.

It’s going to be really nice not to have to go downstairs to go to the bathroom when I wake up at night.  And it will be equally good for those emergencies when running down the stairs to get to the bathroom becomes potentially  dangerous.

The composting toilet.  It’s bolted to the floor and is as sturdy as a regular toilet.

Zip…Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Zip in his barn

“He has something big,” Jon said as we sat in the car getting ready to go into town.   Zip slid under the barn door taking his catch to a safe place to eat.

“Maybe it’s a pigeon,” I said, “do you think he could catch a pigeon?”  “Or it could be a rabbit.”  Minnie often left rabbit parts on the back porch.

Even though we know he’s hunting, Zip hasn’t left us any “gifts” yet.  I prefer if my cat is going to kill an animal that they eat it.  But I know I have no control over that.

When we got back from town I followed Zip into the barn, looking around to see if there were any remains from his morning hunting.

There’s a big old wooden crate in the barn that I’ve used to put firewood in and as a pedestal to display art at our Open Houses.  Now it’s in the barn on it’s side, an old sheep skin (not one of mine) tucked into the corner.

One of the many places for Zip to sleep.

I found the dried out skin of a rat near it a few weeks ago, so I moved the metal pail that is in front of it and inside was a dead squirrel, its little lifeless eye staring up at me.

Zip gazed down at me from his perch on the hay bales.

“If you’re going to kill it,” I said to him, “then at least eat it.”

I had an orange tom cat when I was a kid who used to bring home squirrels.  But seeing  this squirrel surprised me.  I guess I didn’t think Zip had it in him to catch a squirrel.

One of the reasons we got Zip was to help keep the farm clean of  mice and rats.  But of course, cats don’t just hunt the rodents we want them to.

I thought of the squirrel that Bud watches all summer long as it hops from one maple tree to the other.  The same squirrel whose tracks I see in the snow headed out to the woods.  The one who drops the hickory nut shells in the yard.

I hoped it wasn’t that squirrel but there’s a good chance it is.

That all happened in the morning.  When feeding time came around in the afternoon I looked in the box hoping Zip would have made a meal out of the squirrel.

But it was still there, starting to bloat and stiffen.  I got a shovel and scooped it out of the box.  That’s when I saw two half eaten chipmunks.

Suddenly the cozy box I had set up for Zip to sleep in became a foxes den littered with left overs and future meals.   I don’t mind the little stomach left on the doormat, but there was something gruesome about this.

I do understand it though.  Zip lived outside the first year of his life and storing up food isn’t a luxury, it’s how a smart cat survives.  As uncomfortable as I was seeing those dead animals, I was also impressed.

Still I couldn’t help think of Dr Jeckle and My Hyde.  This is the same cat that follows Jon around like a dog and loves to cuddle with him.

And that whole Tuxedo Cat thing is misleading.  Like he’s a gentleman or something.

Seeing Zip’s Lair was like when like when Beauty sees the Beast eating a deer in the woods, ripping apart the warm flesh, blood on his mouth.  She is horrified at seeing the “beast” in him.

I buried the squirrel in the shade garden.

I’m still not sure if it was the right thing to do.  It was just so big and I kept thinking of those little footprints in the snow.  And really, we don’t need a bunch of dead animals stinking up the barn.

I imagine Zip isn’t so happy with me though.  I just got rid of the stash he worked hard to get.  Maybe he’ll find a new place to hide his carcasses.

Maybe I’ll stop looking for them.

Jon singing to Zip this morning

Two Quilts and Two Pillows For Linda

Secret Garden Pillows

Two Secret Garden Pillows and a Secret Garden Quilt.  When I sewed the last stitch on the last pillow, I brought the two quilts and two pillows  that I made for Linda into the house.  I laid the quilts on the guest bed and went over each one with a lint brush, gathering and clipping the loose and hanging threads.

Secret Garden laid out on the guest bed before being inspected and folded up

I fold them as I go and end up with a rolled quilt small enough to fit into a  20x16x10 inch box.  But this time  the two quilts will go in one bigger box and the two pillows in another.

Pockets

It feels good to have these all done and ready to be mailed to Linda in plenty of time for Christmas.

Now I get to start thinking about what I will work on next.  I do have some ideas.  A Spirit Owl quilt and a new fabric painting, My Truth that I’ve been thinking about for some time.

I’m not sure which I’ll start first.  But I’m looking forward to getting into my studio and finding out.

“Pockets” Liberation and Rebellion

Pockets

I wasn’t thinking about pockets as a symbol of rebellion and liberation when I started making the quilt for Linda.

It’s a Christmas gift for her friends and from what she told me about the couple I knew the quilt should be made with solid colors and plaids.  Looking through my shelves I found the dark blue fabric with the pockets and interesting stitching.

It was around that time I read the article in the The New Yorker by Hua Hsu about Hannah Carson’s book “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.

Reading about the history of pockets was enough in itself, but I was also hoping to find something out about those stings with… well… pockets on them, that women used to wear under their long skirts. They had to reach under their skirts to access them.   Was that how pockets originated I wondered.

Turns out it was not.  Men had pockets long before women did.

What I learned is that starting in the 16th century  pockets were something that men had in their clothes and women didn’t.

It was thought that men had to have pockets because they were busy and important and needed to carry things often associated with their work.  But women were discouraged from working outside the home and so didn’t need pockets in their clothing.

Women carried small purses on their wrists called reticules that were just big enough to carry a few coins.  Carson writes, “The more women carried, the more freedom they had to act.”

Because pockets don’t only allow us to carry things, they let us hide things too.  Hsu writes that  in the late 1800s  US Legislators tried to ban back pockets on mens trousers because that is where they carried their guns.  These pockets were known as “pistol pockets.”

I had no idea pockets were so political.

In 1910 the “Suffragette Suit” was designed by women and boasted having “plenty of pockets.”

It’s still true today that most women clothes have less and smaller pockets than mens clothing and often have decorative pockets that don’t work at all.

I have those decorative pockets on the three pairs of skinny pants I bought at the thrift store two years ago.  Every time I wear them I still try to put my hand in my front pocket.

Which was something else I learned about pockets.  A  man putting his hands in his pocket was bad manners.

You know that famous picture of Walt Whitman with his hat jauntily placed on his head and his hand in his pocket, from his first publication of Leaves of Grass?  Whitman was widely criticized for it and loved the attention, even though he was seen as “rough, uncouth and vulgar.”

And later  James Dean did his famous pose with his thumbs hooked in pocket of his jeans.  We know only  “bad boys” did that.

We have progressed somewhat when it comes to clothing.   Some men now wear dresses and skirts and women wear pants without a second thought.

The pockets that inspired this quilt came from the Dickies Scrubs that Hannah gave me.  They were her favorite pants and when they wore out she sent what was left to me. (She has several more pairs that she wears all the time. They are comfortable and have plenty of pockets)

It was as much the pockets as the stitching around and on them that made me want to make a quilt out of them.   I framed each one of them as if they were an abstract drawing.  Then I joined them together with other sold colors and a little bit of plaid.

I will think about pockets differently from now on.  Maybe I’ll even collect “fake” pockets and make something out of them.

At least they’d be useful then.

The back of “Pockets”
Pocket from “Pockets
Pocket from Pockets
Stitching from Pockets

 

Finding Meaning In Thanksgiving

It was Lori who awakened me to the idea of Thanksgiving as a Harvest Festival.

Jon has a weekly Zoom meeting with seven or eight people who read his blog.  I sometimes join in.  I knew some of the people from my own blog, but met others too.  And this is different because we actually get to see and talk to each other.

Idea’s about what Thanksgiving means to each of us and how we chose to spend it were circulating around on Wednesday.  Interestingly everyone had a different way of celebrating.

But when Lori said that traditionally, in many place around the world, a day of harvest was celebrated this time of year, I immediately got the image of the paper cornucopia decorations that my mother would hang in the window.

And something clicked.

I don’t enjoy most holiday.  Since I can remember I’ve been trying to make sense of them. Growing up, if someone had asked me, I would have said that Thanksgiving was about eating.  For years, I would make a pumpkin pie and my then sister-in-law would make a pumpkin pie. Someone else would make an apple pie.   There just wasn’t enough of us to eat all that pie especially two of the same.

I can’t imagine what  we were thinking.

So I gravitated to the idea that Thanksgiving, as its name implies was about being grateful.  That’s  nice, I thought I can do that.  But by then I’d given up on the whole Pilgrim and Indian myth, so the timing became a mystery.

But a harvest festival….giving thanks for the years harvest that would sustain us through the winter, even if it’s no longer true for so many of us, now that makes sense to me.

It was short notice for this year, but I think understanding that, for me, there really is meaning in the day, made me want to take it more seriously.  Not to ignore it as I wished to do in the past, but make it special.

So when Jon came home with two bags full fish (everything from lobster tails to fish cakes that will last much longer than one meal ) from Earth and Sea in Manchester Vermont, I suggested we have the last of the potatoes from my garden and the surviving kale that is still growing.

And so far Jon and I are doing well at making this a holiday that has meaning for us.   Which  means being together and present for each other.  And partaking in the gift of the farm and animals who are such a big part of our lives.

We slept late then visited with the sheep and donkeys. We drank hot Cacao under the apple tree while the hens pecked around our feet and Fate stalked Zip who was in Jon’s lap.

Later this afternoon,  we’ll read and soon have our harvest festival dinner of lobster tail, rosemary potatoes and crispy kale.   I have some bananas in the freezer  and I’m thinking about making some banana muffins too.

So to everyone reading this, however you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving and whatever meaning you find in it, I hope you have a good one.

Full Moon Fiber Art