Calming the Inner Storm

Inner turmoil, angst. It's been brewing ever since I returned from my trip to Spain. I have felt burdened lately by the demands I have made on myself, both to create, and to share. As I have said often before, there aren't enough hours in the day to do it all, and sometimes that inability to let things go brings me to a dead halt on it all. Like writing about my trip. For heaven's sake, I returned a month and a half ago, and haven't shared a thing! Overwhelmed by the richness of the experience, I didn't know where to begin. I have decided to share one more "art" story today, then move on to a number of posts in which I can tell you about my grand travels.

Also, I'd like to note that today is the second anniversary of my blog! In honor of where I have traveled in my creative life and what I feel has been achieved, I decided to take her out for a makeover treat, to let her look and feel evolve as needed. You will notice a new lightness to the template, hopefully an easier time reading the type. (I am trying to lighten my mood as well, hopefully complain less, but I can't guarantee.) All I know is that many around me are having hard times, and I have been blessed with riches of all sorts, primarily my good health and ability to pursue my heart's desires. What more do I need?

These dramatic night shots were taken on an evening this week when, with the spirit of Autumn in the air, my dear husband and I took to the yard as the sun descended and the moon rose to light our way, as we moved and raked and found peace in simply caring for what is in our keeping. When the work was done (or the evening too settled in), I went for my usual hot tea, and the camera, and spent some time recording a favorite theme, the warmth of house and home where love resides.

This head planter has greeted me every day at my front door for many years. There is something in her calm demeanor that sooths me, and yet in this guise she seems to pose a yet unanswered question.

It doesn't take a lot of light to make a welcome sign.

I was on a treasure hunt for images with just a touch of mystery about them.

So late in the season, the sun has abandoned this portulaca, but it still it has beauty in the light of the night. You can see more of these photos in the flikr set "Light and Shadow".

There is a storm brewing (even as I write these words) all along the East coast of the US, threatening life, property, and peace of mind. But here in my corner of the Midwest, life's crazy patchwork has finally been assembled into something I recognize as order and comfort. I am finally ready to continue telling my story. You know how sometimes being overwhelmed by too many demands can render even the things you love to do difficult, make you fearful of beginning new things. That's the way I have felt for the past few weeks. I decided I had to settle on doing something that had a rhythm and routine so well ingrained in memory that it didn't tear open the creative box, and scatter all the pieces. Neat orderly life, neat orderly creativity. Maybe it was the change of seasons, the change of body size, the change of direction in my creative demands, but lately there has been a heavy feeling of dread instead of joy. Best to retreat for a short minute, and find my center.

I returned to beading, something small you can hold in your hand. Something with stitch after stitch to occupy the mind without too much thinking, then something completed--beautiful and complex looking, but really familiar and soothing. I also began to clean--closets, surfaces, creative places, air out the weight of having too much stuff in sight. I can only ignore the chaos of the creative home for so long, then it begins to stifle thought and action.

I chose a project featuring two polymer clay disks made by a friend. I worked with techniques found in the book "Beading with Cabochons" by Jamie Cloud Eakin. 

I raided my bead cabinet and found all that was needed (enough raw material to make necklaces for the rest of my beading life!)

The completed pendant had a bit of a "star" turn.

Then the finished necklace went on a photo shoot which you can view in this flikr set on jewelry.

While I was gone on my Spanish adventure, a new class had begun. Something I had looked forward to all Summer, drawing from life and learning to tell stories with drawing, with the lovely Katherine Dunn: animal rescuer, farmer, storyteller, and artist extraordinaire. The class is called "Capturing the Essence" and finds inspiration in her wonderful family of barnyard personalities. If you don't yet know her work, check out her several blogs and online presence by beginning at this blog, Apifera Farm. In fact, you can still sign up for a little while yet for the online class, which will be at your disposal to work at your own pace until next summer.

We began the class by observing the animals in several poses and capturing the essence of the shape and movement through "gestural" drawings. We would overlap 2 or more gesturals by partially erasing the lines which were no longer relevant. This allows you "see" the movement.

After a series of gesturals, we would then do a more finished sketch of the animal in a single pose. This is Lucia, the donkey.

While it is intended that we work at our own pace, mine has been glacially slow. I think this is partly because, having done so well to begin, I am a bit intimidated by my own success. It makes me so happy to sit in front of the computer, watch the videos and draw with a simple conte crayon in a spiral sketch pad, that I am almost frozen with fear of moving to the next step. I don't think this had anything to do with the assignments ahead of me, it is more about my deep fear of art. I want it, I need it, but I may never fully eradicate the voice that tells me I am not good enough to have it.

Stevie, a goat crippled by neglect in a previous home, is  the subject of this gestural and the portrait sketch below. I love how he smiles at me with his wise eyes.

Having taken classes online for two years now and having had joy and success in each, I know I am capable. I know there is innate talent and I know  there is will to do, to learn, to express, to be interesting. But the fear always returns and puts on the brakes. My biggest obstacle to overcome at this moment, I think, is this need to label my efforts with a "grade". Unfortunately it is 60 years of socialization that says everything must be judged and compared to standards. Not a personal failing or obsession, but something build in to the machine. So I must keep reminding myself--I am no longer in "school". This learning environment is mine to determine the nature and rules, and I say: enjoyment should rule! Losing myself in the task should rule! And when today's play is done, put it aside with a kiss, and do some more tomorrow.

Rosie, the potbellied pig, is at the center of many of Katherine's daily farm adventures, and it was a privilege to capture her porcine beauty.

My assignment this week is to "evolve the drawing". With Katherine's guidance I will be making inroads into making a drawing something greater than a sketch and more personal than a "capture." I will be looking to express something deeper about myself and what drawing can mean for me. I'm very excited to be taking this step. 

Collecting The Sparkly Bits : Chicago Holiday, Part II

There is something so satisfying about taking bits of color and texture and artfully combining them to make a whole that is so much more interesting than any of the elements involved. As the puzzle comes together, the brain plays lovingly with the new combinations to find meaning and story to amuse and delight itself.

That combination of bits is a great part of all the arts, as in the creation of a piece of jewelry, or a painting, or a woven piece of cloth. It plays into the creation of each new memory of time well spent. It is ultimately the formula of an interesting life.

A finely crafted day is especially wonderful when the bits and pieces include the experience of wonderful art. Those details double the fascination for me, and helps to create memories that enrich with the retelling.  One of my best reasons for wanting a city life in retirement is to be surrounded by the possibility of falling into art.  I like the serendipitous nature of the hunt. Knowing that it is all around me, on the street and hidden behind walls, a day in the city is a scavenger hunt for something I've never seen before, or a deeply loved favorite that I intend to revisit. Some of the findings will come from previous announcement through the media, and some will be by fortuitous accident. Every trip to Chicago has a mixture of these elements, and stumbling upon the unplanned feels like the universe is complicit in my pleasure.

The completed bracelet from last month, a labor of love and about forty hours of work. Don't know that I'll ever wear it, but who would buy it?

Such simple unassuming parts as tiny glass beads or over-sized rhinestones (rivolis). Here you see the beginning stages of adding the fringe. After sewing about seventeen different fringes between each rivoli, others were sewn around each of the beaded bezels and then around the edge of the beaded base to achieve that sumptuous fullness seen in the finished bracelet.

Self portrait of a couple off to have a city adventure
 on a festive Friday evening.

The big city is full of big street art. Tribune plaza has hosted Cows on Parade, "American Gothic" farmers, and now, Marilyn.

A view that we never really saw in the movie or the famous photos. This is the very heart of town, just over the Michigan Avenue bridge north of the Chicago River. She draws much attention, some controversy, and frankly was more beautiful than I thought it would be. She seems to embody the bold energy and excitement that you feel when you stand in this heart of American culture.

Just like last year, one of us took great advantage of the tree-house-like space of the window seat. Looking in from the perch...

...looking out on the night (at Wabash and Wacker, and the Chicago River).

Saturday we went in search of culture at (among other places) The Chicago Cultural Center. Formerly the main branch of the city library, the building was designed in a long gone era of fine craftsmanship and bold investment in public wealth. This was a palace for the people of the city. It is still awe inspiring.

A grand entrance serves as a gallery of amazing tile work.

Newly restored to grandeur, the Tiffany dome.

Beside the beauty of the building, the Cultural Center hosts fascinating free art exhibits, often with a more controversial, modern, or local provenance than the Art Institute. As usual we were not disappointed. The outstanding current exhibit, on view through April of 2012, is "Write Now: Artists and Letterforms".  
The trifecta of enjoyment was completed when we stumbled upon a festival  sponsored by the local public radio station, WBEZ91.5, called "What's Your Art: Celebrating the Art Centers of Chicago." In the huge ballroom-like Yates Gallery, were about twenty booths and activity stations, with enough live art to keep you busy for hours if you cared to immerse yourself in talking to all the artists. In addition to getting a sales pitch to buy hand blown glass from some enthusiastic local students, and a great talk about camera lenses with a local photographer, I had a linoleum block print custom made for me for free, and watched (although I sorely wanted to participate) an "impromptu" communal dance with knitwear.

Getting ready for the reveal...

Just like children's flip books, we each got to choose which head, body and feet went together to create our unique character.

Laid out on the floor covering the center of room was a zigzag of knit tubing (the kind we all made as kids on one of those spools with nails) connecting about 100 knit and crocheted hats of every imaginable style and color.

At the designated time, the dance leader gave a few quick rules of the dance, instructed the volunteer participants to don a hat and the music began.

What good is a giant hat dance without a rousing brass section a la New Orleans and Mardi Gras?

The Man waits patiently. Because I am not dancing
 he knows we will leave sooner than later.

And so it goes, it is time to culminate the weekend's festivities with the original purpose of the trip, a yearly dinner dance sponsored by the Association of Iron and Steel Technology. Never the best of the trip, but the catalyst to prompt us to experience the rest. 

A couple of pink "cosmos" make the table and me more festive.

 Happy Holidays to all my friends and readers. I hope you have enjoyed our adventures together this year and that I will see you again in the New Year. If you aren't already doing so, I hope you will sign up to follow, and feel free to leave comments on this or any post.

The Space Between

This morning they sucked up the last of my gathered fallen leaves, clipped vines, and denuded brown stems, to cart them off to the community composting field. I watched them earnestly through my front window until finally satisfied that I had put the garden to bed for the year, and could now move forward to welcoming the winter break.

Once again, my surroundings feels stripped clean and new. Sunsets are more intense this time of year, maybe a change in the angles and the clouds, or maybe they just appear that way because their competition is on holiday. In any case, I treasure the occassional showiness of the earlier setting sun as a sign to stop and appreciate what is given freely by the world. It makes me turn a critical eye to the inside clutter. Time to divest, clean, and think about a new fresh color scheme.

The fire of a November sunset echoes the emotions I feel
 toward the new year to come.

This year we are simplifying our holiday celebration. We have decided to welcome the dark with lights both indoors and out, but dispense with the tree. Instead I created an evergreen display in the urn by the front door. It has already drawn notice, waves and good cheer, and that is the real purpose of this time. Connecting with others and our own personal gratitude.

Preparing for winter solstice with a bit of evergreen and bright red berries

Having recently written and thought about the successful conclusion of my "first" year in art mode, I have been pondering where I go from here. It is so easy to fall out of habits you try to establish when there has been more time in a life not doing than doing something. And yet each day only has so many hours to embrace the myriad goals and pursuits I enjoy. The one thing that stuck me most strongly in this evolution of my creative life is that I need to work on giving up the guilt. I need to fully embrace the philosophy of not owing anyone my time or life. That I don't need to be doing anything that doesn't bring me joy or fulfillment, or why I am doing it?

 Let me be clear here: we are not talking about responsibility to family or society, this is purely about my personal life goals and pursuits. As much as I am loving learning to draw, I came into that mode with a purpose: to give up the guilt about not doing it! To get passibly good at it so that I could use drawing as a basis for designing textiles and jewelry when it served me. Finding out that I loved to draw everday objects and scenes to document my life, or that I could actually draw passibly from imagination, well so much the better! But I was starting to feel that I could not just sit and meditatively stitch one loop into another because that was not "creative enough". Says who?

A new wardrobe of bead crochet bangles 

I decided it was okay to set aside my pens and journals for a break and return to some of my other obsessions like bead crochet, bead weaving and knitting. I also have been continuing to engage one of my larger goals from the past year, which is the development of my embroidery skills. I have taken three classes so far this year that were partially or fully about developing story and design through hand stitch (with or without applique). Thanks to Jude, Arlee and Sharon, and please check these links for the their wonderful new year's class offerings.  I will be continuing with all of their teaching and inspiration in 2012 as well.

In Arlee Barr's "FrankenStitch" class we have learned
 to embrace textural embroidery. 

My buttonhole stitch sampler is still at a stage far from complete.

The straight stitch sampler has made some progress, but will continue to be layered and developed.

This place I inhabit between my reality and my goals recently took inspiraton from a trip to visit family in Philly and Jersey. As I am normally too far from these people to see them more than once a year, it was so wonderful to have the opportunity for not just a visit to the close circle, but a bigger life event that drew cousins to celebrate a rite of passage. At once I was trying to accept the issues of the narrowing possibilites that age and age-related infirmities may impose on our options, and on the other, the endless opening doors of youth into adulthood. A cousins' eldest daughter was called to the Torah, and with the family and community gathered about in an inspirationally beautiful sanctuary, and with the help of her spiritual advisors and the cantor's angelic voice, she proudly and admirably took her place in the world of awareness of the "other". Her Bat Mitzvah project was involved with feeding the hungry in her own community. In addition to raising money and awareness for her local food pantry, she had collected donations of food that, made into beautiful gift baskets, served as centerpieces for the celebration that followed, and a reminder to the guests to be gratedful for our personal bounty. I thoroughly enjoyed my family reunion and danced my tush off.

Still life with party favors

Since returning home, I have completed my knitting project and pulled from the stash of UFO's a "blingy" wonderful bracelet with seed beads, rivolis, and drop bead fringe. I did some further work on the two machine quilting projects that I hope to complete before year's end, and pulled out the silk kimono from Jude's "Magic Diaries" class to work on. I was inspired by Melly Testa to join a December challenge project in "Rockstar Boro."

The linen stitch knit scarf truly looks hand loomed.

This bit of bling has been waiting patiently for a year for me to return. I think it will be finished this week.

This space between the years is filling up fast. Almost no break at all. But then I don't really want one. My years are too few, my loves too many. The colors of sunset are in that scarf, the colors of spring in that bracelet. I plan to fill the clean quiet space of winter with the color of joy.