She's a Regular Balabusta

Summer in the mid-section has been hot, dry, and a little oppressive. Other than a few wild thunderstorms, there has not been much to distinguish one day from the next. The garden mostly languishes without my tender care. A squirt of water is all I can manage. I try to keep the back yard fountain full and flowing for the sake of the birds, but I've spent little time lately tending the beds, enjoying our gazebo, or even cutting bouquets for the house.  The basil plants are liking the weather (at least the ones whose pots are hooked to the automatic watering system), and I need to set aside an hour for turning them into my favorite condiment, pesto.

The last time I picked flowers for the gazebo was in late June. After the vase blew over in four storms in three days, i decided to give up. Maybe it's safe to try again.

One plant that thrives in the heat is this gorgeous portulaca. The "snowball" bush behind it got decimated in the storms. Happens every July, and yet we love it!

I've even given up a standing invitation for water aerobics and/or "noodle" floating in a friend's pool. The first time I did that I wrenched my back from walking backward in the water, and got a rash from the sun. The second time, I got a headache and nausea from too much bobbing. I figure I am not cut out for water action. Instead I have been spending hours curled up in quiet concentration on the couch stitching my reverse applique projects, or at my dining room table, craft knife in hand, carefully cutting stencil after stencil. For the first time in many a summer, I wouldn't dare question the absolute need for air conditioning to keep me sane and productive.

One of the finely detailed stencils I have been cutting. This one is a template for ribbon embroidery.

Beside my obsession with balancing input (food) and output (exercise) "points" and weighing in at my weekly Weight Watcher's meeting, I am lately taken with the back-to-basics desire to simplify my expectations of what life is all about. Maybe the dieting has focused me unnaturally on food and clothing, but there has been a sort of "aha!" return to what is (and has always really been) important to me. While my human relationships with family and friends seem to grow more complicated and distant with the passing years, my relationship with my own life seems to find clarity and ease itself into something I can understand and hold in my hand. There is definitely less regret and longing, and more "just living". I worry less about making my mark or fitting anyone else's expectations of me and surrender to the day. Every day seems to be a new adventure, full of promise, even when the list of activities involves the most mundane of "housewife" activities of cooking, laundry, personal care, or sewing alterations.

Every Saturday (and sometimes Fridays, too) is coffee date with Dave at Starbucks. Lately, less drawing and more doodle journaling is going on. One week the heat made me "prickly", the next we got to try some great new cooling beverages. Like the "Where's Waldo" puzzles, Dave is usually somewhere in the doodle.

The other day as I was pulling a beauteous but simple dessert pudding from the oven, admiring its pockets of bubbling red berry juice amidst the golden dome, a long forgotten word came to mind: balabusta! You, Cheryl, are a balabusta! In case you are sitting there with a perplexed look on your face, this is a Yiddish term often overheard in conversations of my youth, from my mother or grandmother, while commenting on some woman of their acquaintance. It hadn't been a part of my life for so many years that I felt the need to do a little Wiki research. The written definitions and oral explanations on this resource page confirmed my thoughts: this term, basically meaning the female head of house (and there is a male counterpart) is meant, then and now, with no facetiousness or irony, as genuine praise for homemaking well done.

Both clafouti are baked puddings with fruit, eggs, dairy and flour. The top one is made from milk with mostly cherries and some berries. The bottom one gets a slightly different texture from yogurt as the dairy, and mostly strawberries. They are low fat, not too sweet and taste great when reheated slightly. A dash of cream on top never hurts.

Since childhood, cooking, sewing decorating, and entertaining--these have always come easily and added pleasure to my life. But in the late sixties and beyond as I came through college, a first marriage, and the work world, we were fighting to be liberated from gender defined roles and given the choice to have careers outside this "limited" scope of expertise. I felted less inclined at that time to make this my calling, even though I loved those things so well. Now, twenty years after retiring early from a brief teaching career, I realize this was my best career choice after all.

Two views of my first Alabama Chanin garment that is made with a complex cloth. This is stencilled, then reverse appliqued. As a poncho with one point, it can be worn front, back, or side for a variety of looks.

Another stencil design currently being worked in reverse applique to make a tied wrap. The bottom layer that shows through the cuts will be black.

The progression from stenciled to finished took about two weeks.

So with a life partner who joined me at those crossroad years, who is both indulgent and appreciative of my "Martha (Stewart)" tendencies, I am finally settling into who I really enjoy being. This "love of my life" who has had to put up with a steel mill career for most of his life, comes home from a hot, dirty, chaotic day, and puts up with my current dual obsessions of Weight Watchers and Alabama Chanin, never says an unkind word, and actually encourages and helps me with my goals in both. He recently bought me an air brush and compressor to paint my stenciled designs on cloth, and even takes patterns to work to enlarge for tracing.

 Most days, even though he has been out in the oppressive heat all day, he still comes home looking forward to a walk after dinner. So we do, and this has kept me on my exercise track, when alone, I would have made excuses. And then we come back to our very pleasant front deck, have a beverage and cool down as the sun casts lengthening shadows, and sinks to a cooler place in the sky. And some nights, after we return to our air conditioned oasis, I proffer a slice of that golden fruit clafouti with a bit of cream on top.

So, am I still striving to become an "artist"? Yes, I am still studying and exploring and practicing in different media. I am letting my imagination wander, I am not taking any of it more seriously than it deserves. I have no real expectations of starting a new career or looking for glory. But "balabusta"--that role in life I joyfully hold in my heart.

No Time to Talk!

Excuse me! Pardon me! Comin' through! I know I haven't been around for a while, but who has time to sit and write it all down when the tables are piled high with projects and the mind is overflowing with visions of color and stitch. I know I'm supposed to be documenting my journey, but I've never been that good with keeping a diary. I'm not by nature a verbal person, more a visual one. This writing stuff takes too much effort. I totally love and admire those who can rant beautifully about the things that cross their paths. For example: Rice Freeman-Zachery at her blog "Notes From the Voodoo Cafe" comes  to mind. I love to read her rambling take on things both trivial and important. She is always insightful and amusing. But most of the time when I come to the end of a read (hers or others), I find it hard to muster the energy to leave a comment.  I follow Jude Hill's blog, Spirit Cloth, and her ongoing design whispering classes, and even though I am a known part of that community of textile lovers, I must think too hard and edit myself too much before finally leaving a bit of me on the page.

My TAST sampler pages for the five January stitches.

Learning to form shapes and fill spaces with common stitches

February has been more difficult to free form, but also more rewarding as I learn to improvise and take stitches to new places.

So the very best diary for me and the one I use almost every day is my flikr photostream. Just like a diary with stream of consciousness writing, it records where I've been and what it means to me at the moment: good and bad art, trivial and important observations about the inspiration or methods involved. A place mark to revisit my own growth, but just as importantly, to share growing steps with like minded artists of all mediums and levels of experience. Images connect with others in ways that words can't, especially when the audience is international, and that too is an amazing benefit. To meet and see the work of so many influences and feel the cultural similarities and differences. This visual diary is the real me: on the paper, the cloth, and the screen.

The portrait quilt is finally done, and I must say it came out better than expected (there was no plan, just moment by moment improv.)

Purple and green Dave is my favorite.

I have been taking a class with Sharon Boggon on the use of an artist's visual journal as both a creative diary and a workbook of ideas for future art. I have never consistently kept one before, and I am trying to learn the benefits and the habit. Since I resist writing, the studio journal is a place to tuck snippets of inspiration: photos, sketches on napkins, labels, lists, sources: whatever may be of use (or not!) down the line. There is no commitment to use anything you keep, but taking what you keep and developing it a bit further  by annotating or trying an idea in a quick study will leave behind more of what inspired the artist on later inspection. These bits of color, texture, inspirational quotes, faithfully glued and inked to the pages are left to age like fine wine. When thirsty for ideas, just uncork! I have barely begun to make this a habit, but like the art itself, I can see how meaningful it will be.

Arlee Barr's FrankenStitch class has taught me new textural additions to surface design beyond the stitches. This is a fabric "geode."

A second geode grows on this panel as the concept develops from 2D source art to part of a "Shrinebook" screen.

Buttonhole lace, stuffed, becomes a "nodule." 

Sourced from the painting, "We Drank All the Limoncino, " another panel comes to life with "nodules."

I had a recent revelation on my art journey. Something I knew inside but didn't quite acknowledge as acceptable until I recently heard Jude Hill repeat it in one of her cloth whispering sessions. That it is not necessary to have the whole concept or design the whole piece of art when you sit down to begin the making of it. I have long felt that "pre-designing" is akin to making yourself a kit, and when you begin working the kit, your mind and creativity have been left at the door. Not much different from working a kit by another artist. Granted, many of you may enjoy this sort of thing, and I don't mean to cast a broad net and say all use of other's designs is bad. But for most of us, doing that sort of work means we are not seeing all the good ideas we have inside. We decide ahead of time it is too hard to do, or that we are not good enough. What is really happening is that no one ever told us how to get the ideas out, how to make a medium our own: that we are all creative beings.

From a new sketchbook series: Starbucks Saturdays,
playing with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush to find new joy in doodling (while drinking soy lattes) on my weekly date with David.

Inspired by waterbottles in the cold case. The drips were from my new fountain pen (more about that another day.)

Trying to loosen up and draw freely feels good,
 and sometimes results in funny drawings.

I couldn't attend Carnivale in Brazil (although I know someone who did), so I just  drew with abandon.

After scanning the image, I found this samba dancer on a parade float, so I turned on a Zumba DVD and danced along!

This week in the studio journal class we are exploring design inspiration through cutouts and kaleidoscopes. I made this classic study of positive and negative spacial imagery using a photo of my own face, then inserted it into a kaleidoscope app to produce the designs on the right. How much more personal can you get than a motif created from your own profile?

I am coming to realize that the best way to find your creative voice is to start somewhere, with something that inspires, to begin the work and not worry where it will go, and just see what happens. What's the worst that could happen? You won't like it and you will start over. But from my recent class projects, I am seeing that quite often it isn't a matter of starting again, but continuing. Continuing to add, subtract, turn it around, see it with new eyes, be open to what is going on, both on the surface of the paper or cloth, and what is going on beneath, in you heart and mind. Keep on doing, everything is ultimately connected to the "you" inside. Finding your own voice is easy when you turn down the volume on what others say and do, and listen to what really inspires you.

Groovin'

It has been a groovin' summer for me so far. Maybe not in the sense of lying-on-the-beach laid back, but mine is a kind of permanent vacation, being retired and all. Still my days usually come with as much work and scheduling of projects as a thoroughly supervised corporate peon. Really, my summer project should be learning to climb down from the machine, step away from the idea, forget about the goals. But that's just not me to do that, and I think I really don't mind the structure. It's more a matter of degree. How many projects are enough, are they relevant to my current goals, do they bring me joy or at least satisfaction? So that is where I stand. Having achieved a strong turn this past year toward the life journaling arts, I am finally stepping back, breathing, and feeling a sense of connection to my story.

So yes, a happy medium has got me groovin'. What exactly does this mean? Well, in the sense of the 60's Hippie slang, my life is "groovy"--I am liking, enjoying, being one with--summer! I am sitting still enough for it to warm my bones, soften my consciousness, engage me in just being. Every day possible there is a long walk in the sun with music in my step, there is quiet time in the shade with a beverage, special moments of connection with my husband, time observing and recording my world.


Groovin' is also "in the groove." Literally, fitting in to the stream of the moment. Connecting with a flow both in my online and local worlds. One that I have created over time, and that absorbs me, supports me and lifts me.


So what have I been up to in the last month  (when not just being there?) Starting in mid June, for two weeks , I was totally absorbed and stimulated by 14 lessons in 14 days, in a class called "Photo Silly" by Steve Sonheim. Each morning I woke up to a new challenge, and ended each day with an amazing new vision of my world and my abilities, as well as connections with new friends from, literally, around the world. Two of my newest Facebook friends are from Germany, and we met through the flikr class site. Others were recording their lives in France, and Russia, and New Zealand. While I might be taking shots of an all-American supermarket bagger gathering carts, one of them was doing a portrait of a Maori couple and their wonderful tradition facial tattoos. It was amazing fun.


Here are some shots taken during each day's lesson. These are generally not the completed or chosen entry for the assignment, but illustrate what I was striving to achieve. The complete set of final cuts can be found here on flikr.

Assignment #1-Shooting 20 shots in a row with our eyes closed, but trying to imagine the shots we were getting. This resulted in,  to say the least, some unexpected, but often interesting images.

Assignment #3-Blink. Compose shots with a cardboard viewfinder and  commit to memory or sketch.  Two days later we actually went back to the images and captured them with the camera.

Assignment #4-Biographer Frog. A Self portrait without the self, from the point of view of  a wee thing on the floor. I chose this dark image from a series of seven bracketed exposures, because I like the drama.

Assignment #8-Take Your Camera to Work Day. A rainy start to a day of recording it all. The final pick of twenty shots went into a photo collage.

Assignment #9-Really? Turning our hand into a character and photographing with backlighting. The final pose became the giggle getter on flikr. Look for it there.

Assignment #10-Flip Flop. Teach Steve how to do something in four photo steps. This shot was a warm up idea for "How to Brew Satisfaction".

Assignment #13-Blur. Learning to capture a blurred image on purpose.

What pleased me the most was not any particular technical skills I learned (although the camera started to be less of a mystery, for sure), but three important concepts applicable to all my art:


     1) Find a new focus: look beyond the expected.


     2) Wait for the light: the best photos are real and don't require a lot of artifice to make them work, just look for the best and shoot, shoot, shoot (then toss, toss, toss.)


     3) Connect with my work and the people and animals within it, lose my fear of the stranger and the strange situation, make friends with life.

None of this is what I expected to learn, and all of it was wonderfully useful for moving forward in many disciplines.


Starting next week I will be taking a one week class by Steve called "Shoot Your Art," a more technical set of exercises in how to capture images of your 2D art. I'm expecting this to prove useful and enlightening. (Small pun :-) )


Following the June class I recaptured what I feared I had lost--my need to draw and paint without prompts from others, something I have done on a regular basis since. The carry over of lost fear is allowing me to draw more easily in public, and at a recent minor league baseball game, I did these two journal pages.

Waiting to get in the stadium, I stood in the shade of a tree and sketched a streetlight with my  Grey  Tombow and water brush.

Very new to trying to draw the human figure, and these gentlemen  NEVER stopped moving. An interesting challenge. I was also being watched by my husband's workmates who were sitting nearby.

My little themed handmade books are calling me and I decided to fill the garden journal with ink and watercolor pages that allow me to practice creative composition and record scenes from my own garden while I vacation there in this first half of summer. I am able to do more complex and leisurely painting on my home turf that may take two or more sessions and several hours. Later in the summer I want to practice a simpler,  looser style on locations away from home.

The fountain in the center of my garden, under a large shady elm. The plants were brought in to the house for closer study.

Fourth of July morning,  instead of doing the parade, I painted the hot of the day.

Each of these pots holds a complex floral planting. I decided to go simpler.

One of my online creative friends recently remarked that it doesn't matter how we express ourselves, creativity must out! Less defining, more acceptance and integration with everyday life. The needle is tracking the groove, and it's all beautiful music to me. Care to join the dance?

Love the One You're With

A certain Stephen Stills song has been an anthem in my life lately. Maybe not in the original literal sense, but relating to the need to forget old worn connections that block my path to the life I need to live. Let go the old tired stories, it says to me, the unproductive ties to people and institutions. Truly love the life you have or find a new one.


In my youth (and I consider that period extended until about age 50),  I was an emotional thinker. I dealt with change in my life in a very personal way. I was living under the control of what Eckhardt Tolle calls the "Ego".  If you aren't familiar with his philosophy, this is the part of our personality that saves all the stories of our lives and retells them again and again. Mostly, Tolle believes, this is to our detriment, because the retelling of the past is the very thing that separates us from our true life, here and now. It feeds on the negative emotions and defines boundaries, and builds walls between your true self and others. Its main job is to justify its own existence.


At first it is a scary thought to contemplate not needing the past, but that is not to say we need to forget. What is imperative is learning the skill of living in the moment. Most people will say that of course, they live in the moment, where else could they be? But the reality is that very few actually do. Most people's conversations, if you listen closely, are centered on the past or the future; their bodies, even down to the act of proper deep breathing, are strangers to them. How many people do you know who actually eat and move with conscious awareness of the experience? Even participating in sports in not in the moment if your mind is set on the completion or the win.


 I am coming to believe, that for an artist, presence is really the only way to live. When you are truly in the now, you are in the work at hand. In fact, it is no longer work, just a conduit to something that you are. Sometimes your art will convey a story, sometimes emotion, other times just a quiet connection. This last is for me the state I am most often in these days. 

My first attempt at painting a moving object, my very active kid.  Even completing the portrait involved following him around the house for several sessions.

I have been practicing Tolle's lessons of being present for several years now, and the more time goes on, the more I am enjoying the release from the past.
At first I thought, how can I live without my stories? But the irony was, living in my stories kept me from enjoying the life at hand, the possibilities it held. It is only since I let go of so much that troubled me that I have come to find the mental space for art as a way of life.

The Hippo Journal: with good humor and joy

The Hippo Journal: and other select friends

A  close friend passed on this week. She had battled cancer for several years with grace and dignity and fully engaged in her life until the last few days. That is how I hope to continue with my journey, however long that may be, no regrets for what didn't happen, but always ready for more. My reaction to the news of my friend's passing, and then through the events of honoring and celebrating her life that followed, may have seemed a tad distant or cold to those who continue to live with regrets. I felt an utter calm and acceptance, in my head and in my body. 


Mourning has begun to enter a new sort of understanding for me: I honor the dead by continuing to live. It has become quite clear to me that change is the constant rule of nature, and all loss must be balanced by gain. My job, while I am here, is to be a conduit for life. If I take loss as a personal affront, I might as well be gone myself. I remember well a conversation with a famous quilt artist about her father's 100th birthday celebration to which 100 guests had been invited. I asked if this wondrous crowd were the generations of an especially large family. She assured me that, no, these were mostly his friends, because this was a man who had continued to celebrate his life by making new connections all the time. 

A spring story continues: basic quilting is done, time for embroidering the details

So I am learning not to mourn the broken connections in time and place, the body that by nature, must wear out before the spirit.  While my flame still burns, I'm wearing a smile. I'm seeking connections to other bright flames. I'm putting myself into the painting and the stitching. I'm talking to others to share as best I can my understanding of joy in the moment.

My new Facebook profile picture. A recent shot by my husband seemed to capture it just right (with a little tweaking on my part)

I hope my art, the physical manifestation of this presence with life, may pass on and be an inspiration. But if, (and surely it will be), it is lost to the ages, I won't mind. I did what I was supposed to do. I burned my lamp and lit the darkness for just a moment. I passed on the torch of the human race. I mattered.