 This is one of the publications I forced myself to resist buying while I was there ogling quilts, beadwork, blue and white embroidery work, furniture, and antique sewing machines. Even the sewing machines are individual works of art. More photos from the recent show which included pieces from their permanent collection, at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, MA. See the previous four posts for more goodies.  I'm pretty sure this was called "The Last Rose of Summer," and is in their permanent collection. Embroidered.  Embroidered Tree of Life, with appliqué  Another exquisite embroidered Tree of Life from the permanent collection.  Linen on linen blue & white embroidered drawstring bag, acanthus leaf, circa 1900. Part of permanent collection.  Even the permanent collection of early sewing machines are works of art, and this isn't even a decorated one. I just liked the shape. Most have elaborate gold scrollwork painted on. More from the Memorial Museum's current exhibit in Deerfield MA. For the start of this series, see the previous post.  This may just look like a fussy quilt. But look closer. And look at the next 2 pictures (the white orbs are reflections of ceiling lights--the quilt is under glass). The closer you look, the more impressive it gets. Although I still wouldn't choose to own it, I can admire the EXTREME workmanship. See next photo.  Yes, that is my index finger NEARLY but not quite touching the quilt. I would not touch a textile of this type and age at this point. The finger is there to show you the size of the pieces. Smaller than my much less than 1/2" wide fingernail. I mean, these pieces--all hand sewn together--are 1/4" or LESS in size. Now go back up to the first picture and have another look at how many pieces this quilt contains. Mind-boggling. Story of the quilt in the next photo.  OMG. Enough said. A haiku from Dave Hayes the Weather Nut that is perfect for tonight, across our troubled continent: Fireflies light up; The Milky Way Galaxy appears in the fields. --Dave Hayes Dave writes haikus frequently and posts them to his Facebook Page; they are always wonderful. Today is Juneteenth; a good time to contemplate this poem. Perhaps the fireflies and the Milky Way will light our way through all this darkness.
 I am heartbroken over losing a good friend to COVID 19. She had a long, gruesome struggle and it's finally over. At some point about two weeks ago it became obvious that she was too damaged to come back to us, but the struggle went on. And on. And on. Horrible. She finally died last week and I have to say I was relieved on her behalf. Now the grief sets in. But, there are still plenty of other wonderful people in the world. One in particular--my 97 year old next door neighbor--called me last evening and told me she wanted me to come over to her property and cut myself a bouquet of her lilacs, "Since you don't have any on your land." I went over this morning and did just that. She even loaned me her garden shears. I adore her, and she has absolutely no idea that I just lost a friend. But somehow, she reached out anyway. It just made my entire day. You can imagine--I hope--the fabulous scent spreading through my home from her marvelous lilacs. Thank you, Erm! Kindness makes all the difference. I've learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.
--Maya Angelou This is indeed a silent spring, though not entirely in the way Rachel Carson envisioned in her book. I mean the term literally: traffic is down, people are staying in their homes, all due to Covid 19. It's very quiet out there. For all the suffering and misery it is causing, and the fear, the few benefits from this pandemic experience are mighty: the lowering of air pollution, the increased awareness of our interconnection with others. New appreciation for nature as many people are getting out on walks, not to mention sleeping longer, spending more time with kids and pets. In honor of that I include two photos friends have sent me, of two marvelous harbingers of spring.  Bloodroot, an early Spring flower in New England. Photo taken by Joanie B. Native Americans sometimes used this for medicinal purposes but it has a toxicity level too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanguinaria  The name of this one, Dutchman's Breeches, always makes me smile. Photo taken by Nancy B. Another flower used medicinally by Native Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanguinaria I always enjoy these wonderful reminders of Spring when I see them in the woods. This year for a number of reasons I won't be in the woods, so it was lovely to get the photographs. Yesterday I got a small package with something I had ordered from Etsy. Inside were the things I had ordered, along with a slip of paper I found utterly charming:  What a fun message. And I'm sure it's true.
If you, like me, are "Staying Home to Save Lives" during this pandemic, and if you're ordering things online I hope you'll consider buying from a small business when that is possible. You know they need the help. (And no, I do not sell online. But I do like to buy from small businesses when I can.)  This strange little tile was the result of my listening to a "voice-guided" meditation posted by the Zentangle® folks on YouTube. The primary tangles used were Hollibaugh and Tipple, plus a bit of linework. Black Micron 01 and graphite. Looks like some type of weird sea-creature.  This is a photo of a line of people about 40 long, each practicing social distancing, outside a grocery store at 8.15 this morning as I was waiting to get in to buy food. We almost never see this sort of thing in the USA. Strange times for all of us the world over. At the same time, I was grateful that food was available and I had the money to buy it. Not everyone does. With apologies for the bad photography, I wanted to experiment with Lynn Meade's tangle Fassett for an upcoming class. Fassett is based on triangles. Here is Fassett done on four Bijou tiles (2x2"), each tile with an increasing number of triangles. (The class will only be doing the very first one on the far left)  4 triangles, 8 triangles, 16 triangles, then I tried it in the round with an inside circle and an outside circle, with a total of 32 triangles. If I've counted right. And here below are the four strings that I used to create the four tiles. You can see the number of triangles increasing in each.  Fun to experiment like this. My form of church, that is. I left very early today to meet a friend and fellow textile artist on a rural road 45 minutes from my home. Each with rugs in tow. Our goal was to drape the rugs we brought over the stone wall that looks over a meadow and then down, down, down into a huge reservoir (part of which is just barely visible over the tops of the trees and under the surrounding hills) and get a decent photo. I ran the resulting picture thru an iPhone app and got this. I'm pleased. It's a mix of a few of my rugs and a few of her rugs.  This picture describes my spiritual life--the natural world plus a meditative form of craft such as traditional rug hooking. The light, the earth, the stones, the colors, the sun, the clouds, the wind, the water, the trees, the hills. I can't think of a better place to be on a Sunday morning in the autumn. “The sun shines not on us but in us.” ― John Muir Yesterday I asked my neighbor if she knew what the flowering, beautifully scented bush was in our front yard (we didn't plant it) and she said yes: Clethra. I thought she said "plethora" and assumed she was referring to the high number of fabulous blossoms. But no, she was naming Clethra alnifolia, also known as the sweet pepperbush or "summersweet." I love that last name. Summersweet is incredibly seductive to honeybees and butterflies, both of which I've seen--a "plethora" of them--since it began to bloom a few weeks ago. And the scent...oh, the scent is so lovely. I feel honored to be in the presence of this plant. I remember it bloomed the first summer I moved here, but not last year. What a treat to have it make such a big comeback this year. Here's a blossom from our front yard.  Clethra alnifolia, aka summersweet or sweet pepper There were so many honeybees and other cuties drinking from the flowers that I'm surprised I didn't have to beat any of them back to get this photo but this one stem was not being worked just as I snapped the shutter. Lots of Monarch butterflies and other butterflies around it also this year. It's a good year for the Monarchs around here--god knows they need a good year. And the bees as well. Advice from a Honeybee Create a buzz. Sip life's sweet moments. Mind your own beeswax. Work together. Always find your way home. Stick close to your honey. Always bee yourself. --Ilan Shamir  Inside the front cover of my Zentangle® Project Pack 06 book, which I've been working on in the last few days. The theme of the Project Pack is the Zentangle slogan, "No Mistakes." Black Micron 01, gold gellyroll, white gellyroll.  From my Zentangle Project Pack 06 book, Day Three. I hasten to say here that I am simply following along with the Project Pack videos as I draw, so these compositions are copies of what is on the videos, not my original compositions. 99% of what I post here is original to me, but sometimes, when I don't have the mojo--which has been happening lately for unknown reasons--it's just so relaxing to follow along and copy-to-learn-from someone else's work. I always attribute the work to the originator, as I've done here and for my last several posts.
Before I retired, I often wore pins as a decoration when I went to my office. But now that I spend my time in jeans and t-shirts, the pins are languishing. Here is a pin I never wore, a cameo. I love it (and used to have a much larger one which was far more lovely, but it was stolen during a break-in at my former residence) but I never wore it. Not once. I simply had it because it reminded me of some positive things from my childhood. Since it was just languishing away, I re-purposed it onto a card with some tangling. I may put it into a shadow-box frame.  This may or may not be a genuine cameo (there are plenty of plastic fakes out there) but it doesn't matter to me. It has sentimental value.
 tWhat is the use of seeking advice if one doesn't listen? This was my card for Monday (I love these cards, more info below). But did I listen? No. Instead of cocooning after a tiring week away, I spent the day in 5 degree Farenheit weather running around from event to event. Now, all the events were good ones. I'm just lucky, though, that my good friends were able to put up with my grumpy self. Because trust me, I was grumpy. Overtired, overscheduled, and grumpy. Very bad planning on my part. Good thing I have long-suffering friends. The cards (these are not tarot cards, just wonderful little cardboard coaches):  In case you'd like to get yourself some. Remember the very strange story of the hula girl figure from last August/September ? (click here to refresh your memory) She mysteriously appeared atop our mailboxes one day, stayed a few weeks, then disappeared. But she reappeared in September (it's all in the link above). Here is a photo of how she looked then (just below). But read on to see how she looked as of this morning...  She was appropriately (if scantily) dressed back then. But. Well. It is now November and we have already had two snowstorms...and winter's barely begun. On my way to do some errands this morning I stopped at the mailbox and... I nearly swallowed my tongue laughing when I spotted this:  Yes, someone has thoughtfully wrapped her up in a winter robe. Once again, no one has taken responsibility for this hilariously pointless random act of kindness. I love it.  Black Micron 01 and graphite. The rosy glow is from a camera filter. See the bone-white version below (the original). A few years back, I was fortunate enough to get a copy of C.G. Jung's The Red Book. It is a gigantic, larger-than-coffee-table volume. I just acquired a music stand/lectern-type piece of cherry furniture on which I can finally display it and have begun looking through it. It is inspirational--just for the paintings, and I haven't even started to read yet. One of the paintings inspired me to do this sun-and-moon linework on a Zentangle® tile. It's my second entry this week for Diva's Challenge #368, in which she asked us to focus on straight lines (see yesterday's post for the first version). It is so relaxing.  This is the original tile, without the rosy-glow added by the filter. I like them both. The essence of drawing is the line exploring space.   Indeed, she is much smaller. After I complained to my neighbors that the original had appeared and then disappeared without any of us knowing how or why, and expressed disappointment that we couldn't keep her on the mailbox, one of my neighbors bought us a new Hula Girl. And a 2nd neighbor contributed two rubber duckies. So last night I glued them all in place, in the hopes that they will stay awhile. A 3rd neighbor commented, "It's a good thing it doesn't take much to keep us amused." True. It's a VERY quiet neighborhood!
As you can see from my previous post (the link is at the top of this one), the mysterious appearance of Hula Girl in the first place (a genuine Whodunnit) was only rivaled by her equally mysterious disappearance several days later. When she came back--much smaller, it must be said (she must have been on a diet)--she arrived with a post-it note that said, "I've just gotten back from Hawaii." That would be Hawaii-via-Hollywood, as the previous post details. Yep, doesn't take much to amuse us here in the boonies. We are a quiet bunch. But as I said previously, I do love my neighborhood. As I drove out of my street yesterday I passed our mailboxes and nearly drove off the road when I spotted this:  ALOHA! Her mysterious arrival cracked me up. I was out all day but when I drove home at dusk, there she was to greet me. She had survived a couple of torrential downpours and looked fine. Two of my neighbors were sitting on their porches and a quick survey revealed that while everyone has noticed her, no one would take responsibility for putting her there. I love it. We're all wondering how long she will last, as we have heavy bicycle, scooter, dog-walking, running, and leisure strolling that goes past this mailbox every day. Some mysteries are just fun, and don't need to be solved. UPDATE, posted on August 20th:
Alas, this morning the Hula Girl (aka "loose woman" as a friend referred to her) has disappeared. And just when I was planning on glue-ing her to the top of the mailboxes so that she would be a permanent resident. Darn, I missed my chance and she's now gone. Curses! "Easy come, easy go," I guess. I will miss her. UPDATE, posted on August 26th: My tangling buddy Susie Ng in Thailand just sent me the following message, which has solved all questions about Hula Girl's disappearance: "I know you are not going to believe this, but I saw your loose woman. Have you seen the trucker movie Joyride 3? She appears about 10 min into the film and only for 2-3 seconds, when the front credits start. I am not kidding. Straw skirt and a guitar or whatever that is. Anyway, now we know where she is (or has been) and that she once had a Hollywood engagement." Really, you cannot go anywhere these days without being spotted and identified online. And from the other side of the planet! Priceless.  Hand-knit toy by my next-door neighbor, Val. One of the many and varied toys she knits. They go like hotcakes...(I added the Buddha, of course) I admit I am somewhat mixing my religions and cultures here. Hanuman is the Hindu monkey-god known for his strength and devotion (and much loved by Ram Dass, the longtime meditation teacher, author, and speaker). Hanuman is normally depicted with a human body, but I hope we can cut him a little slack here. And then of course, there's Buddha. Actually, Hanuman is also found in some Buddhist teachings as well, but not as commonly as in Hinduism. I put Buddha in Hanuman's lap because I thought this "alternative version of Hanuman" might need a dose of equanimity before he got crammed into a box and mailed off to a friend as a gift to her 8 month old son. So, Hindu and Buddhist figures are playing together in this photo. [NOTE: Hanuman is now on his way to his next adventure - he's in the mail - and I've no doubt he is fully up to it.] This is another wonderful toy made by my next-door neighbor. She has a large assortment of hand-knitted toys--penguins, ducks, dogs, kitties, dinosaurs, you name it. All beautifully made. And then there is all her other lovely knitting, but since I don't have pictures, I won't go into that. But you can imagine how kids react to these toys! It's pandemonium when she sells them at fairs. She is so clever.  Who doesn't hate to miss a good parade? My buddy P emailed me this picture only minutes after I'd driven away from her house today. My car had been parked just feet from where the picture was taken. (For outside-the-USA-readers, today is Memorial Day in the US, when most towns have parades to thank veterans.) She's located about 1/4 mile away from the center of town. Ok, so this was not the parade I was expecting, but I'm so sorry I missed it!
Getting ready for teaching Zentangle® this week, I did the two tiles above. These are not tangles I'm planning on teaching tomorrow but were fun to do as warmups. Meanwhile, here are additional pictures of that fabulous parade.
“He wasn't like the other bears. While everyone else was hibernating, he would be out putting on his sneakers.”  Photo used by permission of KnittedKnockers.org The photo above is a picture of Barbara Demorest, who founded Knitted Knockers, my absolute favorite things to knit. She's sitting on a pile of (as-yet-unstuffed) Knockers. I added to the pile this morning when I mailed off over 60 Knockers I made--I sent them to her organization to distribute, free, to cancer survivors who've had mastectomies. This is such a rewarding and compelling reason to knit. Below you can see what a Knocker looks like once it's been stuffed with polyester. So much better than the silicone/plastic prostheses, which are heavy and can promote sweating and irritation. Knitted Knockers are light, airy, washable, and more closely resemble a genuine breast.  Photo by KnittedKnockers.org and used by permission  Photo by KnittedKnockers.org and used by permission. Let me allow Barbara and her organization to explain, as they can do it much better than I can. If you've had a mastectomy, I hope you will contact the organization and ask for a free Knitted Knocker. And if you're a knitter, I certainly hope you will volunteer to make a few of these. If you do, be sure to go to the organization's website to find a zillion patterns (knitted or crocheted, and many options for how to make them) and a list of "approved yarns." Using only approved yarns is very important, as only certain fibers can be tolerated next to delicate and/or healing skin. Thank you for considering this! Here's the bag I sent to the organization this morning. It's absolutely stuffed to the gills with Knockers I've made while watching tv in the evenings. So easy to do, and so helpful to breast cancer survivors.  So...watch the people walking into the Spring Bulb Show at Smith College. Everyone walking up to the door has a preoccupied or blank look; then as the door opens and they enter, the looks shift to shock, ecstasy, utter delight, and might even be accompanied by shrieks of, "Wow!" or, "Ahhhhhhh...!" as the scent of hundreds of hyacinths and a million other types of bulbs hits the nose. OMG, the smell, the fabulous smell. It hits you the moment the door opens and never quits as you view the show. It's the scent of Spring. There is just nothing like it. Below are some pictures, unfortunately unaccompanied by smell-a-vision. If only.  Walking in the door. Oh, to be able to share the scented air along with the view. I so wish.  A (dry) fountain just inside the door.  Ahhhhhhhhh...      This thing was the size of a pie plate. I felt as though we could climb in and sail away to another country inside it. Wow.  I could caption this, "Just when you think you've seen everything #1." I mean, a checkerboard flower?  Another in the "Just when you think you've seen everything #2" category. What the heck? (I should add that everything was clearly labeled but I was so drunk on the fabulous scent of so many bulbs that I couldn't bother recording names, all of which were in Latin anyway, rather than common names.)  Just plain fun.   The scent was so fabulous even the statues couldn't resist checking it out a bit closer.  And the scent was so fabulous some of the statues were getting slightly drunk from it. ...and tomorrow we are due to get a foot of snow. But what the heck--today proved that spring is on the way. Just outside the greenhouses I saw crocus and snowdrops blooming. It's on the way, it's on the way!
When I went to my last local rug hooking meeting, I only expected to work on my rug and have fun. I had NO IDEA what would be waiting for all of us who attended. We were treated to an incredible show of rugs from Turkey, China, and Iran by one of the members, Elizabeth Vierling. Dr. Vierling is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, but she is also a rug maker and clearly has a passion for textiles. I took a million photographs...unfortunately my memory of her very informative commentary on the origins and purposes of each piece is fading fast, but here are some of the photos. Enjoy! I believe this first piece was from Turkey. It is very large and I think Elizabeth uses it as a rug in her home. It is embroidered, using a couching stitch I think (see detail in last photo). Probably circa mid 20th-century. The color work is just sensational. After ogling the piece (above) for a good long while, we all decided we are not using enough orange in our own designs. Apologies in advance to Elizabeth for how much I have already forgotten of what she said about each textile. Her commentary on where she located each one, where and how each was created, and what each may have been used for, was fascinating. But in the week since I saw these works, all of her commentary has started to slide right out of my head. Darn! If memory serves me--which likely it doesn't--below are two clothing panels embroidered by the Miao people of China (one of China's long-suppressed minority groups, now finally beginning to emerge and be recognized for their rich history and cultural treasures).  (We'll get to the embroidered pillow behind this piece later in the pictures)  Although the lighting is very different (my poor photography), I believe this is a detail of the dragon on the piece above. Amazing work.   And if that weren't enough, there was more, and more still...click on each thumbnail to progress through the items, or just hit "Play." One of the most dramatic textiles was the one below. I loved these tiny aliens. The work is so beautiful, and the colors vibrant. Each thumbnail has a different view (or you can just hit "Play"). Elizabeth travels for academic conferences, and is occasionally able to extend the travel time in order to take in more of the culture of the countries she is in. This is why she has been able to explore and research textiles on some of her trips.
Aren't we fortunate--those of us who were there to see this show? With thanks to Elizabeth for letting me photograph and post the photos, for her lively talk and especially for lugging all the heavy, bulky textiles to the meeting. All of her hard work resulted in a fabulous experience for the rest of us. In reading one of the Zentangle® blogs, I just spotted the most amazing photographs on--of all things--manufacturing pencils. They are in an article written for New York Times.
These amazing art photos were taken at the General Pencil Company (We who tangle love their pencils. And according to the Zentangle blog, the owner of the company is now a Certified Zentangle Teacher, which delighted me). I cannot show the photos because of course they are copyrighted, but you won't believe how beautiful they are. Check them out HERE. (Thank you to the Zentangle folks for publicizing this.)  Look what arrived on my doorstep today. Oh boy oh boy. NOTE to those who don't have time to read: I DID NOT MAKE THESE OR DRAW ON THEM. THEY CAME THIS WAY.   Golden Lotus boots. Talk about mad love for an object--wow. Love these. I sent pictures to friends who know I tangle and they all went crazy for my amazing artwork. They thought I made them. Thank you to everyone who even had that passing thought. I wish!!! But I DIDN'T MAKE THESE. I just bought them, as is. They're commercial boots. I took one look at them and helplessly succumbed. Did I need them? No. Did I have to have them? Oh yeah. Am I sorry? You're kidding, right? NO. I fear this makes me the Imelda Marcos of mindfulness practitioners. Uh-oh.  Key to my new studio. Talk about a dramatic year. And it still has over three months to go. I know I'm not the only one dealing with drama; Americans in general have their hands full with WAY too much drama at the moment--and given who is in the White House, it's bound to accelerate. And alas, our drama tends to become the world's drama. However, this isn't a post about politics. So far this year for me:
I'm feeling concerned and hopeful for my dear friends, all of them--near and far. Feeling impatient to get on with my altered life here. Feeling concerned about the political scene locally and globally. Feeling more concerned than ever about our fragile, beautiful planet. If I weren't meditating daily...well, I don't want to think about it. May we be safe. May we be healthy. May we find peace, and find compassion for each other. May we grow kinder. May we care for our mother, the Earth. This weekend is the annual Franklin County Fair, a local tradition that's been going strong since 1843. (HERE is a great article from 2013 about the fair. Lots of photos.) So off I went to the Fair, early this morning. Easy to park. Tons of kids with parents, and everyone looking really happy. I took photos:  PARIS QUILT AT THE FRANKLIN COUNTY FAIR--BY SHIRLEY THOMPSON.  THE TRULY WONDERFUL PRIMITIVE PAINTED WELCOME SIGN AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE FAIR'S ROUND HOUSE. (celebrating its 100th anniversary, which happened a few years back) I LOVE HOW HER PINK BOW LOOKS LIKE PIG EARS STICKING OUT FROM HER HEAD... Some rather wonderful quilts:    And of course, since it's an agricultural fair, there were plenty of fruit and vegetable exhibits:    It was somewhat ironic to see all the amazing winning fruit and vegetable displays, and then to walk outside and look at the food vendors and realize every item of food being offered to fair-goers was a heart-attack-on-a-plate item like fried dough, french fries, caramel apples, cotton candy, etc. But that too is traditional at county fairs. I passed on the food! I would have loved some of the apples from the photo above, but alas, it was a prize-winning display-only, and none were for sale. I bought two lovely things:  . This stuff felt just luscious on my hands, and was faintly scented in the most subtle way. I have a hunch I will want more, once the cold weather sets in. And a little did a lot.  I thought I would try this stuff for my poor sore damaged hand (from the broken wrist). When I bought it I was thinking, "What a sucker I am. Waste of good money. This will never make a difference." But ya know...I think it does. I am kind of amazed. Time will tell. It's formulated for arthritis. Note the name: "Hot & Flexy."  I was warned to be sure to wash my hands before touching my eyes after using it, because of the ingredients. Good idea. Next came ogling some of the many critters on display: the cows, bunnies, goats, butterflies, sheep, turtles, fish, donkeys and a few of these guys:  S/he (?) had just woken up and gotten up off the floor from a comfy night's sleep, hence the wood shavings all over the torso. I could relate, given how disheveled I often look in the mornings. Ok, maybe I don't wake up covered in wood shavings but you get the idea. I mentally congratulated all the winners and left, after first walking the midway with all its rides; that must be spectacular when it's lit up at night, and great fun. Coming home, I made sure to finish doing my hand exercises. Recovering from this injury has been a much bigger challenge than I thought. But in the last 4 days I'm noticing some major improvements. Two things that made me feel like a winner today: 1) I unpacked three boxes, something I haven't been able to do since I broke my wrist in June. I am beyond thrilled to see some of my favorite authors once more: David Grayson, May Sarton, Henry Beston and an assortment of others. Rumi and Kabir are at the far right. I feel surrounded by friends again, when I look at this shelf in my living room.  And 2), the final major accomplishment: three months after the wrist injury, I was able to hook my bra for the first time with both hands. (I'm putting this at the very end because I figure no one will read this far) For three months I've had to hook it using one hand only, placing it flat on the bed, and then wrestling it on over my head. Awful! A few days ago I tried putting it on normally--and couldn't. I just didn't have the hand flexibility still. I tried every day this week. And then today--SUCCESS!
And that's how I know that things really are improving. Hallelujah. Oh my gawd. Who knew that I would be taking a five-month sabbatical from blogging? I knew I would have to stop for awhile, but never thought it would be this long. Little did I know that UN-packing on the other side of the move would take so much longer than the packing ever did. I moved in late March, and I am still nowhere near ready to call myself settled. In fact, I can declare myself un-settled. Very unsettled indeed, on a number of levels. I am confident that it will all come right in the end, but in this transition things have often felt very broken. The absence of time to make art has been a major contributor to that. I still do not have either the space or the time to draw, tangle, or hook/punch rugs. I've had down days for sure--but I am making progress and once I sort out some of the remaining unpacking challenges, I'll be in good shape. In all of the boxes I've unpacked, I've only noticed three broken items. All of them were much-loved pottery, and two are broken beyond repair. Last night I set about to try to fix this one:  It's one of my favorite bowls by Nancy Shotola, whose pottery I've been collecting for years now. When I finished my clumsy repair, it looked like this:  Yup. Bloody awful. But you know, it made me think of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold-infused resin, transforming them into objects even lovelier than they were before. (It's also referred to as "kintsukuroi.") hope you'll take a moment to view the photos on that site. And here is an extraordinarily beautiful song by Peter Mayer about this tradition, called Japanese Bowl. My own clumsy, non-Kintsugi repair of that bowl meant that when I tested it by filling it with water after the glue had "set" overnight, all the water ran out of the bottom immediately. Alas. Unless I can figure out a way to repair-my-repair, I will no longer be able to use the bowl for storing liquids. But that doesn't mean it can no longer be used, right? There are life metaphors aplenty here. Such as, learning to let go. Or the famous Leonard Cohen quote, "There is crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Or the Hemingway quote from A Farewell to Arms about being strong at the broken places. (Although I think the Hemingway quote is usually taken out of context; I'm not sure that, in its original context, it has the meaning we would like to attribute to it!) Fortunately I have continued to meditate day after day, and that has undoubtedly kept me on a more even keel. But even with the support of meditation, things have been rocky. There is simply no hastening the process of transition. I have truly wonderful friends nearby. And much-loved friends from my previous location have also been coming to visit. I'm thinking of joining a chorus which rehearses only two blocks from here. And I have found a great studio space that's only a twenty-minute walk, if I can ever find the time to begin doing art again. Here's a relevant quote from Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can't Go Home Again, which encapsulates much of what I've been pondering: "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." I've been thinking about the function of nostalgia in our lives. When is nostalgia useful? When is nostalgia an obstacle? Here is just one reason I most certainly cannot go back, even if I wished to. It's a photograph of what's underway in my old apartment.  Renovation is well underway in just about every room. And that is true for me as well--renovation is definitely underway within my psyche. It's turning up a lot of grime as I break through old psychological walls and floors. There are days when I hardly recognize myself. There are days when almost every single thing I do is a "first time adventure." (Exhausting) There are days, hours, minutes, that are dark. There are storms moving through. But, there are these days as well (below):  Whatever the weather, I needed to do this. To return to my original analogy about the broken bowls: I needed to shatter the container of my life and re-form it. I'm at the stage now where things are in pieces and I am just beginning to put them back together. It's disorienting, exciting, upsetting, hard, and comical. This is a stage requiring a lot of patience. I am not patient. In fact, I am highly proficient at impatience, heavily laced with whining. However, I am committed to seeing this through. As with the art of Kintsugi, If i can mix the gold with the resin here and apply it carefully, then what comes out of this should be even more lovely than what went before. Perhaps that is the one "art" that I am focusing on right now. Wish me luck. Here is a poem by Mollie Grant which says it all: Kintsugi: the Japanese Art of Golden Repair (I have not been able to reach her to get permission to print it here so I'm just directing you to her page and you can read the poem there.) And check out this short post for a wonderful poem by Lisa Cohen on Kintsugi. |
ABOUT ME I'm a textile artist (traditional rug hooking, punch needle rug hooking, and other textile arts), a long-time meditator, a certified meditation teacher and coach, and focused on learning about the interplay of art, creativity, and mindfulness every day. 
Certified, 2021
Certified Zentangle® Teacher, 2013
Certified by AmyOxford.com at The Oxford Rug Hooking School, 2016
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Insight Meditation Society Oxford Rug Hooking School Zentangle: The Official Site Green Mountain Rug Hooking Massachusetts Tarot Society 
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