luminous language of art

"art washes away from the soul

the dust of everyday life."

-pablo picasso 

kurt vonnegut once said that "to practice any art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. so do it.” in today’s climate, i figure anything that feeds our souls is a worthy pursuit.

i'm trying to be quiet as no one else is up, but my paints and canvas have been whispering a steady lament for some time and I decided it was time to get them out and let them walk around a bit…

namasté

at home with fragments

“every experience, 

no matter how bad it seems, 

holds within a blessing 

of some kind. 

the goal is to find it.“

-buddha

i got laid off today. the corona virus and the oil price war between russia and saudi arabia have all but shut down the oil industry in the states. of a sudden, i have a lot of time on my hands, so this is happening. a bit of fragment exploration in three dimensions. playing with unusual forms to create old favourites. where will this all lead? i do not know, but it should be fun figuring it out!

namasté

wandering unleashed

when you set no deadlines,

you can allow your curiosity

to wander unleashed...

i've long admired ann wood's devilly delicious owls, so you can imagine my joy when she released her pattern!

this little guy has been fun to create from salvaged fabrics, vintage buttons, and more!

he's still got a long journey ahead of him, along with a few surprises!

namasté

rabbits and folk

a false spring settled in around us here in montana. a few hesitant days of relative warmth and melting snows. the rabbits have been out celebrating. seeking tender greens peeking through the top soil. the community of folk seem to have been doing the same. open windows and the odd door could be spied. folk tentatively meandering about in yards, poking at forgotten implements revealed by the retreating ice.

a little ink sketch on cloth. some tacked bits of scrap to suggest highlight, shade, color, and motion. then a retreat from my perch on the porch as ice showers appeared and pelted winter down the back of my neck. and a realization...where did i put that basket of threads?

time to scurry about in search of color and thread to add...

while i'm searching for the errant threads, take a look at what captured my attention this morning here.

namaste'

and miles to stitch before i sleep

"we choose what attitudes

we have right now.

and it's a continuing choice."

-john c. maxwell

as i've been adding to the thousands of stitches already in community, i've been thinking about attitudes. there are attitudes of cloth. and of clothmaking. of anything...and everything...really. these attitudes can help or hinder. can evoke or collude. they are what propel us forward in our discovery of the world around us...or give us excuse to sit back in our armchairs and let it all pass by.  i see this in the way i founder at times. allow my creative endeavors to languish while i tell myself that i have no more ideas. or that i am overwhelmed and must retire and repose.  but it is my choice. in that moment. no matter what i tell myself. and it feels good to be needle chanting once again. to hear the whispers of a whole herd of beasties clamoring to crawl out of the depths of my imagination and onto the backdrop of the cloth i am making. here. now.

be patient, my beauties. your turn will come. but first i must create the corners for you to play in....

namaste'

old cloth, new direction

in an effort to simply start doing, rather than thinking about doing, i've picked up community and begun top stitching the seams on the first row. just continuing on. though i have the thought that the name will be changing soon. i'm still listening for the this new name, so until the whispers become loud enough to hear, i will still call it community.

as some of you may recall, community began as a human wrapping cloth comprised of various salvaged scraps from discarded and unwanted clothing from the community in which i live. some garnered from local thrift shops. others from yard sales. still others donated to the project from friends and strangers who heard about the endeavor.

now, as i enter into the last year or so that i will be living here in montana, my thoughts about this cloth have begun to evolve. grow. enlarge. it is no longer content to be a series of squares and rectangles quilted in a more common manner (i had been contemplating even machine quilting this one). it wants to have more story to it than this. whispers of beasts and words are becoming coherent. insistent. so between bouts of stitching the seemingly endless seams with vintage variegated threads, i will begin exploring visceral, almost totemic, illustrations of beasts. lions. tigers. leopards. bears. who knows what all else? but these are foremost in thought at the moment.

with the riotous color already present in what will now become the background blocks of this cloth, i shall have to get somewhat inventive to keep the new beastie population soon to appear from disappearing into this cacophony of color!

namaste'

getting somewhere

the first step toward getting somewhere

is to decide that you are not going

to stay where you are...

spring has made several false starts these past weeks. the icy grip of winter always seems to tighten its grasp and chase the warm winds away just as we begin to enjoy their touch. perhaps a little bunny energy will help spring along...

sometimes all it takes is the gumption to make another start. whether it be fresh and brand new or picking up something from before and starting again, it will always propel you in a new direction!

namaste'

spring interlude

"in the spring,

at the end of the day,

you should smell like dirt."

-margaret atwood

my baby grass is finally beginning to look like toddlers. soon, they will be teenagers and ready for their first haircut. looks like i ought to have put down more seed, though. will probably have to plant more soon...

there's been a lot of rain lately. in the fields behind my house, the grasses and plants are practically growing into the animals' mouths!

it's been a good week for planting shrubs and trees and trying to make my yard seem a little less barren. less rectangular. less void of personality...

i love the smell of fresh dirt. but i am beginning to miss the touch of cloth and thread...

namaste'



rabbit moon

"while the moon

floats over the ocean,

a rabbit runs

over the waves."

-ancient noh poem

this motif is very popular in japanese decoration and tells the story of a rabbit who crosses the ocean from okino island to inaba by using the backs of sharks as stepping stones. not favoring sharks much myself, i've chosen to have my rabbits romping in the waves beneath a sleeping rabbit moon instead. the salvaged and stitched cloth to the right of my sketch is the background for this panorama and is only a seed for manifesting these whispers... but i had to start this journey tonight to fill the long, quiet hours while the elders sleep and the laundry dances in the mud room. next, i shall begin work on the sleeping rabbit moon... it seems that my unusual habit of maintaining a box of scraps and salvage fabric in the back of my truck has proven useful once again!

namaste'

thread chanting

in keeping with being gentle, i've been quietly thread chanting this little peacock based on a vintage pattern found in an old sewing box. most of it is kantha stitch, though they did not call it such. my mind has been wandering around other designs and images that could translate nicely into kantha stitch. perhaps this will be a new direction for quiet moments when my fingers are not in the mood to be needle chanting 4,320 inch and a half squares into a bed cloth...

namaste'

a snow lion or two...

tattoo the pristine flesh

what is permanent anyway?

this ink only lasts 'til the grave,

skin and ideas decompose

that which we did compose.

-corri alius

the finished lion...

the lion yet to be completed in blue and green.

i have been working entirely too much once again. but yesterday found me relaxing (ha!) in the tattooist's chair for seven hours while he worked on my new sleeve. it is taking much longer than originally expected. yet another argument against expectations. but the results have so far been entirely pleasing! the first is on the back of my right forearm and the unfinished one is on the front of the same forearm. both bracket the ganesh that is on the inside of my forearm (pictured here). snow lions (also sometimes known as fu lions or fu dogs) symbolize fearlessness, unconditional cheerfulness, east, and the earth element. snow lions are traditionally white with turquoise manes...but these longed for the joy of color and i saw no reason to deprive them!

yes. my body is a temple. and what temple should remain so low and mean as to be void of decoration?

i think i shall begin digging through scraps and see if a snow lion might like to manifest beneath tonight's quiet needle chants...

namaste'