salvage blues

things that people

have used 

and cherished. they

have personality,

character,

and soul.

here we have two of my favorite things: music and cloth.  both created, or to be re-created, from salvage.  in the background is my latest acquisition, the troubadour, talked about here.  in the foreground is one of my favorite pair of work jeans. carpenters, complete with the extra little side pockets and hammer loop.  blown out knee with a minor repair already chanted in. chewed to salem and back heel cuz i love to were my jeans a few inches longer than my legs can manage. one of the legs is ripped several inches up along one side where i stepped on the trailing fragments of hem and continued to try to walk.

if you've been following my blog for some time, you'll remember i've already done a pair of skull pants. now it is time for something different. new. at first blush, i'm thinking something japanese. oni masks; foo lions; noh theatre; hannya masks...that sort of vibe. so, over the next few days, i'll be sketching some ideas while needle chanting in some stabilizing scraps and preparing the jeans for what is to come!

namaste'

strange wisdom

"you have to

be blasé about

something, 

she said,

otherwise

you'd die of

over excitement. "

- brian andreas

there must be an overabundance of barely containable excitement bubbling just beneath the fuzzbutt's surface. he seems to have blasé down to a science. perhaps he is just being considerate and sleeping for the both of us... 

meanwhile, the tall skinny tree is up, ensconced in colored lights, and festooned with precious memories. oh, and littered with gifts! for the first year in too many, i am feeling festive as the holidays commence.

namasté

somewhere in the darkness

"time changes everything

except something within us

which is always surprised

by change."

-thomas hardy

time has been sitting on my mind of late like a bear on a stack of salmon bones. perhaps because i have had more of it (whatever that means) these past few weeks. perceptions begin to shift whenever routines change. the greater the change, the broader the shift. you begin to look at people and situations differently. realizations that once flickered like a tiny candle in a deep, dark room become a brilliant blaze which illuminate seemingly every corner. of course, at first the eyes must adjust to this new found clarity before the brain can begin to comprehend what is being seen.  in times such as these, it is good to fall back on something known.

i pulled this cloth out this morning and found myself stitching color again. bright, festive colors on cool, impersonal white. life dancing in all its brilliance across the blank face its absence. there is something liberating about this. perhaps there will be more of it in the coming days. this brilliant dancing of life. color. music. celebrational activities. perhaps a lot more...

namaste'

not all roads...

"when's all said and done,

all roads lead to the same end.

so it's not so much which 

road you take,

as how you take it."

-charles de lint

i have been spending a lot of time lately communing with my cloth and eco-dyes. music and imagination. opening myself to the possibilities of my work. trying to see where it has all be leading me. this past year has seen many new starts. new directions. new experimentations. and i am quite certain that there are many more to come. will always be too many to contemplate. however, in this moment, this is what comes to mind: each path, whether explored in depth or merely given a cursory glance, seems to be leading me in a myriad of directions. not as easy a journey as the old proverb suggesting that "all roads lead to rome." instead, each road leads me to the next. and the next. and the next after that. each contributing a cobblestone, if you will, to help pave the way to what will come: figure; story; eco-dyes; salvage cloth; re-designed cloth; tattered edges; community; fragments of thought and fiber... but where is it all leading?

at the moment, i am taking a step back. creating some spaciousness wherein i may see more clearly. a task which has lead me to pull out my salvage quilt and begin working once again on its seemingly endless array of mindless machine-stitched seams and hand-stitched allowances. there is a story in this cloth. a story of community. cobbled together from the cast-off garments this town's residents. some known to me. some not. and like all communities, there are layers forming. first, and simplest, are the machined seams holding the fragments of garments together. forming a foundation. second, the hand-stitching to hold the seam allowances down, yes. but also to begin to add texture and a foreshadowing of color and line and direction. once these have been brought to a level where the cloth will reside in strips (or rows) we will begin to see a coming together of community. then will begin the next layer. the continuing of story. figures. thoughts. fragments. stitched in layers upon this foundation. and the next.

it will be a long journey. no community manifests overnight. but it will be an interesting one. full of revelations. of heartbreak. and celebration. a laying down, step by step, fragment by fragment, of the story of this community of residents. human and otherwise. which will create a human wrapping cloth...a haven of fragments of time and memory to warm the body. to hearten the mind...that will allow me to take my town with me when i leave in a couple years. a gift to myself...and to what will eventually become my memory of this place.  amongst its whispers, this cloth has been asked to be re-named: relic, a gathering of lives.

relic is keeping me quite busy tonight...

namaste'

sometimes

sometimes all you need to do is arrange cloth to bring out its beauty and depth. without threads stitched through its surface the cloth is free to shift. move. evolve. express. without hindrance. allowing a natural and temporal fluidity that could not exist when constrained by the chains of needle and thread.

sometimes this is enough to express creative thought...

namaste'

hearing silence

today was a quiet, listening sort of day. it is strange how the quieter we become, the more we are able to hear. after dropping the saint off at doggy day care (to give her some time with other doggy types), i spent the better part of the day just observing and learning from piper. learning about silence. about nurturing oneself. about resting. about seeing what does not appear to be there. it is an exercise i have not partaken of lately. one that i realize i sorely miss and highly recommend!

namaste'

silent sunday - 9/02/12