Still going...

I am still adjusting to some big changes. Grateful for some things and missing others.  I am very happy though that stitching remains in my life. I started this while I was still in my old house and now I am in a new space ...i just picked this up again. It is about 13 x 13 .. my lucky number. I am going to just keep going and maybe make it the center of something. 

I still seem to want to have a clear picture of my journey but I'm not sure you can ever fully see the path in front of you. Some sameness is reassuring and I am grateful that I can find the beauty in nature no matter where I am. I am painting and gathering photos of the land around me. One thing this humid climate has are lots of always growing leaves. I have taken a keen interest in Sea Grape leaves. They are almost round but not exactly. Nonetheless they are big and bold and I love them. They will show up in my work .. and my work will show up in them or on them. What iffing .. like others i know and follow. I am enjoying the sunshine not always the heat. I want to keep up with this .. i miss the exchange I once had however small it seemed. I am lonely some days but I also enjoy the quiet.

I am also painting in blue.......of things that move me.. happy colors,

joy colors, colors of hope and possibilities.

Letting go and hanging on.

I took this photo some years ago. One morning I woke up and  looked out of my kitchen window and saw this incredible light streaming through the trees and the plants they were just glistening. I quickly grabbed my camera and ran outside. I wanted to capture these moments. 

On father's day I phoned home to wish my father a Happy Father's Day. He sounded a bit frazzled. I know that my mother has not been well and her age is finally slowing her to the point where her days are filled with only the bare necessities of life. I ask how things are. And so the news is difficult always to hear. She is sleeping. My heart begins to feel this pang. I tell my dad I love him and we say our goodbyes. And like the light ... the tears stream through my consciousness. My mother is slipping away to another place and I feel time going quickly. It's funny how life seems to have a pace about it that changes aren't always so noticeable and then suddenly it seems to be going so quickly. Already nothing will be the same. My mother is suffering from Alzheimers and it is like saying goodbye before they go .. only you know it and they don't really. Its undescribeable confusion intermingled with glimpses of true happiness or peace at seeing someone you love. IT's a loss .. I feel grief before it feels I should feel it. It's death before death. Goodbye before the end. Strange words it seems ....Feels like standing on the edge of a big hole which is deep and dark and scarey.  It's all a lot to manage in my head and still try to make a living being a creative person. 

I guess the work is a welcome distraction from reality. I am barely hanging on. Trying to hope above hope that I will sell some work so I can keep doing what I love. Trying to resolve my own fears so I can get it out there. Grateful to have a mountain of ideas and time to execute them. In my ideal world I can trade art or clothes or jewelry that I make for everything that I need. Everyone everywhere loves all that I create. Not sure how to get from here to there. 

Now for some showing and telling .. after discovering http://www.spiritcloth.typepad.com/ I realized how much I loved stitching. I really find that I love to do the running stitch and am totally addicted to the texture that it creates on cloth. I love the boro cloths and even the whole idea of them and that they are mended japanese kimono's that the peasants wore. In repairing them and passing them on from one generation to the other, the cloths became infused with memory of past generations. The fact that they did this and gave such meaning to their cloths .. kimonos or blankets really resonates with me. They had a belief of not wasting any cloth and used everything they had. It seems like we have become such a disposable society any more and I like the idea of hand made even hand me down. Hand stitching is especially appealing. So partly to make something that is not like everyone else .. to have an air of my flavor, to feel my artsy self .. to fit me in a way that makes me comfortable. I started to make my own clothes. I feel good in my clothes. I put my self .. my sense of design into everything I make. I feel good when I can add hand stitching to my pieces and sometimes they are hard to part with. I often alter the fabric with dye or design either with extracting dye or adding .. with deconstructing a garment and putting it back together in a way that fits me better. No two pieces are alike. They may appear similar but they are all different. I hate to throw out even a scrap. You can imagine how my studio looks !!! ha .. I make jewelry with the scraps. I am convinced that I can make something beautiful out of anything .. lol .. it reminds me of playing dress up .. it feels like pretend .. what if i do this? I wonder what it will feel like to wear this? Thats a big part of why I do it. It's fun!! 

I was talking to a dear friend that has several of my pieces and she told me that she was comfortable in my clothes. I have to say that many times I make clothes that make me feel good .. this is such a wonderful feeling to give another woman a feeling of comfort .. and good sense of individuality. And I cannot escape the wonderful feeling of knowing that I did infuse my good will into each piece. I remember a while back a fellow stitcher Arlee Barr sent me a book that she had two of and in the pages of the book she stashed some of her fabric and piece of stitched fabric .. it was an anatomical heart. I was so so so excited to get it. And I was deeply moved to have it. There was something very profound to just have the knowledge that she had touched it and made all the stitches on it. I can't explain why it is but I was aware of how I felt about that. And then there is my wedding dress. I designed it and my mother sewed it and hand sewed 2000 seed pearls onto it. I am not married any more. Friends have suggested I part with the dress. I just can't. I can't let go of my mothers stitching and love that I know was infused into that dress. I DID take it out of the box that it was in for over 30 years. It's now hanging in my closet. I WIll do something with it. Not sure what yet but I will. well this is turning into a rather long post .. so I'll just share one of the pieces I did with stitching and old doilies and a shirt. I even made a rose with leaves from some eco dyed silk. Thanks for stopping over. I feel better now that I put it ALL out there haha .. 

Spring and Life and Loss

 On the 18th of March I lost one of my very best friends. It was a very long hard day. I am doing my best to remember all the goodness she brought me. Her name was Misty. I loved her much more than I realized. She was very smart and always had great love and compassion. She played with her toys with great joy and I was always amazed at how carefully she played with her squeak toys never tearing them up or injuring them. They would last for years and years.  She stayed near me always by my feet. No matter where I was she wanted to be there. She was happiest sitting on the front porch as in the photo of her older. I miss her so much it hurts to even type this. I find it hard to imagine that it has been nearly a month. I look for her. I try to just let myself have my grief. She is buried in front yard so I talk to her sometimes. Mostly I still just cry at the thought of her. I do still have another dog Molly and I know that she has also been grieving. She has helped me tremendously and I have had to transition from loss to acceptance so that Molly will not be as sad as I am. Seems silly to say that but I have noticed this makes a big difference in how she is when I am less grieved. Amazing animals and how they teach us to love with our whole heart. She was 14 but I always told her that she never really showed her age. The photo below was taken last summer.


So .. finally spring has taken hold here and there is new growth. Rain has caused an eruption of life. I am enjoying seeing the buds and the flowers and blooming of leaves. I am grateful for the warmer weather and glad to turn off the heat. I don't like the cold. So I am hopeful to keep coming back and posting. Here are some photos that I've enjoyed of spring. I love love love the fuzzy leaves.

 I really love these leaves. They look like hairy leaves but the hairs are soft. They grow big as big as 12 -15 inches wide. They are amazing. You can click on any of the photos to seem them larger.

 I am still working on being artist creator believing that I can sustain my life doing what I most love. I seem to always enjoy the times when I sit down and stitch. I find the repetition of straight stitches to be very soothing and I never seem to run out of things to create with this process. Below are some photos of a few things I have made. One is a necklace and the other is a bracelet. The bracelet doesn't seem to show up as pretty as it is in person.

 Then there is always a pot of rust or walnuts brewing in the yard. I find that I am still very much addicted to rust and walnut and anything fiber. I may just have to explore this area much much more. And there I am in a bucket of walnuts with fabric bathing in the rich browness of them. I like the slow ways more and more.

 These last two photos are what I consider composted fabric. I have left some of my fabrics outside and there is something really appealing to seeing what happens to fabric as it breaks down. Sometimes it makes me go back to my original intent of starting this blog with photo of broken glass. There is some measure of beauty in things that age naturally .. as naturally as they can when they are left to the elements even when they are man made fabrics or materials a variety of materials. I find that worthy of exploring. Hope you've enjoyed the ride along with me today. Thanks for stopping over.

New Year and Stitching Hope

 Happy New Year!!! I always love this time of year because I feel like the slate is cleared and I can start over. I know that I can start over every day if I want but there is something about the end of something and beginning of another. I'm grateful for all my experiences in 2012 and looking for more of them this year. I didn't spend a lot of time blogging last year but I do miss that. I thought about doing it every day but .. aaacccckkkk here it is the 11th already!!! So .. i'm going to start now and see what I can muster.
I love having creativity in my life every day. I still enjoy so many different things. I wonder if this makes you less if you don't focus on just one thing. I find it keeps me from ever being tired of creating. I think the biggest thing is feeling like I have so much to make ... how will I ever get it all done? I'm just going to keep going. Stitching, drawing, painting, sewing...
Hopefully, the new year will bring more structure and I will have the means to continue doing what brings me joy.

                                                                              
I love the feeling of stitching silk onto a blanket remnant I just love the texture it creates. The red above is a silk dress that I dyed .. it's never recommended to dye fabric that has commercial color because there is no way to know if there is something toxic in those chemicals but heck, we wear it don't we? I'm still committed to using recycled material to create with. As time goes on my mind is flooded with possibilities. I just loved the red color. It's going to be a small bag. I love making different bags. I have two started to share with you here. The second bag is all recycled material along with some over dyed fabrics. I guess the photos show the detail .. these make me happy. Thanks for stopping over and sharing my joy. I hope your year is filled with the same!!!