Another #thankfulthursday post for my art teachers and inspirations
My “work” life has involved maps and geography for years and the Map Haiku workshop with @valeriegoodwinart gave me a way to cross it over into my art life.
Don’t judge her work by photos of mine – she is masterful, I’m still experimenting. Looking forward to learning with her again at @craftalifenapa for Monoprint Map Collage
Keeping myself in gratitude, I’m sharing #thankfulthursday posts on Instagram highlighting the generous teachers who have inspired me and upskilled me in pursuit of my #passionsandpastimes. Today, thank you to @carolina_oneto for her help with curves, color transparencies in quilts, and modern paper piecing. Don’t judge her talent by my photos – mine are the work of a student, hers are the work of an artist, check them out.
This piece started with a workshop block exploring creating transparency effects and learning modern paper piecing techniques. Then, it grew to more blocks. And now, apparently I will be big stitching the whole thing, forever, because I’m loving how it feels and the designs showing up on the back, and the meditation of it all. This link will show a quick video how it has been evolving
When I was a child, my Aunt Mary was my window into the world of craft, or as I think of it, art. She, along with one of my grandmothers, were the ones who could sew, knot, crochet, and opened that world to me. In many ways my Grandmother had a greater influence, but that is a story for another time. This is the story of stockings. Aunt Mary crocheted our Christmas stockings. A ballerina slipper with tights for me, and baseball and basketball shoes and socks for my brothers, and they were hund by the chimney with care my whole life, well into my adulthood while we still gathered at my mother’s hime every Christmas.
Fast forward to my 30s, I’m married and setting up Christmas for the first time on my own. By that time I had explored ribbon weaving a bit in simple pillows, so maybe that is why when I thought about his and hers stockings for our first mantlepiece, I thought of ribbon weaving. They were multicolored, scrappy, and made of silky ribbons. I still love them – even made a matching Christmas tree skirt at one time.
Then, my brothers started having children. I don’t know if they asked, or I offered, or I just pushed my way in, but as each niece and nephew were born, there was a new ribbon woven stocking. The patterns got more complex as time went on, and the pace of my production grew, especially since every time there was a new baby, there was a baby quilt to do along with the stocking. As of today, there are 9 family ribbon-weave stockings out in the world. No, make that 11, because my sister asked for one for her and her husband as well. Not all of the families use them, but I like knowing that they are there – this is what I do.
This year, for the first time in quite some time, no new baby. No new baby, but lots of left-over ribbon. I can never quite run out of ribbon and of felt scraps at the same time, so when I started out to use up the ribbon, I needed just a bit more felt, then a bit more ribbon. I still have ribbon, maybe as much left over as when I started this earlier in the fall, but I think I’m on pause for now.
What to do with them? Well, they are in my Etsy shop , not that I can claim to be doing all the things to promote them, but I’m experimenting with a few, so maybe they will find their way into the world and in to someone else’s family.
The title of this post is taken from Anne Lamott’s book of the same name. I’ve pretty much separated my meditation practice from any specific religious practice. Having said that, sometimes when I am sitting with my thoughts I find myself talking to someone or something out there. I don’t trouble myself too much over who I’m talking to, and I don’t label it as prayer, I just let it be. Now Anne Lamott does call it prayer, and it’s the prayer she believes most. Ask for help, say thanks for what you have, and don’t forget to celebrate.
October passed me by too quickly to get this post out and included in my month-end summary email. It’s important to me, marking the passage of time even if no one else ever read it.
October is a long month, but it felt short. I met my own challenge of resolving or at least renovating a stack of mixed media paintings that had been sitting around for quite some time – the photo is one of my “after” shots. Now, some of them seem worthy of matting or at least storing in osme way that they don’t curl up and resist all future efforts to flatten them out.
This October was one of the prettiest I remember in quite some time – lots of warm days, lots of crisp but not cold days, and the nicest leaf colors I’ve seen in a while, even along the interstate on my way from Chicago to Michigan for a quick family visit.
My boyfriend was on the road quite a bit too, so I had some alone time at home, something quite rare over the years that I always enjoy, knowing he will be back. We always give each other plenty of space, and our physical space makes that easy to do, but there is something different when your time is untethered. I always ask myself, whether it is coming back from vacation or time alone at home, what is it I do differently? Is there any reason I couldn’t do that every day anyway? Usually the answer is no.
Plenty of together time going forward, though. We will be leaving, a week earlier than usual, for a long stay down in the Florida Panhandle. My wish list for what I will accomplish is way to ambitious, even for this extended five week stay, but I feel certain that at the minimum I will successfully get my toes in the sand on pretty much a daily basis.