The sun is out. Old sea, she greets me each morning.
Soul-o likes it better ON the table.
I did not record the making of this one.
Not like I do now.
Long ago, I found a roll of old brown paper. It' heavy and soft and I always thought I would use it. Finally I have something to use it for. On the wall then, behind the mending table, stretched out, a place to map this cloth. Because as I mend, I will try to remember. I started a while back, drawing my work. This is a bit different I think. I have many thoughts. They will unfold.
I have determined that my basic block size was 6". And that if I scale the drawing so that a 2" square represents each 6" block, it will fit on the paper. I have gridded it in pencil. Darkening the 25 block section that was the starting point, as I recall. As I took the photo, with the sun behind me it reminded me of the silhouettes we did in kindergarten. We used a projector, traced each others shadows on black paper, cut them out and mounted them on white paper. Gifts for parents to take home on open school night. I must have mine somewhere. Anyway, this is a PlaceKeeper. A map. And something new.
Standing on the chair, this is the center section, where I began, before the ring of cats. Already strays in my mind. As things progressed this was no longer the center mathematically speaking. Personal math has it's own rules. There are many places to mend. I'll take them one by one while remembering. Mending gaps in memory while patching holes in cloth. Mending your own work is such gentle timekeeping.
And here's that poem again...
And what is life? A crazy quilt;
Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,
With here and there a square of blue
For some old happiness we knew;
And so the hand of time will take
The fragments of our lives and make,
Out of life's remnants, as they fall,
A thing of beauty, after all.
a scrap... part of a poem by Douglas Malloch
