Spirit Cloth

Yesterday and Today

we go through life
we shed our skins
we become ourselves

patti smith

4 am

Sleep has returned some normalcy to my days.

I feel it, a sense of OKness, self, that has been absent this past year.

Rising really early is like food to me.

I love just jars. How they fill a space with glistening emptiness.

The cloth to the left of the above photo. Safe But Open. It has been that. For a while now.

Still seems that. Looking again but not renaming. Knowing the unfinished here, the clothworks that surrounds me, will sustain me as I become along with them. There is really no such thing as finished in this regard. I have almost lost interest in it. The "finished product". At each glance, it is, and I can hold that. Over and over. We are the same. We are liquid.

Everything, in Perspective, is liquid.

 

Fog. On New Year's Eve

This year.

Fog. And More Fog.

It's been fog, brain fog. I feel like something is trying to confuse me. Us.

This year, I became a lion. And soon, I'll be 71. I softened this photo and thought to myself...

Fog can come in handy 

Here we go again.

No plans. Just Going.

December 11 and it has begun

The dreaming. The kind you do with your eyes open. 

The long stare.

Sometimes there cannot be talking. I am ready to hold my words. Wait. Like Magnolia.

This mapping, the other side, perhaps is a way to explain some new thoughts. But not yet.

What interests me today is the stitches you don't see, cannot see, don't need to see. And how that is part of form and even identity. 

The truth in not being sure.

That part of form.

That's it.

I think this is my last post of the year. With words.  Maybe photos then, no comments. Let's take a break from trying to explain. See what form that takes.

Talk to you on the other side...

Let it flow.

...as my mind wanders in December

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were just quiet stitches yesterday, the snow globe effect always surfaces in winter. And there is drawing now as I reconsider line on cloth. I can go there now by breaking my own preconceptions about what clothwork is. 

Now that posts here are not being delivered by email in any timely manner and I expect, soon, not at all, I tend to post more slowly, saving and adding over more time, like a diary, letting my thought drift through time. Feels freer actually. The no hurry to finish a post.

I am winding down for the year. I suppose I will hibernate for a bit soon.  Although it will be back up into the 60s by tomorrow. Time to redefine season I think.

I will try to talk about this small cloth tomorrow.

The Struggle

This was a struggle. 

You know , like what you are imagining isn't working.

But then it goes beyond that, especially if you work in a way that is intended to express what you are thinking, not what you thought or you want someone to think. 

The struggle here, as it became apparent , was everything. Everything that is me.  Or now actually, was me.

I struggled with this one when it suddenly dawned on me that. That's the Point.

So I kept going until the moments held together.

And I named it

The Struggle to  Be_______.

Probably for me, Visible might be what I fill in the blank with,  but we each have our own struggles, right?

And I didn't really get anywhere. But it's ok. I like looking at what happened. The form it took.

I wanted to talk here but I didn't find enough quiet time and now I forgot what I was thinking. It was a confusing day.

Yesterday I couldn't post here.

But I remembered some Free Selves I have in a box somewhere. Couldn't find them so I made one to remind myself to keep looking. Some of Deb's cloth here. But you probably know that, it has such character.

I let her wander from here to there, held her, carried her for a while and then placed her in a way to illustrate how sometimes we may seem free but we all might be held, at the same time, even trapped by some kind of personal darkness. Just a thought caught. Just a way to look at that thought while wondering why people are so confusing to me. To each other. How blind spots form. 

Today, I woke up covered in Poison Oak. It's been a long time and it ain't pretty. An itch that might prevent even thinking for a few days. I'm exhausted anyway. But then sleep might not come too easily either. 

 

Selling, Sharing and Common Sense

It's been a while since I focused on selling my stitched work. It is everywhere here.

Because I like that really, being surrounded by the history of process. 

It's time to let some stuff go.  I sell/offer the work that is closest to me in order to share something deeper about self and process, maybe just the time it took. And I sell stuff when I need to. When I need money, when I need to clear my head. And clear some space. Right now there is a little bit of all of that going on. I will be closing the Spirit Cloth shop. I left that place for larger works but I doubt I will ever let them go. Or finish them even. Supplies and Small Stitched Works will be available in the ThreadCrumbs Shop.  I think I will skip a lot of the official announcing of shop updates. Perhaps just a whenever dribble might work at this point. Just stop by if you are curious. I do an occasional shout out on Instagram and Facebook.  But not here really.  Let this just be about the going. 

Selling can be confusing. Especially pricing. I have often been "accused" of selling myself short.  It is important for you to know that this selling thing is more about sharing than what I might deserve.  Sharing is what I do. The best I can. Because I can. I put a lot out there. I feel good about it, even though some days I find myself disappointed in how others behave in the context of my sense of community... Sharing openly takes trust. I do not ask for much. And I don't like much that I need to put this here again, but after some shitty stuff this week, here it is:

Some days I can't keep my cool. I get knocked off balance. I think perhaps, well I would like to believe, that most hurtful stuff happens in some innocent way. Still, misunderstanding can never be prevented/resolved without dialog (we might say that about everything). I just recorded a rant to relieve some stress, but then I remembered a calmer time during PatchWork in Perspective-part 1 when I was Thought Catching and addressed a question about the copying issue with more composure. And I listened and I said what I still might say.

 

 

Here is a video link if you see no player above. Videos from this series are not public but I opened this one because it seemed to fit to the day. Of course some of you were right there. 

The Deep Breath

Just here, because it is so easy really, to be who i am.

 

It is almost September and

I feel the calm

And the comfort in my own limitations. 

Like a change in season

Brings new form.

 

 

 

 

Deepening Winter.

It's cold, we've gone Polar. Looks like below freezing for a week or so. And maybe some snow. The big unstacked wood pile is frozen. An excuse to continue with other things. 

Life became really confusing this last year. Maybe actually just confusing. 

In any case, The Deep Pool of Thought... posts here and here... has become a larger cloth still, simply by giving it a different use. And it could be a blanket too if I keep going.  And I probably will, what else is there? And it's cold.

What's happening with all my internet places? Well, I'm sorting through that. 

I was going to start talking here today but the man is sleeping and the basement is cold and so tomorrow will hopefully be another day.