Spirit Cloth

Name it

Just let it out. 

Something.

Call it something. What comes to mind?

 

Just Wake Up

The Beauty of Another Day

Become a Sun

Not Exactly a Phoenix but Rising All the Same

Wake the Beast

She Needs New Wings

Rest in the chaos and Rise with the Sun

The Spirit

September's Bitch

Naming things is a tool I use to mark the moment. Again and again.  It helps me hold the change of mind. Story is that. One mind and then another. Reacting to a chain of events. How it seems to happen. I could build 9 stories from what came to mind from one. I didn't try to have 9 names. It has become an instinct. 

So. What comes to mind?

Images are now slow to upload here at TypePad. So I have just begun to make them smaller. Smaller files. Comments only show in Microsoft Edge.  But I need Chrome to use the audio player. So that's the way it can work for me for now. More work but ok. Pretty much the images will be here and on Instagram, and mostly the words and will be here. video might have to be over there, but then maybe I will just link to Feel Free when I finish fiddling. I'm weaving a way in my mind. Autumn Bitch is determined. But mellowed.

It's hard to know the big picture...

...probably because we never really get to see it.

Still we try to hold the sense of it. It doesn't make me feel small like it used to. I can just be part of it. Like a patch. It is easier to hold on to that these days. The Bigger Cloth.

I was simply exhausted yesterday. I slept early and I slept deep. Soul-o seemed to know, he stayed close.  This morning, after 4 tries, photos! 

The piece above, an unfinished small journey from the class with the same name.  I added and stitched the overlapping circles after asking myself "is a circle just the mother of all shift?" And I named it It's Just Time while working on it. Because that's it, not the thing, or the blog or the book or the anything. It's just time, the story. And all this shit is just part of it.  Be in it and share it or not.  What is it going to be?

I posted at Instagram this morning, trying to feel like it was the blog.  Very uneasy feeling, even though I post there a lot, it is not the same as I feel here. So I can share yes, I will continue to do that there, in case I cannot here. But I will struggle.  What else is there? 

I am tweaking Feel Free to become a back up blog. That will take a while.  I know TypePad is fading as they are now directing new sign ups to a WordPress server. They are struggling too. Maybe I will just choose to appreciate that. I fear less about losing anything here, I think the functionality will slip a bit but I can always reference the content and leave it here. Comments might be an issue, but I will just go and leave crumbs where you can find me if I lose you.  My heart IS in it. It was just a few hard days. For many more reasons than just this. We are all in the same big boat.

Just Today

Wednesday, probably that's all I could say.

Except fabric bits seem to be carried on the wind here.

And I woke late. And I am posting late.

Late starts here but things are growing. It warmed up again.

Indigo, planted late, in a pot, could bring it inside and let it continue if needed.

And the green quilt start. Still working on Heal, but thinking about this one now. Calling it Grow.

Growing requires courage too. Where's that basket of red?

I threw my back out of wack, so slower.

I put a note up on grace's place. They have been evacuated. The fires are unreal. We hope all is well. 

Holding on to Nothing

Named for the wispy silk scraps I am filling space with.

It's like that, holding on to nothing. It has changed since I posted it on Instagram last week. 

But also the image is developing  slowly around the concept of the name.  And the name has 2 parts.  Holding on to Nothing aka New Eyes. It's about my changing perception of what is real. How to give form to that. Make it some sort of place to hold on to. 

Also, these kinds of images I build with cloth are more personal in terms of how they might bring me back to paper. Paint. I realize that is what they are for. I have returned to a  lot of my smaller cloths late at night when it is quiet. I add a bit here. There. Then dream on them. Without words. Without sharing. Because I have no way to say.

My time online is a struggle. Typepad yes, but also a certain kind of energy is hard to find. I read but just don't find a lot of words to respond.  Even reading. My eyes tire. I do not think it is my health.  I think it is a kind of unnameable shift in priority. Dealing with things I can touch. Maybe it is just a sign of these troubled days. I know others have been floating in a similar cloud.

Floating is a kind of going while holding on to nothing.

I am not fighting with it, or feeling sad. I am just going along each day. To see how it will be tomorrow. 

Just saying this..

Hunker Down and Remember

I don't remember the name of these trees. But I remember them.

Don't tell me. It's OK.

Never planted one. But they always seem to be familiar. In winter I don't recognize them.  When they bloom, I remember them, though not by name. 

I began with a soft pink because I had some. I was thinking white, but it is a fleshy pink I picked up and threaded through the needle. Might seem white against a dark color but flesh colored here. Two strands of embroidery floss, a free running stitch over the pen lines which still show in the spaces in between as the thread weaves in and out , appears and disappears.  A soft circle has formed hardly seen but strongly felt. Mapping a womb field. Not perfectly.

I don't find words for old memories. I close my eyes. I catch a thought. 

Hunker Down and Appreciate the Ordinary

 

Just a few moments to reflect. 

I did not plan to focus on the Robe thing in such detail here in "Large Cloth".

But how it goes is simply how it is. And I let you lead me my friends. Lead me and accompany me at the same time.

You might recognize this robe "Without End" from one of the videos I published from the Contemporary Boro class in the last few days.  It's the one made from grandma's linen curtain.  With the binding made from scraps of my son's baby quilt. It was patched and dyed and mended and worn. My first attempt at ROBE. Dates back to 1975 or so. And then the cloth began to weaken. To honor it I undid the seams and attached it to a foundation cloth for support. To take the strain of tension away. It is now a wall cloth. And I renamed it Temple. It is not a religious statement. It is symbolic of a dwelling place for an aging deep seated feeling of honor.  I have only begun to put this together, it has been hanging on walls for a while and needs more stitch. 

I put this here today simply to emphasize how one thing might become another. And still be useful.  It could have become a blanket. Maybe it is now an art cloth.  One I wanted to create , wanted it to make an impact. Maybe just a Ceremony. Because I needed it as a reminder of how I feel about cloth. In a new way it is still a robe. It wraps me in peace. And tells, to me, my own story.

How strange,it has grown larger now, Larger than Life.

Named it.

Must be at least 10 years, hanging here in view.

Organizing a Shift

about 21" square, 1/2" squares.

I do believe this one was part of the sanity series

before I even considered sanity as a series.

I am currently packing up my work, which is always in process if I have not given it away or sold it.  I will carry all of it to the new place myself. I'll roll it into a big roll and hug it all the way there.

Hope you are all well.

Days and Days

Every morning,

for quite a while now,

she's there.

There are double sliding doors at the back of the studio.  Her web blocks one of them. I use the other door.

Everything has become blurred. Yet cloth still becomes evidence of going.

A soup of days and thoughts caught. I will be reopening Feel Free today. I hope all works as it should.  Most of the audio is in two formats now, an underlined link (which opens in a new tab) and a player, which isn't as cute as the old one but one of them should work for you.  I may have missed a few things, if something seems strange let me know...

Classes have resumed. I have posted new content in Part 1,Thought Catching,  the page I was publishing when everything went awry. NOTE: as of 9PM the site is down again. I had a temporary meltdown but now I am calm and I will stay up all night and fix it. 

New content will be posted in Part 2, Small Cloth tomorrow. 

I layered the 2 photos.

Just to have her there. To consider her there.

I made a big decision yesterday. To start a new blog when we move. To begin again. What should I name it?

No Subject

Good Morning.

I wake, not rested.

I like the change in pattern as the light hits the blinds.

Like stitching.  The magic in light and dark. Repeat. 

I've managed to put a new post up at Part 2.

More looking is on the schedule for this week.  Add car troubles to the mix. 

Today's nine from what was on hand.  A blur, but not.

Patches have become travelling companions.

9 again

...might call them "the tendency to rise up" as a nine patch. But I have a tendency to do that sort of thing.