A story starts small
The bases we have been working on are somewhat symbolic of context. Frames for thoughts. The setting for something to happen. Resting places for scattered questions and answers. Until we find a way to contain and witness our thoughts within some sort of boundary, we cannot share them in any meaningful way. Using the base concept helped me present a story... I think it is important to realize that story is your own intentional gathering of random elements, an alignment of experiences in a sort of time line with the purpose of communicating . Even if we work with similar elements each story is different because we are not thinking exactly the same way. I always consider my cloths as stories because I am focused on the steps taken to reach a certain point and how the steps and the elements are connected. To each other as well as to me. Because they are a collection things I consider them all samplers, especially since I try to keep learning something when I am making them. I learn about cloth making and I learn a bit more about myself and the world around me.
I use the word quilt a lot in describing my cloths. I think it is because the word holds the history of combining small pieces to make a whole. And it holds the history of women working though things. It holds a reverence for fabric and supports the idea that no scrap is too small. When I named my blog, I was really thinking of getting the spirit of the story back into the quilt. I had decided that quilting was not about a mad dash to see how much fabric you could buy or about winning a prize in a contest. No it was about something else...which I still consider a valuable skill. Storytelling. Something like connecting the dots, or lovingly leaving a trail for someone to follow. .
I am still always loving this poem:
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.
(Excerpt from "A Crazy Quilt" by Douglas Malloch)
So my subject for this first STORY post is the concept of components, which I have touched on already. And how everything we do can be an important part of something else.
A base is a ground. We have been creating bases, thinking of them as the ground for a cloth. And we realized also, they might also be the ground for smaller cloths, and the composite cloth itself might be an element of a larger cloth later on, ( which I will talk about next) which in turn could be an element in your life of cloth making. And so it goes, depending on your frame of reference.
The Component Method
The components you add to your base will start to make the story come alive if they are connected in some way.
I like to use things that have meaning. Or to give them meaning as I go along. If you already have your story in mind, you might pick these elements because they fit your story. Or make them to order. In this video I am working with what I have... I am letting myself drift until I get caught in something. Sometimes you catch a thought, and sometimes it catches you.
But my favorite thing to do is to create elements through the what-iffing process. By constantly questioning and answering through cloth making I have built a very special library that contains me and cloth in a longstanding relationship. This is a great habit if you are cloth story teller. It puts you into the story as a character along with the other elements. It starts the conversation and is a testament to your persistence.
I consider all my story cloths to be self portraits. You might too. Because all meaningful making contains your voice and the voice of the materials you choose. Be sensitive to that. It will make a huge difference in your work.
Story cloth is slow cloth, it takes time to tell a story.
Some times story can come from just waht happened today, stitching it right into the cloth, a true story so to speak.
