Iris Shoots, February 2, 2012

I look forward to winter for many reasons. And one of the main things I look forward to is the opportunity to have everything stop for a while. And even though I recognize that this is a total illusion, I pretend anyway. Winter seems to give me more time to still my busy mind, to spend lovely days at home, listening to the rain and the wind, letting the beautiful gray tones of the Northwest sky wash over me. In this stillness, I feel that my creativity and my spirituality are being renewed. And in anticipation of this special time, I decided to make a Stillness mandala as my next project. To commemorate the coming around of this wonderful time of year.

But something is going terribly wrong this year. True we had a little snow two weeks ago. But where are the wonderful winter rain storms? Where is the intensity, the opportunity for cleansing, the chance to stay at home, and to snuggle up inside and be warm. To read books, to make soup, to work on mandalas.

Aside from the huge implications for Global Climate Change, how can I be still when the sun is shining?  How can I pretend that things will stop long enough for me to have my winter experience when I go outside my door and see things like the photo I took this morning.  On February 2nd, no less.

Last Sunday, I was watching football (the Championship games) and knitting, and it occurred to me why knitting is becoming such a positive thing for me to do.  I first learned to knit in high school and made a sweater which I never wore.  In college, I tried making a vest for a friend of mine, got carried away, and in the end it was so huge that only a member of the Harlem Globetrotters could wear it.  So I put my needles away and forgot all about knitting and all other craft-related activities, for that matter.

But now that I make baskets and hang around with all these beautiful women in the San Juan County Textile Guild, I see them knitting all the time – at meetings, on the ferry, at social gatherings, while watching TV.  Their hands are always busy, and it has made my hands start to twitch with eagerness to be doing something similar.  A friend of mine was knitting a scarf like this, and she said that it was really easy to do, and that I could do it.  She was right.  I can, and I am doing it.  Just like riding a bike, it all came back to me.

So this is why I am liking this process so much.  I can take it anywhere.  It is a really good way to focus and to concentrate.  For this scarf, it is 8-8-6-6-4-4-20. I need to pay attention, but at the same time it is very relaxing.  When I am nervous about anything, it is very soothing.  I breathe better. Knitting is a good way to hold me in the present moment.  I lose myself in the repetition of doing one stitch after another.  And I join in the archetypal process of all those knitters who came before me.

Best of all, by the time the Superbowl is over, I will have a fun and whimsical new scarf to wear.

I made this basket last May in a workshop taught by the wonderful basket maker Judy Zugish. She has great designs and amazing willow that she has grown and prepared herself. But what I loved the most was how she encouraged creativity in all the students. No two baskets were alike, and you’d never know they were even made in the same class.

Originally, I left all the spokes at the top uncut and they completely obscured the opening. I thought of it as mysterious and liked it as a design element without quite knowing why. Then I got a critique from another wonderful basket maker Marilyn Moore who juried a show I entered the basket in. She thought that the top didn’t fit the rest of the basket which was more refined and almost classical. I did see that clearly and resolved to trim all the spokes to a uniform length. But something kept stopping me.

Then last night it finally came to me.  I started clipping random spokes at less than uniform length and only clipped the ones that seemed not to fit, or stuck out too much, or were too twisted, or just “asked” to be cut.  Here is the result of that.  It may not be finished yet.  As I looked at the photo, I could see a few more things that I wanted to do.  But it is getting close to where I want it to be.  Still a bit wild and unruly.  But with some light getting into the belly of the basket, the sense of mystery has really only increased.  As you go around the perimeter, some spaces are more open, some are more dense.  There is no regularity, and that is what I am liking about it.

What made me really happy about this process was that it was one of the first times I felt that I was able to make artistic decisions about a basket in much the same way I would about a painting.  Whether it works or not, whether I like it as much in a week as I do today, whether anyone else likes it, none of that matters.  I had fun with the process.  Taking thirty minutes to clip fifteen spokes.  Time well spent, I say!

Amazing!  I wrote that title just now thinking about how fast time seems to be going.  And only then remembered that I had used the same title for a painting I did last summer.  So Quickly Now is a flower form and to me felt full of movement and growth, but was also symbolic of how short-lived everything is.

January of 2012 is proving me right about that.  It is almost half over already and I am feeling my own internal pressure to have accomplished more.  My quiet (productive) winter time is vanishing before my eyes.  By now I should have painted much more, created a new mandala (or two), made many beaded bracelets, worked on some unfinished baskets, finished knitting a scarf I started last year, read five books, lost ten pounds, organized my office (for real), and cleaned my house.  I am “so quickly now” going to try to set aside my unrealistic goals, have some fun, make some art of some kind or another, and figure out that it’s all OK.  Really!

I am always a bit sad to miss the monthly Trance Dance, and especially so in January when everyone sets their intention for the year and dances it deeply into their bodies. Still, for the past few years, I have been participating from afar and that has been good as well.

So when I read Anita’s post on Tuesday, I asked her to pick a letter for me from the ones that had not been claimed on Monday night.  In her email sent to me yesterday, I learned that my letter for the year is “B.”

Now don’t get me wrong.  ”B” is a perfectly good letter.  It is even the first letter of my last name.  But in my heart of hearts, it wasn’t the letter that I wanted.  I was sending out for a “C” (Creativity, Communication, Courage, Compassion - all things I want and need more of).  Or maybe even a “P” (Paint, Play, Pray/Meditate – which have been my standard resolutions for many years now).

But no, I got a “B” and had no choice except to embrace it.

My favorite bead store in Friday Harbor is having huge sale this week.  So on Tuesday, I hopped on the inter island ferry and came home with this stash. Clearly one of my winter projects has been determined by this purchase.  But I can’t think of a nicer way to spend the rainy days and nights of January and February in the Northwest.  For me, working with these beautiful, bright colors and with beads that sparkle in the light is clearly a way to fight the winter blues.

I made this drawing a while ago and found it this morning while looking through one of my sketchbooks.  In the bottom right corner, I had written the words, “and so it begins again.”  Because of this it felt appropriate to use it here, as one year is ending and another is about to begin.  The colors seemed to also reflect the spirit of the holidays.  And the imagery felt celebratory as well.

It has long been a practice of mine to use words in conjunction with form.  Sometimes the words come first and then they determine what the imagery will be.  Sometimes it’s the other way around.  Using words helps me to understand my feelings and why I am creating that particular piece.  Sometimes the words remain visible, and at other times the imagery obscures, or partly obscures, the words.  It’s all good.  Using the words is more for me than the viewer.  I don’t really want to pin anything down too much.

After being on the road for forty five hours, I am finally home. You’d think that I had been somewhere truly exotic, for all that travel time. But a combination of cancelled flights and late flights and no late ferries made this a two-day voyage from Delaware Water Gap to Orcas Island.  And oh, it feels so good to be here in the beauty and the quiet that is Orcas, and to breathe into the idea that I won’t be going anywhere (at least not on a plane) for the next three months.  I’m sinking into that with joy and gratitude.  So happy to see Dennis and the cats!!  I’m already planning the many projects I want to do in the stillness and grayness of winter.  Hoping that I get at least some them crossed off the eternally long list of things I want to do in the studio, for the house and outside in the garden.  More mandalas.  Work on half-finished baskets.  Learn more beading techniques.  Paint a lot.  Organize my office.  Clean up the garden.  Make beautiful winter comfort food.   And exercise to counter act all that.  My work is clearly cut out for me.

For today, I’ll unpack, do some laundry, go through the mail and rest a bit.  The projects can wait.  And so can I.  But not for too long.

The holiday season has arrived. It’s official. The frenzy has begun. This year as always, I am caught up with everything that I have to do, complicated by my return trip to PA and all that typically entails.

So painting these little jewels has given me a way to quiet my mind and focus my energy on one single thing.  At least while I was working on them.  They are magnets by the way.  And I had a lot of fun making them.  Of course, I thought that I’d be able to whip them out in no time.  But I should have known that would never work for me.  Instead each one is a little world of its own and each one took me to a different place and taught me different things.

They will be available at the Hope (New Jersey) Craft Market this Saturday, December 3rd, and at the Wellspring Craft show the following weekend, December 10th and 11th.

On 11/11/11, I was at a basket making workshop. We made a basket that had a two-twill base with eleven spokes on each side. There were eleven women in the room, including my wonderful teacher Polly Adams Sutton.

For many, it was a spiritual day, and I felt that I spent it in the perfect spiritual way for me, hanging out with lovely creative women, learning, weaving, talking, laughing, eating and sharing.

A small bubble, a small haven, but so important.  Joined with so many other small and wonderful bubbles that I inhabit from time to time, they form my little world.  And I am very grateful for them all.  The eleven-eleven has come and gone.  I am still here, attempting to choose a bright future for myself and for the planet.

One basket at a time.  One bubble at a time.