Every so often an album comes into your life that fills a certain void in your soul so perfectly and snug that you wonder what what drew you to it at that precise moment.
Some albums make you want to wander around the city with your headphones on and watch the world unfold, some ask you to put on that record, lie on the floor and turn out the lights, while others are just right for lazy Sunday morning breakfast making.
. Natasha Khan (pictured above) has found a way to take me back to days long ago of playing hide and seek in my friend's yard that sprawled into a forest. Back then when we believed in magic and castles and woodland creatures and climbed trees and hid under shrubs and explored fiercely and fully.
After spending hours working with the album on repeat, I delved into some of my older CDs and found past albums that also came into my life just when I needed them. I pulled them out and put them on and just listened to the words and the music.
It was like revisiting old pieces of me that got lost in the shuffle as I sang all the words on cue and conducted the music without forethought. Unlike other favorite albums that brought pure joy or solace, these were all albums that inspired me to create and experiment and push myself.
Eventually I unearthed so many former parts of my life. The most welcome being:
1.
2.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
I'm sure you have similar albums in your closets or attics or drawers. Go find them. And don't forget to sing all the words and let your hands conduct.
1, 2 buckle my shoe.
There is much to be said about being away that is great, like seeing beautiful sights and climbing rickety ladders to look at ancient cave dwellings, for a start.
It's a whole new landscape and the faces are different and the new town makes you grab a map as you fall wide open to all the possibilities before you. It's magical and exciting as you take in new customs and see new signs and check out the ways the varying "locals" dress. Soon it becomes like a well-worn pair of jeans as you step into the guise of a traveler and remember what it's like to be given license to explore.
This weekend I'm off again, this time to the seaside instead of the desert. The
Outer Banks, in fact, and I am already crossing my fingers for good weather so I can walk barefoot in the sand and scan the sea for dolphins. Then I'm off for an infant's christening and then off again for the even deeper South. Somehow my fall became peppered with flights and highways, so much being busy that I've almost forgotten to take notice of the changing of the leaves.
But despite all the new adventures, there is something undeniably wonderful and perfect about coming home and getting a little TLC from those whom have missed you. So you come home and you throw down your bags and fully embrace the familiar and the comforting. And for those first few minutes, as you sink into the sofa, for a moment you are aware of where you are and who you are. For one small moment sprung from familiarity, you're living in the present, ecstatic just to be where you are.
And then you stand up, go on autopilot as you hunt for your toothbrush and find your pyjamas and hope you didn't forget your shampoo. You unpack your bags and leave your suitcase out for the next trip as your mind floats to plans both past and future. And as you go to sleep in your very own bed, you try to remember that home is much more than a set of keys or your favorite chair. But just for a second, it's both feeling and foundation.
Soon enough, you'll be repacking and hitting the road, hoping to remember to stay warm in the notion that home is more than bricks and stones alone.
1. ladder at
Bandalier National Monument
2. stubborn kitten
And for the crafty and/or curious:
1. Got a crafty tattoo? Check out the September 6th post
here and help the lovely ladies of
Handmade Nation!
2. Have a look at the new relaunch of
American Craft Magazine online...Beautiful!
3. Read about
knitting in the picket line. Thanks
Heather!
4. Buy some pretty prints at
20x200. For either $20, $200 or $2000, your choice.
5. And if you're working at home and feeling blue, you could be
Karl Pilkington.
6. Go read the blog over at
Obsessive Consumption and wonder why you aren't making cool art about our consumerist culture.
7. See what kids
want to be in 20 years. (I wanted to be either an oceangrapher or a foreign news correspondent. What about you?)
8. Get creative with your activism, as
these clowns fought racism last May. This may be the most awesome protest ever. Clowns! Against! Racism!
9. For a bit of music with your modernity, check out
The Culture Warrior.
10.
Learn how to make farfalle. (I had farfalle for dinner and spent too much time trying to suss it out.)
September 27, 2007
prickly like a pear.
How crazy is it that when you're having a really bad overwhelming couple of days when there are too many people to call back and too many things to do and your calendar is so full you feel like you can barely breathe anymore and then seemingly at random, someone you haven't seen for years sends you something so magical and beautiful that the breath is almost literally knocked out of you due to the sheer perfection of it?
That's what happened when I opened my email and found
this earlier today. I can't think of anything more perfect for right now this second- maybe it's just what you need, too.
Now that I'm back from the American southwest, I'm feeling a bit prickly and cactus-like, walling myself off so I can get down to business, so I can concentrate, so I can clear my head of the little daily distractions that like to appear. So it's just me and my laptop and my coffee and my headphones and my cat, making lists and then crossing things off. Then a little more coffee, a few more futile attempts at getting the cat to fetch, and hitting repeat.
Yesterday I asked for a week in late November off, which means I'm lucky enough to have 8 days to go anywhere, solo, without any agenda or itinerary. Currently on my list: coastal Maine (simply gorgeous), San Francisco (where I have a standing invitation), the Great Lakes (the quiet, the water, the deer,
the loons) or just grabbing a map and seeing where I end up. For someone going on two years in the same place, it's all too tempting, getting away for a few days with no deadlines or places to be.
But for the time being, I'm staying hermitized and head down, sorting out promises and to dos and assorted deadlines for a host of things. Prickly and somewhat cautious, determined to finish it all wholeheartedly, (solitary like I know best) I'll be working with a reminder to keep hope and trust and love on the horizon, even if it seems somewhat out of reach for my prickly points, my confusing ideosyncracies and my constantly curious mind.
Maybe, you too, will find solace and a smile in something perfectly well-timed today, and then take a moment to appreciate the infinite joy that the tiniest of things can bring.
September 21, 2007
the scenic route.
My father is the son of an Army Colonel, meaning that growing up, his family moved every few years.
As a direct result of all this moving, once my parents married they stayed put in one city, and since 1977, one house. But there was one exception to all this staying put, summer vacation. Every year for almost a decade my father would plan a trip to a different part of the country right before the beginning of the school.
We traveled to Alaska to see the base he grew up on (and my uncle was posted on at the time), drove from North Carolina to Maine, we sped through deserts in dodgy rental cars and got lost in the big sky of Montana.
Not fully appreciating the experience and generally protesting the loss of spending time at home with my friends doing nothing, I would turn up my Walkman and scowl as my father would try and make my brother and I interested in another lookout point on the Grand Canyon after having previously stopped at 15 similar points.
Sometimes on these trips I would read, but most of the time I would listen to music and look at the window. I'm half-convinced that the reason I became interested in cultural theory and sociology was due to these long hours of looking at the window and being in my own world of music taking in every barn, every buffalo, every struggling person on a bike on the highway in the middle of nowhere.
After spending around a decade doing all my traveling with my family, I spent the following ten years traveling by myself where I could retreat even more into my world of watching the landscape and what it had to offer.
Today marks the return of cross-country familial travel as we're all in New Mexico for a wedding. And once again, we're all crammed in a car (although there's also my brother's wife added to the mix) on the open road poring over a map trying to figure out where we're going. I haven't been allowed to hold a map since I accidentally took us to the Mexican border when trying to go to the San Diego zoo sometime around 1991.
Although times have definitely changed, last night on the drive to Santa Fe I sat in the way back of a giant SUV wedged in between suitcases making mobility almost impossible editing a few chapters on my laptop in the dark. My family is telling my brother's wife bits and bobs about our former familial trips, and she notes what we never really could see at the time, that we were so incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to see so much.
On the flight in, I took photos of the view entranced by the ways that all the colors looked like a painting instead of a landscape. The color combinations made my mind jump with shades to mix together on projects for the future as they conveyed drama in layers that I haven't seen since I was a child. This time, I decided to turn my music off and listen to the idle chatter of my brother and his wife as they oohed and aahed at the view beneath us, sounds I had never heard previously because the volume was always turned up too high.
And for one of the first times in my life, while traveling, I bothered to listen to what others around me had to say instead of retreating inwards. And it was nice.
September 18, 2007
weekend.
Things I learned this weekend:
1. There are few things more amazing than having a dog happy to see you (even if it isn't your dog).
2. Turtles move faster than you think, have little tiny tails and will ignore you if you try to get a closer look.
3. You can play "Heart and Soul" as a duet over the phone, but that doesn't mean you'll ever be able to hear the other part.
4.
Fiber never ceases to amaze me, with its wide range, delicate detail and constant surprise.
5. Sometimes you have to finally let go of the ways you've coped/reacted/handled life/people/situations because they served their purpose in the past, but just won't do for the present version of you, or for where you want and need to go.
September 6, 2007
jigsaw.
When I was young, my grandmother used to point out the four constellations she knew in the sky for me.
The Big Dipper.
The Little Dipper.
Orion's Belt.
The Seven Sisters. To this day, when I'm lucky to catch a clear enough sky, I scour it until I find these same four constellations.
Somehow, finding their familiar presence still helps reorient myself with the infinite space overhead- it's like the beginning of a jigsaw puzzle. I just wish that sometimes I had the same trusty guides while trying to successfully navigate the daylight, too. That's the tricky part, following your own internal compass instead of the one set by the universe, hoping and wishing you make the right and kind decisions.
Right now, I'm reading
This War Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace by
Swanee Hunt, and was struck by the following passage on page 6:
...Our lives spill messily across the lines of simple narrative...we consistently hold inconsistent views, disregard well-founded expectations, and confound those who know us best as we adapt to and evolve with experiences that come our way. The women in this book remind us that life is not a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces don't fit.
If only life was as predictable as the constellations, then maybe we wouldn't constantly be left holding its disparate pieces in our hands, trying to figure out where they all need to click and connect. Standing there with our hands full and wishing for a map, we continue to look for safety and comfort with every step.
Lately...
.finally...a new blog design (
here) still a bit rough and out-of-date, but it's there
.
Fabulist
.
The National, The White Sessions (I found this a few weeks ago, and haven't stopped listening to it since)
.
From Domesticity to Modernity: What was Home Economics
.
Is This You?
August 29, 2007
knitting in tune.
Lately I have come across a near arsenal (no pun intended) of knitting songs from the World War II era.
Somewhere between propaganda and activism, lies perhaps the beginnings of craftivism, creating for good?
Lyrics to
Knitting, by Muriel Bruce:
Verse 1:
Marchin' marchin' thru' the misty night,
Peering thro' the dark, longing for a fight,
Tramping, stumbling, on the broken ground,
With the tang of battle all around.
While at home the busy needles fly,
Knitting with a smile, knitting with a sigh,
For their sons, and brothers, fathers, lovers, too;
They're knitting for the soldiers brave and true.
Chorus:
Knitting, knitting, knitting, with the khaki and grey,
Mufflers, socks and balaclava caps, they are knitting day by day.
Knitting, knitting, knitting, with a pray'r in every row,
That the ones they hold in their hearts so dear,
May be guarded as they go.
Verse 2:
Clang and clamor, thro' the misty night,
Blindly fighting on, catching ev'ry breath.
Comrades dropping down on ev'ry side,
Holding back the seething hostile tide.
But at home the loving hands are still,
Knitting with their hearts, knitting with a will,
Knitting for their Country, Flag, and soldiers too;
They're knitting for the ones so brave and true.
August 27, 2007
in keeping with last week's theme...
More (somewhat blurry) local graffiti.
I found the one from last week on a trash can at Duke University when I was there doing research in the library, and discovered this little gem when I used the unisex restroom at my favorite local coffeeshop.
To be honest I'm not really that down with graffiti that doesn't challenge you, but given the unique placement of this, I thought it was worth capturing. Having a camera in your handbag at all times is a good thing.
I'm constantly in awe of how graffiti fits into the various cultures of this world. From the
graffiti on subway cars in New York in the 80s to literally watching the work of both
Banksy and
Shepard Fairey go from the streets to the galleries in England and the southern United States to the random and badly done quick graffiti on walls everywhere, it exists in a space between public and private. Done under the cover of night, using the city as canvas, graffiti marks spaces at worst as random and ill-planned vandalism, and at best as a barometer for someone's inner thoughts.
I'm not saying that this scribble on a toilet is something to be necessarily honored, as I doubt it's going to change anyone's mind. But in its truest form graffiti can make us stop and think about what we're really doing here on this planet, and question if we're actively creating and shaping our life instead of just settling, going through the motions and letting it slip on by.
August 20, 2007
the grind, abbreviated.
commute.
work.
commute.
sleep.
August 15, 2007
giving people something sensible to stare at.
Recently, I was informed about a competition that is currently looking for submissions. It's a competition for a walking stick cosy* to let individuals who blatently stare at those who are differently abled know that just because they may not walk like you doesn't mean they deserve your constant gaze.
The Knitted Walking Stick Cosy Competition 2007
Inspired by the dignifying powers of health-related knitting projects everywhere, The Missability Radio Show is organising a walking stick cosy knitting competition. With your great ideas, knitting skills and visionary powers, you can transform even an ordinary grey walking stick into a fantastical design!
The competition is open NOW and all entries must be received by 7th September 2007.
There are two categories for this competition; the winner in each category will be awarded 40GBP in yarn vouchers. There is no limit on submissions.
The first category is Fantastical Designs and the second is Real Life. Entries will be judged by walking stick users and The Oxford Bluestockings, an incredibly talented and accomplished bunch of knitters based here in Oxford.
The cosies will be featured on The Missability Radio Show. Notable submissions will be described by our knitting correspondents on the programmes due for podcast release 9th September!) Photographs and cosies will be publicly exhibited from 12th - 16th September in The Drama Studio at Oxford Brookes University and from 12th - 19th September in The Oxford Centre for Enablement, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford.
Finally for more information about The Missability Radio Show go to
missability.com. Specific instructions for the competition are
here.
*or cozy if you prefer...
August 7, 2007
the tiny things.
Every so often I dig into my crates of old CDs and see if anything suits my fancy. I'm one of those people that circulates through genres often, and needs to listen to trip-hop one day and folk the next.
Last night I was feeling restless and unearthed my copy of
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's, "The Final Moment." I sat in my room with my headphones on, and a light on just far enough away that the keyboard wasn't really visible and pressed Play. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was an extremely well-known
qawwali singer from Pakistan who died in 1997 after releasing more albums than seemed possible for one person.
I wrote and read and until somewhere in the middle of the 21-minute long second song. Generally there's nothing I hate more than long songs, but I found myself clear-headed and inspired by these people playing out of love and devotion, a somewhat different approach than most of the music I generally listen to. I stopped writing and turned the volume up and before too long had tears in my eyes at the simple richness of it all.
Somewhere along the way I started remembering the morning I spent at the Sufi gurudwara not too far from here, as part of some university field trip that I had tagged along with a friend. Interestingly enough, the origins of the word
Sufi come from the Arabic word for wool! (I guess some things you can never escape from). The women sat separately from the men, and once we got settled, I started watching the musicians performing up front. It was the first time I had seen anyone play the tabla in person and couldn't take my eyes off his playing.
I went to punk shows almost continually from the time I was 15 until I was about 27, and had somewhere along the line started tuning out what the musicians were actually doing and just listening to the music and generally (and embarassingly) noting what they were wearing and/or who else was in attendance.
But watching these men (both young and old) play music with such inspiration and abandon was truly incredible. When I pried my eyes away from the tabla guy, they went straight to the next musician, then the next, then the next and suddenly I realized what it was to watch musicians really play without playing for the crowd before them in the name of entertainment.
Sometimes I feel (somewhat nerdily) something similar in regard to knitting, while not a religious experience, it's taking something ancient and respecting it... Instead of plugging something into an outlet and letting it entertain you, it's playing the tabla or working the needles and taking a minute to block out modernity and its frequent habit of placing the importance of the non-important in the name of progress.
And the next time I find someone playing the tabla with their eyes closed and a gentle smile on their face, perhaps I'll close my eyes, too, and remember that (outside of the company of others) many of the greatest things in the world happen when you just stop and breathe. And then do it again.
August 3, 2007
where the cool kids are.
Just yesterday I was introduced to the amazing band that is
ShiSho. Comprised of two sisters, Viv and Midge, who started singing a really awesome cover of
The Dead Milkmen's "Punk Rock Girl" a few years ago, this band is awesome. . After first getting sad I'm only hearing about them now, I danced around with my headphones on in my room as they sang one of the only songs that I know all the words to. There was even lip-syncing as well as arm-moving to the beat.
Keeping up with the tradition of kids rocking, ala
Eyeball Skeleton,
Old Skull, and
Smoosh, they are definitely having a cooler childhood than me. Instead of learning to play guitar and rocking out, I was forced to play classical piano forever even though I was really, really terrible. I bet practicing songs you wrote is more fun than practicing songs that were written well before the invention of electricity.
Also a recent discovery, a photo gallery from the
BBC, about a
couple who lives in a roundhouse in Pembrokeshire. While I'm not so sure about building my own roundhouse, I do know that the coast of
Pembrokeshire is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been to.
And since I'm all about the celebrity gossip, but not about the really trashy bits, I was really happy to discover
Ecorazzi. Yes, a blog all about celebrities who are eco-minded. Now I can finally sate my gossip needs with some information that does not involve underage people getting wasted and then driving and then getting caught and then going to rehab and then leaving early and the starting the cycle over again. It's like watching one of those toy trains going around on a track, and really wishing it doesn't derail before someone builds a new track to somewhere more interesting.
August 2, 2007
neck. lace.
One of the biggest joys of living somewhere long enough to have a mailbox is getting post addressed to you.
By hand. It's like it's own little holiday, when you sift through the ads and the bills and then come across something with your name on it that isn't typed.
Therefore, I was thrilled to bits to receive a custom-made necklace made by friend Naomi, with my name on it. Literally.
Naomi works at
Tatty Devine (where this necklace was made) and has the best taste a girl could imagine, even if I did frown when she came home one day with a mullet- but only because this was right before it became trendy in London in 2004. Always ahead of the curve and superkind, I miss our frequent late-night cups of tea and reruns of
Murder, She Wrote on BBC 1!
Custom-made things tend to be such a rarity these days that I tend to tear up when presented with them. Seriously. Don't get me wrong, I'm an equal opportunity present-receiver, but when someone gives me something that they customized specifically with me in mind, it nevers fails to make me smile, never fails for me to think of nothing else to say but "thank you" (which always sounds lame) and never fails to get me misty-eyed.
That's why the handmade is so incredibly genius. It's thoughtful, it's personal, and it's (very often) made just for you. When was the last time you made someone something? Or better yet, posted a handwritten letter?
Growing up, I had dozens of penpals over the years, which made getting the mail everyday something I truly looked forward to. When I was in junior high, I awaited letters from friends I had met at summer camp. When I was in high school and college, I was busy penning letters to people I got to know from travelling or from zines or from those people who never tend to say put for long.
After college, I turned into one of those people who hardly ever had the same mailing address for more than 6 months, so all correspondence was done either via phone or email, lest something go to an address I had 5 moves ago.
And because of all those moves and living out of suitcases and sleeping on couches, these days I get a little rush when I hear the postman at the door, even if he just is delivering bills. Even though I'm not so sure about how long I'll want to stick around, it's my mailbox, and (like it or not) I'm finally somewhere where I've lived long enough to get mail through the post. Handwritten. And it's awesome.
Lately...
*The music of
Egill S.,
The Moth and The Mirror and
The Vichy Government
*The photographic awesomeness of
Derelict London
*The academic genius that is
How to Knit an Academic Paper
*The niceness of
The Capital Creative Foundation
*The distraction that is
Popjustice
July 30, 2007
a book, a cupcake and a cuppa.
As yesterday's post might have hinted, sometimes I get dreadfully homesick for England, which sounds ridiculous seeing that I'm, well, American. But, then again, this is a familiar pattern.
I honestly can't tell you when it started, this urge to run far and fast. Probably around the time I started crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean on a frequent basis. Last night, that urge hit me once again and I dreamt of rural England, dreamt of scones and tea and misty mornings and woke up a bit disappointed to be here...but nevertheless happy to find my kitten asleep and curled up at my feet.
I don't know where it came from, or when it will crop up, but for over the past decade my wanderlust has been my only constant companion, always there, ready for action and up for adventure. It's been about the only steady thing in my life and it unnerves me when I start having strange dreams of faraway lands and remembering all the places I could be other than here. Sometimes I even wonder if I could still fit all that I need in my one small suitcase that hasn't gotten ruined due to frequent use and overstuffing.
It's not about not liking "here" or about wanting to necessarily run away from my actual life, surprisingly. Nor does it have anything to do with wanting to find myself or likewise find the meaning of life. It's about the bits of kindness and beauty that you tend to collect when you've stopped worrying about email or phone calls or meetings.
It's about that cessation of fake urgency that life in this country continually tries to bring, because it's possible to still do mighty fine without all the technology. Sometimes I get so worried about losing files or missing a deadline that I feel chained to my laptop, and then look around the coffeeshop and see everyone else similarly chained to their laptops and their cell phones and their PDAs.
Earlier this afternoon, I turned off my phone and my laptop and pulled out a book, instead. After sitting there in my apartment with this laptop in my lap, in my grandparents' chair, drinking tea, with the kitten again at my feet, looking at the art on the wall from both strangers and friends, I wondered what it's like to not always have half a bag packed in the closet or to be completely content standing still. And I turned to my bookshelf and selected a book about the
reign of Pinochet in Chile and the arpillerista movement* and curled up in this old familiar chair (a recent acquisition, it was the one piece of furniture I wanted from my grandparents old house). And I remembered that it was books (good conversation works, too) that never fails to quell my urge to bolt. As the minutes and pages passed and I started feeling more grounded, my mind stopped thinking of running and began wondering what would happen if finally totally unpacked that suitcase in the closet.
And I wondered how lovely it must feel to wake up in my bed every morning and feel like I'm already home. It may take awhile, but one day it'll happen, hopefully, with my kitten asleep at my feet and perhaps a good book halfway finished on the bedside table.
Tea:
PG Tips
Book:
Scraps of Life, Marjorie Agosin
Cupcake:
Cakewalk (The cupcake was a surprise, living next door to a friend who is a baker has its advantages!)
*Sadly, there is little online to link to regarding the arpillerista movement in Chile, which began during the reign of Pinochet as a form of protest. Women whose family members were among The Disappeared started to make tapestries from bits of clothes and fabric explaining what was happening to their loved ones. As they couldn't be shown in Chile, they were sent illegally out of the country to spread the word about the injustices being perpetrated by Pinochet. Arpilleras (tapestries) have been made by other women throughout South America, but only the ones from Chile were political. After reading about them all afternoon and seeing how little there actually is out there in English about them, I'm thinking it may be smarter to learn Spanish now instead of French? (There go my dreams of travelling through France alone...for now!) Besides un poco Espanol, all I retained from Spanish class in 1987 was the alphabet, which I can still recite 20 years later.
July 29, 2007
somewhere else...
Do you ever want to be somewhere else?
Well, today, I'd like to be somewhere like here.
WIth a cup of tea and some good conversation.
But what's making the days here more lovely?
Giant mugs of black coffee at the coffeeshop...
And the newest albums by
LCD Soundsystem and
Tegan and Sara turned up high on my headphones.
July 26, 2007
coffeeshop query...
So it's 2007, and I'm amazed that it still happens in coffeeshops (as it seems to happen to me all the time- perhaps I look trustworthy?) that when someone needs to go outside to make a phone call, go to the restroom, or otherwise leave their stuff (as I write this, I'm currently overseeing a laptop and digital camera) they turn to a complete a total stranger and ask, "hey, could you watch my stuff for a minute?"
Seeing that I'm sitting here attempting to work, I say 'yes,' although somewhat unsuredly for three main reasons:
1. What if this person is gone for longer than "a minute?" What am I supposed to do? Sit here until the place closes? Is there a time limit to these kinds of things? For example, I made sure no one stole a neurosciences textbook (although I'm not sure why anyone would steal one in the first place) yesterday and ended up overseeing it for more than 20 minutes. Towards the end of my "coffeeshop duty," I myself had to go to the restroom, and was thankful she eventually returned before I asked the stranger next to me if he could watch the 1st stranger's stuff...and quite possible my own. But is that somehow breaking coffeeshop etiquette rules? Can there be transference of such an time-honored duty as watching over some complete stranger's prized possessions in a public place?
2. What am I actually supposed to do if someone approaches the things I'm watching? Tackle them? Yell something? Try to be menacing? (The latter while I may try and give it a go, is most likely going to do little in the name of good, as I am not only the least intimidating person ever, I am also prone to giggling at weird moments, such moments as this one might provide.) What exactly is the accepted protocol here? How much intervention should I provide? And if I do tackle them and manage to injure myself, who pays the bill?
3. How responsible am I really for this person's stuff? With my luck someone would walk by spill coffee on this stranger's pricy equipment while I was "on watch" leaving me clueless as to explain to the coffee spiller why I was jumping up and yelling something off the top of my head, like "Oh no!" or something else brilliant and show-stopping and then unsure of how to explain to the initial stranger how I failed my mission?
...Waiting...
Ten minutes later, the camera and laptop owner is come back, and someone how, it's all good, she nods 'thanks,' sits down and continues on with her work. It's like we've just performed some public rite of trust based on little else other than we both have caffeine addictions.
Which makes me think... I do need to run down quick to the corner shop... Perhaps she'll return the favor...and thus, the vicious cycle of public niceties continues.
And now for something completely unrelated to the above, yet spot on with my normal topic.
Betsan Corkhill of
Stitchlinks is currently seeking knitters to fill out a questionnaire dealing with needlework and pain management:
"Normally they wouldn't take any notice of anecdotal evidence, but I've been advised that, if I collect a very large volume (thousands, preferably tens of thousands of stories) and document this properly, it will be difficult to ignore. So I need the help of as many knitters and stitchers as I can muster to make the most of this unique opportunity to get our voices heard by some of the leading people in a number of medical fields. Please help if you can. Thank you."
To submit your evidence, go
here.
July 23, 2007
one sock, two socks...
Last week I finished the first thing I've knitted for myself in over a year...my first pair of socks!
Under the guidance of my grandmother the other week, I learned how to turn a heel and with a little practice ended up with a new pair of socks! Excuse the random bits of yarn that I haven't dealt with yet...for some reason, the weaving in of the ends of projects is always the most tedious part.
Now that I'm currently dealing with insomnia, I need to figure out what to knit next...
Lately...
*Enjoying the writing gem that is
Scrivener (I think it's the corkboard that took my heart)
*As well as the amazingly wonderful
Peel, which allows you to sign up with various music blogs and download the new MP3s they post
*Discovering new music thanks to this giant
list. (My current favorites are
Aurgasm,
Benn loxo du taccu and
Fluxblog...)
*Learning more about
culinary activism (which I'm thinking would require me to actually cook instead of either boil or steam)
*Slowly making my way through this list of
anti-war sites via the
The Guardian
July 21, 2007
words and guitar.
Over the past few days I have received several emails about an event called "
Craftivism" to be held August 12 in Los Angeles.
Although my initial thought was why would you name a single event with an -ism at the end, I'm glad to see an organization running an event around the idea of craftivism. Because helping others is always a step in the right direction, no?
I always delight in seeing where I word I fostered from its beginnings ends up. As I wrote in one response to an email about this event, "Go little word go!"
To think that when this all started there were 2 Google hits, and now there are over 53,000. Krikey! That's what's so incredible about creating a concept and then setting it free- because who knows where it will go? It's somewhat like those balloons many of us set loose in elementary school with a note of peace or something else similarly hopeful attached to it, forever wondering where it would land. Now, with the internet, I get the same childish sense of glee to see "craftivism" show up in myriad different places and take on various meanings based on one central tenet!
But with its creation, there also comes the letting go- the hard part for someone like me who wants to take care and cherish something I put so much time into. I am somewhat notorious for refusing to let go, whether it's trying to help someone or something, the ever hopeful part of me has a hard time with this particular step in the process. It breaks my heart every single time, as I let go, knock wood and hope for nothing but the very best.
Because as we all know, part of setting something free is taking comfort in the notion that if it is truly honestly yours (whether it's a word or person or concept), it will find its way back to you.
Lately...
*Making socio-political statements via knitting, the art of
Freddie Robins
*Art comes in many shapes and sizes,
American Visionary Art Museum
*My blender is working overtime thanks to
Smoothie Recipes
*Beth Ditto gives advice in
What Would Beth Ditto Do? fortnightly column in
The Guardian (past columns
here)
*For when you feel like staying in but still want live music,
NPR Live Concert Series
July 17, 2007
signs.
Very often (too often in my view) I was aware of being photographed. So, from the moment I feel I am in the camera's eye, everything changes: I begin to pose, I immediately create a different body, I change even before the image., Roland Barthes
It's a familiar moment, the one before you or someone else snaps a photograph with you in the frame. You tense up, try not to blink, wonder if your hair's okay, attempt to smile and hope for the best.
With digital cameras and social networking sites and the internet pervading into our daily life, we focus and click trying to capture poignant moments in time that will never fully be recovered, save for the imagea and maybe a vague memory. Within a fraction of a second, we stop time in an effort of document what we saw, how we were really there, some sort of proof that that one particular moment really truly existed.
Lately I find myself taking photographs of the bizarrely beautiful and odd moments that happen with such frequency and so quietly that we tend to barely notice them. As I read the paper, watch the news, listen to the radio and hear about the infinite sadness and at times feel breathless from the sheer immensity, I have to go back to those ordinary moments of surprising joy
and forget about whether or not my skin is shiny or have bad hair.
I just point and click and exhale, holding close and safe those moments that remind me that hope is resurrected in the quiet, the normal, the seemingly boring everydayness of it all.
July 15, 2007
oh, sunday.
Even though Saturdays are amazing, I like Sundays better. Sundays are for carving out some free time, reading the paper, drinking coffee and maybe even doing the crossword. Sundays are for taking the time to exhale before the week begins again.
Today was one of those days where you know you should be doing other things, but just can't stop yourself from enjoying seeing where it takes you.
Despite the heat, I walked to town with
Kelly for brunch, which included nice strong coffee and lots of local tomatoes. We had the Sunday
New York Times, but somehow just sitting with our cups of coffee seemed more fitting.
Then we wandered around downtown Carrboro, which has its own secret magic on the weekends. Despite sometimes feeling like we live in a fishbowl, there is a joy in ambling around the teeny tiny downtown and saying hello to the random friends and acquaintances you happen to meet.
I spent the better part of the afternoon catching up on reading, which I was glad to have the opportunity (not to mention luxury) to do.
Recommended (some old, some new):
.
Haruki Murakami essay on the connection between writing and jazz
.Anything by
Pema Chodron
.Foto Tapeta
interview in 2003 with Nan Goldin
.The incredible socio-political work of
Jo Metson Scott
.
Treehugger.com
.
5.55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg (simply beautiful current soundtrack for summer)
.Free language vocbulary training with
ProVoc on Mac OSX via
Lifehacker (Finally...I can learn more than 4 words of French for free!)
July 13, 2007
time. travel.
They say it's all in the details.
For the past few days I've been with my father's family at the beach in South Carolina. This year it's a small group, with only 30-odd in attendance.
We've been doing this every year since, 1979, I believe. And sometimes I'm amazed at how close you can get to people by just spending one week (sometimes less depending on schedules) out of 52 with the same people once a year for almost 30 years. It seems somewhat insignificant at first, but when aggregated that one week gains more strength as the years pass.
Over the past few days I've had conversations about summers past, Maori culture, how to make biscuits, going to Vietnam as a tourist, going to Vietnam as a soldier, quetzal birds, Harry Potter, about the significance of the star on the 82nd Airborne wings, how to make a diagonal potholder, what all the 4th graders are listening to on their iPods and that's not even starting on the various political conversations that have reared their heads.
And it's magic.
It's like traveling through time via memory and it's reassurance that while everything may have seemed to change, nothing has really changed at all.
Because every year for almost 30 years, people in this family have made the effort to mix generations for one week in the hothotheat of coastal South Carolina. And after this week, each year we return to our respective homes across the continent filled with old stories and new recipes and the laughter of small children and the wisdom of the (still vibrant and quite peppy) elderly.
And it's in moments and times just like these where the real legacy of family and lore is kept and honored. And while keeping the familial ties close, we also keep traditions and skills alive as we take the time to talk and laugh and share our various experiences- both those that happened over the past year as well as those from years or decades before.
Craft has survived by the passing of skills in the familiar space of loved ones for centuries. So as I watch my 85-year-old great aunt teach my 6-year-old cousin to knit, I stop for a second and just watch, as right before eyes, love and knowledge is expressed at once.
And it's these tiny details and seemingly unimportant moments where life unfolds and then wraps itself around you.
July 11, 2007
2 x 16.
32.
I can't think of a year where I've cried more, laughed more, smiled more and loved more. The tears were both from sadness and happiness, the laughter from all the weird trips and moves and frequent odd dilemmas I seem to get myself stuck in, the smiles from random acts of kindness and familiar faces, and the love from those both new and old in my life along with those quiet moments of the sublime.
My 16th birthday was a turning point in many not-so-good ways, but also was the beginning of realizing that from the dark can come more beauty than you could possibly imagine. it's just sometimes a little harder to find.
And here at the start of the next 16 years?
As the clock struck midnight last night, I made a list of 4 wishes for 32:
*to trust my gut more and (over)rationalize less.
*to remember to lower my expectations, not my self-worth.
*to take a deep breath before saying or writing something rash.
*to wake up each day with an open heart.
Although they're all things I need to work on, they seem all too grown-up and practical instead of frivolous and birthday-like. Maybe wishing for a new bike or puppy would be easier?
As for what's next?
Several new (and one rather large...) writing projects, finally stopping taking entries to the
Crafter Documentary Project after two years (!!) of awesome entries- now to begin bookmarking where people have gone with their art in that time, more travel, more coffee and more adventures.
I'm hopeful, grateful, nervous, and most of all, thankful. As always, thanks for your
emails, stories, links, ideas and continued support, it means more than you could ever know.
Completely unrelated, current top 6:
1.
emotional maps of London by
Christian Nold
2. pretty
notecards from
ReadyMade
3.
random pet bunny + random indie goodness = awesome
4.
how to upholster a tree stump via
SuperNaturale
5.
science says helping people makes you happy
6.
showing your disapproval against this war via craft
photo 1: from my trip to upstate NY, new friends at
the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, photo 2: what happens to a cupcake after it's been sitting in my car through most of my trip through Pennsylvania (cupcake thanks to
Erin!), photo 3: trying to learn more about alpacas and not get licked by them simultaneously at
Spruce Ridge Farm, also in upstate NY.
June 27, 2007
at last!
At last! I've moved!
Tonight, I'm collecting the rest of my boxes from storage, wiping the dust off of boxes full of winter clothes, and rejoining all my things in one place in one time again.
I've been living out of a closet for the past 3 months, so this is a long time coming.
During the heat I've been bringing out the women who never fail to keep me going when there's work ahead: Etta James, Nina Simone and a newcomer to me, Minnie Riperton.
As I rearrange and set up my new house, these women fill me with hope, strength and perseverance- despite the almost 100 degree heat and long days.
At last, they are keeping me focused on the fact that even when things don't always fall right into place (like, say, my interior decorating or time management plans), you just gotta keep on keeping on.
June 13, 2007
the days of wine and berries.
The other night I talked to an old friend from graduate school while drinking white wine and eating strawberries.
It was too hot for herbal tea, just hot enough that the crispness of the wine and the ripeness of the berries were perfect in the heavy humidity.
Way up in Canada, she drank a beer while we discussed cultural theory, life, to PhD or to not PhD, strengths, weaknesses, the paths we choose, love, photography, good books and warm nostalgia. I haven't seen her since I left London in 2004, but that doesn't mean that our conversations are either less intense or less reaffirming.
It was, in many ways, what a perfect soon-to-be summer evenings should be like, comforting, slowed down for the hothotheat, quiet save for the neighbor's music drifting over from next door, curious, cozy, inviting.
Lately:
.
3191, beautiful in its simplicity.
.
RIP, Mr. Wizard, a man who knew you didn't need fancy gadgets to do cool things.
.
Ancient texts, revisiting my old school literature roots.
.
Louisa Bufardeci, inspiring, colorful, brilliant!
.
What the World Eats, photos from one of my favorite books of all time.
June 3, 2007
spring.
Spring is for lazy lunches, close-ups and cameras.
It's for moving to new apartments and places, new projects and attempting to grow plants.
Spring is for writing, for collaborating and for beauty.
It's for friends, bittersweetness, coffee and kindness.
Spring?
Spring is nice.
Also recommended:
.
The current exhibitions at the Textile Museum of Canada
.
Lifehacker, for getting things in order when they get busy
.
The stitchery of Ethel Wright Mohammed
.
Kids Music That Rocks! (Thanks, K!)
.
Craft in America and the accompanying
PBS series
May 29, 2007
just a little thank you.
Two years ago, I wrote about
Memorial Day in 2005. Due to my cousin's deployment earlier that year, this was the start of my anger and questioning of the current conflicts we are involved in.
And two years later, I'm just as frustrated, moreso, in fact, about this seemingly endless quagmire of loss and pain and courage and confusion.
Yesterday peace activist Cindy Sheehan announced she is
ceasing her anti-war protest that began with her son Casey's 2004 death in Iraq.
Reading her reasoning for quitting has made me think today about the political lines we draw and how the deceptively simple words "left" and "right" often carry too much weight.
Just because I ascribe to one particular point-of-view doesn't mean the other side doesn't deserve to be heard, or that I have to choose to be exclusively one or the other. I think it's in this drawing of lines that things really start to become dangerous.
Because with these lines so firmly drawn in the sand, we start paying more attention to the lines themselves and what we think they stand for (or often, what they once stood for and no longer do) that everything else gets swept under the rug.
It is my hope that maybe yesterday, while you were cooking out or kicking back with a beer, you thought about what Memorial Day is set apart for. And that, maybe, just maybe, you were grateful.
May 20, 2007
drive.
Today I made a wrong turn onto the interstate, heading north instead of south.
I kept going.
I turned up the stereo (which was playing
Air's "The Vagabond," with Beck, ignored my hair coming down over my eyes and hitting me in the face
and stuck my hand out the window to feel the heat of the sun.
I drove until the song was over.
Then I turned back around and headed towards home.
Lately I keep coming back to the idea of perfection and its attainability. How so often we try to make everything perfect, when maybe we really just need to stop trying to gain control and just simply be.
How at the end of the day, it's our imperfections that make us perfect.
May 15, 2007
thank you, hallie.
Kids are awesome.
Today is the 3rd anniversary of the death of
Hallie Geier.
Even though she didn't live to see the world past the very young age of 11, Hallie Geier left a lot to learn from, as evidenced from things like her ideas and her
writing.
Taking where Hallie left off, her family created the
Love, Hallie Foundation to promote youth philanthropy worldwide.
Not only does this wonderful foundation keep a dynamic young girl's spirit alive, but it also stands as a testament to the fact that giving something of yourself (whether it be money, time, donations, or something else)
to make the world a better place takes little effort, but gives back tenfold.
So, go do something good today. For you. For those you love. For those in need. And, of course, for Hallie.
May 10, 2007
growing.
How quickly the little one went from tiny wee
kitten to superfastlightning blur of a
cat.
I can't believe how big she has gotten within 6 months! Wow!
Watching her grow and learn has been inspiring and wonderful, although a bit frustrating as all attempts to teach her to "fetch" (ha!) have gone awry.
Her presence in life has reminded me how very fast time goes, and how curiosity should never be abandoned.
Lately:
.
Otto von Busch interview over on
We Make Money Not Art
.
sand art by Naoshi
.
New York Times article on
The $140 Handmade Scarf
.
Digital Ethnography
.
73 Urban Journeys
And as for the
resignation of Tony Blair, we knew it was coming, but has it really been 10 years? And should we really expect anything different from Gordon Brown?
May 5, 2007
simple beauty is the fairest beauty of them all.
mon-o-chrome /ˈmɒnəˌkroʊm/
-noun
1. a painting or drawing in different shades of a single color.
2. the art or technique of producing such a painting or drawing.
3. the state or condition of being painted, decorated, etc., in shades of a single color.
-adjective
4. being or made in the shades of a single color: a blue monochrome seascape.
5. having the images reproduced in tones of gray: monochrome television.
On the left, more from an old letterpress in Philadelphia. On the right, growing up a telephone pole in Carrboro.
Both make me happy.
Because aren't the most beautiful things in life subtle, quiet, individual and true?
April 30, 2007
queen of the road, fully caffeinated.
Whenever anyone tells me that creativity is limited, I can't help but laugh.
And the best efforts of creativity?
Those created by friends. Especially when those friends know their coffee.
Lately I've been doing little else but driving, so here's a top five list for road trips:
1. Peter Mayle's
A Year in Provence (at a library near you!)
2.
BBC's Documentary Archive (documentaries are my favorite!)
3. Bad burned old coffee from any open gas station (for strength of palate)
4.
Lady Sovereign turned up to full volume (the full volume part is key)
5. The local
NPR station for wherever you happen to be (check the beginning of the dial)
April 22, 2007
list.
I'm a list maker.
Whether I'm going to the grocery store or making big changes, there's always a list.
I made a list the other day regarding retirement, but that excitement is for another day.
Eighteen moves. More than 20 roommates. Post-college.
It's finally time to stay in one place for awhile. It's about time "my house" became "my home."
April 19, 2007
click.
Lately, I've been pulling out the camera to express my feelings. I love the way that after a few shots your mind starts to think in frames, and how the end product can highlight things you never even noticed when you clicked the shutter.
Taking photographs when I can't clearly express my thoughts never fails to clear the cobwebs and questions. And lately there have beens lots of questions about lots of things.
After work, I've been walking the 4 miles home with my ridiculously old-school mp3 player, turning the music up loud, turning off the phone and keeping my camera in my hand.
Should you find yourself in a similar position, I highly recommend the newest albums by
TV on the Radio and
The Shins,
The Lemonheads' "It's a Shame about Ray,"
Cat Power's "The Covers Record" and
Suzanne Vega's "99.9F" on rotation.
And if you're feeling spendy, please visit
Wonderland Retreat.
Alison, who I had the pleasure of meeting the other week in Pittsburgh, just had emergency surgery. And like so many people I know, Alison doesn't have health insurance.
Wonderland Retreat was set up by friend's of Alison's to help pay her medical bills, and features the donated work of many talented people.
Health insurance and retirement have been recent obsessions of mine because so many people I know forego both in order to live the life they love. Lately I have been wondering about the financial futures of not only myself and my friends, but our generation at large.
Are we going to be the first generation who moves in with our parents post-college and then with our kids when we hit 65? That thought terrifies me to the core.
And in the wake of it all, there is so much beautiful art that I can almost shut my eyes and pretend such realities and worries don't exist. Almost.
April 09, 2007
comfort room.
When I was young, this bathroom was my favorite room in my grandparents' house. The numerous shades of pink all crammed into one room (complete with a cold pink tile floor that felt so good to my feet in summer) smelled like my great-grandmother and still held some of her soaps and perfume bottles. Even over a decade after her death, I could still feel her presence in that tiny bizarre incredibly colorful room. She used to hold my hand often, usually while telling me stories about her wild childhood, and there was something about that room that made me feel instantly comforted and relaxed. Lately it's comfort I've been craving, so here's what's been warming my heart.
Funny how we never truly grow out of wanting to be reassured even though our hearts know better.
With that in mind, some recent favorites:
.
Flickr photo pool of Craft Congress last weekend in Pittsburgh (although buried within lies the least flattering photo ever taken of yours truly...)
.
This post on radical cross-stitch.
.
The new sneak peek of
Handmade Nation! (previously the "Indie Craft Documentary")
.
The video for the song with the most beautiful lyrics...
Regina Spektor does indeed make everything better, better, better...
And many thanks to
Kelly for getting
Leslie and the Lys' song "
Gem Sweater" in my head for the past three days. While I applaud the work of
Leslie Hall, having the phrase "Gem Sweater!" repeated in your head with backing 80s breakbeats is not the best way to start your Monday...
March 30, 2007
northern odyssey.
Sometimes the only acceptable solution to the unknown is the open road ahead of you.
Sometimes all you need is the new
Of Montreal turned up real loud, bad gas station coffee (black, of course), sunglasses that would make Elton John proud and an atlas.
For the past few nights I've been sleeping in a room with sunlight that wakes me entirely too early, talking about art and life and the clothes we wore in 1986.
Yesterday I learned how to work a letterpress, today gearing up to taste the so-called "best cupcakes. Ever."
And for extra credit, check out my friend
Cat's new project,
Stitch for Senate. Rad.
March 16, 2007
big rig.
One need not speak as categorically as Nietzsche, who thought the spread
of irony throughout a culture always signified the floodtide of decadence
and the approaching end of that culture's vitality and powers. In the
post-political, electronically connected cosmopolis in which all serious
modern artists have taken out premature citizenship, certain organic
connections between culture and "thinking" (and art is certainly now,
mainly, a form of thinking) may have been broken, so that Nietzsche's
diagnosis no longer applies. Still, there remains a question as to how far
the resources of irony can be stretched. It seems unlikely that the
possibilities of continually undermining one's assumptions can go on
unfolding indefinitely into the future, without being eventually checked
by despair or by a laugh that leaves one without any breath at all.
-From
The Aesthetics of Silence by Susan Sontag
Somehow the sighting of this painting in a smoky upstairs room of a northern pub instead of in a trendy bar made me hopeful that irony, at long last, is on its way out. Bringing hope that maybe one day soon, things like a painting immortalizing an 18-wheeler will be just that, immortalization of an 18-wheeler, and not something done with tongue in cheek and a finger to things like honest living.
March 10, 2007
snow and sheep.
Thanks to an opening in my calendar, I've come to the Berkshires for a few days to visit my aunt.
The woods and the snow and the calm are, as always, restorative, energizing and quietly beautiful.
This morning we went to a local sheep farm where I laughed harder than I have in weeks at the lambs jumping all over each other and nosing up to me, watching me with their big, googly eyes.
Sometimes when everything in your life is up in the air, you just have to look and laugh and enjoy the beauty, absurdity and messiness of it all. Revelling in it as opposed trying to find the answers to all those situations which have decidedly converged at once. All situations which will inevitably work themselves out anyway.
Right now, it's the way that the sky melts into the snow, the small winding roads and the late night conversations over glasses of wine that may not bring clarity, but do shed light, love and wisdom.
February 26, 2007
the complexity of verbosity.
I've moved into my temporary place where I'll be for atleast the next few weeks, quite possibly longer. It's a townhouse close to my old tiny house, and I've been especially enjoying the hardward floors.
Patrick Wolf is still on the stereo.
Bobbin is still finding comfort in hiding under the furniture. She has become particularly attached to a bright orange velvet chaise lounge.
More than one thing is up in the air and I've been less chipper than normal, although I'm determined to fight it. Suddenly upheaval isn't as attractive as it's been in the past, and I'm feeling a bit clumsy and unsure. Needing reassurance about everything like a petulant, spoiled child. I'm fiercely glad it's only temporary, as I'm sure are those around me.
With my computer crash came total hard drive destruction, which meant losing over 1,000 photographs and almost as much music. Somehow it seems like a small death of the past, like some kind of perversion of
Roland Barthes' "
The Death of the Author." The only remaining photos I have saved thanks to a somewhat neglected
Flickr account.
All of this has reminded me of how without fail, when things start going topsy-turvy, we tend to take our frustrations and fears out on people that we care about. I've been doing just this to several people lately, without really meaning to, as some sort of wicked by-product of this temporary chaos. We don't always act as we should. We say things that weren't properly thought out. We say everything but the one thing we really mean to say. We either try to escape the present or hold on to what we are scared of losing.
Sometimes we lose them anyway, while other times they surprise us when we least expect it. As for which way it will turn...that's the hardest part. The wondering part...even though you try and distract yourself with everything else imaginable. For some bizarre reason, I have been reading up on the life and times of
Coco Chanel, experimenting with salsa making, and try to quell the desire knit and watch
Pride and Prejudice for what seems like the 47th time.
It's amazing how we can try to sabotage things in an effort to keep us or others from hurt or harm, in some misguided effort to make things easier. Even when we know that chances are we will only make them more difficult.
That's one thing I truly love about the work that I do produce, that it cuts to the chase and ignores my constant whirring mind. How it turns how I'm feeling into something concrete instead of letting it slip away in a thousand useless words when only a few will do.
The action of creating something from nothing is what builds us up again, what eases our mind, and what brings us hope.
February 14, 2007
home is a many splendored thing.
As I write this, I'm surrounded by books taken down from the bookshelf listening to the rain and wind whip around my tiny house. I'm moving again, and both suit that mood of mixed nostalgic and landscape that always hits when I start packing boxes. Again.
While some of the moves have been within the same town, this is the 15th time I've moved in half as many years. I'm not really sure what I was looking for in moves 1-14, but am glad to have said goodbye to that wanderlust over the past year. I'm still not sure where it went exactly or if I found the cure, but am glad to have finally parted ways.
From page 236 in
Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Projects:
On the history of the domestic interior. The residential character of the rooms in the early factories, though disconcerting and inexpedient, adds this homely touch: that within these spaces one can imagine the factory owner as a quaint figurine in a landscape of machines, dreaming not only of his own but of their future greatness. With the dissociation of the proprietor from the workplace, this characteristic of factory buildings disappears. Capital alienates the employer, too, from his means of production, and the dream of their future greatness is finished. This alienation process culminates in the emergence of the private home.
For the past year, I've lived in a 600 sq. foot house that was originally built as an upholstery shop. Despite all my attempts to make it cozy, it has always retained a somewhat utilitarian air. What better place to spend a quiet year of writing, reading and making that a place that was custom built for making? Giant stacks of books are currently taking over the front corner, the bookshelf I assembled myself now empty and still leaning sharply. Yarn is strewn betwixt and between these towers of words and has turned my living room into more of a gallery installation representing my life than a place to live. My kitten has been tending to the yarn fastidiously like a curator, even though I tried for awhile to keep her away from the all-too-compelling temptation.
Now I'm packing it all up and going through the change of address forms, amassing a pile of things I no longer need to go to the thrift shop, while chucking items that cannot be recycled either by me or the county. Each time I pack, I never fail to find something that has remained mysteriously hidden throughout all my other earlier moves. This year it was
Patrick Wolf's album, "
Lycanthropy," recorded in my old house in London. The strings and quiet vocals against an amalgam of city noises is precisely what I need right now as I work towards the next move.
And what has all of this to do with craft? Seeing that the brick-and-mortar kind of home (for there is one more than one definition of home) is where we play out the domestic, and the reclamation of the domestic has ties with the current craft resurgence, it has everything to do with craft. It is in our homes that we make things on quiet nights and rainy Sundays, where we begin to see that there is no irony in the fact that we can have
The Raincoats on the record player while baking cupcakes or spinning yarn. It is in this private sphere where those of us who were taught that a woman's place is in the boardroom truly come to terms with the idea that it's empowering to know how to darn a hole in your favorite cords and okay to have dinner parties while wearing high heels and pearls.
The domestic is where not only are we allowed the space to take back our kitchens and sewing machines, but where are also given the room to experiment and play with conventional thought and make it our own. In all my moves, I've learned something different and necessary. In this one I learned that a home is more than just a sanctuary and a soft place to land, it's also a laboratory, studio and playground. Perhaps in the past I was too busy moving to fully see that the power isn't necessarily in having the perfect furniture arrangement, it's in having the safety and freedom to make a mess of things as you map out your big dreams, juxtapose one unlikely thing against the other to learn from the chaos, and learn to listen.
February 6, 2007
system down.
What does a girl do when her computer has completely crashed and is no longer working?
Why, while impatiently waiting for her new (er, lightly used) computer to arrive, she reads about
Ada Lovelace's genius, in Sadie Plant's
Zeros and Ones, of course. She helped found modern computing...um, eons before, say, people like Al Gore.
Zeros, ones, knits, purls...all somewhat interconnected?
January 24, 2007
bobbins.
At the end of December, I acquired a kitten.
And named her Bobbin.
She was a tiny feral kitten found running around a local neighborhood that was trapped by a friend of mine in order to find her a real home. Now that she's been to the vet and had time to settle in to my small house, she's become a much beloved 4.5 pound fluffball. I haven't had the opportunity to have a pet in years, and when this opportunity came open, it just seemed right.
Here in my little house with yarn tucked into every nook and cranny,
and bobbins of thread everywhere, I've been kept entertained by her
sheer (not to mention stereotypical) curiosity. While she spent a good time the first few weeks under the couch, now she has become a bit more intrepid.
Some mornings I wake up to find that Bobbin discovered yarn I hadn't
hidden properly and half the house is tangled up and snagged under a maze
of wool that extends in all directions and every color.
Some nights I go to sleep listening to her playing with her favorite
toy, a vintage wooden bobbin of beige sewing thread, knocking it
behind my record collection, into the closet with my shoes, under the
couch where she likes to hide when someone new comes to the house.
Her wide-eyed and fresh perspective on the contents of my house never fails to remind me that there are few greater joys than
watching the world being discovered by young eyes. It's pure
creativity, unfettered by trial and error or negativity.
Also...
.If you're in the New York area, check out the
Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting Show at the
Mad Museum.
.And if you're from the Chapel Hill, please take a look
here regarding the arrest of Sima Falluhi. A few years ago, I bought a poem from her daughter about the joys of spring. Sima's being held in regards to a civil immigration issue, more of which you can read about
here.
January 7, 2007
so this is the new year.
Like lots of people, I spent a fair amount of time over the holidays in my childhood home. My mother had put one of my favorite photos of my youth in a frame on my old dresser that was built by her father, and in an attempt to photograph a photograph (yes, a scanner would have been better, but it was mainly so I could copy the hat pattern later and knit a new one), this was one of the resulting shots. Big hands reflected in the glass pressed over a tiny face from 1978.
In the downtime between present giving and receiving, home-cooked meals by my mother and walks with my father, I had time to think about what I was doing and where I was going.
Several years ago, someone very dear to me said that one of my problems was that "there was someone else driving my cart," and that I "needed to take the reins." And I began to wonder if it was more of a case of seeing where the cart could go given the world around me and less of being led through life blindly. Somewhere along the line, I became enamoured with the path that was taken less by cluelessness and more by instinct and curiosity. There's a little bit of magic in seeing where things go if you just give them a little room to run free.
Who knows who's right. But as I begin to look at where I am and where I want to be and start opening up job searches outside of my current tiny town that I adore with its perfect sunny day afternoons and quiet nighttime walks, I'm not really sure where it will take me, as I finally come to the conclusion that perhaps it's time to put one hand on the reins while letting the other continue as it will. Maybe we both are right, after all.
And like the photo up top, sometimes the joint combination of hindsight and foresight will allow you to start thinking anew, or atleast held safe in the knowledge that sometimes you need to be practical and sometimes you just need to jump.
December 11, 2006
winter, we meet again.
It's incredible how this time of year seems to literally fly by. Lately I've been road-tripping, farm-visiting, company-having, picture-taking and cross-stitching. If you ever get the chance to cruise through South of the Border
on the I-95 border between North and South Carolina, take a minute to drive through. As horror movies have always tried to convince us, abandoned theme parks are scary...especially when they're chock full of creepy 70s statues painted in ultra-vivid hues. While a friend visited from England,
not only did we get to see the Eastern seaboard, we also took a drive out to a local farm with goats and llamas, and then keeping in theme, stopped by a local creamery to eat ice cream as the sun set. In December. And finally, I finished my teeny tiny pieces for a group show at the
Here Gallery, based on the 4 types of mix tapes. Phrases that ended up on the scrapheap for this project were, "Just friends," "I hate you" and "It's not you, it's me.""I admire you," said by Mr. Darcy to Lizzie Bennett in a weak
Pride & Prejudice moment, was also (briefly) considered.
Despite all this merry holiday cheer, there is a dark side. This year I'm keeping the gift-giving on the down low. With my brother
getting married and then the holidays, I've decided this year will be the
year of 'tiny presents.' Not because I don't care, but because lately I've
become a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of crap I own, even though I
try and keep my possessions to a relative minimum. I'd rather be present
with the people I love instead of adding to their stockpile of crap...not
that I think I give substandard presents, mind you, but because while I
think that showing your adoration for someone via a gift is nice, I think
sometimes it gets a bit out of control.
So everyone is getting mix tapes. No, really. Everyone. While I
was making the pieces for
Here, I got really into the sentimentality that is expressed
through a compilation of music made for you. And therefore decided to go
completely old-school and spend time making cards and CDs this year.
Although it may be a false hope, it is my hope that they will be listened
to after all the wrapping paper has been thrown away and we start on
our yearly sojourn through January waiting for the next holiday to come
along, Valentine's Day, the most ridiculous holiday in the
universe. While it was fun when you were 12, V-Day just kinda loses its
appeal once you've entered, say, puberty. But after the gluttonous chilly months filled with more exciting
holidays, Valentine's Day is a small twinkling star of lameness reminding
us that brighter celebrations are on the horizon.
May your not-really-official-quite-yet beginning of winter be merry. And full of laughter, love and tiny, thoughtful presents.
P.S. In regards to my last post, while three of the Kim family were rescued,
James Kim died trying to save those whom he loved. What could be more heroic? There is a lovely web tribute
here, and
this site has information on how to best help the family now.
December 3, 2006
hopeful.
A friend of mine works for this couple in San Francisco. The whole family has been missing since last week. This year always envelops me in a bubble of busyness trying to get everything done. I've been working on art pieces to get in the
