Wednesday, March 30, 2016

slow stitching

 
Our whole process can shift
we will consider our materials and their provenance
we will think about tradition, about cultural attributes, about meaning of the cloth
we will reflect

This is an optimistic way to be
we will be changed
we will appreciate the textiles around us
we will see new connections, understand new and old stories
we will see how much we have in common.

Claire Wellesley-Smith ideas

Friday, March 25, 2016

good Friday

 
 
Oh I was full of theories, of grand experiments
To live a normal woman's life.
To have children.
To be  the painting and the painter.

Alice Neel 1930

Friday, March 18, 2016

connecting dots

 
 
When objects have materiality.
When they are hand made from real stuff - the viewer has a direct experience.
His own. Her own.

We understand it not just as an object outside the self, but as something from within the self.

Jean Paul Sartre ideas 1943

Thursday, March 17, 2016

begin from the edge

 
 
Intricate as some of these designs are, it must be remembered that none of them are drawn on the cloth.  The first row of running stitches acts as the guiding line for the rest of the border.  The sure eye of the needlewoman and her steady hand create these traditional border patterns in the kanthas.

Shostir Chino.  Outline the motif with stitch, and then use the bending stitch (the kaitya) around the motif.  Each stitch moves slightly forward.  There is an optical illusion, it appears to move before our eyes.  It feels like a moving wheel.

Niaz Zaman

Monday, March 14, 2016

walk every day

 
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.

Every day I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from illness.

I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

It is apparent that in walking one constantly gets as close to well-being as possible, even if one does not quite reach it  -  the more one sits still, the closer one feels to feeling ill.

Kierkegaard

Saturday, March 12, 2016

heaven seems to come

Emptiness is the track on which the centered person moves.  (a Tibetan Sage said this 600 years ago)

Emptiness is a path through uninhabited expanse where heaven seems to come all the way down to your feet.

Rebecca Solnit ideas
A Field Guide to Getting Lost page 50-51

Thursday, March 10, 2016

when I walk I see

 

In my room the world is beyond my understanding

But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.

Wallace Stevens

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

smells like spring

 
 
A creative process using patchwork, applique and embroidery, her work was an evolving process.

Yoshiko Wada about Rosie Lee Tompkin's work

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

to be alone

For now she need not think about anybody.
She could be herself, by herself.
And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think.
Well, not even to think.
To be silent.
To be alone.
When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless.
Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is deep, but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.
Her horizon seemed to her limitless.

Virginia Woolf

Thursday, March 3, 2016

i love to stitch

 
to go beyond the limits set or prescribed
to pass beyond or go over
to infringe

I love to stitch.