Up North, With Photos!

Finally, the lake pictures.  I know I've blogged about our family vacation before.  We do the quintessential Minnesota Week Up North At The Lake. We rent a cabin at a resort, the same one each year. My grandparents, parents, brother, sister and their families all go. And this year my parents' dog Joe joined us. We fish and boat and swim and hang out together. It's a good time.  Too bad this year Ellis has fully entered the weird picture face stage. I didn't get many good smiles from him. The ones I did get are candid.

Up North

We just returned from our annual big family vacation Up North (that's Northern MN for you southerners). As usual, it was lovely.  Our weather was absolutely perfect.  It was 79-81 degrees and sunny.  Every. Single. Day. File that under Big Win.

This vacation was sort of a canning vacation in two ways. First, I served Peach Bourbon Barbecue Sauce from last year's canning season.  I'll definitely be canning more of that this year. I only put up 4 half-pints last year and saved two for this trip. Second, I may have convinced my sister to start making her own jam! She's still a bit nervous about the whole canning/maybe I'll kill my family thing, but I think she'll try out some freezer jam this year (or whenever jam season is in Australia). I did also bring up some pickled asparagus, but managed to break the jar when opening it. File that under Not Awesome.

Ack! Just now, while getting my camera cord to upload my pictures for this post, I set a glass of red wine down on my desk. Too bad that in the dim light, I also set it down on a clothes pin and spilled red wine all over a stack of vintage linens. Most of it is no big deal, but I think I ruined two really lovely crocheted pieces. File that under This Is Why We Can't Have Anything Nice.

I'm going to cut my losses and skip the pictures for tonight.

Humble Returns

I fell off the blog wagon. Frankly, I fell off the art wagon. That's okay. We need fallow times, too, I suppose. As always, there are many factors, but I must say, for me, the emotion of my life has been heightened, raw. Art on top of that has felt like too much.

I am trying to return to art. To process the non-starter that was Marriage Equality in Illinois and the implication of it all. To come to terms with the mass school closings in Chicago as I prepare to send my kiddo off to Kindergarten. To endure the summer, the rain finally stopped.

I'll start slow. No pictures today.

Busy Hands

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Mine was awesome and restorative.  I wanted it to last forever!!

I've been wanting to stitch in the evenings as I relax from my day. But sometimes, after a full day, I just don't have the energy for working on official "pieces". So I've started a simple back-stitching piece as a way of relaxing, working on muslin with whatever threads I have available.  It's quite gratifying and keeps me from feeling lazy when I'm not working on "Work".

Meanwhile, I did make some progress on this piece.

The Return of the French Knot

Man, I used to love the french knot.  But then we went through a period of time where I just wasn't feeling it, with its tendency to sometimes suck and pull through the work or to be hard on my fingers.  French knots can also loosen and sag over time if you're not careful.  I am not always careful.

But the french knot beckoned.

I think we're back in love.

It's a brilliant stitch.  (Is it a stitch?  Embellishment?)  The sculptural qualities add depth.  The effects can be dramatic or adorable, depending on their context. And really, who doesn't love dots?

They give the work that certain Je ne sais quois, non?

Process Pictures

I'm working on a few pieces at once right now, exploring related ideas in a few different ways.

The backside.

Another piece, near and far.

I love looking at the stitches up close, sort of removed from their context.  I'm thinking about how to imbue this quality into the work as a whole, to make the entire piece seem like a close-up.

On Dreaming and Practice

I have many dreams. It's just part of who I am: I dream. I imagine whole lives for myself in an instant based on the smallest thing. It's a wonderful skill, and yet sometimes I struggle to truly be in the present. The possible always beckons. And the more amazing these dreams are, the more the present pales.

As I get older (40 looms), I begin to understand more fully that the present is where I live; I must truly inhabit the now. These days, I have taken up some practices I hope will ground me more fully in the present--even as I continue to embrace this habit of dreaming, a habit I know is a core element of me.

Connecting with the physical present has been the most life-changing so far. I've "done yoga" for years, but only lately have I embraced a rigorous practice. In the past, yoga has helped me calm my mind, ease stress and connect with my body. For the first time, now, I feel it opening up other possibilities. I begin to understand that I can do more than I think I can. The dreams, I think they have had a stronger purpose all along.

The dreams are not meant as diversion; they are instructions. They are a call to arms. Create this world, they say. Do not sit by and wish it. Do not dwell in the fantasy: create it.  I'm searching for the courage to do just that.