Sunday, February 03, 2013

thinking too much again

I have been able to go to my studio these past few days and fool around.  I say fool around because I really do not have time to play. 
The Manitoulin Circle Project has been given an exhibition in a public art gallery in  September and the fourth panel is still not in the frame.   Although I do not have time to flounder around, I need to.  
The dress embroidery in these images was done as part of my degree in 2009.  Doing it led to a self discovery.  When it was nearly finished I realized that I had pictured the dress on a hanger... waiting to be worn.  Did that mean that I was waiting to be an artist?  
In December 2012 I added more cloth to the small embroidery.
I thought it might be a good quilt BACK.  
Is it harder for women? 
  How do we manage it?  How do we balance our lives and our creative work?
Now I've removed those fabrics and thought some more.  Looking and thinking.
Did I mention that the art gallery has offered a publication about the work? 
My mother told me to think.       She'd holler it.  THINK!
As if thinking helps. 
(It doesn't.) 
"I thought of my three daughters and my mother in law and my own dead mother....not one of us was going to get what we wanted.  We're so transparently in need of shoring up our own pronouns....her...  she.  We ask ourselves questions endlessly, but not nearly sternly enough....we are too kind, too willing, too unwilling too, reaching out blindly with a grasping hand, but not knowing how to ask for what we don't even know we want."    Carol Sheilds    
(the last sentence from A Scarf, a short story she wrote age 65)

11 comments:

Thread Born said...

Judy- This really hit home for me. I have been doing entirely too much thinking myself. I keep wanting to find a new direction for my ART work. That trips me up. I feel happy when I'm in the studio painting and printing fabric. Guess that should be telling me something? Thanks.--Julie

Roberta Warshaw said...

I am not sure how I manage to get anything done in my studio but I keep trying in spite of all my familial obligations/duties.

If men had to juggle the way we do I think they would get nothing done.

Margaret Cooter said...

Thinking isn't always done solely with the brain! The work of the hands has a big role in thinking for many people, don't you find?
I wonder what Carol Shields and Louise Bourgeois might have talked about, had they met ...

Margaret said...

Hit home for me too, today. C&G Level 2 certificate arrived this past week. A validation of a sort. And even as I prepare for a local spring show and sale, I am thinking about whether or not to "market" my work more actively, whether or not it's even valid work because while it might give pleasure, it rarely makes a statement or any kind of point. Is it art? Is it worthy? Do I, 60, heavily left-brained, deserve to call myself an artist? If I don't care/need to make a living doing this -- only to make a LIFE -- is it valid?

Thinking, thinking, over-thinking?

mansuetude said...

I value your intelligence, very much.

Think. Such an exclamation>
(I love the rhythms of this piece--your mother's voice in the hand..?) Yours.
.

(the critical mind does help us, it hurts to see (sometimes), but it does fuel the space to make a leap, for the hand or the heart or the courage within to make space, to speak, to act)
.

(I think I like your mother) :)
.
so much going on in this post.

(whats deserving got to do with anything) (me thinking)

Velma Bolyard said...

think. think. think. think. think. good but hard when we've been taught to do so much other *stuff*. i love what you learned. now you are bold. you have a deadline and a book waiting. and SO much more. (i like the subtraction of fabrics, too)

Karen Thiessen said...

Well I sure hope that the show comes to a gallery near me. Perhaps it will need to travel? Congratulations!!!

Karen Thiessen said...

P.S. It's okay to take a day to play in the studio. It will help the other work. =)

Anonymous said...

Judy
I am planing to visit the USA and Canada in August, September this year. Family wedding.
I have plans to come and see this project in progress.
I have been following it all the way on your blog.
I was only thinking the other day how good a book on the project would be for people like me, who live on the other side of the world and can not travel to see the panels.
I was hoping to see them in the church.
what a fabulous tribute to all the hands that have stitched with you on this work of art.
Cheers Jan in Australia

Mo Crow said...

it is all coming together for you after a lifetime of working, this is so exciting to see and you know we all want a copy of the book!

**EYE-SNACKS** said...

Lovely!