+ Her Barefoot Heart
News of The 70273 Project with a side of Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart
i’ve often wondered why some leaves hold on, refusing to let go of their branch, their tree. they clack in the wind, like teeth chattering or cleaning chalkboard erasers or ridding the bottom of shoes of debris from a long walk in the woods.
my birthday comes in 3 days. it’s a big birthday, and i’m making a list. noting things that won’t let go of me, things i’ve long vowed i’d do One Day. i add them to the list because One Day is here.
The first week in December, I had 167 pieces of cloth, each bearing a stitched version of one of Nancy’s scratchings. I posted the last one, then breathed a sigh of relief, prepared to set all stitching aside and delve into the holidays when everybody would light at our house for together time. Then along came an email from my friend Angela – a copy of a submission she sent to the Florida Museum for Women Artists for the exhibit called Applaud That Woman:
Dear Crystal,
I’m writing in response to your invitation to honor a woman who has influenced me: Jeanne Hewell-Chambers. Jeanne describes herself as ‘woman, wit, writer,’ and those things are true, but they only begin to scratch the surface of the talents she offers to the world. Jeanne is a gifted writer and cloth artist, and she is also a champion of other women, an encourager, a community builder extraordinary.
If you have a project or a cause and Jeanne gets behind you, thank your lucky stars because you have found someone who will support you through those times when you need someone to care about it more than you care about it yourself. And if your voice isn’t very loud or one that the world will readily hear, Jeanne will amplify it and magnify and translate it for you and with you.
Jeanne has a number of projects in the works, as you will see if you check out her blog, but the one I want to showcase here is her “In Our Own Language” project. In these pieces, Jeanne collaborates with her developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy. Jeanne provides the pens and paper, Nancy provides the sketches, Jeanne stitches the sketches. And then she sends them out into the world for other people to photograph and send back. This project is quintessential Jeanne – voice to the voiceless, generous, creator of community and beauty.
Jeanne inspires me to create art and to be a better woman.
Best regards,
Angela
(Angela’s email inspires me to be a better woman cause I love her too much to make a liar out of her.)
Crystal said “Yes,” and I had until 1/16/13 to get this pulled together. Holidays and all.
It was stressful.
It was heavenly.
Other than one brief phone call I had with Lisa Call when I shared a quick sketch of a flash image I had with her to talk about field of vision and other design elements (she’s fluent, I’m not), there were no concrete ideas of what to do and no time to ponder and plan. I simply turned my hands loose and stood back to watch this magnificent process called creativity. Having a focus and a deadline was freeing, exhilarating. I don’t remember when I’ve had so much fun and been so blissfully contented and peaceful.
Even without a clear image of the finished piece, I knew I wanted the cloth to be thin, fragile as Nancy is. I wanted it to hang away from the wall so it would be responsive to people as they walk past, the movement representative of how we affect each other, even if we never realize it. The batiste I stitched each scratching on was heavier than I wanted, so I emailed Judy Martin to see if she had any ideas, and she told me about some cotton lawn fabric that sounded perfect. I ordered 10 yards (having absolutely no idea how much fabric I would need), and when it came in, I watched delightedly as my hands spread it out on the table and ripped a length off. Then I fiddled and grappled, finding my way to the next step.
I ripped the “margins” off each stitched rendering, and when I began to put them together, I decided it would be impossible to put all 167 into one cloth, so I divided them into thirds. (Using the word “decided” sounds like I sat and meticulously planned and figured and measured, but I did none of these things. My hands had no time to spend scratching my head. It’s just hard to assign words to this amazing process. The hands don’t need rulers, words, or to show their work.) (I think this is one reason I’ve been so long writing about it – words are totally inadequate.)
Letting the pieces flop and romp together, I thought of Nancy because she is a puzzle whiz, and this was like putting a puzzle together Nancy-style: without the box top to go by. I stitched each teardrop together first,
then stitched each teardrop onto the cloth background, doing short, arhymical stitches in between and around each stitched scratching.
I have this obsessive fascination with teardrops as reliquaries, as vessels, as containers, and it just won’t let go of me, so I shaped each third into a teardrop.
Envisioning vintage ladies’ hankies from the 50s and 60s (the era when Nancy was born), I thought the hankies would fill the space around the teardrop. I knew I’d need a lot of them, and having no time to visit nearly enough antique stores, I reached out to Susan Lenz who put out the call via her newsletter, and hankies began to fill my mailbox from delightful, generous, caring women like Merry Mary Ellington, Mother, Alison Chambers Carole Rothstein, Janett Rice, and Margaret Blank
.
I pulled an all-nighter (one of many) cutting, folding, and ironing the hankies. Tried letting them fill in all the white space around each teardrop, but quickly found that too overwhelming, too distracting, annoying . . .
and went with a single-row border instead.
Delivery deadline was Wednesday, 1/16/13, and there was absolutely no way I could put this baby in the hands of some postal employee and say “You be real careful now”, so we drove to Atlanta on 1/15, spent the night with my Mother (where I pulled another all-nighter stitching the hanging sleeves) and flew to Florida Wednesday morning, 1/16. We checked into the hotel, and while Andy (my adorable, supportive husband without whom none of this would have been possible because he stepped right up and without any prompting or pleading, he took over all the menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking, pet duties bill paying, and more) went to the local home improvement store to fetch curtain rods, eye hooks, and fishing line, then came back to sand and put it altogether, I attached the sleeves on the back of each panel.
And off we scooted to the museum . . .
which was closed. But we went out to celebrate anyway.
The next morning found us up and out (relatively) early, and at last, In Our Own Language, Set 1 was delivered.
A week later, Andy, Mother, my nephew TJ, and I flew down for the opening reception (Friday, 1/25/13) and well, let’s just go with “ta-da” why don’t we.
For so many reasons, in so many ways, this has been the most amazing experience . . . and there’s absolutely no way I could have ever done it without the love and support and assistance and encouragement of so many people. Until I can think of a better way to convey it: From every cockle of my heart, thank you.
[ ::: ]
I’ve been wanting to share this for weeks now, and what finally motivated me to take the sticky note off the wall and spend the time pulling it all together and deal with the photos and pat around in the dark for the they’re-totally-inadequate-anyway words is to be a part of Nina Marie’s Off The Wall Friday.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
how does this blog fit into my life? do i even dare ask: how does this blog fit neatly into my life? no, that seems a completely different question that speaks to writing in the midst of interruptions and such, so i’ll choose the question i led with: how does this blog fit into my life?
that’s a question i’ve been asking myself of late. i don’t want to give up the blog, you see, cause i look forward to being here and i miss being here when i’m not . . . and yet it’s like fiddling with a Rubik’s cube to figure this out. is this little acre in the ethers a journal, a therapist’s couch, a postcard, lunch with friends? it’s a question that pops up every year or so for me, and i think it’s a conversation worth having, though i’d almost rather get a root canal without anesthesia. i count myself lucky that it’s a conversation i can have with my friend angela, and following angela’s good lead, i’m analyzing the blogs i enjoy regularly in terms of what i like about them and why i keep reading (even if i don’t always leave a comment. which is another conversation i’m having with myself.). she has a really good system – you should ask her about it sometime.
on any given day, my life looks like a woman trying to sip water from a fully-loaded firehose. i hugely – enormously – admire women who can pluck jewel or three from their day and write about it clearly and succinctly and interestingly. me? i just see the steady stream of water, not the individual drops. i’ve tried pretending i’m writing letters to friends. i’ve tried pretending that my kids are interested enough to drop in and see what mom’s up to. i’ve tried pretending i’m throwing parties here. and still i question: how much to reveal? what to write about? how often to post?
and to further complicate things, the more i stay away, the deeper the hole gets, the harder it is for me to isolate a single thing to write about because as we’ve already established, i’m not good at plucking, and honestly, maybe i’m not smart enough or aware enough or whatever enough, but the thing is: i just don’t have an epiphany a day. it’s with a bit of a red face that i tell you i can go years before the lightbulb goes off.
it might be easier had i information to impart, but i don’t. i really don’t. and to tell you the truth, i’m kinda’ tired of hearing and seeing all these offers from folks who will tell me how to make every inch, every aspect of my life better ’cause i know it’s ultimately up to me. and right now, that’s precisely what i’m doing: seeking ways to live the life with my name on it, to live it with gusto, sass, abandon, and sparkle ratcheted up so much i need sunglasses to brush my hair.
so, sigh.
Forty years ago today, I walked into a bar in Underground Atlanta with a girlfriend and walked out several hours later with the man who would, in a mere six months, become my husband. Our forty years of togetherness have been marked by much change. We’ve birthed two amazing people, and we’ve buried too many to count. We’ve laughed and cried . . . and eventually laughed again. We’ve pursued our own interests and always come back home to tell each other all about it. We’ve shared interests, cheered each other on in individual pursuits, and worked side-by-side on all sorts of things.
An engineer by training, he views, interprets, and goes through the world in a more linear way than this quirky Aquarian. He is patient, I lean towards impulsive. He is literal, I see and hear metaphors everywhere. He is formulaic, I live like like a pot of soup, pulling sparklies in from every whichaway. He is quite thorough, I want immediate results and have a tendency to get bored and move on. We are good for each other.
It’s not always been easy, but it’s always been the two of us together, and that sure helps. I am not the same woman I was forty years ago, and he is not the same man who mixed me that Tom Collins. But laughter, space in our togetherness, listening, and holding hands continue to define our way of loving each other.
As he says, I’m the best he could do with the car he was driving at the time. And as I say, he’s the best I could do with the boobs I had at the time. Here’s to at least another forty, Andy.
Clink.
Cheers.
Wearing her Envoy hat, Alana Sheeren writes:
This is the beach at the end of my lane. The dunes behind me are my favorite place to sit and meditate, or simply stare at the ocean and hand her my problems. They’re also the best spot for hide and seek.
It’s a peaceful beach. Not a lot of people, even at the height of summer. Magical dolphin sightings are semi-frequent and we saw whales breaching earlier this year. I think Nancy might like it here, digging toes and fingers into sand.
It is home for me. And I am grateful to share it with you.
Isn’t she beautiful?
I met Alana on twitter around the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010. The first correspondence I remember having with Alana was when she posted a question about schooling young children. Having pretty definite ideas on that, and feeling safe enough to voice them to a woman I barely, barely, barely knew, I put in my 2-cents worth. A friendship bloomed from that little tweet exchange that happened lifetimes ago. So much has happened since then. So much grief, so much growth, so much glowing. Alana has been through so much – life has thrown things at her that would break some folks, and she has weathered them with grace and wisdom and an openness that’s quite formidable and moving.
She’s now offering her experience, her knowledge, her gifts of comfort and concern and support in tele-retreats, the occasional on site retreats, ebooks, and one-on-one togetherness. And it just so happens that today is the last day she’s offering her DIY Picking Up The Pieces at pay-what-you-will pricing, so scoot on over and help yourself.
Every Thursday, Alana hosts Transformation Talks, interviews with people she calls “someone who is a force for good in the world.” She spends about an hour talking to these folks about the transformative power of grief – and take it from me, you may not think so when you’re in the midst of it, but grief IS transformative. Alana never loses sight of that, and she’s doing all she can to make sure you don’t either. In whatever way you choose, Alana will hold you as you grief, reassuring you that there will be growth, that you will glow again eventually, and that grieving is a natural part of life whether anybody dies or not and that you don’t have to be embarrassed that you are grieving – that it can actually be a time of great growth and honing your intuition.
Can you tell I love her? Can you tell I love the goodness she’s spilling into the world? Go get to know her. Go snag yourself a copy of her DIY Picking Up the Pieces and sign up for her newsletter so you’ll be the first to know when she hosts another retreat. You can thank me later.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
i’m hardly ever sick, so i have no established relationship with any physician. this morning i find myself in need of antibiotics, so i go to the doc-in-a-box at a nearby drugstore. the soft tissue of my ear is inflamed, you see, infected. it happens every three or four years, i tell her. i just need some antibiotics and i’ll be fine.
i do not tell her how i fretted as i dressed this morning, washing my hands an extra two times, downing a glass of a supposed immune system booster, packing my purse with tissues, one of which i use to protect my hand from the pen i must use when signing in because i do not know who held it before me, what germs linger looking for a warm host with a vacancy sign. i worry more these days. what if i get sick and don’t bounce back as quickly? what if i don’t bounce back at all? what if i come in to be treated for one thing and leave with something entirely unrelated that does me in?
she listens to me, believes me, says she likes a woman who knows her body. unused to eye contact from a physician let alone such a notion as listening to the patient, i am instantly smitten with her. the computer doesn’t allow for this particular diagnosis. it’s unusual. not standard. she calls to obtain an override, and when she tells the physician on the other end of the phone my age, she says the numbers in the same tone she answers every other question asked of her. there’s no drama when she says my age, no shriek, no hushed embarrassed tone.
my daughter calls while i’m luxuriating in an infrequent middle-of-the-afternoon-i’m-sick-so-i-can-if-i-want-to nap. will she call her brother to warn him? will she and her brother be worried? surely they must wish for it on occasion, but do they ever wonder what it will be like to live without having me around? do they think of me as old and fear “losing me”? i am not so noble a person or good a mother as to not hope that these scenarios play out occasionally. i want to be missed.
i make a point to keep my hands away from my face. after reading the various flu posts on facebook, i wash my hands.
i have a milestone birthday this year, you see. on the one hand i look forward to it as a crown i may now wear, an outward symbol of what – power? freedom? space? behavioral entitlement? on the other hand, i am embarrassed by it.
[ ::: ]
my word for 2013 is “homage”. i didn’t invite it – i never do – it just appeared, hopping up on my shoulder where it remains to this day. it’s an unusual word that initially causes me more worry; it’s a word i now bump into rather frequently. the stanford university band spelled it out at some halftime show, for example, and i heard it in first episode of season three of downtown abbey the other night. just the other day i overheard someone of some import use “homage” in the course of a conversation, and she pronounced the “h” (“HOM-ij”) settling that score for me. i wish i could remember who that was. am i already losing my memory? it’s a milestone birthday, but isn’t it a little premature to lose my memory? why can’t i remember? this will keep me awake tonight.
age has never mattered to me. a dear woman i cherish and knew because she was my great aunt on my daddy’s side of my tree taught me to never, ever, ever, ever, ever state my age. there’s no need, she said, it will just bring you pain because once they know your age, people will treat you accordingly. if they don’t know your age, they’ll treat you the way you behave in their presence.
am i treating my age like i’ve treated my weight? i look at wedding photos and cry for the young woman who bought an empire waist wedding dress to hide the body she thought grossly overweight at 98 pounds.
[ ::: ]
my color of the year is “deep ground”. i like that. find it comforting for reasons i’m unable to explain. that’s another thing: i don’t seem to be able to explain things, not that i ever have – not to certain levels of more literally-minded satisfaction – and now i’m wondering how important it really is that i should explain myself succinctly and articulately (or would that be articulately) anyway.
being a lifelong caregiver of many and various interests, i’ve long been able to tell you what other people will think about something, to see something and thing oh, so-and-so would love this – that sort of thing. but me, focus? historically, it’s been an impossible task. lately, though, i’m able to pare down, and it’s surprisingly (and alarmingly, at times) easy. mostly i funnel down by recognizing what i do not like, and if i say it aloud, i often forget to tack on the apologetic qualifier that implies “but it’s okay if you do.”
[ ::: ]
i’ve not worn a watch for decades, and yet i feel each tick and at least every-other tock. is that why it’s so easy to make decisions about – to sort how to spend my time, who to carry-on with, who and what to surround myself by?
having been a student then a teacher then a mother of students then a student again, my calendar has long started in september and ended in august. now i’ve decided that beginning in 2013, my birthday will be my new year’s day. decisions like that come easily to me, and they feel Good and Right. i continue to make my list of things i want to do in this new year, in this milestone year, feeling like a kid in the candy store. i should think of places to go, i tell myself, but when i consider travel, i shove it aside because it takes me away from the things i want to create. i have SO much i want to create.
[ ::: ]
i think i should probably dread this birthday, skirt around it, shoo it under the proverbial rug given that it’s an undeniable fact that i have more life behind me than in front of me. i am, you might say, quite in touch with my own mortality. death is frequently with me these days, mostly by way of a deep desire – a commitment, really, a resolve – to die well by living well.
Today, more hankies from a delightful woman from Canada named Margaret Blank.
Your need for handkerchiefs was posted in Susan Lenz’s recent newsletter. I have very few coloured ones – one black with white embroidery, one plain red (scarlet) and one deep royal blue with embroidery (one corner missing as I put it in a crazy patch block). she writes. However, I also have 4 tea towels which might work for you. They (and the hankies) come from my mother – but really, more accurately, from *her* mother. I’ve been keeping them to do something with them, but as they aren’t white (most of the stack I have are white, many embroidered or decorated with lace edging)…well, you know! J And no one knows what to do with the towels when you put them out. They are meant to be hand towels but so pretty and we are so used to terry cloth…So I am happy to let you have them for such a worthy project.
And I, Margaret, am humbled and grateful and downright tickled to accept these beautiful, special cloths and make them a part of this project. Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
Mistakes were made, forms were lost, deadlines came and went, but today – finally – Nancy is at the new place where she will spend weekdays in the presence of Penny, a woman Nancy deeply loves, a woman who deeply loves Nancy in return.
Tenacious follow-up is what got Nancy on the van this morning, and it’s what landed these hankies in my studio. Merry Me (you know here as Envoy #113) hadn’t heard from me about a couple of envelopes she sent, so she asked if I’d received them. They’d fallen beside the seat – so glad she asked. Who knows when we would’ve happened upon them?
“The white handkerchief with the pink daisies came from my mom’s dresser drawer. It may have belonged to one of my grandmothers as I do not remember Mom using them. Although I have a faint memory of one always being neatly folded in her sequined cocktail purse. It may not go with your project, but if you can use it, I’d be thrilled to be a part of it,” she writes. I am quite touched and more than a little thrilled to include the three hankies Merry Me went in search of at an antique store and the white hankie passed down through her matriarchal lineage. Thank you, Sugar.
In a separate (also previously lost between the seats, along with a couple of bills and holiday cards) envelope were three skeins of purple floss Merry Me found, fruits from her pre-holiday organizational efforts. They’re all color #550 – the very color I use for this project. She also included an article on the delights of disorganization. That woman is funny. Merry Me, I mean.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
set 1 begins to come together. it’s fun, putting them together like a puzzle. nancy is quite good with puzzles, you know. holding fistfuls of pieces in her hand, thumping each piece three times when she finds where it goes.
Happy New Year.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
Several months ago, I came across the blog of an artist named Susan Lenz. We swapped the occasional comments back and forth, and I quickly became inspired with her deep well of creativity, her impressive productivity, her resourcefulness, and her generosity. When I found myself in need of more hankies, I emailed her asking if she knew where a girl like me might be able to get her hands on some vintage ladies hankies. Susan got right back to me and offered to put an “artist in need” blurb in the sidebar of her newsletter, and she went one step further and posted about this project on one of her blogs.
In addition to the comments left on her blog post, I’ve received several emails and envelopes filled with supportive notes and hankies.
Like this beauty from Janett Rice:
and these delights from Carole Rothstein:
They all make me smile, and this one from Carole makes me chortle right out loud:
I only have snail mail and email addresses for Carole and Janett, and you can bet I’ll be emailing soon to see if they have blogs that I can link to. Stay tuned. I’ve added a sidebar category called Bearers to give credit and appreciation to those who bring hankies and other shades of support to the project. Thank you Susan and Janett and Carole.
And hey, if y’all have some vintage ladies hankies you’d like to contribute, please send then on to Jeanne Hewell-Chambers/POB 994/Cashiers, NC 28717. I need the pretty soon, though. Will explain later.
Christmas Eve Eve (Sunday, 12/23) we trekked to nearby Asheville for a walk about. The Grovewood Gallery was our last stop before supper, and after an afternoon of visiting the Asheville Art Museum and three other galleries, I was tired and opted to stay downstairs while my son, Kipp, went upstairs for a lookabout. He hadn’t been up there a nano before he texted me saying “Come hither and come quickly. I’ve found something you’re going to love.” He was right, as usual: upstairs there were three walls filled with some of my favorite pieces of Susan’s work.
May we all go forward into a new year in agreement that we’ll ask when we need help, receive requests with grace and cheerfulness, and offer assistance in any way possible when we have a chance to help another artist create her visions.
Happy, happy New Year, y’all.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning.
This work by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.TheBarefootHeart.com.
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