Category: Blog (Page 52 of 101)

News of The 70273 Project with a side of Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart

87, 88, 89, and 90

September 25, 2012 / JeanneHC / 14 Comments

She knows what day of the week it is by what she has for breakfast, our Nancy. She’s a womanchild who likes her structure, that’s for sure. Nancy has always been quick to write her name on magazines (hers and anybody else’s) and when we take her shopping, she goes immediately to her room, puts all her new goodies up where they belong, then takes any new clothes back to the office where someone will sew her name tag inside each article of clothing before putting it in her closet. Though the drawing is new, Nancy has always liked to leave her mark on magazines, puzzle boxes, books, and such. Probably not surprising for one who owns so little and lives in a fishbowl. I stitched the entire drive to Savannah today. Thank goodness for flat, straight roads for a change. Since she wrote her name on three consecutive pages, I thought I’d put them together so you could see the differences and similarities. And though it’s not a signature, I included drawing #90 because I see a progression from #87 to #90. Do you?

The drawings:

#87:

5 87 6 erased

#88:

5 88 7 erased

#89:

5 89 6 erased

#90:

5 90 1 erased

The stitchings:

#87:

(Don’t ask me how, but #87 managed to escape my grasp and elude the dreaded group photo.)

888990a

Top to bottom are #88, #89, #90 shown here in the wall at The Cotton Exchange,
one of our two favorite places to eat in Savannah, GA.
(Our other favorite is The Olde Pink House.)

888990b

Left to right: #88, #89, and #90 shown here on the cobblestone street near the river in Savannah. According to my husband (who’s very smart about such things to do with bridges and ships and such), ships came to Savannah with little or no cargo, so stones were used as ballasts to give the ship more stability. Once in Savannah, the ships were loaded with cotton (or whatever), and the stones, no longer needed, were tossed ashore, eventually becoming the cobblestone streets that are quite fetching to gaze upon and quite treacherous to walk upon.

——-

Just signed Nancy and me up to do another collaborative creative project: Sketchbook 2013.

And did you see us here? Thank you, Teresa, for your constant and enthusiastic support.

~~~~~~~~~

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 and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

86

September 24, 2012 / JeanneHC / 22 Comments

The drawing:

5 86 2 erased

The stitching:

Our art teachers gave us the rules:
Grass is green,
skies are blue.
Why do we listen?
How can anybody else
know what color your grass is?

~ Pam Grout ~
via my friend, Karen Caterson

——-

Envoyenvelopes

More Envoy packets are winging their way across the country,
and some are winging their way back!
There’s still time if you’d like to get involved.

~~~~~~~~~

85 (plus)

September 23, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

85group30

I may have missed the actual calendar day (Friday, 9/21), but the way I see it: it’s never too late to fly flags for peace. I know there’s peace around the dinner table, and I know there’s peace as in countries around the world minding their own business, tending to their own backyard, and playing nice with each other. And I know there’s peace as in around the water cooler, but today I think about peace through the lens of Nancy. For Nancy and others like her who simply have a different way of being in the world . . .

I wish them
understanding instead of scorn
and acceptance instead of ridicule

85group34

I wish them
care instead of abuse
and tenderness instead of harm.

85group31

I wish them
to be seen and not overlooked,
to be respected and not dismissed.

85group25

I wish them
ample opportunities for expression
and the materials to be creative.

85group2

My biggest wish is not for all the Nancys in the world to be more like us,
you see,
but for us to be more like them.

85group28

Then, it seems to me,
we would know peace.

_______

She draws:

5 85 1 erased

Then I stitch:

85c

And that’s how we do it.

~~~~~~~~~

84

September 22, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

lines stitched:

(the fabric is white,
it just looks blue
because of the time of day
i finished stitching.)
(it does kinda’ match my mood, though.)

84b

things line up.
sometimes clearly,
sometimes chaotically.
sometimes they line up just the way we wanted them to,
sometimes they line up in ways we could not have foreseen,
even in our wildest imagination.
sometimes they line up all nice and neat,
sometimes you have to put on your best creativity hat
and squint your eyes
to see that they line up at all.

sometimes a line is straight
sometimes a line is curved.

sometimes a line goes straight from point a to point b
sometimes a line loops back and forth all over itself
but still arrives somewhere.

sometimes a line is a letter
sometimes a line is a number.

sometimes a line is an object,
sometimes a line is a feeling.

sometimes the shortest distance between two points
is not, in fact, a straight line.

keep the lines open.
tow the line.
draw the line.
hold the line.

sometimes a line moves,
sometimes a line stays in one place for so long,
it becomes wallpaper.

sometimes a line tells a story,
sometimes a line show the way.

sometimes the line screams STOP
and trips you up if you don’t heed.

sometimes a line marks the sweet spot,
the finish line,
sometimes a line of demarkation warns us
to stay the hell away.

and that’s just the way it is,
as far as i can tell.

lines drawn:

5 84 1 erased

~~~~~~~~~

83

September 21, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Today is the first drawing in the second journal Nancy drew in on Saturday. With a total of 167 drawings, I’m counting today as the halfway mark.

5 83 2 erased

As often happens, I see one thing when I look at the drawing (usually awe), something else as I stitch (usually a feeling), then I spy a third thing (usually something that tickles me) when I snap the photo of the stitched version. As I stitched this drawing, I was struck at how it resembles my life right now. I tell you what: my house is in such a state of disarray (and that may or may not be a metaphor). Then as I looked through the lens of the camera, I saw a face. Complete with wrinkles cause having spent today at the cardiologists’ office, taking our daughter to lunch, fetching the dog some antibiotics, then trekking back up the mountain, I am too tired to starch – even lightly starch – and iron.

83a

(Hubs is fine, by the way. Goes back in a year. Though we’d rather have two years or even a year and a half, we’ll take a year. So glad we’re not yet old enough to take pride in our health being of serious enough consequence to require doctor’s appointments closer together on the calendar. Waiting rooms have not yet become the stage for our social lives.)

~~~~~~~~~

82

September 20, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

It is perhaps possible to say that what verbal concepts are to the conscious life of the intellect what internal objects are to the unconscious life of instinct and phantasy, so works of art are to the conscious life of feeling without them life would be only blindly lived, blindly endured. (159)

4 82 1 erased

Psychic creativeness is the capacity for making a symbol. Creativeness in the arts is making a symbol for feeling and creativeness in science is making a symbol for knowing. (148)

82a

This effect of vitality will be enhanced if the symbol states no more than the essential features, if it states them clearly, and if it states them swiftly, for the very swiftness of the execution will convey a sense of power and liveliness to the spectator. (44)

Quotes from On Not Being Able to Paint by Joanna Field

~~~~~~~~~

81

September 19, 2012 / jeanne / 3 Comments

4 81 1 erased

Art does not lie down on the bed
that was made for it;
it runs away as soon
as one says its name;
it loves to be incognito.
Its best moments
are when it forgets
what it is called.
~ Jean Dubuffet ~

~~~~~~~~~

water under the bridge

September 19, 2012 / jeanne / 1 Comment

the sun peeked out from the clouds
just enough to lure us out
for a walk this morning.

i chose this hill,

Uphill

which looks enticingly meandering
from the bottom
and a bit more formidable from the top

Downhill

husband went another way.
he has his own hills to climb.

——-

yesterday the water raged,

Falls1

fierce and muddied in its flowing.
agitated, to say the least.

today, such a difference.

Falls1

there’s still a lot of water flowing,
but much has settled
making things clearer.

——-

on one side of the bridge,
the water is calm,
smooth,
like an oddly-shaped mirror
reflecting all around it.
deceptively placid.

but when it flows under the bridge
it transforms noticeably.
letting no boulder
or branch
stand in its way.
moss growing
only around the far edges.

80

September 18, 2012 / jeanne / 8 Comments

She draws:

4 80 1 erased

Then I stitch:

80b

80a

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
~ Jack Kerouac ~

~~~~~~~~~

Fine Lines

September 18, 2012 / jeanne / 6 Comments

It rained all night, giving us this view from here this morning:

Falls1

and this:

Falls2

Note: The preceding photos may or may not be visual metaphors . . .

_______

I got up, showered, washed my hair. Would’ve gone to walk except it continued to rain hard all day long. I stitched my way through the day, preparing five more Envoy packets to go out. (Thank y’all.) The up and down, back and forth of the needle soothes me, assures me.

I am not holed up in a small room with the blackout curtains pulled closed. I am not wallowing. I am not whining. On the outside, I look the same. If we talked, I would make you laugh, and I would laugh alongside you. “If my cat would knead my back and shoulders like he kneads my thighs and chest,” I posted on Facebook, “I would buy him the good food.” I am the same save for one important detail: I laid something down yesterday, and you held me. Your comments and your emails, they swaddled me in gentle support. I don’t know when I’ve felt so seen, so held. Thank you.

——-

Renae used the word “sorrow,” and that resonated deeply with my bones. I may laugh, but I still carry this sorrow. There is such substance in sorrow, in this deep, long, unnamed sorrow.

——-

Fine lines separate a pity party from authenticity, distinguish whining from honesty, keep sharing from becoming a stage. While my brain screams “You get over yourself and stop this right now, Missy,” my bones whisper “You’re okay, Sugar.”

_______

Happy feels like an obligation, something manufactured, something I do for others, something I am obligated to do for others, to make them comfortable, to make and keep friends.

Glee feels natural, organic, spontaneous. I can’t stop glee, and I don’t want to. It’s not heavy, not one thing I have to drag round. Its not scratchy or tiresome.

Sorrow feels, well, comfortable in a way. Like I’ve landed right where I’m supposed to be. And sorrow doesn’t exclude other emotions or other situations or other people. It’s inclusive, though not in the misery-loves-company-kind-of-way because I’m not actually miserable. Sorrow doesn’t assign blame but invites reflection and pondering.

——-

My brain is my aggregator, my protector, my assimilator. I need my brain for so many reasons, but somewhere along the way, it got the big head, my brain did. Thinks thinking is The Only Thing That Matters.

My heart is the home of my spirit. Childlike, playful, spontaneous. Heart is home to glee.

My bones are home to my soul. They connect me with my ancestors, with something ancient and unspoken. I am finally learning to trust them enough to let them speak. Bones are the voice of wisdom.

_______

My body is a cache of Knowing.

And of memory. All these voices, all these proverbial fingers wagging at me, they are remembered real. I have read them, heard them, interpreted them before. I have been baptized in them. Some come from well-meaning sources concerned with my well-being and safety. Others come from sources who don’t know me but speak with great authority. All promise a life of shame if I perform in a way that is disruptive, inconsiderate, inconvenient for others. Sadful is at the top of The List of Inconsiderate Inconveniences.

This avoidance of shame has guided me for so many years. For too many years.