Category: Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart (Page 39 of 99)

Jeanne’s personal creative pursuits of stories stitched, written, and spoken

Whatever

April 4, 2013 / jeanne / 8 Comments

04Apr13

Whatever
the occupation
the age
the gender

Whatever
the sexual preference
the religion
the hair color

Whatever the size of
the bank book
the house
the appetite

Whether one likes
numbers
beakers
paint
words
proof
or
faith
best

Whatever
the handicap
the illness
the eye color

Whatever
the height
the dental records
the shoe size

Whatever
the favorite color
the preferred mode of transportation
or dress
or leisure activity

Whatever the differences . . .
We’re all Somebodies
Somewhere
in Some Way.

good things

April 3, 2013 / jeanne / 1 Comment

NancyAndTheCloth

The museum exhibit closed Saturday. Nancy wasn’t one bit interested in the cloth bearing her drawings in stitch. (As you can see here and in Angela’s post, Nancy was much more interested in smiling for the birdie.) I didn’t think she would make the connection or be interested in the cloth version of her drawings, but i hoped.

OtherTwoPanels

In Our Own Language, Set 1 is three panels, each measuring 59″ by 90″. Space being what it was, one panel hung in the main exhibit room, and the other two panels hung back in the museum’s classroom.

It was a moving exhibit. Time stood still, and tears fell abundantly as women paid homage to the women who inspire them . . . grandmothers, mothers, friends, teachers. You just never know how your words or deeds are going to change the course of somebody else’s life. So many touching stories, so many different kinds of art, all beautifully hung and displayed with space in between each piece to allow pauses needed to soak it all in.

CrystalsEggs

These beautiful eggs were made by Florida Museum for Women Artists’ Executive Director, a young Crystal and her Baba (grandmother).

CrystalsEggsCloseup

Just look at the beautiful edging on the cloth – this was stitched by Crystal’s Baba and imagine having something that your grandmother’s hands had stitched. Just look at the detail in these eggs and imagine creating those details by applying wax and dipping in dye then removing the wax. Just imagine the wisdom and stories shared in the time it took to make each egg.

MonaAndNancy1

Mona, Nancy’s teacher, came and brought her mother, then spent the entire time sitting with Nancy (Andy did get her a chair after I took this picture), keeping a blank page in front of her (because Nancy doesn’t have the fine motor skills to turn one page at a time) and to keep her from wandering off. I may suggest turning one page at a time as something we could put on Nancy’s support plan. They’re always looking for specific skills to work on.

OverTheShoulder

It was interesting to be able to stand behind Nancy and watch the unfolding of her art from over her shoulder. I don’t know why, it just was. Though I didn’t have time to tell her about how and why I do things a certain way with Nancy, Mona instinctively knew to keep the drawings in order (I like to note the progressions, the development of each set of drawings) and to give Nancy a choice of only dark colors (to provide the contrast which makes for better scanned and printed images).

I had only two sketchbooks, and when I could see that Nancy was drawing faster than usual, I stepped outside and tore the pages of the second sketchbook in half. She finished the last drawing just as the last artist presented her work. Magical timing.

TheGirlsAndTheCloth (front row, l to r: Nancy (who finally notices the cloth) and Jeanne. back row, l to r: Mona and Angela. Photo by my husband/Nancy’s brother, Andy, who continues to offer unwavering and varied support. I don’t know what I’d do without him, and I hope I never have to find out.)

It was a good day. It was a very good day.

on the third day of yoga, my true self brought to me

April 2, 2013 / jeanne / 8 Comments

Dahlia

Unless you have problems with your short-term memory, you may recall that on the third day of Christmas the true love came bearing gifts of 3 – count them, three – French horns. One feller who talks like he knows, says the three French horns refer to faith, hope, and charity while another fella proclaims the third day of Christmas to honor the life of St. John, who has the distinction of being the only one of the twelve apostles to die a natural death.

Anyway, in likening my third yoga class to the third day of Christmas, I see some distinct similarities. Given that I am short and round and stiff, not tall and lanky and bendy like most yoga folks, just signing up for yoga shows that I have a heaping’ helping’ of faith and hope. Charity? April (the teacher) provides that.

I tend to hang out with yoga folks online, and I have a few questions – three, in keeping with the title – that came up as I spent time on the mat today . . .

First of all, am I the only one who sweats like a big ole’ glass of sweet tea on a hot summer afternoon? This isn’t Bikram yoga, folks. This is plain ole’ yoga in the Episcopal church.

And does anybody besides me worry about passing gas during yoga class? Or having bad breath? April came over to help me with something today, and when she asked me a question, I just gave her a closed-mouth smile in return for fear I have the post-water-drinking-dry-mouth-means-bad-breath-at-least-for-me-anyway thing going on.

I tell you what, there are parts of me that touched the floor today that haven’t met with the floor in an awful long time. The floor right by the door, where I always set up for reasons I don’t feel like explaining right now. The floor by the door where people tracked in the pollen which I inhaled as the clock ran out on my 12-hour Clairin-D during the Child pose . . . which I thought for a while was “china” pose . . . which set me to thinking about digging my way there and wondering if there are still a boatload of staving children there. Yeah, you could say my mind wanders during yoga. But oh my goodness, you should’ve seen the images that went floating through while we were laying on the floor meditating. I wish I had a camera on the inside of my eyelids.

(Confession: I think I snored there at the end of class.)

what makes us smile

March 29, 2013 / jeanne / 3 Comments

Nanchy1

Maybe she’s in a bad mood, but then Nancy doesn’t do bad moods, so who knows why she’s not smiling.

Nancy2

I pull out the sketchbook and pens, always giving her a choice since she gets to choose so few things in her day-to-day life. She selects the purple pen (because purple is still her favorite color) and without saying a word, she begins to draw. She doesn’t stare at something, wondering how to recreate it on the page; she doesn’t think about what she’s going to draw, she doesn’t ask me what I want her to draw. She just puts the pen to the paper and draws, our Nancy does, and it’s a sight I’ll never grow tired of.

Nancy3

And as I turn to a clean page for her seventh drawing, she’s smiling.
Art does that for a girl.

Nancy4

She fills the page with her drawing – very rounded, and flowing, very similar to the first set
of drawings she did in 6/2012. Then she comes back and obliterates parts of the drawing with layers of heavy marks. “I like it,” she says. Then “I’m good at this” followed by “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I tell her. Then, probably because of the good music they were playing at the restaurant, I say “Nancy, do you remember when you and I would go back to your room and you’d put on your favorite records and we’d dance and sing, just the two of us?” Of course Nancy doesn’t grasp the concept of memory or passage of time, at least not that we can tell. Maybe she charts time differently than we do. Maybe she’s drawing the memory of us dancing and singing as I talk about it. These lines and marks seem to be becoming her vocabulary, you know, a way for her to express things she can’t articulate in words. Nancy’s not bound by calendars and clocks and words.

We met Michelle this morning, Andy, Nancy, and I. As we were leaving, Michelle said “Goodbye, Nancy” and Nancy reached out and grasped Michelle’s hand, looked her in the face, and said, “I love you.” Nancy’s not bound with societal norms and fears either.

Nancy5

In Expressive Drawing: A Practical Guide to Freeing the Artist Within, Steven Aimone says a drawing is finished when nothing else occurs to you or when you really like what you see.

(It’s true that I occasionally view that frenzied obliteration, those layers and layers of lines in terms of how much time and thread I’m gonna’ need.)

NancyInConvertible

And when you’re finished drawing, it’s time to go to ride in the convertible, of course. Another thing that makes a girl smile.

[ :: ]

The museum exhibit closes tomorrow, so I’m a day early and have nothing to post about in Nina Marie’s Off The Wall Friday, but I’m taking a cue from Nancy and tossing the calendar out the window.

pop quiz: how are these things like my thoughts and ideas?

March 26, 2013 / jeanne / 0 Comments

the falls outside my window

Snow1

Snow5

the tiny snowflakes gently falling

Snow2

good snaps of my (cute) cat
(both in and out of his “fort”)

Snow4

Snow6

Snow3

they’re all plentiful,
easily affected (read: distracted) by outside elements,
and extremely hard to corral and capture.

well, shoot

March 24, 2013 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Forgotten2

i had an idea
that tickled me.
i bought the unlikely thrift shop fabrics
for it:
men’s pajamas
(tops only cause call me crazy,
but i couldn’t
fathom handling where some
strange man’s privates had been).
women’s skirts.
women’s blouses.
all laundered
folded
and ready to be
disassembled
for the great
reassembling.
only in the two weeks
i’ve been gone,
i forgot the idea.

a wish, a big, fat, juicy wish

March 22, 2013 / jeanne / 6 Comments

Treetreasure2

once upon a decade
i wanted him to leap onto his white steed
grab his longest sharpest sword
and gallop off
to lop off the
ugly heads of the man who raped me
and the man who abused me.

in another decade,
i wanted him to say something
anything,
though it had to be anger.
he had to show me
with his words and his tone
and his venom
that he understood
as best he could,
that he hurt for me,
with me.

and now
after 40 years of togetherness
i am content
to have him quietly by my side
saying “you better get started”
to every idea that comes through
my bones.
to have him gently kiss me every night
EVERY night, i tell you.
to have him say the words “i love you”
in more ways than i can count.

it’s not our anniversary.
i usually only write about him on the day we met
or the day we married.
then again
maybe it is an anniversary of sorts.
an anniversary of recognizing
of setting aside
without ever forgetting, mind you.
of publicly declaring
that this man called andy
is number one
and takes up more space in my life than the other despicable men
will claim ever again.

[ ::: ]

i can’t wish it all away for jane doe
it happened
period.
i can’t wish her to set it aside,
this will be with her every hour of every day
of her life.
the best i can do is wish her a husband who may
never be able to talk with her about it
because he can’t fathom how men could
commit these vile acts;
a husband who may squirm when she writes or talks about this,
something she simply must do every now ‘n then;
a husband who might cringe when she yells at the tv
because he can’t go to the store
and buy something to fix,
to repair
what happened to her.

i can
and do
however
wish for her a husband
who,
even after 40 years of togetherness,
takes the dog for a walk and
returns bearing
a lacy leaf
or a heart-shaped rock
or a piece of wood
he thought she would like.

1 stitch, 2 stitch . . . and that’s about the size of it

March 22, 2013 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Differentpaths1

sometimes i think a piece will never get finished.

Budweiser

and then I remember how little I’ve been at home in the templum
since late january

Palmtrees

and i can’t decide whether to be
relieved to have an excuse

Ocean

or annoyed that i can’t seem to get
anything done when traveling..

031913d

i like portability.
but just because it will fit in a bag I can sling over my shoulder

doesn’t mean any forward motion will happen.
i have to work on that.

[ ::: ]

today’s post is an excuse
(signed by my mom, of course, because she’s with me at the beach, you know)
(does this little tidbit help you read between the lines of this post?)
explaining why I have nothing
absolutely nothing
to take off the wall
as part of Nina Marie’s Off The Wall Friday.

sigh.

steeped in a bowl of summertime

February 28, 2013 / jeanne / 0 Comments

GranTurks1

Shed reason and frets so that what is left is a lean asceticism, a looking not at the world but into it.
~ Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

GranTurks2

I used to wonder why the sea was blue at a distance
and green close up
and colorless for that matter in your hands.
A lot of life is like that.
A lot of life is just a matter of learning to like blue.
~ Miriam Pollard, The Listening God

GranTurks3

Colors challenge language to encompass them.
~ Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

Differentpathssamemoon1

Turquoise is the stone of the desert. It is the color of yearning.
~ Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

Differentpathssamemoon4

In some prayers the words for turquoise and water were interchangeable.
~ Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

To protect yourself from lightning, the Navajo say,
wear a bead of turquoise in your hair.
The Navajo divinity Changing Woman,
so named because she is life springing from nothing
and a woman who renews her youth each season,
lives in a house with a turquoise door
and four footprints of turquoise leading to a turquoise room.
Changing Woman looks through binoculars of rock crystal,
the stone of light beams and fire
and a natural ally of turquoise.
~ Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

Differentpathssamemoon5

I have always kept ducks, he said, even as a child,
and the colours of the plumage,
in particular the dark green and snow white,
seemed to me the only possible answers to the questions that are on my mind.
~ W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn