Tag: in our own language 1 (Page 12 of 17)

I hand her the pen, slide the paper in front of her, and she draws.

Then I stitch:

And snap photos. Today’s photo is taken on a squash plant in the garden my husband has cultivated this year. Or maybe it has cultivated him. You know how that goes.

Nancy’s daddy – my father-in-law – told me repeatedly that I make too much of things. An engineer by nature and by training, having me for a daughter-in-law was rather a shock to his system, me and my questions like “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and what would your leaves look like and how would you spend your days?” (which was one of the easiest, most elementary questions I asked him). He perplexed me, D did, and sometimes he annoyed me, but like any well-written piece of music, by the end of the score, everything resolved into an enjoyable, respectful, I don’t think “loving” would be too big of a stretch, relationship. But every time my fingers hover over the keys that would tell you what I’m seeing and sensing and feeling about a particular drawing or this project in general, I’d hear his voice saying those words from way back before the resolution part of the music, and I’d shush myself and cower.

I dreamed about him last night – D, my children called him. Andy and I were visiting D at his house, as was Donn (Andy and Nancy’s brother). I remember the house being very interesting from an architectural standpoint, and there was conversation, but I don’t recall anything that was said, just that we talked and it was amicable enough. The garage was underground, and ginormous hydraulic lifts – I remember there being three of them – raised the cars to ground level so we could drive off. While we were down preparing to put the cars on the lifts to take our leave, I thought of something I wanted to tell D, but when I looked down at the floor of the garage in the direction I needed to go to go back inside the house, there weren’t just oil spots, there were oil puddles – maybe even oil oceans – and there I was, wearing my size 5.5 white Keds. Every now and then, there was a dry spot of concrete, so I hopped, skipped, and leapt my way through the oil without getting any on me, and as I made my way through, I thought “See, playing hop scotch really paid off.”

And as I woke up (we’re back to real life now), something shifted – or maybe it snapped – it’s hard to tell. I came into the studio and wrote and wrote and wrote about all of this and just as I wrote the last sentence in my declaration, my womanifesto, what do you think happened as I laid the pen down? I looked up to see a hummingbird flying right in front of the window before me and take a seat on the Sunday-Makes-A-Week’s-Worth clothesline. I may not fully understand the dream yet, but I totally get the hummingbird action.

So let me tell you what I see in this one (which may or may not be what you see): I see a woman’s face, her profile, really. She has a pointy chin and nose, interesting lips that are smiling, I think, and eyes on the top of her head (which is not to be confused with eyes in the back of her head). Oh, and she has to-die-for long eyelashes, too.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. WATCH THIS:

When I turn #52 upside over (which is kinda’ the way I do everything in life, if you want to know the truth), I see a male with a mustache and receding eyes. His big head sits perched atop his miniaturized body, his head and body supported by his rather large-but-then-they’d-need-to-be-to-support-him feet. He’s talking – loudly, it would seem. Or maybe he’s pontificating or scolding or admonishing. Whatever he’s doing, his lips are moving and he’s putting some real air behind it, but I can’t make out a single word he’s saying.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

First, she draws:

Then, I stitch:

No, I’m not going gaudy on you, it’s just that I have this vision of these cloths filling the trees around me, flapping in the breeze from the limbs, but how to get them to stay on the limbs? That’s the question that stymied me . . . until last Friday when the light bulb went off. In the thrift shop. Where I spied these necklaces that will soon become buttons. That will hold the ribbon or thread or strip of fabric or whatever that will become wings. Sorta.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Karen Sharp articulated the distinction between conveying and expressing. If Nancy is trying to convey something, that implies that she wants to elicit a certain response or interpretation from the viewer, but if she’s expressing, she is unattached to the response or interpretation from any viewer. She is unencumbered and able to commit to creating her art without That seems right to me, expression.

Her drawing:

My stitched rendition:

And here’s a week’s worth:

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Non-representational art is about process, says Jean Banes, at the Florida Museum of Women Artists the day after Nancy made these drawings. “Abstract art takes a recognizable object and distorts it, non-representational art is pure process.”

I’m no art historian, but I have begun doing a bit of reading on non-representational art. Seems it has no defined subject, relying on line, form, and color to evoke a response from the viewer. Representational artists use techniques like shading; non-representational artists don’t really bother with perspective. According to her artist statement, Jean Banes’ work “communicates a sense of mystery, a feeling that cannot be fully understood or explained.” I’m just getting started.

Note: No poison ivy was harmed in the snapping of this photo.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

This is the 41st drawing she did:

And this is the 41st stitching I did:

Nancy is not what you’d call a pet lover, though she will occasionally pat the cats or dog on cue. Our cats are bad to run figure 8’s around our feet, and I swear they are trying to kill or at least maim us. When Nancy comes to visit, the animals don’t completely disappear and avoid her, but they also give her space to walk, as though they understand how easily they could hurt her.

Here’s Xanax in his favorite position:

And Adonis having fun dressing up (he LOVES playing dress up, seriously):

And my granddog Otto, obviously a nervous, apprehensive sort:

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Here’s her drawing du jour:

And here’s my stitching du jour,
featuring my grandcats (at bathtime)
Adonis (the big gray boy, a.k.a. The Bather)
and Zanax (the butterscotch wiry boy, a.k.a. The Bathee)
as Envoys:

Now listen,
I’ve got a surprise for you tonight.
Lookie what happens
when you turn #40 upside over.
(Yes, it’s still bathtime.)

Wait for it . . .

A mountain goat,
right down to the eyeball.
Sure looks like a mountain goat to me,
employing the sticky on the bottom of her feet
so she can stand on the side of the mountain
without falling.

Isn’t that fun?
Doesn’t that just tickle you?
Did Nancy draw that deliberately?
Maybe.
Maybe so.
That’s sure a distinct possibility,
as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll tell you one thing:
when we are surprised at anything
people with disabilities do,
I think it says more about us
than them.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

First comes Nancy’s drawing:

Then comes my stitching:

Wisps of questions begin to surface,
fragments of recognitions appear.
All come in the form of words
that are still indecipherable
but slowly becoming known.
Till then, I rely on the words of others.
Tonight, a piece from Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye
seems to fit quite nicely:

Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers–silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

We start with this from Nancy:

Then there’s this from me:

And all at once, that’s it; we no longer know
what it’s all about, but we are deep inside it,
and now we will never see with the same eyes.

from Emerging by
Pablo Neruda

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Nancy does this:

And I do this:

My translation may not be yours:
translation is a tricky business.
~ Catherine Harper

~~~~~~~~~

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.

I started this project 43 days ago today, and I am still loving it. And I haven’t missed a day of stitching/posting. Though it added a something else to do in days already bulging with tasks of love and loathe, it has strangely given a rhythm to my days, something I’ve longed for since last November when Andy retired. (Of course it also helps that I turned many of my work-in-the-family-business responsibilities over to him and it helps even more that he graciously agreed to take them on.) I am still thoroughly enjoying this project. I look forward to each day’s stitching, and sometimes – every now and then – I look forward to when they’ve all been stitched.

Which will be a while because left to right: stitched, ready to be stitched, waiting to be readied to be stitched. And those journals above the 3 stacks? Those are the journals she filled with more drawings when we went to visit her two weeks ago.

Here’s today’s drawing:

And today’s stitching:

And here are the panels I stitched last week. (I’ll eventually get myself back on track and post them in order drawn. I’m not sure that makes a difference, but I sense it does.)

~~~~~~~~~

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.