Success!

This afternoon I completed a huge part of my project: THAT TAPESTRY! 

I had anticipated it taking another day to finish, but a few hours proved sufficient time. I'M SO RELIEVED! I have made real, measurable progress. The tapestry is woven. There's a second one, but it won't take long. Next comes darning in a few ends and overdyeing, but that's easy stuff. It's a big step toward completing the residency project, and I feel very good about it. 

Here are a few photos of what I was doing before my last sad post, and this week I'll show you what the finished tapestry looks like. 

Scribbly notes for colour planning and dye measurements. The notes are thorough, but you have to keep in mind I adjust colour on the fly, so my notes are somewhat inaccurate. You get the gist of what's happening though.

Dye pots at work! I used combinations of pomegranate, kamala, and madder, to create a gradation of oranges. It smelled so nice while cooking...

Madder with mystery yarn.

The two back burners are fresh dye extractions, and I'm steaming three eucalyptus bundles (silk handkerchiefs!) in the third pot. The hankies were moderately successful. Next time I'll steam for two hours and let the bundles cool for a day or two before I rip them open.

Leftover balls of dyestuff! I'm saving this to overdye the tapestry.

And now for something completely different, warp reelings! Margaret Jane brought in this year's pantone colours in cotton so we could test them out. I'd forgotten just how exciting it is to play with colours. It's a great creative exercise and it gets you out of "your colours". 

The success of today (plus a fun shopping trip with Jennifer), coupled with hard work (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques) over the past week, has shaken off the black dog today. I feel like my regular self, and I want to continue feeling like this. 

Explanations

It's a new month and that means LONG OVERDUE UPDATES ARE BEING COMPOSED AND SOON YOU'LL KNOW WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING!


Have I been locked in a creative frenzy with barely enough time to eat or sleep? Have I been struck down by some horrible illness? Did I take a road trip to some place gorgeous?


The answer is "no" to all three wild speculations, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing. You see, it's March and I've got a month left of my residency to pull together ideas and materials into some cohesively marvelous objet d'art. There's two tapestries that need finishing, books to find and purchase, dolls to find, applications to fill out... Plus apartment and job hunting, planning for the next year, etc. There's a little stress there. 


There's a necessary and bad retail job to tolerate. 


And there's a whole tonne of brain chemistry that's been making all of this incredibly difficult to sort out and push through. 


I've been trying to find a way to tactfully say circumstances and chemistry beyond my control are adversely affecting my ability to be creative and happy. That's why this post took so long to birth. How much to my theoretical readers need to know? How much do I WANT my theoretical readers to know? Should I be honest, or ignore my hardship and focus on the few things I've done recently? And what if all the important work I've done recently is inextricable from the hardship? What do I say to you then?


This is my creative journey, my life journey, and all of these things are tied together into some messy weird knot of existence... 


So... Well, living here has forced me to take action against my struggle with anxiety and depression. It's the greatest and most difficult gift this town has given me. I've railed against nearly every aspect of this town, but I think a lot of that was me deflecting anger at the internal stuff, you know? Back home there were enough distractions to make living with the black dog doable, but here, with those familiar things stripped away, it was just me, the dog, and a town full of strangers. Easier to blame external factors than to sit down and take a good hard look at my own behaviours and thoughts. 


I'm in treatment now, and while it's still too early to feel changes in thought patterns and habits, I will say it's put a lot of things into perspective for me, and I feel more connected to my friends and loved ones as a result. I have hope that I'll finish this residency and summer in good health, with the tools I need to put my good constructive thoughts into action, and to live a happy creative life, and to finally make all of these things I currently don't have the energy and motivation to make. 


Depression's a terrible, ugly, insidious motherfucker. It's something I'm dealing with, and for now, it's an unavoidable part of the context of my actions and artwork. I don't want it, one tiny aspect of who I am, to be so prominent in my journey, but we don't get to choose when to learn Important Life Lessons. They come up and we deal with them or not. I'm dealing with this one. No more black dog and all the energy-sucking, motivation crumbling, cry-face emptiness that goes with it. I'm sick of it. And I hope that in writing this, and by being a more vocal advocate for mental health illnesses and issues, someone feels a connection and seeks help for their own problems. It's hard to admit you need help, but it'll be worth it. 


I will finish up these projects and this residency on time, and there'll be posts later this week filling you in on February's progress. 


A la prochaine...

Pulse

I'm so pleased by the progress I'm making and the shape of the project so far. I know it looks like a weird blobby-beige thing - don't be so nervous, it's supposed to look like that for now - but the accumulation of hundreds of tiny steps will eventually be coherent and beautiful. 

Living an inspired and strange life is a continuing priority, so I spent Saturday evening building a blanket fort in the living room. In a house like this, full of beautiful rugs and old chairs, the fort seemed more like a Berber tent or a Mongolian yurt. And with Bjork's latest album blaring at nearly full volume (as if the collection of odd furniture and my own strange costume [because you can't be in a blanket fort without a costume] weren't enough...), I made myself at home. 

Q: Why would an adult build a blanket fort, dress up in odd clothes, and dance around like a little kid for an evening? 

A: I like making blanket forts. I don't want to be bored. I want to change my perception of this space and these objects. I want to transport myself to a new land. I want to be my witchy shapeshifter self, and what better way than to do that, what better way to refresh imagination/spirit/body than to build a new home and live there for a while? 

to top it off, we're getting even more snow tonight!

Continuing that train of thought, what will I accomplish this week that will refresh my imagination and uphold my responsibilities?

1. Pull together my artist talk presentation and have it a polished gem by Wednesday

2. Practice 6 days of yoga without skipping a day...

3. Practice painting

4. Curate a collection of animals

5. Turn that coconut hull into something

 

What Have I Been Doing?

My nail is ugly but healed, and I should have been writing by now. A lot has changed and a lot hasn't changed around here. Moods fluctuate, the temperature has been mild, and the holidays are right around the corner. Let's make a nice tidy list to make sure nothing gets left out:


1. It's been difficult to get to the studio, what with my precarious financial situation requiring more hours at the shoe shop than at the workbench. I'm okay with how that's worked. It's not ideal (really, winning the lotto or marrying rich would be ideal), but it's temporary and I can handle temporary. 


2. What have I been making? Not a whole lot, to be honest. I've prepared the loom for weaving after Christmas, dyed a few skeins of yarn, and began working on a present for my grandparents. I've started drawing again. I've made mind maps. Overall, December has not been a productive month for me. 


Which leads me to a redefinition of the word "productive". I feel guilty when I don't put in enough studio hours, when I spend more evenings watching movies or reading than making tangible things, when I work on little things instead of the Big Important Objects. People like to see Big Important Objects, and I do too. The problem with being obsessed with making Large Things, or expending large amounts of energy on one thing, is that when I shift gears and spend more time and energy on the smaller projects and inspiration-gathering, it becomes more difficult to measure what it is you're doing. 


I've got a week in Burlington before heading home for the holidays. A 34 hour work week, a visit-friends-in-the-city week, a pack/clean/write/mail/eat week. I'm going to spend time this week making goals for the next year. Here's how they're shaping up:


1. Love more: Accept the natural creative highs and lows of artlife, worry less about being in a town that doesn't suit me, learn about heritage, cultivate a strong voice. 


2. Wear silk undergarments, or pretend all my undergarments are silk.


3. My life, at times, is a lot like a Wes Anderson movie. Run with it. 


4. Land at least 3 exhibitions this year. 






These Resolutions are still in progress, but I like them. I like heading home for the holidays even more though. SEVEN DAYS! SEVEN! 

A Lot of Words

I always intend on writing a quick post, but ideas happen and then I've got too many things that I want to say and not enough patience. 


First up: the Burlington Art Centre's Christmas sale and soup bowl fundraiser is happening tomorrow through to Sunday. There's some wicked work being sold, some of which is mine! BUY MY STUFF BECAUSE I NEED TO PAY OFF THE PLANE TICKET HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!


In a roundabout way it connects to my next thought, which is the Improved Mental State I'm experiencing. In the days following my last post (I know, it hasn't been long) I've started to feel better. Better about my relationship with the studio/this town/this program. I'm making an effort to set boundaries in the studio to preserve my time and energy, and I'm reaching out to family, friends, and mentors back home.  


I've also booked my flight home for Christmas. 


Monday night precipitated a massive shift in how I address some of pent-up studio anxiety and I felt good enough to work all day Tuesday and return in the evening. There was a weaving night class, and I was taken aback by how nice it felt to be working near a school-type setting. I chatted with a few students (madame, c'etait une plaisir de vous parler, meme si mon Francais est pitoyable compare a la votre) and settled in to work. It felt a little like being back home :)


I've been dreaming up a new direction for the project, and I'm playing with a couple of ideas. A piece relating to my experiences here feels right, but until last night the details were slippery. I wanted to incorporate dye experiments, some sort of imagery... plants and elephants and other things, weaving, the failed blanket story project, maybe rug hooking, handspun yarn, surface embellishment, some reference to personal growth, etc. Ideally the piece(s) would be easy to ship. 


So... Gifts. That's all I'm going to say for now.  


Now I'm facing the reality of having charges for a plane ticket home for the holidays on my credit card. It's painful to look at, but it doesn't matter because later in December I get to see the most handsome cat in the world, spend much needed time with my kooky and wonderful siblings and parents and friends, and I get to eat a stupid amount of fantastic food that I neither have to make nor pay for. I'm going to need new pants. I do need new pants anyway, but these ones will have to be larger. 


I came across a notion in a book I'm reading, regarding double-lives. The paragraph in question speaks specifically about the tendency of some Witches/pagans/folks of alternative religious leaning/etc. to hide that aspect of their life, whether to ensure job security or avoid being ostracized or ridiculed. The argument was that this fragmentation/segregation of the whole was detrimental and that only by fighting for a whole acceptance of the self could a person truly have a free, strong identity. Or something like that. 


It seemed like an affirmation of the Big Life Lesson I struggle with (speaking about what is important to me). I shouldn't have to stifle my voice for fear of negative confrontation. In the past couple of days I've seen just how much life and general outlook can change when you make your feelings known. 


I can't wait to incorporate this into my work. 


One last thing: I found ingredients in the cupboard and made veggie sushi tonight. It's amazing. 

Updates and Life Lessons

A lot has happened since my last post about migraines and red bugs. I:


- Went to Toronto for a day. It feels so much more like home than Burlington. I drank great coffee, toured through the textile museum, bought fine paper, and had fun picking out goatskin for a little side project. 


- Learned that food colouring is food-grade aniline dye. That's coal tar, baby. Coal tar in your food. That chat was actually the second-most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. Forced into, like when your grandmother made you talk to her friends at the supermarket when all you wanted to do was buy jam.


- Realized that a lot of people here don't take me seriously, probably because I am young. We'll come back to this in a minute.


- Made beautiful, beautiful grey from walnuts. 


- Went on a hectic one day road trip to Montreal to see the Gaultier retrospective. High fashion and chocolate mousse were well worth 14 hours in a car.    


- Got a bike! It's an old 5-speed cruiser. Heavy and gorgeous as any cruiser can be. Handles like a dream. 


- Organized a natural dye demo for this Wednesday and was subsequently embroiled in the most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. It was actually an email exchange that I had to step away from, even though that meant letting someone else win...




I've been feeling for a while now that I'm treated differently because of my age. To be specific, I'm treated like a kid instead of a fully capable, educated adult. It's a weird thing to think about and maddening to experience, and in almost every iteration of defining it to others I sound like an unappreciative jackass. I do value the help and guidance I'm receiving! I DO! But there's a difference between support and hand-holding, and these hands do not want or need to be held.    


I was very much looking forward to being creatively challenged during this residency, but I didn't foresee every other punch thrown my way. Being an AIR here is trying my patience, my emotional strength, my grace, my ability to adapt, my common sense, my ideas of what I want to do with my life and whom I want to do it with, my budgeting skills, my faith in the universe, my bonds with the people I love, and so much more. 


I imagine, after six months of being irked and goaded and babied, there will be nothing left to bother me. I will be as tranquil as the moon. Direct as an arrow. More resilient than stone. Slower to anger than a glacier.