Obstacles and Elephants

I try to focus on the positive in my blog, but lately it's been damned difficult to do. I feel isolated, I sorely lack the dynamic critical dialogue and creative sharing of my old community, I'm uninterested in this project, and uninspired among other things. 


It came to a head on Thursday or Friday and I just didn't know what to do. I'd spent the last couple of weeks dragging my sorry ass from the studio to work, moping around, working up the energy to get out of bed, and living in a bad state. I knew what was wrong, and I knew there were more things out of place that I couldn't define, but I couldn't see a way out this whole mess. 


Lesson #1: Calm the fuck down and call someone.
I called my dad and cried a lot. Again. This has been happening frequently since I've moved here. My dad put the situation in simple terms: either pack up and leave, or find some way to get what I need from other sources and make it to the end. I also spoke with two other friends in the following days.


Lesson #2: Your friends are there for you. Just call them. 
The day after I skyped with my amazing friend and mentor, WhiteFeather. It had been a while since we spoke. Seeing a friendly face and hearing a friendly voice made me feel so, so much better. Hearing about her own experiences with residencies and creative/emotional/huge life challenges put my experiences in perspective and gave me maybe not courage, but at least a little bit of hope. Hope that I could change my attitude towards this place and get through this residency with some modicum of sanity.


I called another friend today and after we hit disconnect I knew that phone calls, skype, emails, and letters were going to be my salvation in this suburban hermitage. I simply do not have a community here, so I'll just have to maintain long-distance relationships, and visit Toronto whenever finances permit. 


Lesson #3: I can change my mind! 
An ongoing lesson for me has been giving myself permission. Permission to change my mind, to do what I want, to be inspired or uninspired by an idea, to let go of what doesn't work for me, to not hold myself to imaginary obligations. Yesterday evening I was feeling okay with this re-revelation, probably a little more empowered than usual, and began shouting in the kitchen. Not angry shouting, but empowered, soul-affirming, backbone-building mantras at gradually increasing amplitudes.  


Development of the Will and Voice is liberating and important.


Dropping a dead idea is too.


Lesson #4: Ganesha.
I took it as a sign of easy times to come when I found a little statue of Ganesha in the house I'm living in. I knew him then solely as the Remover of Obstacles. I vividly remember finding the statue and thinking that I'd come to the end all the SHIT I had to push through in the past year. "Fuck yeah! Finally caught a break!" Now I know that there is still healing to be done, confidence and vision to hone, and my current situation is simply an intense and finite space in which to fix that shit. 

That being said, I anticipate the next three and a half months to be no less difficult than the past two and a half. I expect to feel isolated here, lonely, angry (occasionally without warrant), depressed, uninspired, and frustrated. 

Knowing when to shift gears, changing my project parameters, and talking more often to good artists and friends back home and in Toronto is what's going to make the aforementioned suffering worthwhile for me. 

Reflections

I certainly can't claim to speak for all weavers, but I do believe that some of us find meditation in weaving and a perhaps even a type of spirituality in the repetitious processes. 


During my first two years, maybe three, of college, the deep concentration and stillness of weaving came close to the awe of looking up at a night sky free from light pollution, or the brilliant life in the vast spruce forests of my childhood. Weaving, spinning, felting, sewing and dyeing became my mental anchors when other aspects of my life were in chaos. Over these few years my hands have learned new skills and I've stretched into the territory of fine art, but my practice always returns to the deceptively simple manipulation of fibre. 


There is balance in weaving. A balance between physical effort and acute focus, a constant rechecking of position and pattern and tension and beat. It is outrageously complex and completely mesmerizing. There are epiphanies. There are heartbreaks. All the while you are allowing the thread to speak to you, and you, in a quiet trance, listen and respond with your whole body. You are a part of the loom and your essence is in the cloth.