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why?

it doesn't look like i got very far today

003

but, really, i did.      

but a lot of it was thinking.  doing some housekeeping in my mind.  i went to people's blogs,  spent a lot of time at Diaries,  at Spirit Cloth.  then, spent A LOT of time going back on the last few posts here, looking for something that i read, but didn't respond to immediately and i can't find it.

it might have been something Linda said?….for some reason, i think it was you, Linda…but

also it's so "light" in my mind…but this DID teach me to try, really try, to go through each day as it comes, not keep thinking i'll respond to that tomorrow…

anyway

working through feelings about this cloth stuff.  about thoughts about art/Art. 

and what i got to, along with those seemingly so few stitches of the spirit tree, is that for whatever reason,  THIS cloth work is working to express something important to me about myself, myself in this world, at this particular time in my personal life and in the life of the culture i find myself required to live within.  it is not a hobby.  it is not something i do because i don't know what else  to do with my days.  it is not a catharsis.

 

 

 

 

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38 responses to “why?”

  1. KaiteM. Avatar
    KaiteM.

    i think we can all see that grace, that it is NOT just a hobby to while away the spare hours.

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  2. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    i see it/you growing/changing.
    and amen, i spoke very similar words VERY LOUDLY at someone last week.
    “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?!” was the beginning.

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  3. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Yes Grace, I’ve sensed you growing and changing…

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  4. margaret johnson Avatar
    margaret johnson

    Lookin’ good. For me,the need for stitching, making, is like the need for breathing. Now I’m able to make again, the air is sweet. ox

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  5. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    You asked me in a recent comment that I made on your blog,what does cloth want? I answered based on my experience. What would change for you and cloth if you were not required to live in the culture you find yourself within and would it make any difference to the fundamental fact that cloth is an act of breathing for you.

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  6. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Don’t know why my comments are doubled here lately…

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  7. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    I really dislike the word “hobby.”

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  8. Doris Avatar
    Doris

    I can just repeat: I can feel what this cloth means to you just by watching the progress.
    You show us a part of your soul and that is very touching and speaking for me: it opens something inside myself, something starts to flow which was stuck before. For this I´m deeply grateful…

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  9. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    A few years ago I was deeply offended by a gardening customer referring to my art and Rod’s music as our hobbies… grrr I grumbled to myself… but later that night in the dreaming I remembered that I had set out with the intent at 18 when I first left home to make a living from my hobbies… gardening & art in whatever form the dreaming commends & have done so ever since… some say be careful what you wish for, I say go for it!

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  10. jude Avatar
    jude

    remember in the beginning of my blogging, cloth became my life. i know it. and i knew something special was going on as soon as the tree showed up. for me this is grand. really. as your stitch moves through me and down another path. one with more wind.

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  11. Vicky Avatar
    Vicky

    i see this as a path of water too…trees are fed by water…creatures use trees as pathways, besides calling them home. as my cat would race up the trunk of the tree across the street, i would always wonder which branch she would take…there is always so much joy in the race too.

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  12. helen salo Avatar
    helen salo

    NOT catharsis???I would have thought that with all the thought, growth, change that has occured with this cloth and all the moving to get it all just right that it was somewhat catharsis, as it seems it is releasing some emotions and expressions for you. no?? Perhaps I view my own art differently so was surprised by this.

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  13. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    i was talking to myself, i guess.

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  14. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    i love this and love you, my dearest and best little
    sister Cindy. you go! you start every single conversation exactly that way!!!!!! and if anyone has a
    problem with it, tell them to call me.

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  15. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    nancy…i guess something in how i said it or the words
    chosen had more of a meaning than i intended. am going
    to go back and look at this

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  16. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    and sweet air i would wish for you always…love how it
    is happening for you, just just love it

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  17. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    marti, it was kind of a rhetorical question but then,
    i guess extends into this post, doesn’t it.

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  18. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    maybe because they are important?

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  19. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yup. hobby.
    yuck.

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  20. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    i think i need to rethink, rewrite.
    i love your companionship here….so i am deeply grateful
    to you too…..it’s all a circle….

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  21. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    in this context, it works!

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  22. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    the tree……..

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  23. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    if you put your ear to the trunk of a tree, there is
    a sound that is otherworldly
    when i was in a snit, the Maniac would tell me to go
    listen to the tree.

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  24. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    helen…i am going to save this for tomorrow. but i do
    appreciate the question.
    over and over i learn how different it is to communicate
    on a “blog”
    and how i need to refine my lazy ways…so, tomorrow.
    and thanks for your comment

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  25. linda Avatar
    linda

    grace, i don’t know what i said.
    i think since we started stitching we have talked about why and what it is.
    it has changed our lives. remember i wrote about someone calling it cute?
    it is putting ourselves into cloth.
    love your cloth and the tree and the writing..
    and you

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  26. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    you are the big sister i always dreamed of- fierce and fabulous!
    and it came today & it’s perfect-dots, wings, stitch, story & all- thank you!

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  27. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    well, i went back back back back in the email inbox today
    and looked at everything you’ve sent for a long time
    until i felt dizzy. so whatever it is, we will trust
    it will come up again…
    thank you for all the loves. and they circle around.

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  28. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    no. not catharsis. or, at least in the way i use the
    term.
    OR not in the way i want the cloth to “speak”? i was/am
    hoping it is more uhhhhhh, about the Whole of Things.
    how i see/feel that, not
    personal, so much. ????
    it is more to me like trying to see how i am RELATED
    to what is present on/in the cloth…and how those things
    And my self, are not tethered to specific place or
    specifc entities.
    and writing this, nudges my memory about the comment i
    thought Linda wrote…..it had something to do with this
    cloth NOT being so much about this one place…NM
    but could speak to any place, any time.
    ????? don’t know. this might just make things even more
    tangled. hmmmm.
    but i think the appearance of the tree is talking about
    this.
    i guess if i was making a cloth that felt like cathartic, it would be like a little Shrine cloth. i had thought of
    doing that at one point, way back in the beginning. in
    the Spirit Cloth class.
    and…more about the Why?, i really feel like i am
    working/learning all that Jude is teaching as i would if
    i had enrolled in the Art program at UNM. i take it that
    seriously. i am a STUDENT. i am deep in the Study of
    Spirit Cloth, just as i would if i were in the Fine Arts
    programs……..
    oh, so, love, Helen….

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  29. nance Avatar
    nance

    because some have named what you do as hobby … in the past?

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  30. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    no…but you know, we all know. it’s
    cloth.
    how do you describe it?
    even to yourself?
    it’s not a quilt. i have no interest in quilting. never
    did.
    so, it’s collage, but with cloth, not mixed media.
    ok. i need to go back over to jude’s post and see what
    she wrote in her response to my comment…that’s what
    prompted this post here. i’ll go look and be back in a
    minute.

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  31. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    don’t go way

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  32. helen Avatar
    helen

    Grace, believe it or not you explained this quite well. The being a part of the whole and how you relate to it and not so personal as it is. It seems to be more about the cloth and your journey of what it and Jude can/have taught you and thus your growth and change from that. Then I an see it not as catharsis. Yes, I will agree sometimes it is very hard to explain on the computer and I shouldn’t even challenge it, but you did clear it up, and I believe I understand it better. Thanks.

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  33. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    OK.
    it was in my comment to Jude’s Birth of Coma 2, way down
    by the bottom where i said
    that looking at this image of Coma 2 and then looking
    at the Diaries cloth on this wall…and seeing it as
    almost a “cartoon” in comparison…
    and Jude responded
    “it s not the cloth that becomes a cartoon, it is the context that some might put it in if they can’t hear your voice. even if that is your own self”.
    EVEN IF THAT IS YOUR OWN SELF
    that is what i was thinking through when i wrote this
    post. The question of Why was really to my own self.
    as i said in the thread on Spirit Cloth, i felt like
    thinking that, having that response, making that comparison was a BETRAYAL of my cloth, i felt so bad.

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  34. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    oh helen, YES! about
    the cloth
    about CLOTH MAKING
    about how cloth is a true medium that can express
    the human experience just as can paint, sculpture, etc.
    yes yes yes.
    and yes again, it IS i think so hard to know how things
    come across this way and Bless Your Heart for allowing
    me to clarify something…to you, yes, but also to my
    Self. that was the point of this post, to identify
    some kind of Marker in my thinking, my understanding
    or effort to understand. this blog being first a foremost
    a way of witnessing it all. my mind is so FULL. sometime
    i will go back and look and see where i have come from.
    SO, dear Helen, i thank you enormously for your heartfelt
    question. and i think if we question each other, we just
    get clearer and clearer. as i said to Nance, above, i need to clarify for myself. that will make my clothmaking more honest a communication if it can be.
    xoxoxo

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  35. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    I don’t know what it is really, just the way you are making cloth – still questioning…but at the same time settled in to your identity. Maybe that is it.

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  36. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    To me ‘hobby’ is like ‘cute’…not about the real work and soul of it.
    PLUS…
    I never hear that word without hearing this ‘bit’ in my head. It is from a very funny record I grew up listening to, titled “You Don’t Have to be Jewish”…give a listen..
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j56hhPyEz-g&feature=related

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  37. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Fierce and Fabulous!….who ever would have thought!
    ahh yes. the little coyote magic. they run the Rim.
    it took forever to decide what to send. good then.
    i would make you a whole little sister Suit of it if i
    had enough….you could wear it with your wrist cuff.

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  38. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    if i had a suit of it, i would be fierce and fabulous!!! i’m going to enjoy imagining that whenever i look at it- another wonderful thought going into “core”. thank you.xxx

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