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the Grieving cloth

finished.

001f
now it will rest until the other cloth is finished and then will travel a while.  It will be interesting to have it gone and then return.   We have work to do, this cloth and i, together.   

Much of the scraps that i love are from Deb Lacativa…that greeeeeeeeen damask,  the Sun  and  Moon.  other pieces are plant dye from here, Wind is this last summer's attempt at indigo vat.  the rest recycle scraps from our Thrift Shop.  At the bottom, in left of pic,  7 alternating stitches of black/white thread,  a red thread bead, then one more each black/white.   this will be recognized in michigan.   almost all the fiber figures i used to make had that mark  but made with seed beads,  one african blood bead.  so, things circle around.

001f
here is the ecstatic moment the other day from Jude Hill's Spirit Diaries.   suddenly seeing in a totally different way,  the nature of this damask,  suddenly understanding that i could put those few seemingly random stitches and they would work in a way i'd never imagined.  it doesn't look like much, but it was and IS and will be.

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48 responses to “the Grieving cloth”

  1. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    WOW. woman of wonder. WOW. now i can only say this is beautiful–beauty full. the lines from the grass, the hair, the butterfly legs and then the threads –my eye is gliding around it all in delight. love this movement. and the colors of cloth are sublime. i don’t want to speak in hyperbole, especially about the grieving cloth, but i’m feeling joy and movement here. she is definitely moving on.

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  2. grace Avatar
    grace

    i don’t know what to say yet, really. it’s still
    happening. but what such wrenching grief seems to
    live within is just such Great Love. how to hold them
    both in the same heart? i guess that’s the work.
    moving on…it feel like moving In. in in and in.
    but yes…there is joy.
    “in person”, this cloth is uhhh, pretty organic. the
    background is kind of ummm, well, to be blunt, as my
    daughter would say…dirty. like it was just dragged in.
    and really, it was. it was out in that walnut pot for
    a long time and i didn’t do anything but rinse it and
    hang it to dry. and some of the cloth, like her dress
    is old and faded. the rest, though not so raw, is also
    Used. and obviously so. it’s a really satisfying cloth
    in all those ways. and i love again and again and again
    old well used muslin. India says she is looking at Cotton.
    YES!
    AND, SO HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO VIST AT YOUR BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    The delicate bits are fine–so very fine–and the folding and tucking worked well for you. I’m moved by the face, and the gesture of the figure. and yes. the colors and textures are beautiful indeed. It’s a lovely piece Grace

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  4. grace Avatar
    grace

    Michelle, or shell, as i call you in my mind,
    can there be a lovely piece of Grief too? lovely, a
    word i don’t use…but maybe would for this Grief?
    a Lovely Grief that takes you so far and lives in a
    cloth?

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  5. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Grief, in the pieces of dark cloth. Hope from the illumination of the moon. The earth tones coupled with the grass stitching as well as the movement of the draped bits, speak so strongly to me of the organic flow of life. Those of us who know grief recognize this here; feel the move from despair, bone numbing sadness, relief, anger, to a quiet acceptance, sometimes an ensuing form of action as well as an understanding of reconciliation. Reconciliation takes many forms, including love. I see all of that in this cloth. Would I see this if I had not read your words describing how you came to this cloth, resoundingly yes and that is the strength and beauty of this cloth; simply, it’s truth speaks volumes.

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  6. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    wish I could hug you, just for a little while
    the way you ‘captured’ wind in this cloth, amazing

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  7. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    i love muslin–work with it almost exclusively–and i really resonate with old and faded. it’s a good thing!

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  8. jude Avatar
    jude

    there is a new connection to cloth here. in the wind. and a nice balance between holding and letting go.

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  9. sewing susan Avatar
    sewing susan

    Wrenching grief and Great love. Never would have occurred to me that those words could be paired and find community together. But they do in your beautyfull piece.
    Grace you always are part of the dialogue, commenting on others work and taking risks to share how it is for you with this delightful spontaneous joy.
    So thinking that Wrenching grief and Great love can go together can be paired could be a a wing. Oh my goodness Graceous my heart is oh I don’t know there are not words. Sense of something big and healing.
    Thank you Grace for the grace that you brought me in this moment.
    So glad that you showed a close up of the stitches on the damask. And I disagree they do look like a lot because I know the story of how they got there. And they are just right!

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  10. Doris Avatar
    Doris

    I look at it and I have no words to describe what I feel. Perhaps a sort of ease and softness inside. There is that big triangle like piece of velvet above her head, for me it seems to press on her head but she seems to ignore it and to save her easyness very naturaly.

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  11. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    I don’t have words right now…but want you to know I was here and I looked and I am thinking…

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  12. grace Avatar
    grace

    reconcilliation.
    i am looking closely at that concept….

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  13. grace Avatar
    grace

    i know hugs to be something of great depth…have felt
    some hugs like that
    and i know yours would be of that sort
    Wind here is the true animating force. is coming soon
    after a time of quiet. it is always Wind for me that
    helps me understand the sense that the First People of
    this continent have of the Elementals, that they are
    Beings. Wind here gets breathed in, taken in through
    nostrils, through open mouth as one works at the small
    things of their days. Wind will push and shove the Goats
    will enter the cracks of their shelter and mine.

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  14. grace Avatar
    grace

    that’s the Ultimate
    holding
    letting go
    it’s hard.

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  15. grace Avatar
    grace

    Susan…love to you, for your thoughts, for stretching
    your wing…
    it is new, this pairing for me too.

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  16. grace Avatar
    grace

    your words here are strong and i will need some time
    with them…be back later

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  17. grace Avatar
    grace

    Deb…i know your presence always….

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  18. mimmin dove Avatar
    mimmin dove

    I just keep looking and looking.
    I feel universe and time. Like she is travelling on a slice of deep space, yet she is grounded also. Great movement yet stillness. I don’t know the why but the strong sense of purpose and her wish to honour something are there for me, and oh the stitching on that butterfly…

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  19. majic hands Avatar
    majic hands

    Grace, your cloth is lovely.

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  20. Chris Linton Avatar
    Chris Linton

    I do love this piece. Very moving. I can see how much it means to you.

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  21. grace Avatar
    grace

    the sense of Purpose is important. Determination.
    and the butterfly
    the butterfly that has lit on the head…always such a
    significant image for me…way back, way way back.
    and the butterfly as image itself…the incredible changes
    that are really, if you spend some time with them, really
    hard to believe are true. the caterpillar, the moment
    of beginning chrysalis, the almost death of that and then
    the emergence of the wing~ed form….it’s just as if
    it could not be Real, but it is….~
    and how those winged beings withstand so much…rain,
    hail, great gusting Wind and in the still that follows,
    are there, flitting so as if none of it had occured.

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    OH! here you ARE!….THANK YOU
    and i am so glad to see you!

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  23. grace Avatar
    grace

    Chris…thank you. and as soon as i stop being so
    preoccupied with it i will spend some good long time
    looking at your blog.
    xo

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  24. Cheryl Harper Avatar
    Cheryl Harper

    Hi Grace,
    I’m not always on here, but I do pop in from time to time to see how things are going.
    I’m not as computer savey as most of you. BUT I’m getting better all the time. Just joined facebook with the help of my hubby.
    love your work,
    Hugs cheryl

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  25. ali Avatar
    ali

    Though I have seen this many times, and watched it shift and grow, when I gaze on it today, enlarge it, look for the black and white with red, learn the meaning of that red, look again at faces, wings, I feel so much, and I weep. There is so much love power emotion meaning. It seems nearly alive.

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  26. Chris Linton Avatar
    Chris Linton

    That’s ok grace, different things are important to us at different times.

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  27. grace Avatar
    grace

    i lean against your shoulder and look with you
    love,

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  28. grace Avatar
    grace

    ahhh Facebook. i can’t do facebook.
    thank you and hugs back

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  29. mimmin dove Avatar
    mimmin dove

    ‘the almost death of that’…Your butterfly and words- just poetry. thank you for this

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  30. ali Avatar
    ali

    your presence and love is felt… (but you smell like a goat! : )

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  31. grace Avatar
    grace

    i went to u tube this morning and typed in caterpiller
    making chrysalis and watched a time lapse of a Monarch.
    then the next, the butterfly emerging.
    Then! on the side bar clicked the Coming Home, the cremation of Khandro Lhamo.
    seems i am being flooded with goodness

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  32. grace Avatar
    grace

    ali….then i know that i can “transmit” longdistance.
    i DO often smell like them. it’s funny, i really don’t
    mind it at all. the does have what might be generously
    referred to as a goaty fragrance. the Bucks, well…
    a strong STRONG musk ODOR. when i am going to be doing
    something in the buck pen, i put on what i think of as
    my Haz Mat uniform. it’s those camouflage pants i got
    from the thrift shop last year. they are baggy and can go
    over whatever i am wearing. then, the dear and so loved
    Boro Noragi is now the Buck coat. all this OVER clothing
    and then stripped off inside the door and left on the metal chair for next visit.
    their smell is strong and they know it. it is their
    greatest possession/gift. it is their VOICE. they
    do this thing of a sneeze/spit and mark you that way first and then rub their heads on you as much as they can, while
    making either shrill falsetto or deep gutteral sounds that
    i could never try to describe. and in the end, you are
    thoroughly stinking. so, yes….you are Right.
    but it’s all about
    LOVE

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  33. ali Avatar
    ali

    and care….or are they the same things, love and care?

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  34. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    And in reply to grace as well…. I don’t know how one could possibly know the wrenching grief without the great love. Maybe because I am so experienced with loss. But the two do sit side by side in my heart. And I particularly I like the. Concept, susan, that it could be a wing…. Maybe a pair of wings as in a butterfly which I find evoke love and grief so perfectly.p

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  35. grace Avatar
    grace

    i think they are.
    but after talking to my friend from 7th grade for about
    2 hrs. on phone…she lives in Detroit, Michigan….
    i find that my Mantra is
    I Don’t Know.
    i had called her just to express Solidarity for the Unions
    tomorrow in that state of my birth
    and it went on and on, as it does
    and ended with that same mantra
    I don’t know. I am not sure about anything.

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  36. grace Avatar
    grace

    maybe it’s as Ali said
    love and caring?
    What on Earth do we do with the Caring??????????

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  37. elizabeth fortes Avatar
    elizabeth fortes

    Dear Grace: this is a wonder. It is amazing to imagine what others see in what you or I see.
    Such a courage to bring all this together! Such a determination to face your life’s challenges and to seek to complete your life’s work. I so respect you! Much love, always.
    e.

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  38. ali Avatar
    ali

    Oh, Detroit–I spent much of my childhood in Ohio (I was born in Denver, spent early years there) and then later, after a decade on the east coast, a few years in Chicago and then another decade in Pittsburgh, so I have danced around Michigan a long time, fished and cross-country skied on the Upper Peninsula…I guess I’m telling you this because I know about the struggles of unions and that we are in the midst of another wave of intense union-busting, my own included. You are a good friend to call, to give time, give self–love and care, yes.

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  39. linda Avatar
    linda

    i am quietly here too..
    off to work, but here..

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  40. lynda merry Avatar
    lynda merry

    The way you have described each stitch, each scrap of cloth, the careful placement to convey just the right meaning, says so much about you, your organic love. I resist saying too much. What you have done here really defies the only spoken language I know. I think maybe, at least for me, your work is meant to be seen and felt. This is really beautiful (another word that comes up so short)…

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  41. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    I don’t think we do anything in particular with the caring as such. We care/love and it transforms us. Then we are motivated to action…whatever it takes. Like you with the goats. Whatever they need from you , you provide. Your caring moves you to do so.

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  42. ali Avatar
    ali

    are felt — presence and love are felt –heartfelt!

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  43. KAMFreeman Avatar
    KAMFreeman

    for five days now I have visited this grieving cloth; beautifully compelling me to feel the energy in the stitches, the movement of feeling or so it seems to my spirit. from pain, hurt to healing light. thanks for creating and sharing this piece that continue to sing and song and speak to my heart.

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  44. grace Avatar
    grace

    i think it’s somewhere here that i have a “hitch”…
    and here is where i’m thinking. about what i
    define Action to be. maybe not valuing possible Action,
    always having that bar set so high…actually, so high
    i can’t even tell what it looks like…
    thank you for this good clue…love,

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  45. grace Avatar
    grace

    determination is a very strong part of this story…
    and thank you always for your loving words ~

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  46. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes. i know. i count on that.

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  47. grace Avatar
    grace

    cloth language goes beyond words i think

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  48. grace Avatar
    grace

    thank you Kristen…the work is ongoing, but understood
    better by the making of the cloth.

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