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need to GO forward

out of the blue had an exchange with an old friend from Michigan.  She taught Art in the public schools and is an artist herself.  Graphite and oils.   Drawing and Painting.   I've never shown her what i am doing now,  she knows me from my Art Doll days.  She has some.  She emailed because she was somewhere in town and looked out of the window of that house and saw in the window of the house across the street, Two of the Fiber Figures that i'd made.  So i thought i'd send her some pics

 

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This is what i make.

To be honest,  i am still grappling with that thing of Useful.   I'd like to not be.  I'd like to give it up.  I'd like to come to some kind of personal conclusion.  Everyone can come to their own personal conclusion.  I'd like to come to mine.  It's time.   

I don't want to make quilts.  I don't want to make pillow covers.  I don't want to make book marks or clothing.   I just want to make these things i make.  They are not "useful" i guess.  but

so what.

they are what i make.

and as i was working away,  cleaning someone's house,  being useful and coming away with $65 ,  i thought.

What's the difference here?  and my thinking might be very flawed,  have lots of holes,  but it was interesting to me.  Does someone Ever Say   that's a good drawing.  But how could it be Useful.  Can you figure out a way to make it into a pillow cover?

or

That's a nice poem.  it's really,  a GOOD poem,  but can you think of a way to make it into a blanket? make it useful?

Substitute sculpture,  substitute metal work,  substitute clay 

Substitute anything….   Is Utilitarian the Ultimate?  

so this is what i'm thinking about.  I am tired of thinking about it.  I'd like to come to some kind of conclusion and then Just Go.   

 

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the Old Woman Apricot tree is setting blooms.  Like she does.  Every year.  almost always too soon.  There will be another Frost,  another Snow even,  more Fierce WIND,  and almost always they will be for naught.  No fruits from them.  

BUT

they come early.  Really, the first for

the Bees  who have woken.  and are hungry

if nothing else,  she feeds the bees

 

 

 

 

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23 responses to “need to GO forward”

  1. deb lacativa Avatar
    deb lacativa

    Imagine those bees delight!

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  2. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    redefine useful. . . . .healing, communicating,connecting, expressing, evolving, catching, no less than everything travelling songlines these days. . .how could it not be useful? GO

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  3. ² Avatar
    ²

    is there more the ” old woman apricot ” can do ?
    i’m sure feeding the bees and given the beauty of a living tree who show it by early spring flowers
    Oooo yes … can use it .. not in a material way of a quilt or pillow cover , but … in the quilt of beauty in my heads memory
    Close my eyes and see it , it’s All there , yes your little cloth making is also use full for my eyes , my heart , my life , the energetic memory of the making ART ” stays ” in good days and dark days they healt my suoul .
    All the things people make in beauty do it
    thank you all , where ever you life and make our world in connecting / communicating beauty
    so Go and do wath you DO … and go OUT of your head stay in your heart and breath the beauty in , the beauty of LOVE

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  4. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Brings to mind the phrase ‘oft heard from old folks about worry…”What’s the use of worry?” – what’s worry for? Try compassion for the maker, for the blossoms that might wither, and remember the happiness of bees. Who knows where our small ripples travel and what good they do. Does it matter? Is delight a commodity on the open market? I think not.

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  5. debbie.weaver Avatar
    debbie.weaver

    I have the same problem with my work, should it be useful, but then how many bookmarks and cushions do we need. Isn’t it just as useful to have something beautiful to look at that we get pleasure from, that we can feel, that shows love and joy in the making and brings us peaceful, happy thoughts.

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  6. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    Couple things…
    If someone is cold of course the priority should be a blanket or clothes but if someone’s soul is empty or their mind needs something to chew on then of course a poem or a piece of art will be useful. Everything can meet a need, has value. Having said that, for myself, time is limited. I pretty much only am going to make something that fills a physical need and that helps create less waste in the world. And I am going to try to make that “something” beautiful to help feed my soul. I don’t believe this has to be everyone’s answer, or even should be, it’s just mine.
    Maybe part of the answer is there…you have time and your other needs are met. By creating things of interest and beauty you feed your soul in the making, others in the sharing and the goats. Good enough.
    The apricot tree is enough too (enough is my word at the moment 🙂 ).
    Because of my current reading I am seeing a parallel between individuals that don’t have children but still care for the world in other ways and your apricot tree. Saw my first bumble bee for the year in the garden yesterday.

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  7. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Maria, your words are beautifully said and go right to the heart of why we make what we make. Thank you for putting them here.
    grace, I would only add this: does your cloth making bring you JOY and if the answer is yes, no more need be asked, questioned or said.

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  8. Marie Del Vecchio Avatar
    Marie Del Vecchio

    I once heard a Zen monk define the term Roshi as meaning “useless one” I often think of that and the grand meaning/mystery arises so easily. Attached to it is joy; like that of a child.

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  9. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    your work holds such a sense of the spirit of place from your raft in the desert
    love Judy Martin’s poetic perspective on process and time
    http://judys-pinwall.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/time-passes.html
    especially this line-
    “sewing as an activity opposes acceleration”
    this helps me understand the difference between the gestural mark made with pen and ink or a pencil and the quiet in and out of stitching a line in time]
    BTW every medium can be worked from both a craft & art perspective, paper, cloth, string, glass, metal ceramics, wood, bone, plastic, etc etc all can be used for functional and non functional work depending on the artist’s response to the material and what the work is saying

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  10. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    Nodding with knowing some of this. was looking at a stack of unfinished stitching yesterday, feeling dismay & thinking about all the time in the unfinished making…wasted? But then thought, “I have a need to Make” to have places where imagination and soul can spill out- whether in cloth, or telling the students a story. So, I Make, maybe not Finish all of the time. And that fills me, leaving me with more to give where needed- to the family I live with, the students at math time, etc. & being a fuller human out in the world…and they’re all welcome.

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  11. grace Avatar
    grace

    today….more and more and more. the whole place is abuzz

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  12. Peggy Avatar
    Peggy

    Your work is just beautiful and I loved reading this, dear Grace. I wonder about some of the exact same things. xx

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  13. grace Avatar
    grace

    how could it not be useful?
    this puts it all in a slightly different light, doesn’t it….

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  14. grace Avatar
    grace

    this is beauty Full, Maria….
    ” the energetic memory of the making”
    the energetic memory of the making.

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  15. grace Avatar
    grace

    it Does, but you know, we continue to continue until
    it becomes done.
    or, it is the way of some of us…..

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  16. grace Avatar
    grace

    does it matter
    this is the question i ask self.

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  17. grace Avatar
    grace

    back to this oft said thing of it being
    simply the
    Making. The Making is an Entity, a phenomenon
    something Living

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  18. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes. it’s particular to each person.
    the comforter i use on my bed is a commercial Cotton one, that
    i bought at one of the Animal Shelter Yard Sales maybe hmmm,
    15 years ago or more. It’s the perfect size, warm enough and
    remains in like new shape. So i don’t NEED another blanket.
    The big couch pillows have covers i made over the years that are
    all fine and i like them so much still. Then there’s that denim
    futon cover that i made in the beginning of Spirit Cloth for me.
    It’s like iron and will last many lifetimes.
    Clothing. well…it’s minimal…i don’t need too much, not
    needing work clothes. and the Thrift Shop replaces anything
    that simply falls apart. I still have the socks from you for
    “dress up”. So…yes. i don’t NEED anything.
    and yes i NEED to
    Make. it IS a need. and i love making the collage stories.
    Enough is a good good word.
    am interested in that book even tho i did have children. I
    could have easily, i think, been one to have made a different
    choice if i’d really thought that choice was an option at the
    time….will try to get it from the library
    LOVE to you

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  19. grace Avatar
    grace

    Marie, THANK YOU so MUCH for this…you cannot have any
    idea how happy it made to read it….have never heard this
    before….
    THANK YOU and thank you for coming here, please be Welcome
    Love

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  20. grace Avatar
    grace

    every medium, yes, but where i didn’t quite get to is how
    Cloth is somehow so easily identified as utilitarian, as
    household FIRST. am still thinking about this

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  21. grace Avatar
    grace

    things i begin generally keep going until they are finished…
    just naturally goes that way
    and maybe that’s part of my question to my self…i don’t have
    that larger world to “Give where needed”… i am past that
    now, ???????

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    i think they are good and natural things to Wonder, but
    really, more and more i feel like i’d like to just decide
    and GO. I think i Have.

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  23. Wendy @ the Late Start Studio Avatar
    Wendy @ the Late Start Studio

    After the earthquakes in Christchurch (my childhood home), much of the central city lay in ruins . . . it is gradually being rebuilt however it is a long way from being a functioning city centre. After the rubble was removed it remained a desolate empty space until artists came in and drew with them life . . . through music, dance, sculpture, painting. This ‘non-utilitarian art’ brought an audience who smiled and cried in turns at what they saw and they joined in . . . that is the real value of art . . . to create heart. You work brings pleasure to those who see it so it is Good . . . it is Use Full . . . it just is. Here’s a link to a trailer for the movie, The ARt of Recovery. http://artofrecoveryfilm.com/

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