Tracking Inspiration

I want to track inspiration. I am curious about what happens when I get inspired and how it is kicked off.

I started thinking about this during one of the rare dry spells that invade my ability to produce work that excites. One of the problems is that I don't always seem to record this information in a useable way.There are random pages in dozens of sketchbooks and random little drawings done on napkins.At dinner with Tim last night there was even a napkin carved with my fork because no pen was in sight. A napkin was sacrificed in an attempt to communicate the idea for a house design.

This means that boxes and books of papers have to be gone through and compiled into a meaningful and useful form. Forgetting happens and I end up looking at some of this stuff to try and figure out what inspired me. Some days it works and some days it doesn't. I am condensing in an attempt to pare down possesions.Lots of useless possessions have been leaving the house because I want another useable room.The dining room is back. So is most of the bedroom. The livingroom is fine. All the clothing is organized, folded and put away. Some of the library is being pared down and the boxes of inspiration drawings and clippings are down to about four or five from about twenty. It helps to pretend a move is going to happen.

Having an archive and a plethora of stuff is part of my process. Having observed many textile artists this seems to be shared. Only a few are tidy and condensed. Very few.

I hosted a show at the Good Eats Gallery in Wells last summer of snapshots done by Tina Ozols. She painstakingly photographed hundreds of her Grandfather;s possessions which had accumulated over a century. It was an incredibly moving exhibition for me because I also watched her grief process at losing someone so dear and inspiring to her. It was my favourite show to date.

There have been some t.v. programs about hoarding lately.They serve to inspire me to get rid of stuff but also just plain inspire me. Why do we have so much stuff in this culture? Why is so much produced and why do we honour throwing things away? Why will some people use stuff while others just let it rot?

Every hoarder I have talked to knows a purpose for each piece of crap they own. Incredible things are in design process. Imagination runs amuck. Hoarders are considered to be mentally ill. Then again, so are many artists and other creative people.

I know that there is serious concern for the far end of the hoarding instinct. I think most of us have got developed imaginations and are at one place on the hunter gatherer scale.

There is a study I saw recently and am trying to find about productivity, It turns out that very messy people are more productive than people who are anally tidy. That those who spend time buried under crap might frustrate others but have more books written, more photographs taken , more art shows completed and measure higher intellectually than people who are tidy. They have better recall and use a form of visual filing not available to others. Who knew?

I will consider my own process as I am tidying and chucking again to create more room and social acceptabiltiy. And I will find that study. I know it is under here somewhere? Perhaps by the green trunk on the left of the excersise bike.

I confess that stuff inspires me!

Me

Just found a picture of me as a child hunting for dinosaurs. I was digging in the sawdust pile wearing my first jeans. My Aunt Phylis bought them for me. I was thrilled because as an only daughter, I was constantly stuffed into very girly, girl drag consisting of lace from panties to stockings and hated it. There are still remnants of femininity in the patent leather Mary-Janes and lacy socks. This picture was taken in a place called Fallen Timber. The shack in the background belonged to my paternal grandparents. This was on the farm and my poor citified mother hadn't yet understand the need for gum boots.



I was also capable of hanging upside down on the monkey bars, corral fence or a tree in full dress and bashing anyone who dared sing I see London I see France. I was still speaking French at this time and could cuss anyone out with some very serviceable Air Force Montreal expressions.

Better Than Ever!

Well. It has happened. The surgery is completed and my eyes have now healed. My pirate patch is gone. I have medication for one more week and a check-up in six months.

These old eyes have better than twenty-twenty vision. I can see really well both close up and far away! Colours are brilliant and focus is now focused.

I can see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fragile Beings

This has been a month for remembering how fragile and precious life is.

For those of you who don't know, my studio partner Hilary and her husband Jim lost their precious baby. We were all looking forward to her birth. She died shortly before her birth.
She was a tiny red head and was perfect in every way except for a cord that became tangled.
Both parents are doing their best to remain present and value her fragile little being. They named her Molly.

I have spent the week considering the small and microscopic. There is so much mystery in what we all are and in how we affect one another. Life can be planned to a point but we are still part of a much bigger and much smaller picture.

Anniversary

Imagine.

Today is the anniversary of my oldest friendship. My friend is . fellow artist, Karen Mac Kenzie Brydon. We met when we were eleven turning twelve. Our birthdays are one week apart. We have shared many adventures through time.

I remember meeting Karen at the gym in Saint Francis High School in Calgary Alberta Canada.
We were attending a gymnastics class. My friend Lucille had convinced me to go and told me that there was a girl there who called herself Kitty. Her mom was divorced and she dressed like she thought she was somebody she wasn't. I was convinced I would hate her! Was prepared to hate her to be loyal to Lucille.

And there she was. Sitting on the high beams in jeans and a belly reveling halter top with a strange accent that turned out to be affected and genuine at the same time. She had cowboy boots and braids and she even dragged out a cigarette. She spit and swore and had long hair and an overbite. I was completely shocked by her and smitten.

She had another girl who was her best friend named Jackie Wilson. I had already been in mud throwing battles with Jackie and she made me laugh. Jackie also smoked cigarettes that she stole from her dad.

I was a well behaved but willful honour student and these two knew how to party , build duck ponds ride horses backwards and do trick riding on their bikes. They would mock me if I used important words. They read words off the cigarette package like aquafuge. But I knew what they were. I had to know them.

Turned out that "Kitty" wasn't "Kitty" but Karen and she lived in a little bungalow up the hill. Her mother was beyond glamorous and was rather like a beatnik and there was art everywhere. She had "cocktails" and let her children do what they pleased. This included cooking what they wanted , going into the cupboards by themselves and digging duck ponds in the yard.

Karen decided to move into the doghouse. No problem as long as you brush your teeth. Jackie moved in with her and I tried but there wasn't any room so I had to go home. Karen lit fires in the yard and cooked canned beans. She had a Shepard named Lassie who protected all of us.
She also had terrible allergies.

Her father was a body builder who lived in a huge house in the richer part of town and he played classical guitar. He gave me a caliper test when he was introduced to me to figure out what my height weight statistics were and decided I was a lovely girl who was fit enough for his daughter.
I was dancing all the time doing afro jazz ballet. I was also nearly the same height /I am now which is about 5 foot nine inches.

Her grandparents were even more glamorous. They lived in a little farm at the edge of town. It was not an ordinary farm but a super modern acreage that had a super modern house on it that was built from the future plans from the popular mechanics and it was covered with important art from people like Emily Carr and Lauren Harris. Her grandfather was an artist too. His name was J.D. Turner and her grandmother was the potter Grace Turner. She looked like Anais Nin.
They assumed I was worthy. They fed me Beef Wellington and Yorkshire puddings. She saved wild flowers and planted them all over the property. Some of the flowers were only survivors when she died at ninety. I loved them all with all my heart.

They nurtured my soul and my mother often fed Karen when more creative types forgot. The creative types nurtured me when my family just thought I was strange and needed punishment and reformation.

We also nurture one another through all parts of life. Through births and deaths and changing lives. Through marriage failure and crisis... through successes and creativity.

Our relationship is now 45 years old. It is old enough to go into menopause. It remains enduring and delightful.

Today we celebrated it with egg tarts and chocolate slices while listening to her grand daughter Bailey sing her baby song.

Bonnets

I am very touched today by Abigail Doan's blog. http://www.abigaildoan.blogspot.com

There is an image of a large grouping of knitted hats that her mother and friends knitted as helmet liners for soldiers in Afghanistan. Each helmet liner looks like a lovingly knit hat for a tiny child. They are knitted by someone caring enough to protect a soldier's head from the cold.

Each one of my babies has grown into manhood. Each is now old enough to go to war. Each one had been knitted a hat to wear when tiny. My children and I are pacifist and only go to war against unjust policy and for social justice. I know that many other mothers are dealing with their child's decision to sign up and go to war.

I have been surrounded by soldiers most of my life. My father fought in Korea, my father-in-law in the British Army in the second world war. My Great Uncle was a decorated fighter pilot. Another was a General in the American Navy and was honoured by having a military facility named after him. My grandfather's brother died from the effects of mustard gas in France. He was only eighteen.

Each one of them, to a man, told me never to send my children to war and to shoot them in the foot if they chose to go. Each one signed up as a teenager and were caught up in the glorious propaganda that surrounded the actions. Each paid a terrible toll. Each one carried guilt and had some level of post traumatic shock.

During the Vietnam war I worked as a part of a little group of people who helped provide shelter and money to people who had decided not to take part. They came to Canada to find safety and most stayed and have contributed greatly to our Canadian quality of life.

There are many mothers who have lost their children in Afghanistan. Most of them are civilian.
Their children also were made hats to protect them from the cold.

View Master

The world looks like I got a brand new View Master. Everything is back lit and in supreme colour and detail. I just keep looking at everything.

Red is not red . It is scarlet, bloody, maroon, wine, pumpkin and super heated. Blue is not blue it is cobalt, turquoise, baltic, robin's egg and indigo. Yellow is almost blinding and the new neons are almost too much to look at altogether.

The double vision is almost gone with a touch of shadowing. Focus, focus, focus.

Everything in here needs dusting or a cleaning. What I thought was a little grime ain't.

Three and one half weeks to go and I won't even need the medicine.

Life is sure something!