Daily Notes- February 23rd

                                                                         
                                     

This wall is in the sewing room.  Above and behind the ironing board.  There is a stack of "pages" made during a Winter (years ago) spent with Jude at Spirit Cloth making the little one inch squares into pages of 5 by 7 to the far left.  The black and white "Alien X-ray" is from a Time when I  played along with the 10 by 10 group.  This was from the larger series that followed.

I have tried- over Time- to put these separate bits and pieces together into something larger.  They are like puzzle pieces that fight any "going together" and more often than not- are fine with being un-sewn (taken apart) and then made into something altogether different. Another piece that has been up on this wall forever made from dye test squares from California- is now in the "working" box behind my chair.   To be taken apart, I think, because other work needs a square or two of a certain color. Unless it finds some cloth in the box to continue it's journey.

It happens.  I put things in with other scraps and they find new companions as the cloth gets churned up.  Ones I had never considered.  Pairings. This might be the magic that will happen on Jude's walls when all the unfinished cloth is pinned up.  Something next to something else.

I am often surprised when people holding a cloth tell me a story they see there.  I often write down what they've said.  What I can't see but perhaps subconsciously did have some thought.

Story is here with words- I can just write you a story about anything really- my head is full of those stories real and imagined.  But not ones I can write in cloth.  Cloth is abstract art.  Where I just enjoy the mix of texture and color.  But that is okay, isn't it?  I guess it only matters to me in the end.  And I am okay with color and texture.

I will run my fingers over cloth I have made when my mind is wandering far from home and spoken words or written ones are lost to me.  Like I remember my father's fingers tracing the lines and shapes of cloth I was sewing together when I cared for him.