I M Perfect lady

Category: Art & Quilts

  • An Artist with words.

    I have been going to writing classes, listening as Authors speak of their writing techniques and style, it seems they all know what their pattern is called and how it works, and I have yet to hear one who writes like me.

    My words come barreling out, pushing and shoving each other; they are not at all concerned about style and land on the page happy to be free from my tangled mine.

    They are driven by confusion and fear mostly, and feel much better on a clear white paper, all sorted out and explained.

    My writing starts usually with a thread or a nagging and often times a sinking feeling, and it matters not to me or the words how they look after we are done explaining.

    They are all bunched up in my head, running over each other, truths buried beneath the piles of fearful thoughts, overrun with uprooted beliefs and all are wanting the space to sort themselves out.

    A place where they can line up and be seen and felt, acknowledged and labeled correctly, room for separating truth from fiction.

    They are in a hurry and are reckless, heedless to watching where they land and how. Haphazardly flopped they care less about how they look as long as they are felt properly.

    As a writer I have failed in the eyes of the writing teachers, for I have not followed any proven path, but set out on my own and let my words land as they may, letting them be the creators not I.

    It truly puzzles me how they can know ahead what the words are going to need, how they can have in mind the structure that they will use to express themselves, like map writing, they seem to know where the words are going.

    My words are like vagabonds wandering around or riots of revolting feelings; it would be nearly impossible to know ahead of time where they are going, let alone draw a map ahead of time.

    Perhaps my words and self-expression have been tied up in the dark for too long; guarded, restrained and held in strict beliefs and ideas, that we are not willing to succumb to lying down nicely, instead we run wild in expressive freedom.

    Maybe I am not a writer at all, but an artist with words.

  • We Play!

    “When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?” ~Howard Ikemoto

    Imagine a world where we didn’t forget to be a child, to have the childlike wonder of the world, a sense of knowing we know how to do anything without fear and lack of self-confidence?

    Where we didn’t have to take classes to learn how ‘draw correctly’ or write perfectly, but instead do what feels right for you.

    It seems at times we are taught so much, we are taught how not to be ourselves.

    We learn until we lose our way back to our self.

    Perhaps the class we need the most is an open class without rules or expectations, a class where we go to unlearn all the fears and lacks that have been preached to us, a safe zone where we shed the years and layers of all the things that are not us.

    A shedding room, a fleecing space where we can get back to the childlike place, where we are the center of the Universe, where we can do anything and we admire ourselves and all that we accomplish, where we affix stars to all that we do each day, where there is an unlimited amount of energy and things we want to see and do, where the world is wide open and we are free.

    How do we take off the heavy cloaks of doubt, fear, and lack that we drag around each day? How do we quiet the voices that have trained us to be motionless in fear?

    We wiggle free by doing things no adult in their ‘right’ mind would do… we play!

  • A group of Individuals.

    What is the reason we join groups? What is the benefit and what makes some groups thrive and others fail? Is the group more than a reason and can the reason change? Is it a purpose or is it the people and can it be both?

    In my experience there is a feeling in a group, or energy, an actual unseen thread that flows to keep all of us connected, and that unseen thread seems to be strung by a leader and the leader’s energy is what we tag onto.

    But yet the group also is like a chain and we are only as strong as our ‘weakest’ member.

    If there is passive aggressive behavior toward one, it weakens the group.

    It is very interesting how you can all join together for a common good, yet individual energies can undermine the original intent.

    I am a member of two different groups and I can feel the energies in both.

    The freedom of one leaves me being free to be me.
    The obligation in the other feels heavy.

    A weight to carry my weight, and not so much mine, but I feel the ‘weaker’ ones feeling unworthy for it is impossible to do what the leader wants.

    Groups I believe are only as strong as the person who attends. If you make them feel less, the group is less.

    If you have an unconditional welcome, allowing each person to travel at their own rate, they are allowed to be free.

    In my life experiences, I have given up trying to conform others to where I am. I simply allow them to be where they are, and it isn’t where I am.

    This sometimes leaves me being a group of one.

    Yet better than dragging folks who are not where you are to where you are, unhappy and not willing.

    It is interesting too, that we are drawn to groups with similar energies and propelled away from others.

    My religious experience was very cult like and you and to be a certain way to stay in the group.

    My Art group is wide open…you are free to come and free to go, you are free to create, or free to just watch, there is no agenda, except being free to be you. Well maybe one…you can’t tell another what to do.

    It is more like a group that isn’t a group, just individuals arriving together, sharing common but uncommon pieces, all original works of art.

    In an art group, the people and the objects are allowed to be unique, different, and individual.

    A group of individuals.

  • I belong on this Tree.

    The story line art project allows you to reflect backwards to get know those who came before you, to see whose shoulders you stand upon, who blazed the trail before you.
    Immediately we all go into our memory banks to withdraw someone who was a hero, who against all odds, seemed to flourish and persevere.
    As I flipped through files in my mind, I knew who I would write about.
    I know her intimately for her shoes I wear; yet I have no pictures of her, nothing.
    Well, I do have a family picture with a sticky note saying she is missing.
    Her and I are the sticky notes, the holes in the family or the ones that got away.
    Like a pair of mittens knitted decades apart, we match.
    When I seen the mitten tree with all the different mittens who lost their pair, I felt a sense of connectedness.
    I loved how they looked displayed so artfully on the branches, the snow, the green tree and the lights.
    I wondered what drew me to that tree and its simplicity, homemade and nature.
    As I drove home from the quilt meeting with my own mitten tree quilt, it took on new meaning. How the mittens were all misfits, mismatched, part of a broken set, yet when hung together make a beautiful tree.
    And this morning as I sit here with the quilt in front of me, I see the lady approaching the tree…I see the tree, and I wonder how this will complete itself.
    What story line will this quilt unfold for me?
    Before it is even complete I feel a great sense of peace settle over me. I belong on this tree.
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  • My Ladies come alive!

    Sometimes in life the Universe offers you a glimpse at someone who is a delight to watch and listen to.

    She arrived wearing a black hat, set jauntily on her head and big interesting jewelry all off set on an outfit in black.

    Around the room she went introducing herself, holding your hand, looking you in the eyes and repeating your name.

    She immediately changed the energy of the room, at least for me.

    As she gave her message, she was delighted with herself and her Art, asking for others to join her vision.

    Her Art is a community project; it involves everyone who is open and willing to share.

    She envisions 10,000 individual stories all hung together joining a long line of connections, weaving the past to the present, showing the walks of many who have walked upon the same roads we travel today.

    Her idea is to see whose shoulders you stand upon.

    Written in the first person, a story and a picture, all hanging together in a line of humanity, their lives, their struggles, the journey of their times, told by someone today.

    The Art will be displayed this summer at an opera and a music festival.

    She needed help with panels upon which the story will rest. Some of us will lend a hand in making her vision possible.

    After she involved us in her Art, she then sat back and enjoyed ours.

    It was fun to watch her engage life, how she seemed to hang on each second, paying close attention to what was at hand…astute, curious and involved and very much her own self and very comfortable there.

    I have to admit that I wanted to share my quilts with her, just to watch her reaction.

    I was tickled when she smiled and literally gave me a thumbs up, very pleased.

    She epitomizes my ladies or my ladies are a reflection of her!

    What is the saying life imitating Art…

    It was like seeing one of my Ladies come alive!

  • Balloon of Dreams!

    “Walking against the dream…” came to me in yoga, that why it has been such a struggle, I am walking the opposite of my dreams.

     

    The dream was born with abuse, and what we cling to with our lives is the dream.

     

    A dream that is opposite of reality, a dream of denial, a dream of illusion, a dream, a figment of our imagination.

     

    My dream began as a very young girl, I lived in that dream, that dream was more than my reality.  It was warm and cozy, loving and caring, a blanket that kept out the ugly truths.

     

    What I failed to realize is that walking in reality wasn’t as hard as destroying the dream.

     

    The dream was more precious to me than reality.

     

    The dream was where I was loved, where I was good enough, where I mattered, ‘to them’.

     

    I worked hard to keep that dream alive and now in the past five years I was working hard to destroy my lovingly safe place.

     

    It is shocking to know this, and incredible to realize that denial is the dream.

     

    The word denial being a dream land didn’t penetrate into me, that the application of this is to be living in and breathing in, a space that is loving cozy and warm while interacting in real life with the opposite.

     

    Denial is a balloon, a bubble that floats above reality.  I was a bubble girl!

     

    What I realized in yoga as I thought of the quilt I made with the little girl and her balloon, is that on the quilt there are beads running up into the balloon, and now I know those beads are tears.

     

    When you shed enough tears, the balloon breaks like a water balloon bursts.

     

    It leaves you naked, no blanky to cover with, nothing to hide under, you are left with a broken balloon of dreams.

     

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  • Letting It Go!

    Acceptance and I are staring at each other; it dangles both pain and freedom.  I see the two sides and feel caught in between, stuck standing still.

     

    I see with big lady intellect and with little girl dreams, I feel the struggles between them.

     

    The lady’s wise words and focus on actions fall on the little girl’s deaf ears. 

     

    Or perhaps I don’t want to be the one to end the little girls dreams, to crash and burn her long wait, to give her nothing but acceptance.

     

    Acceptance, hollow, empty, cold and unloving.

     

    Can I break my little girls heart?  Is it my only heart?

     

    Acceptance shatters all dreams.

    Acceptance makes daddy’s monsters forever.

    Acceptance makes moms cold and distant, always.

    Acceptance hurts in reality.

     

    I always thought what I feared most was my mental lady, instead what I feared the most was the shattered spirit of the hopeful dreaming little girl.

     

    To live empty, hollow, forsaken, alone, cold and hurt a girl with broken dreams.

    Is it possible to separate the little girl from her dreams, to untangle the loveless dream and set her free?

     

    To let the dream go, like a flyaway balloon…

     

    But keep the little girl spirit, her optimism, and her dreaming quality?

     

    My little girl survived holding on to that dream.

     

    And now her survival depends on her letting it go!

     

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    I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.  I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. 

     ~Mother Teresa

  • Ladies empowering Ladies!

    In her book, “The Woman’s Book of Creativity” C Diane Ealy writes.

     

    “The expression of woman’s creativity is crucial to our development as self-defined individuals who understand that real power is having power over ourselves.  This knowledge negates the old notion of power as something held over someone else. Creative women are strong women who empower others through their creativity.”

     

    I love this. 

     

    Not only do I feel stronger doing yoga daily, but I am also feeling stronger in self, and if that is from being more creative, I am way excited.

     

    Imagine that I am becoming more powerful as I play with fabric, designs and being creative with my Ladies. 

     

    This has to be why it was so important to me when I was so lost that I felt such a draw to be creative.  It was the one thing I held on to tightly, subconsciously I knew this was where I grew stronger.

     

    I love that my creative ladies empower other ladies…what a great energy flow!

     

    Ladies empowering Ladies!

    I love it.

  • “This Little Light of Mine…”

    Debbie Ford in “The Shadow Affect” is talking about embracing your Light Shadow.

     

    She had gone to see Marianne Williamson speak…

     

    "… as I sat in the audience I was stunned.  I watched as Marianne boldly called people to a higher version of themselves and the world.  I heard her unabashedly implore us to step out of the smallness of your own ego-centered lives and into the grandness of serving as part of a divine mission.  Although I was listening intently to the words she spoke, I was more overcome by her presence.  I left there completely in love with Marianne Williamson.

     

    I returned to my apartment, intent to discover the parts of myself that I so clearly saw in her.  I loved that she had the courage to speak the truth, even if it meant shocking people in order to wake them up.  Also I admired the way she was able to clearly articulate a difficult message, speaking with such eloquence that her words penetrated into people's minds and hearts.  I was enamored with the depth of concern she seemed to feel for humanity and the sense that she was dedicated to something larger than just her individual life.  I also envied her beauty, her sense of style and her willingness to look like a hot, sexy woman and not one of the many stereotypical frumpy spiritual teachers. She took to the stage looking gorgeous and sophisticated, yet her holiness came through loud and clear.

     

    As a dedicated student of projection, I looked beyond her behaviors and tried to discover the underlying characteristics that gave rise to those behaviors.  I asked myself, “What kind of person is able to just be herself on stage?”  Clearly, an authentic person.  “What kind of person would care so deeply for the rest of the world?”  A selfless person.  “What is the quality that allows Marianne to speak up, to tell the truth even when it is shocking or scary?”  I heard very clearly – a bold person.

     

    I looked at my list of qualities, which read, “Bold, Authentic, and Selfless.”  None of them were characteristics that I owned or acknowledged within myself.  Those who know me now may find this hard to believe, but back then I was not somebody who told it like it is.  Afraid of losing approval of those I loved, I skirted around issues and lacked the self-confidence to even stand in front of a room without shaking. I was more concerned with looking good that I was with saying something that would change people’s lives.  I was more concerned with saying it nicely than being straight or authentic.  Yet I know that if I saw strengths in Marianne, the potential for them must exist also within me.

     

    I began practicing being more authentic with people and challenging myself to speak up even when I wanted to be silent….”  Debbie Ford

     

    How fun to see our potentials in others, to see what we are lacking within ourselves, to admire truth and authenticity and being comfortable in our own lives and selves.

     

    Watch for your Light Shadow, for the part of you that has yet to shine!

     

    “This Little Light of mine, I going to let it shine….”

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  • Dyeing today!

    Sunshine skies, snow disappearing and dyed fabric created….

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    I wonder where these fabrics will end up…..dreams already forming, and idea…

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    Love the star burst.  I wonder what fabric I have that will match.