Raven and Sparrow

All taped up

After a week of tedious tracing and taping, the pattern has been transferred to the chuppah cover and it is ready for wax. At this stage it is always easy to overestimate my ability to wax very precisely and I get impatient with the methods I have devised to keep the wax where I want it. Every time I think of having to re-do this through sloppy waxing though, I buckle down and keep going. The paper tape I use is too wide to follow the curves of the spirals, so I cut it in half length-wise and slash one edge with little cuts that allow the straight tape to bend. This provides a pretty neat edge as long as the wax doesn't wick under the tape. The lettering I cut out of freezer paper and iron onto the fabric. It never matches the pre-traced pattern exactly, but is close and prevents hand wobbles that destroy the clarity of the words. I am confident enough to attempt the tight inner circles of the spirals and the leaves without tape and paper safeguards. Its the long, smooth curves that always get out of control. In fairness to myself, I have a much steadier hand than I did when I first attempted waxing with a tjanting tool, but every bit of wax that hits the cloth marks it and I want this one to be as clean as possible. That said, there is no such thing as perfection with this process and my skill level. So...safety tape it is.

 

Blah

January in the Pacific Northwest can get a little gray. Inside and out. I have lots to do and things are perking along in reasonable fashion, but I feel blah. I don't have much to say. Part of it is my January diet. I gave up sugar for the month and life is less interesting because of it. Its funny how little treats give me something to look forward to. Treats...I'm always looking for treats and there haven't been too many lately. I use sugar as punctuation in my day so now I am just a run-on sentance. 

I have been working on the chuppah cover for Becca and Joel's wedding. I drew the pattern full size in Illustrator and had a local sign shop print it out so that I wouldn't have to try to scale it up by hand. The file I made had all the shapes in solid black, but when I got the printout it was like a blueprint...light blue outlines only. That will make tracing much harder so I have been making the lines darker with sharpies...coloring actually. Its not too exciting, but I've simultaneously been scouring and mordanting the linen it will go on, so the time isn't wasted. As soon as it dries sufficiently I will transfer the pattern and start waxing. That will take me into February which is my birth month. I can look forward to eating cake. And candy. 

Chuppah

Since my son Joel is being married in a Jewish ceremony this spring a chuppah cover will be required. I have little experience with Judaica, but the use of a textile as an integral part of the wedding intrigued me from the start. The bride and her family didn't have anything special that they wanted to use, so I offered to make one. I may have butt in here a little bit...I hope not, but in the intricate dances of two families coming together it can sometimes be hard to tell. I know that I wanted to make the one for Joel and Becca, and now I have to get going and produce something worthy of my son and his bride. I am putting pressure on myself in this way, and will have to set it aside in order to actually get the work done.

The theme so far involves fiddleheads and ferns. The fiddlehead is so evocative of spring, and of course includes the spiral...the symbol of life becoming...which is perfect for a wedding, I think. The chuppah cover is 5 x 7 feet, which is a little larger than my usual tablecloths. Because the bride is looking for simplicity we have decided together to stick to white on white or off-white. My original idea was to do it in applique, but now I am leaning back to my more usual wax resist for the introduction of the pattern. Getting the right off-white to contrast with the white fabric makes me pretty nervous though.

I made a preliminary sketch to figure out how I wanted the spirals to come together, and then wondered how I was going to make a pattern. Going from a small sketch to 5 X 7 feet is a lot of work if you do it by hand. Then I remembered Adobe Illustrator and used it to translate my sketch to the computer full size. I can get a printout from my local copy shop and I hope it will do to get me started.

Big words

I have always been teased for using big words. My vocabulary comes from reading and sometimes I have never heard the words I use actually being said out loud. I know I sound pompous and irritatingly know-it-all sometimes, but I learned long ago that trying to re-phrase things more plainly results in silence. The silence of fear is something I would like to discard.

Words offer us the most accessible way to see, understand, codify and transmit the experience of being alive. Pictures may be worth a thousand of them for initial visceral impact, but words are how we make that impact last and explain it to ourselves and others. Words can also lasso the feelings created by events, pictures, music or life and recreate them in another form--poetry--that speaks to us almost subconsciously about the multitude of ways we are woven into the world.

I've been reading some things lately that describe the role of literacy in forming our culture of separation from nature; about how casting our communications into written symbols that stand not for things or actions, but for the sounds we ourselves make has resulted in a barrier and a removal from the actual stuff of living and allowed us to see ourselves as beings apart. I think this is interesting and probably right on some levels, but my experience with blogging has felt very different. Reading and commenting on blogs has revealed a way for me to tap (sometimes) much more deeply into the myriad underlying strands I feel within myself. The only way to expose and confirm the connections that the work, events and writings of others bring out in me is with words. I find myself so often pausing with my hands on the keyboard, trying to find the most true and concise way to encapsulate my response to someone else's textiles, drawings, sculpture, books or text. This is a surprisingly satisfying element of blogging that has taken a while to recognize. Having the opportunity to see what others offer, and seeing, reply to them directly, has opened a wider channel through which to see myself. The effort of communicating what I feel helps me attune to those feelings. My own posts only occasionally elicit the wish to dive down and bring up words that cast feelings into form. Usually that urge comes from outside, and I find myself giving in to it more and more often. Interacting with writers and makers has helped me to grow as a writer and maker and I give thanks to everyone who has had the courage to share with me here. I am trying to be more brave too, and let the big words roll.