Raven and Sparrow

The essential is invisible

 

I spent last week watching the public impeachment hearings and found it hard to shake a feeling of discouragement. The complete unwillingness of the Republicans in Congress and the White House to engage in good faith with the constitutional processes of presidential oversight made me worried and sad. Its possible that our revered governing structures will not be strong enough to protect us from people who are more interested in retaining power than upholding American values. I fear for our country's future. 

Fortunately for my mood and the mood of those around me, Mister Rogers came to the rescue. On Saturday I went to the theater to see It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I rarely go to movies these days, but I very much wanted to see if Tom Hanks could evoke the calm presence of Fred Rogers that so charmed my children (and me) when they were little.

I didn't always appreciate Mister Rogers. When he was on TV at first I was in my twenties and childless. I thought he was absurdly hokey and simplistic, cue the eye roll and sarcastic laugh. By the early eighties, when my boys were born, he had returned to television after a hiatus and was therefore available for them. Thank goodness. They loved him and by watching with them I began to realize that he was slow and quiet, but not at all simple. He seemed to talk directly with children about serious things, unlike any other kids' show I've ever seen. He was manifestly unslick and non-commercial, again different from other kiddy TV. My children couldn't articulate why they liked him, but they watched every day and sometimes the things they saw gave me an opening to talk with them about being scared or sad. Like so many others I grew to admire and value what he offered to us through the screen and I cried when I heard of his death.

Because people revere Mister Rogers, playing him in a movie could not have been easy, but I thought Tom Hanks inhabited him very authentically. My favorite part though, was made not by acting but by scripting and cinematography. When Fred and Lloyd (another character in the movie) go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant, Fred asks Lloyd to take a minute and think about all the people who loved him into being. At this point the movie stops for a literal minute. At first I am just waiting for something to happen, but then the camera begins to move away from Fred and Lloyd and take in the other people in the restaurant. They had been pure background up to this point....props in a restaurant scene....but now without dialog or action I become aware of each one individually. Varied in age and ethnicity, they are completely ordinary but suddenly compelling. I begin to wonder about them....who they are, what has shaped them, how they come to be in that restaurant at that time... and then the movie begins again and goes on with the story of Fred and Lloyd. It was a truly moving and insightful moment created by movie magic that reminded me of the beauty and power of human beings and the myriad events, emotions, instincts and reasons that shape us into the particular manifestations of life that we are. Each of us.

Someone, maybe Einstein or maybe Fred Rogers, said that the essential is invisible. Being reminded of the depth of humanity has helped smooth my fears about our future into something manageable. By experiencing each other through media of various descriptions we get flattened into stereotypes and caricatures, but we are very complicated and capable of surprising each other. Keeping that in mind, as Mister Rogers did, may offer a key to moving forward together.

I would like to wish everyone Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you will spend it with people you love.

Paint and wax

I have drawn my pattern on two blanks and left the third one to be waxed without the drawing. The second drawing was much lighter than the first one, which speaks to the absorbent qualities of the soft linen. I'll need more markers if I use them on the big cloth. Starting with the lighter drawing I painted the stems and centers of the flowers with fabric paint. I investigated Inktense pencils and blocks by watching every YouTube video I could find, but decided to stick with my paints because I was more confident about my ability to keep my strokes simple and fresh. Unless you are very accomplished Inktense needs a lot of blending and stroking and I thought I would be likely to overwork my colors. At first the paint spread horribly, so I kept it dry, but didn't like that effect. Using textile medium (learned about from those videos...thank you YouTube) helped me control the values better, although this first effort is clumsy. I'll do better on the next one. My vision at this point is white/pink spires of flowers with gray dragonflies against a teal blue background. I am waxing over the paint, first by drawing over each line with my little metal tjanting and then filling in with a larger one. (The foxgloves on the left have been done.)  I don't know what will happen with the wax over paint. It might be unnecessary because the acrylic paint will shed the dyes anyway, or removing the wax might compromise the quality of the paint. It might be better to use dye only, but I think the paint will produce a crisper outline. I'll let you know. 

Pillow tests

My efforts to dye my embroidery floss looked great at first, and even now, out in the sunlight they look good, but held up to the Lisa's autumn runner they look wrong...steely blue instead of grayish grape. I have put them back into mordant and plan to add a tiny bit of cochineal to the skeins to see if I can get closer to the color I want. If I don't, I'll just go with what I have, but I feel a little stubborn about trying for the color I imagine. We'll see. My stubbornness will evaporate if it gets too hard.

While I stitch away on Lisa's Autumn, I am also trying to figure out what to do with Summer. I'm not sure how to translate my giant photos of foxglove and dragonflies into patterns on cloth (paint, wax, silk screen?). I need to get some gray into the design because of the color of the dishes, but I don't want too much because gray doesn't seem summery. After checking in with Grace's blog (windthread.typepad.com) it occurred to me that I could just draw the pattern on with permanent marker in the color I want, like Grace draws in what she wants on her cloth. Unfortunately I'm daunted by the effort to draw on the size of cloth I am contemplating. There are too many things I don't know about how it will work. I need to do some tests, but testing for me has always been frustrating. I have spent many hours in the past testing for color or pattern, and then when I go to the full cloth, it looks entirely different. I might as well have not bothered to test at all. Also, I have trouble taking tests seriously. Still, there is too much unknown here to just leap onto my large white linen square. I fuss and fiddle, and then remember the Pillow Project. You recall the Pillow Project, right? .....my idea to use tests to produce some replacements for my tatty couch pillows? Yeah, me neither, until just now. By making something with a purpose I can short-circuit my tendency to half-ass my tests and work through whatever problems present themselves, as each pillow will be a mini-project unto itself. I may find that my ideas will work, or maybe come up with a new possibility, and if I fail completely I at least won't have wasted too much time or fabric.

Anyway, I have made three linen blanks a little bigger than 18 inches square and today drew a fragment of my pattern onto one, using a Faber-Castell Pitt pen in Warm Gray III. (I wanted to stay with the full-sized pattern, not shrinking it down because I am using a smaller cloth.) It was hard. The linen is absorbent and the pen bled more than I thought it would. I was hoping I could get a calligraphic feel to my strokes, but I'm not sure I succeeded with that. Still, the pattern is coherent, so I will go on. I plan to make another one by drawing and then try one using wax, my usual method.