Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

+ Her Barefoot Heart

Author: JeanneHC (Page 2 of 4)

105

October 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

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105a

Did you ever feel the need to deconstruct something?

Skirt

To tear it apart?
I had that urge today,
so I ripped up this skirt
I bought in a thrift store a while back.
Bought it cause I liked the fabric.

Fog2

As I snip and rip and pluck,
the fog recedes

Leaves

and as though taking a cue from the leaves as they begin to turn,
my imagination begins to turn
to display ideas for this project.

Hangers

Which necessitates another trip to a nearby thrift shop for materials.

Of course.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

104

September 30, 2012 / / 4 Comments

104a

The poet Rumi was born on 30 Sept 1207, which would make today his 800th birthday. I was first introduced to his moving, resonant poetry several years ago when a book of his poetry leapt off the bookshelf into my arms while visiting my son in Los Angeles. Hard to choose my favorite Rumi poem, but this one seems to fit today:

Be with those who help your being.
Don’t sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don’t try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it’s too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?

Ode 2865 Trans. Coleman Barks

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Color1

Color3

Color4

Ferns

Soon enough, they’ll start cutting these:

Christmastrees2

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

95

September 29, 2012 / / 3 Comments

We’re skipping through the numbers now,
straying off the chronological path
as Envoy packets begin to wing their way back to me.
Today, signatures of fall
and signatures of Nancy.
Together.

95c

95a

5 95 9 erased

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

93

September 28, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The practical part of me just loves the portability of this project. I carry around cloth and needles and thread in my pocketbook so I can stitch anywhere anytime. This morning I stitched through breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants: Shamrock Kitchen in Tyrone, GA. Let me tell you something: the people who work at Shamrock score high in the nourishment factor. And I’m not just talking about food. “What are you doing?” Mindy asked me. I told her about Nancy, her drawings, and my stitchings. Somebody else happened by and said this particular drawing looked like a pitcher. A fella sitting close by said it looked like a metal bar and a baseball cap.

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93a

#93 is held by Mindy and Mike, two of Shamrock’s finest.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

92

September 27, 2012 / / 13 Comments

She draws:

5 92 1 erased

Then I stitch:

92a

Boris Pasternak says:
When a great moment knocks
on the door of your life,
it is often no louder
than the beating of your heart,
and it is very easy to miss it.

Thank goodness I was home,
was listening,
when the idea for this project
came knocking on my heart.
I knew it as a great moment
by the quickening.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

91

September 26, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The collaboration: the drawing, then the stitching:

5 91 1 erased

91b

——-

Things are chaotic. Life things, I mean. Creativity and humor are where I turn in any time of distress or confusion. They are my stays, my lavender, my therapy. First I needed to bring things together, disparate things, and so I ripped pieces of fabric and wove them together to form something new.

Ribbonrunsthrough3

Then I needed the calming effect of kantha stitching. Up and down, back and forth goes the needle. I love the change in the feel of the cloth as I fill it with kantha stitches. The stitching gives it body, substance. Keeping my hands busy, making something new from something familiar – that’s the best medicine I know of and a better sorting hat than Hogwarts ever imagined.

Ribbonrunsthroughit1

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

87, 88, 89, and 90

September 25, 2012 / / 14 Comments

She knows what day of the week it is by what she has for breakfast, our Nancy. She’s a womanchild who likes her structure, that’s for sure. Nancy has always been quick to write her name on magazines (hers and anybody else’s) and when we take her shopping, she goes immediately to her room, puts all her new goodies up where they belong, then takes any new clothes back to the office where someone will sew her name tag inside each article of clothing before putting it in her closet. Though the drawing is new, Nancy has always liked to leave her mark on magazines, puzzle boxes, books, and such. Probably not surprising for one who owns so little and lives in a fishbowl. I stitched the entire drive to Savannah today. Thank goodness for flat, straight roads for a change. Since she wrote her name on three consecutive pages, I thought I’d put them together so you could see the differences and similarities. And though it’s not a signature, I included drawing #90 because I see a progression from #87 to #90. Do you?

The drawings:

#87:

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#88:

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#89:

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#90:

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The stitchings:

#87:

87

(Don’t ask me how, but #87 managed to escape my grasp and elude the dreaded group photo.)

888990a

Top to bottom are #88, #89, #90 shown here in the wall at The Cotton Exchange,
one of our two favorite places to eat in Savannah, GA.
(Our other favorite is The Olde Pink House.)

888990b

Left to right: #88, #89, and #90 shown here on the cobblestone street near the river in Savannah. According to my husband (who’s very smart about such things to do with bridges and ships and such), ships came to Savannah with little or no cargo, so stones were used as ballasts to give the ship more stability. Once in Savannah, the ships were loaded with cotton (or whatever), and the stones, no longer needed, were tossed ashore, eventually becoming the cobblestone streets that are quite fetching to gaze upon and quite treacherous to walk upon.

——-

Just signed Nancy and me up to do another collaborative creative project: Sketchbook 2013.

And did you see us here? Thank you, Teresa, for your constant and enthusiastic support.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

86

September 24, 2012 / / 22 Comments

The drawing:


5 86 2 erased

The stitching:


86

Our art teachers gave us the rules:
Grass is green,
skies are blue.
Why do we listen?
How can anybody else
know what color your grass is?

~ Pam Grout ~
via my friend, Karen Caterson

——-

Envoyenvelopes

More Envoy packets are winging their way across the country,
and some are winging their way back!
There’s still time if you’d like to get involved.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

85 (plus)

September 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

85group30

I may have missed the actual calendar day (Friday, 9/21), but the way I see it: it’s never too late to fly flags for peace. I know there’s peace around the dinner table, and I know there’s peace as in countries around the world minding their own business, tending to their own backyard, and playing nice with each other. And I know there’s peace as in around the water cooler, but today I think about peace through the lens of Nancy. For Nancy and others like her who simply have a different way of being in the world . . .

I wish them
understanding instead of scorn
and acceptance instead of ridicule

85group34

I wish them
care instead of abuse
and tenderness instead of harm.

85group31

I wish them
to be seen and not overlooked,
to be respected and not dismissed.

85group25

I wish them
ample opportunities for expression
and the materials to be creative.

85group2

My biggest wish is not for all the Nancys in the world to be more like us,
you see,
but for us to be more like them.

85group28

Then, it seems to me,
we would know peace.


_______

She draws:

5 85 1 erased

Then I stitch:

85c

And that’s how we do it.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

84

September 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

lines stitched:

(the fabric is white,
it just looks blue
because of the time of day
i finished stitching.)
(it does kinda’ match my mood, though.)

84b

things line up.
sometimes clearly,
sometimes chaotically.
sometimes they line up just the way we wanted them to,
sometimes they line up in ways we could not have foreseen,
even in our wildest imagination.
sometimes they line up all nice and neat,
sometimes you have to put on your best creativity hat
and squint your eyes
to see that they line up at all.

sometimes a line is straight
sometimes a line is curved.

sometimes a line goes straight from point a to point b
sometimes a line loops back and forth all over itself
but still arrives somewhere.

sometimes a line is a letter
sometimes a line is a number.

sometimes a line is an object,
sometimes a line is a feeling.

sometimes the shortest distance between two points
is not, in fact, a straight line.

keep the lines open.
tow the line.
draw the line.
hold the line.

sometimes a line moves,
sometimes a line stays in one place for so long,
it becomes wallpaper.

sometimes a line tells a story,
sometimes a line show the way.

sometimes the line screams STOP
and trips you up if you don’t heed.

sometimes a line marks the sweet spot,
the finish line,
sometimes a line of demarkation warns us
to stay the hell away.

and that’s just the way it is,
as far as i can tell.

lines drawn:

5 84 1 erased

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

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