Tag: in her own language (Page 10 of 16)

She draws:

I stitch:

The good news: Using photo manipulation software is (eventually) like riding a bike. Last night I remembered how to take the background out on the drawings. The bad news: I kinda’ miss the composition book context – the look of Nancy drawing beyond the lines. The other good news: The speaker at tonight’s meeting of the Fayette Arts And Craft Entrepreneurs group was a photographer. The other bad news: I didn’t get home till after dark, too late to use any of the tips I learned tonight.

Delivered the first Envoy envelope tonight. Put it in the talented hands of my talented, fun, fearless, and hilarious friend Janet McGregor Dunn who once tried to teach me pottery. Who needs therapy when you get your hands in the mud with friends? Trot on over and have a look at her stunning pottery, then look her up on Facebook. I’ll be mailing/delivering other Envoy packets throughout the week ahead. Perhaps you’d like to let Nancy be a stowaway and become an Envoy? (Say yes.)

Tickled and grateful to be included alongside creative people filling the world with marvelous in the poetry of my talented friend Teresa Deak. Not only is Teresa a gifted poet and photographer, she’s just recently released a new set of tarot cards.

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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.

Nancy’s drawing:

My stitching:

“For many years I have made paper and loved doing so. I enjoy the connection to its history, the knowing that for thousands of years something has been made so simply and yet has such an amazing impact on our world. Yet often I deny the medium, focusing only on the “art”, the “message”. As I began to make the paper for this exhibit, I became very aware of the process. The mediation and rhythm and the absolute beauty of the paper itself became of primary importance” – Lori Goodman

(This quote – that talks about making paper, but for me, easily transfers over to my stitchings on cloth – found on this beautiful, inspiring blog.)

~~~~~~~~~

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.

First, she draws:

Then I stitch:

Here’s the week’s worth for week 9, the Sunday Seven. Not very inspired photography, I know, but it’s raining outside and I’m pooped.

Came across this today. Seems to fit and feed right now.

“Pressures from the social structure enter into the whole process of wrestling the poem into being. The challenge is not to be intimidated by convention.

I have often said, “I want to perfect my craft so I won’t have to tell lies.” So often, when you’re stumped, the temptation is just to back down, but when you feel this is so complicated or so tenuous that there’s no way you can say it, you have to persuade yourself you can say it, that there is a way of saying it, that there’s nothing that is unsayable. And this gives you strength for the next time.

The poem, by its very nature, holds the possibility of revelation, and revelation doesn’t come easy. You have to fight for it. There is that moment when you suddenly open a door and enter into the room of the unspeakable. Then you know you’re really perking.”

Stanley Kunitz in The Wild Braid

~~~~~~~~~

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.

She draws:

And I stitch:

Today’s cloth is held by John Cheek and Deborah Pickard Cheek. We celebrated their 30th anniversary with them tonight, so it seems appropriate that today’s line drawing resembles a heart. How’s that for coincidence?

~~~~~~~~~

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.

She draws:

I stitch:

I make pictures with clouds,

I see faces in rocks, (Aren’t they cute?)

And I see hearts in a bowl of freshly-dug potatoes:

I do the same thing with Nancy’s drawings, you know: I crane and strain to see something recognizable, something familiar, something that makes meaning out of uncertainty, and something that explains what sure seems like the unfairness of life that lands me here and Nancy there. Why am I doing this project? That’s a question I’m often asked – a question I often ask myself – and the answer is: I don’t know . . . yet. It’s just something I can’t not do. So for now, we are just two women, involved in a collaborative art project. Two women brought together by the geography of love.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Nancy draws:

Then I stitch:

In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen Nancy draw. She used to write her name, my name, Andy’s name, Penny’s name, Donn and Carole’s names. She’d write our birthdays, too – all without any prompting. But this time she drew.

And drew.

And drew.

It was meditative drawing, there’s no doubt about that.

Stitching does that for me. The up and down of the needle going back and forth across the cloth – that’s a rhythm that provides a space for me to drift off into reverie, to plumb the depths of my wonderings. Stitching is meditation for me. I am deeply connected with cloth and thread, with stitching which has long been considered women’s work.

“the hands know,
the materials too,
quite apart from your imaginings,
less or more than your intentions –
following the pattern that emerges,
the story as it tells.”
Jane Whiteley

You know, I get to select the cloth I’ll use, the color of thread, even the particular needle. Nancy uses what is put in front of her. Sometimes the possibilities, the vast array of choices overwhelm me to the point of shutdown. Nancy didn’t seem affected one little bit about having no choices. Maybe she’s used to using what’s put in front of her, of not having choices. Sometimes less really is more. Sometimes creativity thrives with boundaries. Sometimes the imagination romps long and wildly within certain restrictions.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

She draws:

I stitch:

We make a good team.

Nancy spent several years as a resident of Stewart Home School in Frankfort, Kentucky before moving to Duvall Presbyterian Home in Glenwood, Florida. During one weekend visit, Nancy and I spent the entire weekend talking about her friends Terry Lynn and Baker. At the end of the weekend when we settled her back into her dorm, I asked to meet her friends I now knew so much about. Turns out that Terry Lynn had been dead for nearly 15 years, and Baker was a white stuffed bear residing on her bed. Here she is, our Nancy posing for a picture on a Stewart Home School family weekend with her parents and my children. Today is my son’s birthday.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

She draws:

I stitch:

“Concepts can never be presented to me merely,
they must be knitted into the structure of my being,
and this can only be done through my own activity.”
~ M. P. Follett in Creative Experiences

~~~~~~~~~

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.

Every day for the past 8 weeks,
it starts with one of Nancy’s drawings. Today, #57:

And every day I stitch the drawing du jour:

Here are the 7 I stitched this past week:

Last night
my moonsparkle friend
sent me this quote from Don Quixote.
Said it made her think of Nancy:

Maybe the greatest madness is to see life as it is rather than what it could be.

~~~~~~~~~

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.

“The condition of vitality next involves the emphasis in each symbol of the living forces, the vital character, of the thing represented, in preference to mere surface qualities.”

“This effect of vitality will be enhanced if the symbol states no more than the essential feature, if it states them clearly, and if it states them swiftly,”

“for the very swiftness of the execution will convey a sense of power and liveliness to the spectator.”

“This vitality must also be accompanied with the tenderness and subtlety born of long and earnest insight into nature, or the symbol, though spirited, will be shallow . . . ” C. J. Holmes, Notes on the Science of Picture-Making

There are 2 pen strokes in her 56th drawing.

~~~~~~~~~

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.