Healing Handcrafting

Tag Archives: block printing


by Leave a comment

Summoning Creativity #2~ Follow Threads

Recently I was talking to someone in my studio about a theme he noticed in my work~ I had an image expressed several ways and he wondered at the significance of the image to me. This got me thinking about how this happens in my work sometimes and the best way I can put it is, I let my psyche guide me in what images, symbols or themes I want to follow, and then… I do.

For example, several years ago, I was looking at a picture in a book I have of an image of an elderly woman sitting on a granite sort of bench that was really maybe a retaining wall for a city garden bed, her hands resting on her pocketbook. I loved her face and found myself looking at her and going back to look at her some more. I had all kinds of feelings when I took in her details and conjured stories that might explain her look of sadness.

Then, I decided to try to draw her. (I know I didn’t get her image exactly as she looked in the picture. For one, I don’t know how to draw, but the point of all of what I’m saying here has nothing to do with perfection, and only to do with engaging.)

Then I found myself looking at the face of the woman I drew. And I kept going back and looking at her some more and I remember thinking, who are you?

A year or two after drawing her, I took a tapestry weaving class with Rebecca Mezoff, which I highly recommend. We were tasked with designing a cartoon for a weaving project, and I chose my lady. I knew I wanted to learn how to weave faces, and I wanted to spend more time with her. So, I dove into that and made the cartoon, and then I started weaving her…

And I wove her…

And kept weaving her…

And then I was like, “no really, who ARE you?!” She became ever more important to me. I started to see in her face regret, which is another theme I’ve been following, studying, and writing about for many years. That was interesting. This thread I was following was actually one I’d been engaged with in a more intellectual way for a long time. The theme suddenly dove into new, creative terrain.

Then, I was done with the weaving, but I wasn’t done with the image, so I did a block print of her.

And then, I was done.

So you see… there was an initial spark, and then an idea and another idea and another idea… I couldn’t have planned this all. I just followed the image and let it keep working on me over the course of a few years. There need not be any rush or pressure. There’s no time limit. There’s only an invitation.

Following threads of themes, symbols and images is a really fun and meaningful way to get into something and experiment with different mediums. Fun because you’re literally playing with an idea and letting it work on you. Meaningful because the threads come from your own psyche. No one is assigning them to you.

So, how does one do this?

Start with these questions:
~ What’s on your mind these days?
~ What are you drawn to? Is it a song? A color? A taste? A smell? An image?
~ This thing you are drawn to, how might you engage with it creatively? Can you draw it? Cook it? Paint it? Weave it? Sculpt it?
~ Can you start there? And see where it leads?
~ Can you write about it? What draws you to it or captures your attention?

For example… maybe the color green is really grabbing you or you know it’s your favorite color. You can:

  • take out some water colors play with greens; you can blend, use solid colors, or make them so subtle you can barely see them, or pair the greens with complementary colors…
  • you can take pictures of all the greens you see in your immediate landscape or your home
  • you can wear green
  • you can knit/crochet/weave a green-inspired project
  • you can read about the color green and see what themes/symbols/stories/myths are associated with it
  • you can follow an idea because what might happen is, with all of this attention to green, an image of a way to work with it will occur to you- listen to that and follow it.
  • the more you do this, the more you’ll do it – wow, that was deep.

I love seeing how people do this~ please write and share if you are so inclined! And, if you want to keep up on this monthly Creativity Summoning, sign up to receive updates to the site! We’ll keep it going as long as I have something say.

Until next time,

bradie


by Leave a comment

Hey. How Are You?

No really. How are you?

A friend of mine mentioned the other day that I hadn’t written here in a bit. She’s known me long enough to recognize a pattern of mine which is that I do a pretty full retreat from online things when there’s something I’m sorting out. I got to talk about the things that I’ve been chewing on, and she listened. She also said she missed seeing what I’m up to when it comes to making things. This was a beautiful nudge. Very well-rounded.

Grief, as you likely already know, takes its toll on people. As someone who’s written a lot about grief, a whole book in fact, you’d think maybe I’d know some tricks on how to navigate the experience with greater ease. But I’m here to tell you, there are no easy ways through the process. In all my writing, talking, supporting, and expressing, never once do I suggest there is a “get-through-grief-the-easy-way” option. It is simply something we must go through, feel, adapt to, and be chiseled by. Ultimately, we are charged with getting to know ourselves and others in our new form, as someone changed by what we’ve experienced.

I’ve noticed about myself that when I’m swimming in the grief waters, I need to take some steps back from those things that put me out there into the world. Certain aspects of grief make me feel like I’m a flipped over turtle, and the last thing I need in those circumstances is to feel more vulnerable during those times.

As we approach the year anniversary of when my dad died, we are also making our way through cold winter here in Vermont. In a few days, it will be February 1, Imbolc, which marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. This is when, in the Northern Hemisphere, the light starts to shift and come back. Many are thinking about the seeds they’re going to start indoors in preparation for the spring plantings. The goddess Brigid is honored in her many forms. We are invited to clean our houses, set our intentions, and think about what we want to bring into fruition in the coming growing cycles.

sun snow…

I will be honoring both of these events. I feel ready for the light to come back after relishing resting in the dark.

Creative life has been full all these months. I’ve been teaching at the Shelburne Craft School, a place that has truly become a home away from home. I also have spent time with folks in my studio, supporting their weaving journey. I’m taking a tapestry weaving class with Elizabeth Buckley, all about weaving water. I am learning so much!

my first attempt to weave reflections in water… not easy, my friends. I have a ways to go, but I’m loving the class.

I have a lot of little projects going on as well, including a new daily weaving practice that has absolutely no plan, so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and I made some block prints…

I’m creating things for a new class I’ll be offering called Wild Weaving, where we get to blast out our creativity and impulses into the embrace of a waiting warp.

And, I’m developing an online class as part of our Weaving Your Story programming through the craft school. This is a curriculum I’ve been developing for a couple of years and has become a very important part of my life.

All amazing work to get to be doing!

I still need to finish weaving some towels so I can get started on a new installation idea that won’t let go of my imagination. That is a project I’ll be planting seeds for soon, in hopes that it will be born over the summer months. You heard it here first! It’s got ties to this piece that was in a show in South Burlington last year.

Creative energy builds when we learn how to rest in the ways we need.

That’s it for now. Thank you, dear friend, for asking for an update.