Art and Craft

I'm a recovering perfectionist. Most people that know me well are not surprised by this. As a kid I would only do things that I thought I could do well. If I hit a wall, I'd stop. If I didn't know what would happen I wouldn't even try. Sad.

So fast-forward to a much different season in life. This spring I spent a week in (mostly) silence on a personal retreat. During meals at the retreat center recordings were played on various topics related to solitude, silence and meditation. One day the topic turned to craft and art. The post on quilting brought me back to this idea.

The speaker compared a life of "craft" to a life of "art." The basic idea being that our lives can be a replica of someone else's idea of beauty or a risky and original attempt at our own meaningful expression of a life of beauty. It struck me as thought provoking and I've thought about it off and on ever since.

Here's the thing. Almost nothing in life is "either-or." All or nothing. How can we find our voice unless we follow in the footsteps of other artists? An artist begins as a craftsperson. Not to mention that a craftsperson--someone who consistently creates a similar item is needed and valuable, not second-class. We need both to make our world work. We need to be both. Consistent and brave. Modeling the principals and giving space for new forms of expression.

This is essential as a person. I model my life on the women who have come before me, those who live around me. Yet, I need to be my own voice, my own unique contribution to womanhood. As a wife. As a mother. As a person of faith.

It's just easier to be safe. To pick a safe life in a safe neighborhood. To teach our kids to be safe. It's a starting point, but the next lesson is to learn who we really are and to try to become that person. This is scary. To empower my husband, my children, my friends to live their dreams means distance, risk, maybe failure. The stakes are high. It's understandable to be scared.

People who are afraid do so many stupid things. And that's where faith comes in, I think. Faith, for me, is the balance of craft and art. Rules and risk. Clarity and mystery. It's what moves me forward and calms my fear. It's what gives me strength to listen to a friend or send my husband off on a plane to a canyon in the middle of nowhere. It's what compels me to try to live a life of meaning and purpose. It's what's teaching me that it's paradoxically safe to risk.

Quilting--perfection with all the corners matching and the colors coordinating and the stitches even verses an improvised, off-center gathering of fabric layered and bound. They both keep you warm at the end of the day. Both are needed. Both offer lessons in discipline and beauty.

Welcome!

Autumn. It has come. Technically. Isn't it funny how the calendar and the weather don't always pay attention to one another on those particular transition days?

I love this season most of all. It is the arms reaching between a rich, full summer and a dark, quiet winter. It is fullness and savoring the last outdoor days. It is harvest and light. It is surrendering to the chill and sleep of winter's calm. Candlelight and sweaters. Apple crisp and cider. It is a mass of green trees reclaiming their individual voices one vibrantly colored leaf at a time. It is the promise that letting go is not the end, but a way to cultivate a new beginning. Welcome Autumn.

Inspiration

The best part of finishing a creative project for me is the anticipation of starting another one! I finished a big (for me) knitting project. This baby blanket:


I also made a couple of cute swaddling blankets using this as a guide.

Finally, I'm sewing the binding on a wall-hanging quilt to welcome home a very sweet baby boy adopted from the Congo. This one was a long-time coming and, like many projects had it share of grumbling (mostly, "what was I thinking" and "oh no, it's not working!!) and payoffs (as in, "this actually looks like a quilt!"). You know how that goes, right?

My biggest realization from making these last projects is how much I love the soft, reassuring feeling of a hand-made blanket spreading out around me. Or wrapping one around one of my sweet children. This is a heritage passed down from my great-grandmother. As a child, we had almost no "store bought" blankets in our home or on our beds. My great-grandma would hand cut and hand piece quilts all winter long, tie or hand quilt them, and give them to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Their beauty was not in their preciseness or perfect color coordination, but in their quirkiness, and their slight imperfections. I loved them more and felt more at home wrapped in their soft honesty.

Making this most recent quilt for a friend revealed my many flaws as a quilt-maker. It's far from square and precise and I thought that was a downfall, but it certainly makes the quilt unique. It is no less filled with love, for sure!

More on this idea soon, but in the mean time, here is a lovely flickr group with quilts in the spirit of a quilt artist named Denyse Schmidt who makes me smile and gives me hope I might be able to create art with fabric and bring a smile to someone else.

Catching up

So much has happened in a month. Good things like birthdays, anniversaries, loosing teeth, riding her bike for the first time without training wheels, first day of school.

I've been living it. Capturing it on my camera. Just hesitating to share it all here. Sometimes it's beyond words and I don't want to add to the clutter in the world.

Both Adam and I have found ourselves tired. We are running hard after big goals and feeling small. Feeling like it's beyond us and we can never quite get it all done. Each day brings some progress and experience tells me it really will all get done. I just don't know exactly how, yet.

I've also bee feeling humbled as a mom. A new school year is bringing new challenges for each child and the answers aren't completely clear. I basically have to cheer them on as they face challenges and give them time to grow into these new expectations without getting overwhelmed. The neighborhood kids in our inner-city neighborhood come over almost every day hungry for snacks and attention. I give them hugs, snacks, band-aids, and, occassionally help with homework. There's so much I can't fix. I do what I can when I can, but it feels small.

I got up early to read and pray the other morning as I found myself reduced to tears several times the day before. Psalm 147:6a "The Lord sustains the humble..." 5 words. I am humbled by my weakness, my humanity, my brokenness, how I don't know what to do or say in so many situations. My kids need more than I can give. Neighborhood kids are dealing with things I can hardly wrap my mind or heart around. I can only watch the struggle and struggle with them. Struggle with hope, anticipation that we all will be sustained. Carried. Lifted. Transformed.

I go to my garden during D's naps for a small escape and to play in the flowers for a few minutes. Several of the plants are going to seed now and I'm collecting the seeds for next year. It's surprisingly easy.

Actually the girls reseeded the purple and pink cosmos in the back yard last year just by playing in them. The flowers returned and bloomed all summer with such ease and grace. I keep taking pictures of them because it's such a simple and profound symbol to me of grace and mercy. My kids were simply playing, being who they are. The beauty that has sprung from that act all these months later has been so refreshing for my soul. I did nothing. Someone else planted. The rains came and the seeds grew into what I needed but could not have asked for or done on my own. That is what makes them so beautiful to me.


I'll finish with some pictures from the last month.