Rooted in Mississippi

I got up early and did my morning pages before I had to take Roscoe to the vet. I left him there while I went Yazoo City to meet with the Stitchery Guild. The good news is that Chez Root is heartworm free! Both Louie and Roscoe are officially finished with their treatment, have had a negative blood test and are back on monthly preventative.

I am so relieved that it is all over and they are doing so well. Roscoe is even more energetic than he was when first got here, which is hard to believe since I nicknamed him “jumpy boy” on day one! Louie has aged a lot over the course of the last few months, but he too is doing well. I thought I would share an old photo of Oscar and Louie on the same dog puff bed that they are on in the previous post. The dog bed and the dogs are both a lot grayer these days.

I really had a lovely day at the Nutty Knitter inside Grace Hardware. She has increased her floor space and carries a lot more stock than on my last trip. I bought some roving bits…yes I know how crazy that is…but I was tempted beyond my ability to ignore the lovely goodness. After visiting with the owner, I am very encouraged. Grace Hardware and ARTichoke are similar types of stores and she started her shop by renting a small space from Grace Hardware. The venture has really grown and she occupies about a third of the store now! It was a nice thing to hear when I am about to embark on this new adventure.

Someone on Ravelry corrected me and told me that ARTichoke is really in the Belhaven District, not Fondren. That makes sense since the Belhaven Garden Club has used the space out back for meetings. Sorry for being a ditz.

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As of January 2008, I am officially President of the CyberStitchers Chapter of the Embroiderer’s Guild of America (EGA). This past week, I presided over my first meeting, which is a big deal in a chapter of nearly three hundred members who communicate via email on a Yahoo Group. It was also my turn to set a challenge to the chapter for the coming year and this is what I posted. This is the edited version:

“My challenge for the chapter is for each you to read the Artist’s Way (you can probably find it at any library or bookstore) and to do the exercises at the end of each chapter. You do not have to start today and complete it in twelve weeks, although it works best when you do it regularly. No challenge has ever has 100% participation, so I am not going to worry that this is not directly needlework related. I feel strongly that if just one of you completes the exercises and finds a sense of passion and purpose for your art, then it was a very wise choice indeed.”

One of my main reasons for doing this, is that needleworkers almost never see themselves as artists. Not only are they artists, they need to learn to nurture their artistic souls. Part of the battle is seeing yourself as an artist, something with which I have struggled in the past. My business cards say “Fiber Artist,” which is proof that the Artist’s Way helped me find clarity and self-esteem. I plan to post about the journey on my blog, just as I have in the past. There is already a category for Artist’s Way, from the last time I did the program.

I hope that some of you will join me!

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When I started this Getting to Know You: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow exercise from Create a Connection, I had no idea it would be so revealing. Stuff come up in this that never surfaced when I did the Artist’s Way, but they should have!

Where were you in 1987? In school? Working? Single? Married? Attached? What was important to you? What were you doing creatively? Tell us a bit about your life then. I realize some of you were children then…all the better!

Turns out that 1987 was a really tumultuous year. I had recently transferred from Georgia Tech to UGA to be with my serious boyfriend, Grady. He gave me a ring and we got engaged, but I broke it off when it became clear that he liked to drink more than he loved me. I was at rock bottom, depressed, and on the rebound, when I met a local boy and foolishly married him instead. It was a really insane time in my life, but I was still doing needlepoint, crochet, cross stitch, and even a little quilting.

Where were you in 1997? What would you like to share about the nineties?

By 1997, I was in Mississippi. I was building a career and earning way more money than I thought I would in this state. The previous decade was less in flux and I was not as depressed as I had been earlier in my life. However, it just so happens that 1997 was destined to be another tumultuous year. It was the year that the first school shooting happened in Pearl, where my best friend’s daughter attended middle school. Needless to say, it hit very close to home, even though she was not there. Sadly, the fear of losing her made real was a harbinger. We lost Charlotte after a fatal car accident just two months later. We had been close since the first day I met her and the bond had grown over the years. She was such a wonderful kid and was turning into a beautiful young woman. I stayed by her side in the pediatric ICU and was there when they took her off life support. It was the longest and hardest day of my life.

After her death, things started to fall apart at home and would soon fall apart at work. It was one of those major pivotal, life changing events. I had been crocheting professionally and was producing a huge amount of work product. I was also working on a special afghan for Charlotte as a Christmas present. I never finished it, because she died just before Thanksgiving. I put down the hook and never finished it.

Where did you plan to be or think you’d be in 2007? Have your realized your goals? What is one thing about your present life you love and one you’d like to change?

I don’t think I ever really thought about where I would be in 2007, but I am sure it would have never occurred to me that I would be happily married and living in Jackson. Maybe I have had trouble finding true peace this year, because my subconscious recognized the fact that 1987 and 1997 had been years of destruction and rebirth. Until I started sifting through my memories to answer these questions, it never occurred to me that those roller coaster years were exactly a decade apart. Maybe that is why I have been so introspective and seeking out new ideas over the last year.

I have been in a creative stall, not a slump. I am not creating, because I really do not want to, other things have been more important. At least I did not pick up any new hobbies this year. I admit that I have not really finished much, because I have not started much. I have been in diagnosis and self-repair modes.

How do you see your life in 2017? Do you have any goals or dreams for your future?

I have no idea, but I hope we are all happy, healthy, and creative. If you spend too much time looking to the past or the future, you miss out on today.

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Sharon Boggon made a very provocative post today.  I commented on her blog and gave my personal excuses for why I have stalled, but I think I nailed it on the head with my first remark.  Since leaving my day job, I have seen myself as a housewife with hobbies, not an artist.

I wrote a short list of immediate goals, assuming that more would unfold as I shift my priorities. The list is as follows:

1. Set a schedule and stick to it.
2. Spend time every day in my needlework studio. 
3. Better utilize, and therefore reduce, my time online.
4. Get back into the habit of doing my morning pages.
5. Get rid of the dining room table and turn it into an art/fiber area.

I also need to decide what I really want to be.  I still feel strange thinking of myself as an artist, fiber artist, or even needle artist.  Ding, ding, ding!  I have found the problem.  If I can not see myself as an artist, how can I possibly ever become one? 

Of course, there is no shame in being a housewife with hobbies, which goes a long way toward explaining why I have been in this mode for several months now. I think that maybe it would be nice if I could be a productive housewife with hobbies.  Then again, do I really want to be in the business of production? It really was much easier to go to work and bring home a pay check.  There is little room for self-doubt when you have a job; not that I want to go back to work! 

Seriously, I guess this discussion has come around full circle. I am at baseline happy with my life right now.  I do not need to find a way to change my self perception.  I do not need to evolve into an artist.  I think that what I really need is to strike a balance. 

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The cold has been reduced to an annoying cough, but it is so much better.  I am not choking for minutes and I was able to get back to the gym today for seventy minutes on the treadmill. 

I have not been working on anything in the studio all week.  I have barely spun any wool.  I have not moved forward with my needlelace needle book, even though I am very close to finished with the main design.  I have not gone to get a second skein of Homespun to finish my veteran’s scarf either.  The only thing I have kept up with while I have been sick is online junk. 

I have been tracking all of my food and exercise on SparkPeople.  I have been posting messages, commenting on blogs, checking in on blogs, updating my bookmarks and being good about keeping up with my daily blogging commitment for this month.  So I have been productive, just not creative.

This weekend, I plan to get my act together and spend a little time creating.  I am probably going to drag my needlework to my Weavers and Spinners guild.  Or maybe I will head upstairs and try to find that skein of Homespun and continue working on my scarf.  But, I really need to get my creative self back on track.  I wonder why I manage to derail myself so easily. 

I need to get back to my traditional early morning journaling.  Maybe I will start the Artist’s Way over again.  I am not blocked or stymied; I am just lazy and unfocused.  I am not sure what I want to do.  Sometimes I think having so many hobbies, such a broad range of things I am able to do, is more of a curse than a blessing.  It makes it that much harder for me to focus.  I guess I am proving the old adage, Jill of all trades and master of none.

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This week’s Every Day Matters challenge came at just the right time. I happened to have had a Smoothie for dinner and it was calling to me. I started drawing it in graphite, but the colors were more significant than the tonal shading, so I whipped out my Faber-Castell PITT artist pens and set about drawing it right away.


It was a nice, quiet day. I was writing my morning pages and whining about not having heard from younger brother and just then, my dad called. He wanted some phone numbers, so afterward I talked him into giving me Andrew’s new cell phone number. Julia Cameron would call that “synchronicity.” I called and we spoke. He was in Alabama, driving home from a work assignment. We made tentative plans to go get sushi when he has some free time and we are both in town.

I also had a friend contact me about buying a LeClerc 4-Harness loom. I plan to call the owner tonight. She is an artist on the Gulf Coast. My friend said I would want to tour the studio and spend some time talking with her if I went down there. I was not planning to get into weaving this soon, but a great deal on good loom would go a long way to getting me started on that journey. You just never know when things will fall into place.

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I did my morning pages and busied myself around the house. Then I went to Hobby Lobby to browse with my 40% off coupon in hand. They are reorganizing the art department, so it was hard to really find everything. Finally, I bought some India Ink art pens that looked interesting. Although, I think I am too unsure of myself to try drawing in permanent ink yet. That said, I want to get to that point, because I like the look of ink under watercolor. It gives me something to which I can aspire!

On my way home, I went to the gym and worked out with an exercise ball, then I did about twenty minutes on the stationary bicycle. I am doing pretty good with my commitment to trying to get back into shape. I hope I can keep up the enthusiasm. I asked my husband to buy me a membership when I was certain I was going to turn in my notice at work. I used to be a gym rat before I started dating him. I want to get back to the point where I can swim for an hour straight. It used to be some of my best “thinking” time.

Anyway, when I got home, I pulled out the shoe I selected yesterday. I had no idea how hard it would be to draw a black suede shoe in pencil. But, that is the point of the challenges, right? To grow and develop. Interestingly, the shoe was one I wore while I was first dating my husband. I hardly ever put on high heels anymore. I prefer clogs, sandals and sneakers. Do I just think one of those would be easier to draw, because they are easier to wear? Maybe I need to experiment with that.

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Vee asked for more information on LightScribe. It is a an HP technology that uses the laser that reads/writes CDs and DVDs, can burn an image into special media, creating a custom label by etching it with a laser. It requires a special CD/DVD burner and a special media, but the cost is actually less than custom printing your own CD labels. And as pretty as those labels can be, they are BAD for your player and can cause jams. To see a video, check out the HP site.

I am not doing very well on my reading deprivation from the Artist’s Way. I have read email and blogs. I have not read any books, but I did read the rules for my Master Craftsman program. I have been very good about writing my morning pages, but I have missed a few days. Ironic that I wrote about synchronicity just before the chapter that asks if you have experienced it.

I did try TV deprivation, when I was home during the day, which I find much more effective. I am getting better at turning off the TV. I mean, how many episodes of Matlock can I watch? How many Sci-Fi mini-marathons? Apparently a hell of a lot.

I am heading up to Northeast Alabama for the EGA Tennessee Valley Region business meeting. I have packed a mish-mash of things into my bags, so I can knit or stitch in my spare time. I also packed a small sketch book and my pencils. I have had a lot of stuff bubbling up since I got the inspiration last week. I hope I can ride this wave long enough to complete the Master Craftsman step, so that I can submit it.

I also decided I need to start submitting work more often for competitions. I just have to push aside that fear of failure and start sending things in to be judged.

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I was reading through my old yearbooks and the one from my Senior year had several comments that mentioned my AP English teacher by name. One in particular, written by Shana Clark, suggested we start the “Clint Schaum Love/Hate Fan Club.” I hate to admit it, but it made me laugh. The truth is, I never hated him, but he was vexatious. Ironically, I did sort of start a Clint Schaum Fan Club when I posted this web page to encourage other former students and colleagues to contact him.

I must have been such a pain to teach, especially something like literature. I assigned too much value to my own personal interpretations and it must have been insufferable. I must have been insufferable. I was so deeply depressed and such an iconoclast. I always had my fists in the air. The quintessential rebel without a clue, constantly butting heads with authority figures and trying to bend the rules to the point of breaking. I was just so miserable at Westminster after Jane left. I mean, I was never really happy there, but it was most tolerable when Jane was there with me.

I actually did have close friends there, a lot of them, considering it all. There was Jane Marshall, but also Nicki Tabb, Lauren Friendlander, Ann Kaminstein, Earl Robinson, Shana Clark, Carolyn Keller, and even Wendy Welker and Cindy Latham before they escaped. There were a slew of other friends but those were the ones I thought of as closest. I eventually lost touch with all of them, except for Jane. I also had a life (some of it secret) outside of Westminster with friends like Maxie Gower, Jeff L. Martin, M. Jeff Martin, Marco, and Heather Jones.

I did hear from Maxie a few months ago. It was one of those nostalgia induced phone calls out of the blue. I suppose I am pretty easy to find. The one from that list who I wonder about most is Jeff Martin. I only remember seeing him a few times after he got back from Anneewakee. Too bad it is such a common name that I will probably never find him again. I hope he went on to have a good life.

Sorry for the ranting. This is all coming to the surface because of the Week 1 of the Artist’s Way.

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I have built up a couple of days worth of flex time and decided that today would be good for taking the day off and recharging my batteries. This morning, I climbed back into bed after letting the dogs out and images from my dream were darting in and out of my consciousness. When I was sure I could not drag any more bits out of the ether, I went out to the living room to begin my morning pages.

Instead of the usual stream of consciousness stuff that has been flowing through my pen since Sunday, today a short story worked its way onto the pages. I hate to write anything long hand, because I make so many changes and corrections. But after a few minutes, I decided to just let it unfold and if I liked it, I could type it up and consider polishing it later.

I logged onto the computer, did the regular email and blog check. In part to keep me from reading the story. I am worried that my inner censor will want to destroy it. It is all third person, without names or specifics. I am starting to understand the value of writing so early in the day. You are still connected to your dreams and your unconscious mind. Not awake enough for self-censoring or self-critique. I felt compelled to get it all out onto paper as quickly as possible.

I am amazed that each day has brought me some piece of my past and some piece of my personal history. It is hard to reconstruct a life from the paltry shards of my memory. I still have not found the demons, but I am not sure I want to either. If there is something that I have been repressing for that long, maybe I don’t really want to uncover it. But the memories that are coming back so far are tolerable, in fact a surprising number of them are good. Reconnecting with a long lost champion, recalling my secret boyfriend, all of those things help me to understand who I am now and who I want to become.

I decided to shun all of my practical plans for today and to work on the fantastical instead.

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