Baskets

The baskets I talked about making have finally been completed. These weren’t planned as such and the reality didn’t look at all like what I imagined, I am very pleased with the results of my efforts.

Soul Journal

My lovely friend Jill pointed me in the direction of a new project at Caspiana. I couldn’t resist playing along, even though I know some of the steps in this project won’t be for me.

Page 1: Claiming the journal, Page 2: Soul Armour

Page 3 and 4: Small squares

Coils and Twists

Kerry Vincent provided the prompt for this writing on Squidoo. “Write about what kind of basket would hold your culture, your thoughts, your art? What materials would it be made of? What if that were no longer available? (Sweetgrass supplies are very limited in the American southeast today.) What colors would you use? What shape would it be? Would it have a lid, or handles? How do you tell when it’s full? How do you protect your basket? Did you weave or coil it? Can you teach the technique to someone else?”

There’s a mystery to baskets for those of us who admire them but think we don’t have the skills to make our own. Made of woven materials, coils and twists they’re tactile objects, yet robust enough to do duty for fetching and carrying. Baskets are vessels that nurture and protect the things we love, when full the cup running over with plenty, when empty a container we can fill to overflowing with good things of all sorts.

I’ve always owned and admired baskets. I love them as receptacles for precious items that can be left around my house. They’re far more beautiful than plastic boxes and just as functional. My varied collection is made from willow, cane, sea grass, reed and wire. One of my favourites is a small African basket brought home by a friend from South Africa made from recycled telephone wires closely woven to form a simple pattern.

I’ve always been a stitcher; over the years I’ve used baskets as places to stash my project and materials. My embroidery threads and scraps of fabric only make sense to me if they’re in a basket I can reach into, dig deep and find the perfect colour. I love the feel of the fibres and the textures as I reach into the depths. After a bad day at work being able to feel my treasures and run my hands through them makes my heart sing.

The basket to hold my culture, thoughts and art will one I create for myself. I can see what I want to do already in my mind’s eye, coils of fabric, scraps left over from projects I’ve completed over the years, from clothes I’ve loved and no longer wear, from fabric that has always been too beautiful to cut,  and fabric I’ve hand dyed and decorated. The fabrics I’ll be using will represent things that are important to me as a stitcher and evocative of the creative culture that goes with the arts and crafts that I love. I’m going to enjoy twisting and tying the fabrics together, letting the raw edges and loose threads mingle and become enmeshed as I work. I’m planning to stitch the surface with threads I’ve treasured and haven’t yet found had the right project for, using stitches I’ve learnt over the years. I’m not sure that I’ll plan the size and shape, I’m just going to coil my fabrics into rings, building up the base and sides, stitching them together letting the twists and coils drive the shape and size. I may craft a handle on either side to pick my basket up by. As I stitch, I’ll be stitching my hopes for the protection that my basket will give to my thoughts into the base, asking it to nurture them and help them germinate into realities. As I coil my fabrics I will be twisting my wishes for the ability to complete a creative endeavour each and every day into the sides of the basket.

There’s no time like the present for making a start twisting and coiling my ideas, thoughts and materials into a basket.

 

 

 

 

The Queen of Hearts

… She of the tarts fame, is one of my neighbours. It’s not easy living next door to someone who’s favourite phrase is “Off with their heads!”. She’s been terrorising the poor White Rabbit for years, poor dear, he’s lost his confidence entirely and can’t stop stuttering. As for the Mad Hatter, I’m sure it was the Queen who sent him mad with her shrieking.

The dear March Hare and I decided that something needed to be done to try and sweeten her temper, before she goes to far. We thought she might like a small gift, we had a bit of difficulty deciding what to give the woman who has everything, in the end we thought something unique and hand made, but not jam tarts, would be best.

Hare tries really hard, bless him, by his own admission he finds it very difficult to hold a paint brush, he hates getting glue in his fur and is even more scared of scissors than he is the Queen. We hope she likes the gift we made, if not we could be hearing the screaming from here:

 

 

The Wicked Garden, continued

Anita-Marie Mosceco wrote this part of this story, her challenge was to finish it:

There is a woman who is voiceless from wailing and wasted from weeping and Death visits her from Faraway at Midnight. Death finds her in her Garden, her long dead garden tending to weeds and thorns and sticker bushes and poisonous plants and as she harvests and picks and adds each deadly plant to her basket woven from human hair.

Death shudders and hides in the Shadows and is grateful the Woman can’t see him. All the same she knows Death is there and when she senses it, she reaches into her basket and lifts one of the plants to her lips and pushes it into her mouth. She chews and swallows and screeches into the darkness, “Where are you? Why aren’t these working”

My ending, if indeed it is an ending, was originally posted to the Pythian Games:

Continuing the story started by Anita Marie Moscoso…

 

Death steps further back into the Shadow, uncertain about the wisdom of seeking and taking a soul that feels far bleaker than his own. He puzzles over what, or who this woman is, how her life became a wasteland, so devoid of everything that she lacks even fear of him.

 

He stands back in the shadows, lost in thought, recalling centuries of stalking lands stricken by famine, beset by war and waste, dry dustbowls stripped of life, fostering and nurturing disease and pestilence, creating orphans and widows, collecting those who despaired and fell. Death had been in this world forever, and had never come across any one who’d actually mocked and defied him. It felt strange, uncomfortable as though she were stalking him, dragging him down with the bleakness of her soul.

 

Death looked up again, focussed on the spot where the woman had been standing; she was no longer in front of him. The space she’d occupied empty. He suddenly senses rather than hears her; a chill passes through him, he feels a slight pressure against his side, and feels the smell and taste of bitter herbs smothering him.

 

His frame shudders as he feels her bleak despair settle in his core, as he plunges into the deepest darkness beyond this world and gives himself up to sensations he has dispensed so many times before. Death hears the voiceless sounds, words in his head:

 

I have watched you, cheated you and overcome you, I am Nemesis

 

A new identity

Luftmensch: an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income

I think fate found me this word. Life in the Painted Tree House is a life of creating things, of art and writing, reflection and contemplation. It’s about wondering where I will find myself when I open the door and step outside. I seeking experiences beyond the safety of the Painted Tree House without having anything definite in mind about what I might discover and what purpose my discoveries might serve other than a gathering of thoughts for contemplation.  I need to have no purpose or intent when it comes to savouring the opportunities that are presented to me.

A luftmensch is a dreamer building beautiful castles, no whole worlds in the air, seeing visions in the clouds, creating images no one else sees, for no other reason than they can do these things. They are not driven by worldly pressures; they are doing what comes naturally, allowing themselves the journey and the discovery without these things having to lead anywhere.

If I have become a dreamer, wool gatherer, a love of tales and of telling, it might appear I lack any substance, that I am light as air or thistledown. To see what no one else can, to contemplate what is seen without any compulsion to act upon the vision, to have no expectations about where this might lead, must surely be the task, the life work of a luftmensch.

Doesn’t that make the luftmensch the luckiest of folks? Leading a life full of contemplation, without the restraints of income and necessity, to see and enjoy visions, to be curious and open about the world they inhabit, to have thoughts that are fly by night, fleeting and tantalising glimpses of a world that comes unbidden.

 

The Painted Tree House: Door to other worlds

 

Every adventure needs an attractive starting point, a wonderful door that opens onto a beautiful view and a journey of exploration that reveals new and wondrous things.

Join me.