The Terror of Going Within

            I used to hear writers talk about sitting down and “opening up a vein” and it used to fill me with a certain disdain.  I rejected that statement because it seemed self-indulgent, self-pitying, and melodramatic.  I wanted writing to be a joyous activity where I “brought forth” what was within me and it soared to artistic heights my body could not achieve.  I do still hold that aspiration, sometimes.

            There has been a terror for me though, a type of avoidance that is not like the productive avoidance I do when I busy myself with things which I bargain for internally.  (Things that I tell myself lead to writing, or need to be done so I can write, but which are not actually writing.)  These activities usually make me chuckle at myself, then I go to my desk like a petulant child (oops, I got caught) and I get to work.  The avoidance I feel lately though is different, darker, and it brings a different recrimination inside before I get to my writing. 

            It has to do with wasted time, or a distasteful chore.

            It’s not that what I’m writing at the moment is distasteful.  It is in fact something I signed up to do, volunteered for, suggested, pushed for, campaigned for, even at one point felt a great rush of adrenalin for.  It is my doctoral dissertation on poetry, drama, and opera.  I like the project.  I like the writing.  I like what I’ve written so far, and what I am now editing.  What I don’t like: the other eyes I feel over my shoulder while doing the work; the self-recrimination at not having finished sooner, for having invested my time in a collaborative project which didn’t pan out, the self-blame for having mismanaged my most valuable resources, my time and my talent.  It’s the litany of “should haves” repeating like a mantra in my head that terrorize me, panic me, and which I must overcome in order to finish this one particular project.

            As my significant other likes to say, “There’s nothing else for it.”

The Farewell Drive in Pittsburgh

It began behind Maggie Mo at Carnegie Mellon.  Sitting in the car, waiting to pick up a tuba and a grad student, I realized it was going to be one of the last times I was going to drive through Schenley Park at the height of summer, with all the trees fully leafed and all the best things about Pittsburgh fully ready to be appreciated.

The fountain between CMU and the golf course.

Up ahead, Phipps Conservatory.  Turn left at the three-way and head over the Panther Hollow Bridge, passed the playground and Blvd. of the Allies, into Schenley Park proper.

Looping trails and roads.  Green pastures and fireflies.  I've been to a lot of public parks, from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Central Park in NYC.  Schenley had plenty to please the senses and I never felt "unsafe."

The last leg.

If you recognize this from a certain HBO series, good for you.  On the screen it looped several times, making this section of the park seem endless, but it takes less than 30 seconds to pass the guard rail and trees.

The last leg of the drive home, the entrance to the bridge that went over the parkway and led to my little neighborhood.  Yes, that's a hub cap on the side of the road.  One of those tiny houses on the hillside beyond the bridge was my tiny little home.

I drove this road so many times, taking it for granted, but looking back on it now, I still have the visceral experience of its smell and its feel.

Getting Married Later in Life

June 5, 2010

Self Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

Pacific Palisades

Everyone began the ceremony by first taking a peaceful walk around the lake.

Jordan liked having her picture taken.

Tim and I sat quietly while everything was prepared for the ceremony.  Brother Vishawananda blessed our rings.  When it was time to begin, the cameras were switched off.

It was a very serene day.

When Tim and I first began planning our wedding, we had a common thought:  How can we get our multitude of relatives to put aside their little squabbles and needs for hijacking family gatherings for just 24 hours?  The answer:  we couldn't.  

We took a very contemplative look at the list of people we were "supposed" to invite, the litany of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, each name also representing an ongoing dispute and entanglement with another name, and we sighed.  Instead of being a day where we solemnized our relationship and invited our loved ones to partake of the love we felt for each other, it was shaping up to be a day of running between camps and putting out fires.  That was not the tone we wanted to set for our marriage.  Both being in our mid-forties, we felt it was time to acknowledge that some things were just not going to change, and it was time to move forward.

There were five wedding guests at out wedding, and seven at our reception lunch.  Two of these people were our grandchildren, both under the age of four.  The monastic who conducted the ceremony encouraged us to enjoy the event, even little Benjamin, who was verbally delighted by the sight of swans outside the window of the windmill chapel.  Brother Vishawananda stated that even the sounds of a child laughing were part of the ceremony, part of the celebration of life.

Bears Read Poetry in Denver: AWP Annual Conference & Panel on Opera

April 2010

The best thing about the annual Associated Writing Programs conference is seeing people I haven't seen in years, and listening to what is new in the world of writing, small and university presses, and creative writing programs across the country.

The big highlight for me this year was not the panel presentation I was part of, but the one I attended on poets who write for opera.  This has been a passion of mine for a while now, and it is the main topic of my doctoral dissertation.

As Kate Gale noted, it is a small world, poets who work on libretti, but I would like to see that change.  As I look forward to the opening of Amelia at the Seattle Opera, with its libretto written by the poet Gardner McFall, and to the Rio de Sangre (Kate Gale & Don Davis) opening this fall at Opera Florentine, I'm encouraged that even in a period when most opera companies are scaling back their productions, these contemporary operas are still making it to the stage.

Adding an Inner Breast Pocket to a J Jill Blazer

I wear a lot of jackets and blazers, and I'm alway upset that 

they don't have breast pockets like a man's jacket or blazer.

I'm a writer.  I need to have a recorder (or a small notepad) 

and my cell phone on me all the time.

Why is that?  I carry an iphone and other gadgets, and I don't always carry a purse.  Why no nifty pocket to reach to inside my jacket?  (I used to think it was always so cool when 007 did that.)

My best guess at why manufacturers don't include this as a regular design feature (other than it adds cost) is that women like a good line to their clothing and we have breasts.  Many clothing manufacturers like to emphasis princess seaming for shape, but only high-end sportswear manufacturers find a way to make a shapely, functional garment with pockets.  Power walking is not the only time I need a reliable pocket.

Usually I check the construction of jackets before I purchase them, to see if I can add my own pocket.  This J Jill jacket was a good candidate because even though it didn't have a lining, it had very nicely finished seams with added binding for strength.  That's a plus if you need something to anchor a cell phone pocket to.

I started by using some gridded quilt backing to trace the design of a pocket and see if it would fit to my jacket.  I put the jacket on wrong-side-out, and pinned the grid to the inside of the lapel, then marked where to cut it.  I wanted it to match the curve of the arm-hole in one corner of the pocket:

If you go back to photo #1, you'll see this shape will result in a pocket that is almost sideways, but which slants over the top of my breast toward my armpit.  I like this design because it keeps things from falling out, and it's easier to work with than a regular vertical pocket when sewing it to the jacket (especially if there's no lining to work with).

Here's the fusing pressed to my pocket fabric along a fold, and the pocket cut to match the fusing.

I sewed the pocket along the curved edge, the short edge, and the edge parallel to the fold, then turned it out and ironed it flat.

While wearing the jacket inside out, I pinned the pocket to the seams, then hand-sewed it to the armpit seam, the side seam, and along the seam of the lapel.  For extra support, I took a ribbon and anchored the pocket from its top to the shoulder seam.  The pocket opening is at the lapel seam and it holds my cell phone nicely.

Calico Shirt, Nonna Luisa Style

After 5 years of graduate school, I have the title of Ph.D. to add after my name, and not much money in my pocket.

So. my first resource for fabric is usually free, or cheap.  I'm very familiar with a certain army.

This blouse was going to be used for a project for my granddaughter, because it had good yardage to work with, and I liked the pattern--nice colors to pull from for trims.

On a lark I tried it on.  It was too big, but it fit in the bust, and being someone who has a hard time finding a proper fit in that area, I decided to try and see what I could do to salvage it for my wardrobe.

There was one princess seam on each side, and I could have added more.  The pattern would have easily disguised it, but I decided to try a series of midriff mini pleats instead.

I liked this effect, the way it condensed the pattern and played against it.

I did go to my trim box and start adding a crocheted trim to the cuffs and collar.  This aqua pops against the print.

And this is my new blouse, Nonna-Luisa style.  It's still loose, but it has some shape.

Repetition and condensing a pattern:  hmm... there's something blooming in my writing mind.

The Power of Repetition

Crochet a row.  Put it down.  Type on computer.  Repeat.

Virginia Woolf extolled the virtues of a country walk as a way to "rock oneself" back into writing.  The gentle swaying of a crib that she evoked in that statement, is the feeling I have when doing needlework, especially crocheting or knitting.  It is this actively calm rhythm which loosens my thoughts from the drive of delivering information, getting a point across, or thinking in a way that is outcome-based.

Beyond the repetitive motion which rocks me into a sentence, there is also a repetition in a sentence or a poem which pleases my ear.  In prose it is a careful assonance or alliteration which lets me know the writer wasn't just interested in delivering me from point A to point B, but that she intended to use the best language to get me there.  It might also be a phrase that comes back and increases the tension of the narrative through its repetition.

In a longer poem I might check the repetition of a key phrase and ask myself what purpose it serves.

The use of repetition can condense and unify visual scope

In Anne Sexton's poem "It Is a Spring Afternoon," there is a very long series of scenes, and a key scene of a girl outstretched on a tree limb.  After we are introduced to her for the first time, Sexton repeats  the phrase "Everything here is yellow and green."

.

This repetition acts as a gathering point for all the other images before the image of the girl, and the images after, to bring the landscape of the poem and its meaning into focus around the image of the girl and her naked body.

It Is a Spring Afternoon

by Anne Sexton

Everything here is yellow and green.

Listen to its throat, its earthskin,

the bone dry voices of the peepers

as they throb like advertisements.

The small animals of the woods

are carrying their deathmasks

into a narrow winter cave.

The scarecrow has plucked out

his two eyes like diamonds

and walked into the village.

The general and the postman

have taken off their packs.

This has all happened before

but nothing here is obsolete.

Everything here is possible.

Because of this

perhaps a young girl has laid down

her winter clothes and has casually

placed herself upon a tree limb

that hangs over a pool in the river.

She has been poured out onto the limb,

low above the houses of the fishes

as they swim in and out of her reflection

and up and down the stairs of her legs.

Her body carries clouds all the way home.

She is overlooking her watery face

in the river where blind men

come to bathe at midday.

Because of this

the ground, that winter nightmare,

has cured its sores and burst

with green birds and vitamins.

Because of this

the trees turn in their trenches

and hold up little rain cups

by their slender fingers.

Because of this

a woman stands by her stove

singing and cooking flowers.

Everything here is yellow and green.

Surely spring will allow

a girl without a stitch on

to turn softly in her sunlight

and not be afraid of her bed.

She has already counted seven

blossoms in her green green mirror.

Two rivers combine beneath her.

The face of the child wrinkles.

in the water and is gone forever.

The woman is all that can be seen

in her animal loveliness.

Her cherished and obstinate skin

lies deeply under the watery tree.

Everything is altogether possible

and the blind men can also see.

Fiber Artist, Julie Kornblum: Visually Delicious

Entwined Copper Midnight by Susan McGehee

Talking with Julie Kornblum, April 2010

Julie Kornblum is a fiber artist, a weaver, a mother, an eco-arts activist, and a featured artist in the 

Fiber 2010 show at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center. 

Her recent shows include: “Materiality” at ARC Gallery in Chicago; www.arcgallery.org; “Women’s Works 2010” sponsored by the Northwest Area Arts Council in Woodstock Ill, www.naac4art.org; and “ReVisions, New Creations from Scrap” at two locations in San Francisco, sponsored by SCRAP, www.scrap-sf.org. 

She has been awarded first place in the fiber art category in the Art Buzz 2010 competition, which was published in a hard bound book, www.artbuzz.org/book.html) . One of her woven wall pieces was awarded first place in the 2-D division in the 2009 Juried Member show at Studio Channel Islands.

LV:  There is a specific moment I've been interested in lately, a moment 

that is common across different artistic disciplines. It's that moment 

where action is taken on vision, the moment when imagination is no 

longer just in the mind, but is becoming manifest by doing.  I've been 

asking different artists, and different types of artists about this, the 
pleasure of doing, why it's pleasurable, how pleasure is perceived  

(through which sense organ--is it mostly visual?), and what it is  

about that particular moment that characterizes it as different from  

normal daily activity.  A task is being performed, but not a pedantic  

one.  It may be a repetitive task, but it may not be characterized as  

drudgery.

JK: I'm about ready to go into that place again.  I just finished a project 

and I'll be starting something new soon. I have ideas simmering on the 

back burner of my mind, about ready to boil over into doing, to make the 

idea a reality, sampling, playing with materials, working it out. 

I've been wanting all day to go into the dining room and sort materials
while I visualize the project I want to do next. The idea is hot, burning in
my head. It's the next one in the queue, it started to bubble closer to the
surface as I was coming to the end of the last project. its always this way.
I'll start thinking about the next thing as I'm finishing the current one.

Sometimes it's not pleasurable. It can be frustrating for days and weeks.
There can be technical issues, the materials don't work the way I want them
to. I try something, and try it a different way; it doesn't look how I
pictured it in my head, or it just doesn't look good to me. I walk away, I
leave it for the day or I have other tasks and duties in life to attend to.
the idea continues to percolate on the creative back burner. This is the
working-it-out phase. Its in between the vision and the actual doing.

On my circus piece, "Behind the Cotton Candy," this phase took almost six
months. for the yardage I just finished yesterday, the fused plastic gave me
a couple weeks of frustration.

After this stage there will be a moment, an aha moment when I know this is
it, this is what the project will be. Then I can begin. And this is a
pleasurable moment. I'll feel a sense of accomplishment, like the pleasure
of solving a problem - even though the project is far from being completed.
Sometimes I'm still far from the actual doing, since there is much
preparation of the materials ahead of me. Sometimes its also a huge relief,
like getting your car unstuck from the mud, and back on the road. This is
especially true when there's a deadline for getting the piece done.

The doing is enjoyable, very enjoyable. Sometimes it is so pleasurable that
people don't want to finish things. There can be almost a let down when
something gets finished. Maybe that's why I start thinking about the next
thing just before I've completed what I'm working on. Starting something new
is the most exciting part. 

LV:  Is the pleasure coming from what you're seeing, or is it derived from a 

different sensory input?

JK:  It is visual, yes, but it extends beyond that.  Sometimes when
knitting or weaving, I so love the colors and textures of the yarns I'm
working with; the pleasure of creation is from seeing them up close in my
hands. Sometimes its tactile on top of visual, the feel of the fabrics in
sewing, or the yarns in knitting and weaving. It is akin to eating a really
well prepared dish, a soup, cake, roasted chicken, bread, wine - whatever
does it for you; only you're taking it in with your eyes and finger tips.
It's that kind of enjoyment. When I'm really loving the work is when its
visually delicious.

There is also the pleasure of mastery. When I've joined the right technique
with the right materials, and it all comes together well, and I know I'm
making something of beauty; then that goes beyond the senses. Another
element is meaning. When I make something that looks great, and the
materials and technique support the concept and meaning I'm hoping to
communicate, then that's the ultimate. Is it a conceptual pleasure of the
intellect? It's mental and emotional. I don't know where it resides.

LV:  Do you still feel this if what you're doing is repetitive, like weaving?

JK:  The fiber arts do involve repetitive tasks, but they differ greatly from
daily tasks because as you repeat stitch after stitch, you are building
toward a finished product. As you weave, knit or crochet row upon row, you
are accomplishing something that can be completed. Daily household tasks are
maintenance, they can never be finished. You do the cleaning, cooking,
laundry, and soon your work is all undone and you have to start again. If
you clean your house every week for a year, you'll still end up with a dirty
house. If you knit or weave every week for a year you will end up with a
pile of textiles - garments, hand towels, art objects, whatever.  

More works by Julie Kornblum are visible at:

www.juliekornblum.com

Julie Kornblum's work amazes me, because she uses re-purposed and found materials to weave traditional and non-traditional pieces.  The two works shown above are large-scale weavings, and both use plastic shopping bags.  That's amazing.

Birth of a Poet

When I read poets and look forward to their next books, then that poet passes, it's like watching rope slip off a ledge, one I thought I'd tied firmly behind me, but suddenly--whoosh!--it's gone.  That sense of betrayal and disbelief at the empty air--it's like the moment you discover the person who you thought loved you, didn't really--a stripping-away moment.

I've been thinking of the opposite of that moment.  Wouldn't it be great to know the instant a new poet came into the world, to walk through a maternity ward and know that one of those callow faces was going to write the poem that someday, might save your sanity?  What a wonderful thing that would be.  It would be something like falling in love, but a little bit different, more like falling in awe, falling in limerence, being sublimely gobsmacked with gratitude.

Isn't that what happens when THAT book comes along?  I've had THAT book, the book that I can't bear to take out of my purse, the one I must have on me at all times, so I can read THAT poem, the one that looked right through me, the one that spoke my secret name.

I want more of those days.



In above photo: Nonna Luisa, Jordan

Farewell to Ai

There have been four poets whose recent passing has struck the dark hard place inside me, like a hammer hitting an anvil and chipping off white hot sparks from whatever was being shaped there:

Ai

Lucille Clifton

Deborah Diggs

Sarah Hannah

I first heard Ai read in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she taught.  She was so gentle in her movements, in her deportment, and her words were so powerful.  The contrast, and the force of her meanings, made the evening memorable.  Rarely does one meet the quiet yet unrelenting force of nature, embodied.  That was Ai.

I can't adequately muster all the respect and longing in my heart to bid these poets farewell properly.

Easter Tableau

This is my Easter tableau for the grandkids.

(Even if they only get to see it on skype.)

I have had my grandmother's antique sideboard in storage for a good while.  Last year, things started coming out of storage, and they are still marching their way out of the dusty past and into the light of the present.

There was a fantastic Thanksgiving meal displayed on this sideboard last year, and a Christmas feast.  Now, it's time for Easter.

But, alas, I'm still looking for a permanent home, so there will be no grande feast this year.  There will  be a tableau however, one that expresses the abundance of gratitude in my heart, and one that will hopefully "wow" the little ones when we video chat.

The entire tableau consists of:

1. Mr. & Mrs. Easter Bunny:  I posted notes on how I put these two together. See "Easter."
2. Easter Egg Tree: I made this tree from scratch.  See my postings under the label "Easter."
3. Baby Bunnies in Carriage: Maker notes also under "Easter."
4. Crocheted hens:  This is an old crocheted pattern. I did these in 1978.  You can find this pattern through an internet search, or sometimes on ebay.  Sometimes, you can even find people selling the hens themselves.  The finished pieces fit over an egg.
5. White picket fence:  I got this at Big Lots.  It has garden stakes on the bottom, and those are planted in some fake plants to help the fence stand correctly.
6. Easter eggs on tree:  I've been collecting/making these since I was small.  Some are crocheted, and some are fabric over styrofoam.  My favorites are the crocheted ones.
7. Afghan/wall hanging:  This is a Thomas Kinkade print made into an afghan.  I hung it as a tapestry background.  I found it at a thrift store, and I picked it because of the white house in the middle of it, in the middle of a woods.  I was thinking about making a house facade for the bunnies, but I like that once Easter is over, I can take this off the wall and use it as a throw.  Seattle can be chilly!

Baby Bunnies in a Carriage

What bunny family would be complete without babies?

My inspiration for this project was actually a house plant container I saw at Tuesday Morning:

I was going to make a baby bunny pram by cutting the handle off of an easter basket, but when I saw this I immediately started thinking it was the right scale for the Mr. & Mrs. Bunny, and the wheels moved.  I took it home and started playing with it.  (It's a good thing I have these moments of inspiration in stores like Tuesday Morning, otherwise they could be costly.)

 I gathered a bunch of pastel ribbons from my stash, then started weaving them into the design of the basket:

Easter Basket from Recycled Container

Yes, that's right, it's a recycled oatmeal container from Starbuck's.

Mr. Bunny needed a basket, and it needed to bunny-sized, and this container fit the bill.  

To give it shape I wrapped it with quilting fleece and tied it with yarn:

Then pulled the bottom together and basted it:

then rolled the top of the fabric over the lip and sewed it right through the cardboard (it was pretty easy to pierce).

I wrapped a fabric around the bottom, tacked it in place, then lined the inside of it with the discarded silk purse from one of my Easter Bunny's outfits.  I also used the discarded trim from the waist of one of the bunny's skirts to wrap around it.

Florist wire and a ribbon sleeve to make a basket handle:

Here's what it looks like with the handle attached:

Instead of filling his basket with eggs, I decided it would be cute to fill it with peeps.  After all, he is a farmer bunny: