People, things, ideas

It came to me this morning....a memory holding a clue as to why moving to the desert made sense. Did I remember this from a high school career counseling session?

"Great people talk about great ideas, average people talk about things, small people talk about other people." Or as Fran Leibowitz said, "Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, small people talk about wine." (Ha! I like that!)

I think I needed a paring down, an uncluttered pathway in which to think. Fewer distractions. There aren't many people here to be sure, so each one of us gets unparalleled scrutiny from each other. Even though it seems wrong, human nature being what it is once you think you've "figured" someone out, you tend to move on. There aren't places to shop and we're not assaulted by every new little thing, so "things" have less value. If I don't turn on the tv, what's left for me are the ideas, the thoughts roaming around in my head.

Often during the past 5 or 6 years, I've been startled to realize that artwork mostly functions as a process for my own emotional thought. I start a piece with a sense of what it is about, only to finish knowing it is about something entirely different. Though my work may seem tight to the viewer--planned, rigid, precise--improvisation is always a part of my work, and that has yielded surprises and discoveries for me. Sometimes it isn't improvisation that brings up the realization, it is the total immersion over many hours in the same idea which brings thoughts to the surface. I am not alone in this. So many embroiderers talk about the repetitive motion of stitching being a valuable meditative part of their lives.

It feels risky now that I have this realization, to start a new piece. The physical act of stitching has value, but investing in a design which takes weeks and weeks to implement only to lead to the realization that I've invested in the wrong path is disheartening. Maybe that's the nature of faith. But being here, being away from the distractions, I don't need the process of stitching as much to get to the nub of my thoughts. I find the meditation in my running and in the hours driving through the mountains. Here my ideas seem closer to the surface, or maybe I've just practiced getting to them more effectively.

And so maybe I'm at the point most embroiderers eventually arrive, wondering if all the hours invested in an insanely time-consuming process is worth it. I think all of us ask at some time or another, "is there anyway I can do this more quickly?

I still feel connected to the legacy of the "maker" of things. For generations, members of both sides of the family have worked in wood, or thread, or yarn. It is important for me to feel a part of that, especially since our world is increasingly spent sitting in front of computers instead of working with our hands.

Will I stop stitching? I doubt it. While it is clear I've found other more efficient ways to get to my ideas, I still desire the tactile nature of it and I love the color. As a girl, I enjoyed playing with my grandmother's sample cards from knitting mail order companies--single 3 inch strands of all their yarns lined up next to each other, with one end free and the other glued side by side onto a long piece of card stock. I would pull the loose ends of two or three strands together and imagine the colors blended into a sweater she might knit. This is the same thing I do today, separating floss and stitching with two or three colors in the needle. I love the play in that.

This time here has been valuable in so many ways, even if I haven't been exactly "productive" in the number of pieces made. I don't know--still being dependent on external funding--how long I'll be here, but I'm thankful for the experience and what I've learned.