where do you walk?
I worked a little more on my header piece yesterday, having picked it up and put it down a couple of times lately. I first started with the idea behind this image in March this year. I posted an entry on my old blog, and the text ran like this …
“After a routine visit to see my eye consultant, and a heart breaking talk to another patient who was losing her colour vision and her sight, I walked home in glorious sunshine and was thankful for both the blessing of sight and the gift of colour. I danced through the daisies. It seemed the only thing to do.”
I have days when my eyes make me aware of them-by being tired, by giving me blurry vision. By not wanting to work close up. I never now take them for granted, and think this is one of the reasons I love to just gaze at patterns and colours and texture so much. Saving them up for a distant rainy day when I will have to journey through my imagination to the places I have seen. The the daisies will definitely come with me.
Yesterday we journeyed to see the lovely quilts on show at Weston Super quilts, and to take a little pride in seeing “Birch” in an exhibition. It was something I wanted to do-to prove I could organise myself to enter a competition with a piece of work I really liked. No, not a winning entry, but that does not matter. I was thrilled to have achieved my own goal of executing the whole piece from idea to show stand. A journey of a different kind. Through woods of a different kind.
It is only since I started stitching that I have begun to truly recognise what sights and settings are important to me. What accompanies you on your creative or imaginative journeys? Where do you like to walk in you imagination?
This piece is simply charming – I love the colours and it is so delicate.
Karen
my eyes give me problems and i have often wondered what i would do if i couldn’t sew. i love to just sit and look. sometimes i dream things and think i have actually been there. and i am supposing i actually have…..where do the images come from? doesn’t it just amaze you these minds of ours? i love your woods. i feel i’ve been there.
i still have a problem executing things on demand. i am working on it.
I’ve had bad eyesight since I was in first grade… probably long before that since that is when I got my first pair of glasses. It scares me to death to think about losing my eyesight and the thought of losing my color vision is almost as bad. Actually, I had no idea you could lose just your color vision… how awful!
Congrats on following through with Birch… I hope I manage to do the same with Midsummer!
Right now, Time follows me on my creative journey… it is always the limiting factor because there is never enough of it. Someday, when I don’t have to work, maybe I’ll have time for all the ideas filling my poor head! In my imagination I walk through the woods, sometimes it’s warm and humid and full of chirps and twitters and tiny orchids at my feet… and other times, it’s quiet, snow is falling softly on the trail and a warm fire awaits me at the end of my walk. ***sigh***
I think this hunger to look at patterns, colours, textures, to collect and store them (which I developed myself lately) is something very vital – and it really might help recognizing the “big” patterns of life as well ..
To see a piece of work of your own hanging in an exhibition must be quite thrilling, and a bit perplexing – something like entering a room with a mirror on the far wall, where you catch a glimpse of yourself.
I think of my mother, once such a creative person, now unable to see well, unable to hear well, unable to smell, hands so shaky that she can’t knit, play piano, or type. But mind intact. And I think–what a prison! But how we cling to life despite whatever happens. I am thankful every day that I can see, hear, smell, still work with these hurting hands. The daisies are sublime.
Karen-thank you for your lovely words.
Jude-I am constantly amazed at our minds and how they work. I was talking to my daughter about this on Saturday, and about how some people see music and numbers and many other phenomena as colours. (Synesthesia). I see things as words and lines of poetry.. Very strange.
Marty-I loved your description of walking through different woods and how time is a constraint. There is never enough time-whatever you do-but I guess really there is just enough.
Ger-seeing the quilt was exactly as you described-catching a glimpse of yourself. And in the same way, I had to look away from it and felt very self conscious. I guess I’m not cut out to exhibit.
Martha-I think you have verbalised all our fears about getting older. I need to believe we can still live with hope and love and receive love when other senses fail us.Thanks for commenting.
Your header is beautiful, as is the thought behind it. I can imagine how you must have felt seeing your quilt hanging in a show, i went to a local quilt show the other day and thought of your quilt as I was admiring the display – it is such an acheivement.
you know… I am right where I always imagined i wanted to be (what is the Chinese proverb – be careful what you wish for…. grin). I no longer feel like i need to imagine somewhere else (i feel like im tempting fate just by writing this)….. I do like to be out in the rainforest and the bush, but really I enjoy sitting in the veggie garden almost as much….. i think that is why i am drawn to such domestic pursuits as quilt making and embroidering such ‘prosaic’ subjects as fruit, veggies and chickens……
Pulling up the rear of my Aussie friend again. (Somedays I seem to follow her around reading blogs.. scary yet cool)
I adore your new header and how the joy pops right off it. Our days are ever enhanced when we think of others and the possibilities of a different fortune belonging to us. I try to walk the jouney ever mindful of that, sometimes falling short, most times gratefully awed.
What a thrill it must have been to see your beautiful quilt on display!