IMPERFECT Lady

In the parade of life.

There are many different small pieces of myself I have been working on.

The integration of my mother's image and mine.

The lack of control of have of the next generation.

Mostly just focusing on being a single me.

Bringing my attention to what is mine to manage and to let go of what is not and creating more fully who I am.

 

I get that we are part of a continuum - I am tagged to the woman above me as well as the women below me.

Yet I am a single me.

 

Becoming a single me has been a journey of extricating myself from the cycles of abuse. And, reconnecting with the self that I was prior to abuse. While living out my life as a mother. 

The woman I am - greatly mattered in how I would mother.

And, there does come a time where your mothering days are over.

Where there isn't a need anymore - there is a letting go - and allowing.

Allowing of lessons to be delivered - learned or ignored. 

It is crucial to know when to bow out and when to engage.

 

What I am feeling the integration mostly of is the boiling down of all my choices that are Me.

The work I have done, is done. The work of assimilating my abused self into reality and then redefining me.

 

I was undoing my false self and becoming my real self  - without a self if that makes sense.

The Who I was wasn't me and who I would be has been slowly growing over the years - a slow process of unraveling and knitting together.

 

I think, I thought that what I was doing was for my kids or the next generation; but in reality it could only be for me.

A old dysfunctional mode of co-dependency had me always believing that I somehow swayed the trajectory of others by how I moved.  

I guess because I was so strongly influenced by mother, I felt that I too could/would/should influence as well.

 

That may be the dysfunction way of legacy.

 

I wonder what is a healthier version of influence.

 

I do know that I have been greatly influenced by women who are strong, brave, resilient and who have swerved when their lives took a turn that left them heartbroken - but pulled themselves up and carried on.

 

What I always come to is the frustration and anxiety of trying to control an outcome - that I have no power in.  And, after days/weeks of wrestling - I get tired and I let go.

I let go out of wisdom - not because I don't care.

I actually care and love deeply - which is why I want to intervene and save.

Yet, that isn't the way the world works.

In Byron Katie's words "There is your business, my business and God's business.  If I am in your business, no one is left in mine."

 

Perhaps the guts of my journey for the past 16 years has been to disengage from dysfunction. To be just in my business.   Or to find out who I am.

 

The lessons I have learned by first doing things for the approval of others, to be liked, to fit in, etc - brought me to a place of being without Me.  I was only alive in the eyes of others.

I literally woke up at 46 and there was no Me - in me.

I had lived empty inside.

The outside created me.

I was asleep in my own life. 

 

And, each time I hop into someone else's business I leave my life empty.

 

Often I go into another's life when I am not eager to play with my own lesson.

My lesson now is integrating myself - with my mother - in a way that leaves me at peace.

 

I don't know how to do this.

Elegantly.

 

Kindly.

 

With love.

 

I sit with where I came from - the woman who is my mother.

What parts -that are in both of us - that can be salvaged.

 

When I feel most strongly repelled.

I feel the rejecting - more than the continuum of family.

 

The solid and complete rejection I have had from my family, I am sure influences this.

For, I feel that character traits - are what flow from generation to generation.

Traits that I saw - held abuse alive.

 

How can you find the string of love - when love wasn't felt.

Or strength of moral value - when none was seen.

 

It is an odd grasping - and trying to integrate the old - when I pick up a piece, to just put it down.

 

Who am I?

 

I sometimes feel like a freak of nature.

One who doesn't fit into the societal roles of what a daughter does - a sister etc.

A misfit or rebel.

 

Yet, I do feel that I am sliding from daughter/mother into just being Me.

Maybe a grandma Me who doesn't hold the same responsibilities that a mother holds.

Grandma Me is freer.

 

I have walked my parts out.

Until I walked here.

To the single Me.

 

Maybe I have defined the traits I was looking for in my mother. I defined them for me. 

The love I feel towards myself is what I have to give others.

The morals and values I have - are what can be pulled to the next generation If they chose.

Maybe the integrating I need to do, is being older.

The mothering days are few and far in between. They will let me know when I am needed.

I no longer am a daughter.

a sister

or even an aunt.

 

The space is wide open to be Me.

Perhaps this is what the mid-life crisis is - where you have to redefine the roles in your life.

The older you get the fewer there are.

 

Maybe what I am really feeling is the birth of just being a single Me - in the parade of life.

 

I am Full

While continuing to play in my basement, I listened to a podcast with Michael Gervais. His podcast is "Finding Mastery" - I can't find the one where I heard this - "Fear is the natural response to the Unknown." 

They went on to talk about breaking down our fear, in how we can take it down to day at a time, an hour at a time, or focus on right here right now.

He also mentioned, that fear that goes on long term - turns into anxiety.

 

This is critical for so many who are in fear of the outcome of our lives with the Covid 19 looming among us.  We have to break the cycle of fear.  Interrupt our thoughts, by doing something that will put fear in the backseat.

 

Which answers the question of whether it is a good thing for me to do Sunday Art.

 

These ladies were created by a wonderful artist seamstress. She was going to toss them out, and I saved them a few years ago.  In the past few days, I thought about putting clothes on them.

So, today I tried.

Working with 3D art is way not in my wheel house.  I was stressed immediately.  

My conclusion is to not try new

things that make you anxious during this time.

I think, if I didn't try real hard, but perhaps sewed them right on, in a weird not clothing creating way, I may like it.  

I tossed some yarn on her head and that was that.  I do like the clothes, and I can see how a personality could rise - depending upon what I could create.  They can afford to wait a few more months until I have a calmer sense of being.

So, I then went back to the Flat Art. 

On the route last week,

I thought about making my own Large Flower Background, and so I tried.

I will now have a canvas to start next week's Sunday Art. And, I finished off my Art time feeling less stressed.

The art in its unfinished stages are seeds for next week.

I have heard it is best to leave things not quite finished, so that you have an easy place to hop onto when you re-enter your art space.

Sitting here feeling like I had a good Sunday of Art!

I am full.

Sunday Art is My Fuel

Continuing to do Sunday Art feels like a luxury that is a staple.  

A frivolous routine that I use to refuel myself, and escape the reality of Covid 19.

 

The heaviness of doing something practical overwhelmed me immediately.

 

Lightness and joy filled me as I decided, Sundays were still for being an artist!  Engaging with this part of me offsets the rest of the week.  My week would be way too heavy without it.  And, if that bright spot is always open for me to enter, I feel normal, safe and that life is okay.

 

That being said, I went down to make large flowers, since all my panels which were few are gone.  

I stumbled upon a fabric with delightful flowers.  I was so happy to quilt them!

I never know where my art will take me, what will appear and how.

I then, looked at this as an Art mural and sidewalk.

Once the drawing is down, I then will select fabric that seems to want to be part of this landscape.

It is fun to see what will appear, work and grow together.  

 

And, then how what makes it come alive.

The words and bird and hearts help!

What I thought of as I sewed, was how we are all being asked to make the best out of difficult situation.  

We are having to keep a tight small circle; and some are down to a circle of one.  

Alone; but surrounded by nature, words, art and those who are our rocks of support.

 

I know when my life was at its darkest, the two huge therapies for me was outdoors and art.  Often the people of my life seemed to complicate an already dark place.  Yet, they were crucial to my wellness. 

Perhaps maybe nature and art - was the fuel I needed to survive what I thought then was the unsurvivable.  And, there were many who cheered me on; but couldn't truly understand where I was.  

In this, many are experiencing our path.  We are not alone; even when we are alone.

We have many who are in the same boats. 

 

Maybe we can share with each other the things that help us through difficult times. The tools that we seem to be drawn to.  

Even when life was 'normal' for me, Sunday Art was critical to my overall wellness. I need a place that is my own, where I can slip into a space where time and reality disappears.

Sunday art is my fuel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story Line of Becoming

I felt like I was taking the records of my mentalness as I left Copper Country Mental Health with my quilts. I was taking them out of a safe space. A place that understands, and holds sacred, our mental being.  

I felt sad, for Joe wasn't there for this transition. He would be so excited to know they were going on the road.  I miss his great hug of confidence. And yet his confidence walks with me.

As I took down each one, I didn't dwell on them. But, yet each one felt like a piece of my mental breakdown, and a badge of my courage. My broken self and my healing together. Picking up pieces of my self from long ago.

 

My Story Line quilts, and my most recent quilt, are sharing the same couch today. The history that flows through them, is mine.  Who I was, where I was, and what I was going through, is captured in fabric.

There is a vulnerability in doing art.  It captures our beginner self.  In these quilts, I also captured my mental wellness or the lack thereof.

These quilts feel vulnerable - an openness and yet there is tentativeness in doing so.

I had to look up the definition of Vulnerable.

"the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally."

 

What these quilts carry is vulnerability and courage.

For, I truly felt completely terrified to be attacked for my openness. And so badass for being so open.

At the time these quilts were created, I was a mess and my life shattered. 

 

The woman herself was so small and frightened - and a stranger to me. I had no idea who I was, where I was going, or who I would become.  And, I wasn't even sure of my history.  The state of my world was terrifying and hopeful.  A messy ending and a beautiful beginning.

The quilts are so beautiful in their artistry.  It blows my mind that someone in the state I was in, could continue to do art.

 

There was a desperateness in my art.  Or, should I say to do art. I needed so desperately for there to be something alive and beautiful in my world at that time. And, yet it recorded my inner state of vulnerability and unknown - against the backdrop of life.

For the next three weeks, I will look at these quilts with new eyes and re-read and perhaps re-write captions for them.

Reconnecting with past self and the trauma she was in.

I feel such awe in my ability to be so exposed - both artistically and emotionally.

To share my wounds - not only of being sexually abused, but also that I didn't know who I was or what I stood for etc.  

Like a bleeding broken self who does art.

These quilts oddly seem more valuable today, then they did while I was making them. I feel the history and story line of becoming.

 

 

 

 

 

My Lady and I

My Story Line quilts are heading to Marquette at the end of March. They will be on display in the Huron Mountain Club Gallery, at the Peter White Library, for two months. 

They have been on display at Copper Country Mental Health for about 6 years.  

I was reminded as to how long, when a memory popped up on Facebook, of me and the photojournalist who interviewed me for Call Me Mental.  

I am excited they will have a new audience.  And, they will be there for Sexual Abuse Awareness month, and Mental Health awareness month.  

It will be fun for me to have them home, for me to look them over, and see if the writings I have for each one needs to be updated or re-written in some way.   I had hurriedly created words for each quilt, when I knew they would be recognized at Copper Country Mental Health.  I wanted an explanation, or what the quilt's message was for me.

I will be bringing them home next week.

I can look over each one and see how they are holding up, and sit with each quilt and their message.  A reunion I am looking forward to.

 

I also have to come up with six sentences about the quilts and I.

Six lines that will encapsulate the art, and the artist.

 

I called my show - My Lady and I, the same as the title of the book I created many years ago.

 

My Lady and I collection - Is a fabric journal of a woman's inner journey from denial into self-awareness.  

Denial of self, and my sexual abuse as a child; an inward journey to find love, peace, and joy, by embracing my imperfections.

My art and I evolved together; as my self esteem grew, so did the woman in my quilts.

I loved my lady; the freedom she had to be herself - and found out she was Me.

My lady and I are still doing art, still growing and becoming.  When she and I are not playing, I deliver mail 6 days a week, and I am a mother of 4 and grandmother of 2, and a wife of 32 years.

 

That sounds like a good PR Statement.

I am excited to go on the road again with My Lady!

Six years ago at a reception - that Joe Freed arranged at Copper Country Mental Health.

 

A Mother Who Loves You

Being estranged from my family, I will not experience many of life's natural moments.  Moments that I believe hold sacred empowerment - the handing off of the torch of life - when a parent passes on.

A moment that holds more love, than words can eloquently express.

I am not even sure there are songs that can capture the love between a mother and child.

 

A woman passed this week.

Shortly before passing, she was holding her grown son's hand and saying "I love you too."

 

I know he feels great grief and sadness to lose his first love, and the one that has loved him his whole life. The love that began as a child and saw him through his life - the good times and bad.  And, how he too has known her his whole life.  A life-long friend. And, I am sure there will be a hole where his mother's life was.

This feels foreign to me.

While I want to feel sorry for his loss, what I feel more is his years and years of gains.

The love he has had feels like a mountain - to my next to nothing.

 

It is hard to articulate what is missing, for what I am missing, I never had.

A parent's love.

 

The differences in our worlds where one is color and the other black and white.

 

I am grateful I do know what love is.

Love of self.

Love of spouse.

Love of my children and grandchildren.

For that I am very grateful.

 

Even so, I feel the absence of knowing parental love.

And, I am moved to tears knowing what some children have.

The comfort of a mother, like a warm quilt that energetically holds you; always.

 

I feel the nakedness and cold where love is missing.

 

Love is something that is odd to explain, and sometimes we feel it most when it is gone.

Or, when it isn't there.

 

I feel the greatest reason I left my family was to find love. Real love. Love that doesn't hurt. Love that you can see, feel and hear. Love that weaves moments and memories that will last long beyond my lifetime.

I see this love between my daughter's and their girls.

I see this love between my children.

Between me and my grand children

And my husband and I.

And Me.

Love that feels ouch-less.

Love that is pure.

Authentic

Kind

 

I am sorry my friend did lose his mom.

Very sorry.

For that kind of love will rock your world.

 

It is interesting to me, that we all feel pain in our lifetimes.

Pain of not having a mother's love and the pain of losing a mother who loves you.

 

 

 

 

My Natural State

There is something magical about art, and the multifaceted ways in which a person engages with it.  Being the artist, we are often so close to the process, we are not aware of the breadth or depth it contains.  Much like our lives.

 

In creating a piece, I never focus on the whole piece, but am lost in each step.  Any more than I am aware of my whole line of quilts I have made in the 20 plus years I have been quilting.

 

When the nude ladies began to hold my interest, I felt intrigued by their braveness and open acceptance.  It was odd for me to create, minus fun outfits.  

I was then made to grapple with the woman; alone.

 

There are so many layers to who we are, and how we present ourselves to the world.

And, for the most part, we are guilty of 'judging a book by its cover'.

 

It has been an interesting challenge to create nudes in their natural pose.

 

Which leads to what is my most natural state. Who am I beneath what I wear and do?

 

I was used to making woman doing this or that -  a skier, in the woods, and with all its trappings; but now I am challenged with nude woman.  

How to express her?

You don't really realize how much of you is covered up or propped up.

Until you are asked to let them go.

 

Working with nudes is pushing me to express in different ways - which then leads to seeing things differently - or more deeply.

 

I am liking the challenge and feel like a beginner once again.

 

When I began doing art, the background of each piece was where I focused, and then the clothes, and then slowly a body emerged.  

In working with nudes, it brings the focus more deeper into who the woman is, NOT what she is doing.  And yet the props are still there, but instead I feel the vulnerability of the woman.

 

Or bravery.

 

Even her freedom to be seen.

 

Unapologetically 

It is exciting to uncover another layer of life.

 

Being from a religion, where the body was seen as sinful, and how we were born sinners, that we are somehow bad, in our natural state, nudes feel like sin in my mind at times.

I also experienced men losing control because of my body.  Or, that my body was the cause of their wrongness.

There are so many ways in which a body isn't okay.

We were not taught of its innocence; but rather it was shameful at best.

 

Empowering myself, and my art, to reclaim my body.

Getting my mind right happens in Art.

My body has been innocent all along; but my mind has been twisted in ways that have not allowed me to fully sit in my natural state.

 

 

Badass Acceptor

"Miss January" 

I want to try and make a Pin-up for each month of this year and perhaps write some prose about women, life and how we survive the unsurvivable and be the badass of our own lives.

 

January is the first month of the year, the new year.  Where often hope is planted.

It is also the darkest, and usually the coldest month of the year.  

A time for self-reflection and solitude.

 

When I look back at the darkest time of my life, I also see it as the place where I had the most insights. Which seem odd, that I could see more in the darker times.

What I have learned by hanging out with badass women who have suffered great losses, is that we are stronger than we want to be.  Our hearts grow deeper with loss and pain. And, we become free to be ourselves.  We lose the ability to pretend to pretend to pretend.   

Wisdom comes with suffering.

 

I have heard about radical acceptance.  Where we are to accept what is, no matter what the IS is.

It is easy to accept the sunshine, cozy fires and birds.

But, it takes herculean efforts to accept the unacceptable.

We are made stronger by accepting that which we don't want to accept.

 

It was in accepting the darkest of the darks in my life, that I was able to truly accept all its beauty.   The dark cold harsh realities can't be pushed aside, or covered with positive cute speak. They have to be brought in and held - accepted.

Oddly, you don't have to like something to accept it.

 

Acceptance, joy, and enthusiasm are the three keys to happiness according to Eckhart Tolle. Consciousness has to flow through these three paths. Everything that doesn’t come from them comes from our ego and may become destructive.

 

If you can't be joy or enthusiasm, you can accept.

Be with what is.

 

What I never truly understood, was our ability or reflex for non-acceptance.

How we will try harder to deny, than to accept.

We un-naturally work against reality.

In hopes that our wishes will somehow overthrow reality.

We want so bad, what isn't to be.

 

I think, in my case, it was too hard to deny, so I had to bring it in.

I had to find peace with accepting everything I didn't want to accept.

And, there truly is peace and even happiness in accepting what is. 

Perhaps peace is the absence of war with what is.

I simply didn't have the strength to fight the harsh reality of what was.

 

I didn't have to do anything, but ride the wave of reality.  Accepting each new reveal of truth.

I was actually then given choices of how I wanted to dance with what is.

You simply can't respond IF you don't accept it first.

 

In the radical acceptance, you can't solve or work with anything, UNTIL you accept it.

 

Miss January, the first month, is about accepting.

Become a badass acceptor!

 

 

 

 

"Be Joy"

I love the stories I hear while at the Art Shows.  

A woman tells me how she became the recipient of one of my quilts.

And, attached with the quilt, was a letter.

I told her I would love to see the quilt and letter, so she sent me both via a text yesterday.

I am not sure who he is to her, for I loved the story, I forgot how he was related to her.

 

Here is the part of the letter...

"Left for Marquette 11AM. Stopped at the Hillside (4 rolls). Stopped at Huron Bakery (1 loaf of pumpernickel) Stopped at Menards (Light fixture for over our sink.) Then on to Sweet Water Cafe. Placed my order and waited 30 minutes before it came. Meanwhile I kept looking at this tapestry right in front of me. They have local artists creations on the walls for sale.  As I kept looking at it, it looked very much like the art you do, Heide. After 30 minutes of pondering I bought it."

"The reason I went to Marquette was to have my heart monitor checked out. It will not send my info to the hospital via the phone. Recently the Bluffs had a new fiber optic lines installed for their phone system.

"Well, with all the shopping and pondering, etc. I forgot to go to the cardiac dept. --- and it's all your fault Heide! Never gave the clinic a thought all day. Drove back to Houghton directly to Quincey's Restaurant - petite filet (med-rare) and a Beefinator Martini."

"Don't get to high and mighty. It comes with a price. It is to cover all birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, holidays and much more for a whole year. I picture it being placed on a wall in your house studio."  

"Love Robert"

OX

First of all, I LOVE that his excitement erased the reason for his trip to Marquette.

And, even knowing it was a years worth of gifts all rolled in to one, he bought it.

Out of the blue, inspired while waiting on his food, in a cafe surrounded by art.

I loved how she saved the letter, and keeps it with the quilt.

 

It was so fun hearing the story, and then getting to see the quilt she was talking about!

Thanks so much for sharing this, Heide

I will have to try and collect stories as I move forward.

What a cool book it would make!

What inspires folks to buy my art.

 

Delightful Hours on Display

It is the day before the Keweenaw Art Affair, my ladies are priced, packed and ready to be on display.  The different stages of selling art, is unlike any other activity I have experienced.

First is the shopping for the fabric, buying things that excite my soul and delight my eyes.

Then, I get to play with the fabric, creating images that often seemingly come from nowhere.

Often, I know what I 'should' be doing for the art show, but instead I meander off onto something totally random.

 

It isn't until it is time to price and organize, I wonder "Will anyone but me find delight in these?" "Are these really art worthy?"  "Will they look like the sewing dervish of a crazy lady in their expressions."  

 

New this year are naked ladies.

How will they be received, intrigues me.

I love their freedom and boldness.

 

The playing with my soul, will now be viewed by many.

What will they see and feel?

You have to be secure enough in yourself to stand strong as your soul seems to be seen and judged.

If I didn't have so much fun, I am not sure I would be able to be so present with my ladies.

 

The pricing is usually my last step.

It can be hard to seemingly price your soul.

The delight seems to vanish and all that is left are critical eyes.

And faint murmurings of the quilt police.

 

I usually can find the place where I don't want to insult my lady.

So, I can price them in a way that is honorable, yet affordable - being that it is unique one of a kind piece of art.

I am ready to set up the display and see many of my delightful hours on display.